What I’ve Been Reading
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant – W. Chan Kim (GREAT. these themes)
History of My Times – Xenophon (great. tons of great anecdotes. the translator is incredibly harsh on Xenophon for some reason)
More Sex is Safer Sex – Steven Landsburg (sort of cold and impractical)
The Good Life – Jay Mcinerney (horrible. It’s like a women’s romance novel)
The Female Brain – Louann Brizendine MD (good intro, nothing new)
Made to Stick – Dan and Chip Heath (reread)
This is the Boring Part – Ben Corman
In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare? – Malcolm Gladwell
An Alternative Approach to Marketing Rock Bands – New York Times
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.
The team at Language Log have been skeptical about the claims in The Female Brain.
Did you find it contained anything useful or was it just more of the same old stories?
I had seen some other blogs mention Gladwell’s piece in The New Yorker, but tonight was the first time I sat down to read it… quite interesting, I thought.
Kevin Kelly made a great comment about the article, in that he was surprised that Gladwell, seemingly so in-tune with the idea of independent inventions happening simultaneously, failed to mention other companies with the same goals of Intellectual Ventures — if memory serves, even in Palahniuk’s ‘Survivor’ the main character finds his very existence has already been patented by a similar organization.
Do you plan on sharing your thoughts about Gladwell’s article?
Most of The Female Brain relies on other people’s findings – like Robin Baker’s work in Sperm Wars, for example. But it does have some interesting stuff about the malleability of the brain during development. For example, being an inattentive mother is not genetic but you can pass that behavior down to your child if it happens during their very formative years, when the brain is still deciding how much of any given chemical it might release. (That is, according to the book)
Always good to get the other side’s perspective, so this book can only help. Otherwise, pretty basic. She uses WAY too many personal anecdotes and single cases as proof of large issues.
No thoughts on Gladwell other than I am very interested in where his next book is going. He’s starting to lay the ground work.
Normally when people ask that question, it means they have thoughts. So, what was YOUR reaction?
Good list; Blue Ocean is a decent read, but I thought much of it was common sense. Look up Nintendo and Blue Ocean … Nintendo´s turn around was credited to Blue Ocean, according to the CEO, if I remember correctly. Could be me. One thing is for sure: do not get the audiobook of it. Blue Ocean is one book that you need the actual paper version. On a tangent, Godin´s books, in audio form, are quite good as he is a good narrator. Just listened to the dip for the millionth time today. Made to Stick in audioform is also great.
Your affliate links seem to be a little off. The link for “More…” leads to the amazon page for “A History…”. Thanks for the blog, I’ve been following it for the better part of the year and always find it intriguing.
Told you…
http://www.kottke.org/08/05/new-book-by-gladwell-outliers
…[Blue Ocean Strategy]…A solid read, based on the recommendation from the always entertaining and sometimes informative Ryan Holiday…