Review: How I Learned to Understand the World: A Memoir

How I Learned to Understand the World: A Memoir by Hans Rosling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My prior experience with Hans Rosling has been watching a couple of his TED talk videos and putting his audiobook “Factfulness” on reserve at the library. I wasn’t sure I would like or appreciate his memoir, but thought I would give it a shot, having received a free copy for review from NetGalley. I ended up enjoying many of his stories. I especially enjoyed stories in two parts of his life. I found his recollections from running a hospital in Africa as a fresh-from-school doctor was enlightening. He faced many issues, learning to be a doctor while also learning how to work in this new-to-him society, with people he often didn’t understand. What he shares in these stories are the various times he has to learn from the people he worked with. You can sense the admiration he has for his co-workers who helped him succeed at times, and to survive at other times. These are great fish out of water stories.

The other parts that I enjoyed were near the end, when Rosling describes how he happens across a way to explain a topic to his students that finally gets them to understand a difficult concept. He explains this to his son, an artist, and the son builds computer tools to further refine this framing of the issue at hand and to expand the ways it can be illustrated. Rosling explains that this way of handling explanations becomes the basis for his consulting, and allows him to grow in stature as a scientific explainer. This was a wonderful example of career serendipity, moving from medical doctor to world renown scientist and futurist, helped by an artist.

An interesting book on an interesting life. After reading this, I look forward to reading “Factfulness” and will be focused on understanding how he illustrates his concepts and statistics.


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Review: Outside Looking In

Outside Looking In by T. Coraghessan Boyle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story begins with a married PhD student in psychology wanting to get in with the in crowd at school, who happen to be investigating mushrooms and LSD. We follow this couple as they descend into the crowd, becoming the prototypical commune types by the end. Throughout it all, our hero remains the conservative, the last to break the rules, the last to maintain a job. But in the end, there's not much left of the 50s mentality the book started with. Boyle shows the gradual movement into sustained drug usage as an unglamorous descent. Not a fun read, and not as interesting as other Boyle books I've read. And not a satisfying ending. But I like the way Boyle tells a story and will likely read more.

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Review: The Grand Money Chasm: Ten Effective Strategies to Build a Money Legacy Within Your Grandchildren

The Grand Money Chasm: Ten Effective Strategies to Build a Money Legacy Within Your Grandchildren by Darryl W Lyons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Author Darryl W. Lyons is a smart man. I checked out this ebook from my library’s Hoopla service a couple of months ago. This month, I realized that I hadn’t written a review, which is how I keep track of the books I’ve read. I really didn’t recall the book very well, so I used one of my limited checkouts to check it out again. I let it sit until the last day, hoping a quick review would help me remember the content and to write a reasonable review. As I went through this book, I saw that the author started by describing in a ten item list ways that grandparents can teach their grandkids about money. Each item in the list was followed by a few paragraphs, sometimes a couple of screens of writing on my reader. And then, after the ten items, the book suddenly ended. Yes, this book is roughly the length of a feature article in an issue of Money magazine. In fact, it could fit well in that magazine, length- and content-wise. Mr. Lyons I hope gets compensated by each checkout from Hoopla, because he has shown me that my preconception of what constitutes a book is woefully out of date. This is very much an article, but for three things. First, there is a wonderful cover. The picture of the older gentleman with a toddler, probably his grandson, on his shoulders. A great picture to get one thinking of having grandchildren, playing with them, and then realizing that you should pass on your wisdom. The cover designer gets an A+. Second, there is a bibliography at the end, where the author lists his references, and there are a couple dozen. While I initially thought this strange, in retrospect it seems about right – all references are web versions of magazine articles or blog entries. I’d say that was well done, but the length of the article, er book, was short enough that the author didn’t get into many details that would require checking references. That’s a more substantial list than I would expect to find in a magazine article or in a magazine, but it makes sense that the author kept track of his sources and was able to copy them here for the book version. And given these are web links, the URLs are listed in a random order – no theme or alphabetic sort here. Despite the lack of attention, as a list of where to look for additional information, this was a thoughtful addition.

The third reason this is more a book than an article is that, well, Hoopla says it is a book. As does Amazon, which catalogs this in a paperback version. So it’s a book, not an article. It’s just a book took me longer to find, checkout, and download than it did to read. So for those looking to juice their “books read” numbers on Goodreads, this is an excellent choice.

But how about the content? If I’m a grandparent, or a prospective grandparent, will this give me pointers on how to teach my grandkids, or prospective grandkids, some of those hard-earned nuggets of wisdom on money that I’ve learned throughout my years on this Earth? In a word, yes. But did I learn anything new? No. The recommendations include: thinking age-appropriate in what you want to teach, use personal stories, watch TV shows related to finance with the kids, be a role model in working hard, use allowances or chore pay, show the kids buying with cash, talk about debt, giving, and banking, and consider giving some of your inheritance while you are still alive. All either kind of obvious or kind of goofy, and mostly things I’ve thought of with my own kids. My favorite section was regarding watching TV with the grandkids, and the authors provided perhaps the most detail on this item on their list. They suggest 3 shows: The Price is Right, Fixer Upper, and Shark Tank. I can see how this is a good idea to add to their financial intelligence and lead them to become wealthy. When my kids were growing up, we would watch The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, and I’m afraid they will become politicians. Be careful what you watch.

Overall, a good list of some basic ideas on how to talk to your grandkids about money, but not enough to do anything but whet your appetite for additional research. (By the way, that list in the previous paragraph of recommendations…that’s the complete list. Don’t be expecting more.)


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Review: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to this audiobook along with a month-long online discussion in a book group. I found the topic of interest, but I didn’t have a direct linkage to the topic of trauma to the level discussed in this book, often focused on PTSD of veterans and others. I could see how you could generalize some of the findings to things that happen in day-to-day living, but that sometimes felt like overstepping the conclusions and recommendations. I found the writing to be engaging. Although at times, the author felt as if he were overstepping, overgeneralizing to suggest concepts based on a specific type of case were applicable to a broader population. I felt this early in the book, but by the later chapters it seemed more straightforward. I enjoyed the specific examples the author provided, often based on his own cases. I also enjoyed the author’s ridicule of historic psychology and its response to trauma over the years, but he does make himself the hero of the story in a number of places. Overall, the book provides some food for thought in how the body remembers trauma and that memory can be used to overcome issues from that trauma.

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Review: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This sounds so real, the musings of mostly men on topics that cross into cringeworthy and unPC territory. It really feels like I've heard someone say these things before. But were they talking to me or was it something I watched or read??? On audio, with multiple readers playing respective roles, parts of this book felt like being at an erudite Second City sketch, one of the deep thought ones they occasionally attempt. As the first book by DFW that I've read, I enjoyed it and will look to read more.

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Review: In This Light: Thoughts for Christmas

In This Light: Thoughts for Christmas by Justin Welby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is prime time for all things Christmas in the last week of November. I'm Christian and have a family, so we are busy with Christmas planning and procuring. I listened to this book on audio. I remember hearing some nice, short anecdotes and essays, but on audio, given the holiday-shortened attention span, not much stuck with me. Given the other reviews on Goodreads, I think this deserves better. I'd suggest finding a way to take this one slow, a story or two at a time. This is difficult on audio, so I'd suggest the paper version. I could see this rating as high as a 4 or as low as a 2 with a more thoughtful reading, so I'll mark it a 3.

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Review: Propaganda

Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Have I read too many business books and books on persuasion and sales? This seems like a tame book on the introduction of the concept of public relations as a means to persuade opinion, and sales or action if that's the intent. Every time Bernays uses the word "propaganda" he seems to mean "PR", and that's the way I read it. You can just picture a movie of men in peak-lapel suits in art deco highrise offices meeting about the new propaganda plan, while smoking Lucky Strikes. It seems that propaganda was originally a bit more innocuous than post WWII, where the word is tied to the Nazis, lies, and evil. Unless I missed it, Bernays doesn't recommend lying or intent to deceive. I didn't notice any recommendations to destroy the competition. His examples were more focused on boosting the positive, often through publicity stunts. He provides mostly anecdotal evidence that this method works, unlike more modern books on persuasion that can point to scientific studies in addition to anecdotes. To understand current mainstream media and news, you'll need a more modern book.

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