Category: Non-Fiction

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Boundless Potential By Mark S. Walton – Midlife Onwards Is Going To Get Better!

This book I received from the publisher McGraw-Hill surprised and inspired me at the same time.  Boundless Potential is a perfect book for those who are crossing or have long crossed midlife.  Even for the younger crowd, it is always good to read ahead and have an end in mind.  Before I go into the specifics, here are some questions for you.

  1. Do you feel unchallenged at work?  As in, work no longer taps onto your full potential.  You feel as though there is so much more you could do, although you are finding it hard to pinpoint what that is.
  2. Would you like to retire early so that you do not need to work but rather enjoy doing things that you like instead?
  3.  BIG question here: Do you believe that our brain, like other human organs, is fated to wear out over time?  That is, to lose its resilience and the ability to function as we get old, really old?

If your answers are yes, you and I are on the same boat.  In contrary to common beliefs, our brain works in a different way once we pass our midlife.  In fact, a better way.  The key is to reinvent ourselves in order to recognize and unlock our potential.  What is shocking to me is that I have this wonderful picture of what retirement is.  No more work.  No need to get up for work, and I can indulge in any hobbies – old or new.  Even travel around the world sounds like a good plan.  Have you dreamed about what your retirement is?

Now, what if I am to tell you that you should continue to work for as long as you can, be it as seventies, eighties, nineties, and beyond? And that retirement to pleasure alone could possibly kill you faster (curiously, my mother once told me about her concern over my dad’s retirement)?  Boundless Potential is packed with tons of real life stories on how people reinvent themselves towards the second half of their lives.  How they found a sustainable mean to pursue their dreams, and be happy ever after.  In fact, it appears to me that because these people are happy with their work and the positive contribution to the society and those around them, they live longer.  And they live a much fulfilled life possibly than those who sip beer over sunset at a farm populated by sheep (that is my dream retirement before reading this book).

Some of you may be skeptic.  How to reinvent?  What is my hidden talent?  After all, while there are pages and pages of success stories, majority of us may well have an unproductive or unfulfilled retirement.  To answer that question, the author presents a three-step approach.

First, you have to discover your fascination, your dream so as to speak.  It is not an easy task.  For some, this discovery journey may take place in a much later part of life, if at all.  A fascination is a direction that pulls you forward, regardless of the obstacles ahead of you.  It is something that both your heard and mind want.  No one can tell you what that is.  It may be something you chance upon if you open your eyes wide enough.  I am the optimistic one.  To me, finding your fascination is like finding your soul mate.  Those who are singles are often worried that they would never find that someone to spend the rest of their lives with.  But yet, many people are getting married or are living together.  Do some soul searching along the way: Where is my fascination?  I don’t know what yours is.  I am quite sure I haven’t found mine yet.  It is unlikely that I know the answer today.  But I shall keep this at the back of my head, just in case I stumble upon my answer.

Second, once you found your fascination, it is time to find your flow.  What is a flow?  It is the highest level of human happiness that is generated when fascination is translated into action.  The paragraph below best illustrates the concept.

Contrary to what we usually believe […] the best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times.  The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile.  Optimal experience is thus something we make happen.

With this specification, I can probably look back on my life thus far and identify a few flow moments.  When I was a consultant before my major career switch five years ago, I used to give training workshops and facilitate focused group discussions for the senior officers of my clients’ organizations.  It can be extremely stressful because while what I preached was derived from a defined framework, no two audience groups are the same.  Different corporate or team culture may require different means to unlock their enthusiasm so that they are more receptive to the training materials.  It is an art.  I have to observe on the spot and talk to people during breaks in order to understand how best to engage them.  For those highly intelligent groups, challenging questions that are new to me may come my way.  Teasing out ideas may not be easy.  Looking back, those were my happy moments.  And I reckon I did quite well because our team constantly received praises and recognition from our clients.  Could I reverse engineer my fascination knowing what my flows are?  Maybe I am fascinated by training and learning with people?  What about those moments when I played music with my band at Orchard for charity?  Could music be my calling instead?

Back to the reinvention framework the author has proposed, the third and final step to this process is to envision your structure.  A structure that is created by you for success in midlife and beyond.  Is it going to be a project, a role, a career, a business, or a nonprofit? Whatever the structure is, it is certainly required in order to sustain and grow your fascination.  It is probably something so new and different that you have to sell the idea to those around you and to establish one yourself.

Boundless Potential is written in a highly readable form.  It is not possible to summarize all the inspiring case studies in one blog entry.  Since I love reading this book (and for my future reference), here are some of my favorites.

An interview with Marion Rosen who was nearly 95 when the author conducted the session.

When we are at the height of our knowledge and the height of our lives, why should we give that up?  Why should we not use what we have gotten in 60, 70, 80, 90 years?  And hand it on to where it is wanted?  It seems ridiculous to me.

If you don’t use your potential, it hits back at you.  It strikes back, because it works on you, it wants to come out.  And in order not to come out, you have to hold it back. And that is very bad for your health, very bad for your personality, very bad for your relationships. It doesn’t work!

The second quote would take a while to explain (that can be found in the book of course).  It has something to do with our wisdom deriving from our maturity, experience, and the changes to the brain.  It does sound convincing.  I don’t need to see further but looking at my dad to know that this much is true.  My father has recently reinvented himself into someone who produces beautiful Chinese Calligraphy (previously he was giving Tai Chi lesson to the folks in Hong Kong and making training videos).

State-of-the art neuroscience has determined that the human brain was never designed for decline or retirement but for continual reinvention and success.  In fact, extraordinary powers become available to us in the second half of life that were not available in the first  […]  The mature brain, when properly maintained, has the potential to be continually transformed – to draw upon and synthesize its vast storage banks of knowledge and experience in ways that can be downright startling.

Another big question for you: What is the secret of living happily ever after?  The answer could be as simple as play hard, so that you can work hard (not the other way round!), and pay it forward.

Unlike “simpler” animals, [the Athenians] reasoned, we humans are “composite creatures” who want more than to eat and sleep our lives away.

Thus, attaining genuine happiness – eugeria – requires a full-out lifelong pursuit of worthy goals through the three components of our humanity: body, mind, and soul.

This ongoing quest, they believed, was “the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Hardcover: 262 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (March 16, 2012)
ISBN-10: 0071787852
ISBN-13: 978-0071787857

External Link: McGraw-Hill Asia

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Night and Low-Light Photography by Alan Hess – Packed With Good Tips For Beginners

Normally, I prefer not to review non-fiction books on my holidays.  However, it is good to hear that Wiley publishes photography books as well.  So I grabbed a copy sent by my contact earlier on and was eager to read more on a topic so close to my heart.

For new photographers, night photography, especially under low-light condition, is likely one of the toughest challenges faced.  Our human eyes adapt to low-light well.  More often than not, as a beginner, what you see from the LCD screen at the back of your camera under these conditions seldom resembles to what your eyes see.  Many I know of struggle with flash photography so much so that they would rather not to use a flash at all.  I too have gone through that journey of frustration and experimentation.  I would say Alan Hess has done a good job in explaining the basic mechanics in Night and Low-Light Photography.

What I like about this book is that it reads more like having someone talks me through the basic, and not a book full of theories.  The author takes his time to explain the different gears required getting the job done.  Hess also in multiple instances explains the fundamental variables and their relationship such as ISO, shuttle speed, and aperture.  Other important topics such as exposure, white balance, metering, and digital noise are covered as well.  I often find myself having to explain the same set of attributes when approached by new photographers.  Hess’s explanation is clear and he uses plenty of illustrations to drive home his points.

The first three chapters of Night and Low-Light Photography talk through the basic.  The last chapter on digital postproduction is useful if you use Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop Elements.  Bear in mind that the chapter on postproduction mainly focuses on night and low-light photography.  Postproduction workflow, for instance, is not covered in this chapter.  Although I don’t use either tool for postproduction (I prefer using Nikon digital filters instead), it does read a bit too simplistic for me.  Maybe it is good for a start.  You may need another book to study the topic better.

Between the first three chapters and the last are chapters devoted to different scenarios.  Scenarios range from indoor shots (people, weddings, and concerts) to sport photography, from nighttime sky to outdoor shots (city and landscape).  For each scenario, the author shares with us many tips cumulated from – I assume – his personal experience.  He also details out the recommended settings and steps used.  Like where you should stand and what moment you should capture if you are a wedding photographer.  Like how your model should pose.  And much more.  I enjoy reading the chapter on Light Painting the most.  Perhaps because it is something I have yet to try (hence I presume the rest of the chapters may well be an enlightening read if I was a new photographer).  I am not a big fan of HDR photography.  But that is also covered briefly in this book, in case if HDR is your cup of tea.

There are a few photographs printed in this book that are inspiring.  I like the Ferris Wheel the most, and some of his concert photographs.  Most of the photographs, though, appear a bit bland to me.  Some, I wish the photographer would stand and point the camera slightly differently so as to get a more symmetric shot, or compose the picture better.  One photograph of a moon, the photographer used a setting of 1/400 second, f/8.0 and ISO 500.  Maybe he did not use a tripod.  Since the moon is pretty bright in nature, I would think that it is possible to use a different setting with a better ISO (for example, see my moon photograph here that uses the same f-stop).  Granted, perhaps the author’s intend is to illustrate his technical points, rather than articulating the art within.  There are other photography books that are full of inspiring printings (such as books by Scott Kelby).  This book does not appear to be so.  Having said that, the most important thing is for you to grasp the fundamental of night and low-light photography.  So that you can go out there and confidently create your beautiful shots.

ISBN-10: 1118138228
ISBN-13: 978-1118138229

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

What Matters Now By Gary Hamel

“What Matters Now” calls for a deep reflection on where your organization is, and to be.  And as a leader, what you should do now.  This book is divided into five sections: value matters now, innovation matters now, adaptability matters now, passion matters now, and ideology matters now.  Each section contains five articles that offer different perspectives under the same topic.  Each article is packed with relevant case studies to illustrate where the pain points and pitfalls are, the success stories, and how organizations can do better.  Some ideas are so bold that it may require a drastic change in the entire organization in order to make it happens.  It is as though the author is challenging us to aim higher.  Perhaps Hamel is right.  In today’s world, there is no place for an average performing organization.  Our organization has to beat the market or our competitors so as to survive and thrive.

Using the bankers, legislators, and regulators as a case study and recounting the major events happened during recent financial crisis, the author highlights that when a leader sacrifices long term goals with quick payout, people would not see them as trustworthy.  The author appears to feel strongly against corporation’s erosion of moral.  Hamel uses farmers as an example to contrast these highly paid leaders.  Here is the “Farmer’s Creed” for sharing.

I believe a man’s greatest possession is his dignity and that no calling bestows this more abundantly than farming.  I believe hard work and honest sweat are the building blocks of a person’s character.  I believe that farming, despite its hardships and disappointments, is the most honest and honorable way a man can spend his days on this earth …

Would you trust your life with a company’s CEO or would you trust the nurses or the farmers instead?  The author suggests that it is a high time for leaders to regain moral high ground and to embrace what Socrates called the good, the just, and the beautiful.  In short, value matters now.

When it comes to innovation, it should come as no surprise that Apple is used as a case study.  The author examines how Apple becomes one of the most profitable companies in the world today.  Hamel makes a detail listing of Apple’s success, from design innovation to passion within the organization.  Does your company often analysis the trade-offs and compromise?  Or is your organization as unreasonable as Apple so as to transcend trade-offs?

On adaptability, are we changing as fast as the world does?  Under the section of “Adaptability Matters Now”, there is a chapter on how decline can be diagnosed and another chapter on how your company can be future-proofed.  To make a company adaptable, the author has outlined six critical factors: anticipation, intellectual flexibility, strategic variety, strategic flexibility, structural flexibility, and resilience-friendly values.  In my opinion, to achieve this is no easy feat.  It depends on how entrenched your organization are with the existing processes and policies.  The paragraph below sums up the concept.  Ask yourself one question: how close is your organization to the following dream state?

We can dream of organizations that are forever looking forward and jump at every opportunity to better the human condition.  We can dream of organizations where the enthusiasm for change is palpable and pervasive, where individuals, ennobled by a sense of mission and unencumbered by bureaucracy, rush out eagerly to meet the future.  We can dream of organizations where the fearless renegades always trump the fearful reactionaries, where the constituency for the future always outguns the constituency for the past.  We can dream of organizations where the drama of renewal occurs without the trauma of a turnaround.  And, if we’re daring and inventive and determined, we can build these organizations.  That’s what matters now.

On passion, Hamel looks inside the Facebook generation for inspiration.  On how we as a community interact in an online environment where the hierarchy does not exist.  Everyone can contribute, anyone can lead.  No one can dictate or kill a good idea.  Ideas built upon ideas and excellence usually wins.  The author also brings up Christian community as an example, that the Church’s followers are on a decline nowadays.  Lesser and lesser people visit a Church these days.  But does that mean people do not believe in God?  The question is, how to bring these people back to the rhythm of visiting a Church?  The solution lies in the ignition of passion within the community.  When left without formal control and discipline and given a freedom to pursue their goals, people do rise up to the occasion and leaders do emerge.  Smaller groups can be formed and everyone contributes in accordance to their strength.

The last section “Ideology Matters Now” is, for lack of a better word, radical.  If not for the case studies of W. L. Gore, Morning Star, and HCLT, I would not be convinced that self-management works.  Imagine a company that has a flat organization chart.  Imagine the only way to lead is to gather enough supporters around you.  Imagine there is no top down authority, and there are no defined roles.  Imagine everyone is accountable for the decisions they are empowered to make, that anyone can be a decision maker.  Can your organization escape the management tax?  This book spells out the things we should do in order to reach the goal of self-management.  While this model may have its challenges, it has made organizations successful.  I guess, that is all that matters.

What matters now, more than ever, is that you question your assumptions, surrender your conceits, rethink your principles, and raise your sights – and that your challenge others to do the same.  We know broadly what must be done to create organizations that are fit for the future.  The only question is, “Who’s going to lead and who’s going to follow?”  How you answer that question matters most of all.

ISBN-10: 1118120825
ISBN-13: 978-1118120828

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Lion’s Honey The Myth Of Samson By David Grossman – A Mostly Imaginary Piece Of Work

After reading “Lion’s Honey”, I did some research on the author.  He is an Israeli, an established writer as well as a political activist.  This explains quite a few queries lingered in my mind after reading his book.  There are only very few places when Grossman subtly touched onto modern politics.  Here is one.  I am quoting the text here because quite possibly, I like this aspect of the book the most.

Yet there is a certain problematic quality to Israeli sovereignty that is also embodied in Samson’s relationship to his own power.  As in the case of Samson, it sometimes seems that Israel’s considerable military might is an asset that becomes a liability.  For it would seem, without taking lightly the dangers facing Israel, that the reality of being immensely powerful has not really been internalised in the Israeli consciousness, not assimilated in a natural way, over many generations; and this, perhaps, is why the attitude to this power, whose acquisition has often been regarded as truly miraculous, is prone to distortion (page 88-9) […] This is connected, without a doubt, to the very real dangers lying in wait for Israel, but also to the tragic formative experience of being a stranger in the world, the Jewish sense of not being a nation ‘like other nations’, and of the State of Israel as a country whose very existence is conditional, whose future is in doubt and steeped in jeopardy, feelings that all the nuclear bombs that Israel developed, in a program once known as the ‘Samson Option’, cannot eradicate (page 90).

Majority of the book is not about politics.  His interpretation of the Samson story may run against the grain of the familiar Samson in the Hebrew Bible (his own words).  As a Catholic, I would say that his interpretation runs against the grain of the same story in the Christian Bible as well.  The way Grossman breathes life to a local hero (or “judge”) and his surrounding characters extracted from the Book of Judges prompts me to reflect upon how we Christians breathe life to Jesus.  Because I am not used to reading the Old Testament in such fashion, I find that Grossman’s interpretation of Samson is highly imaginative at best, controversial at worst.  What do I mean?  I will get to that in just a moment.

First, to put things into context, I refer to the Catholic Study Bible’s guide on reading the Book of Judges.

There is one overriding theme that dominates the Book of Judges: the sin of idolatry leads to punishment; but if the people of Israel turn back to the Lord, the Lord will deliver them from their enemies … Into the theological framework of “sin-punishment-cry for help-deliverance” the deuteronomistic writers have incorporated various stories that relate the deeds of local heroes.  For the deuteronomistic writers the unity of all the tribes is an important concern; thus, in their historical schema, these heroes become leaders for all Israel.

The Book of Judges documents a number of heroes.  I must admit that the story of Samson is a peculiar one.  He does not lead all Israel as a warrior, nor does he liberate the people from Philistine.  Victories he has scored over the Philistine are personal.  There seems to be no reason to include Samson into the Book of Judges except in (15, 20) when the writers wrote: Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.  To understand its theological value, one has to read this biblical story in more detail.

Grossman’s “Lion’s Honey” dissects the biblical story word-by-word.  Some discussions – for good reasons on my end – I am finding it hard to concur with the author.  For example, in the Bible, after the woman being told by angel that she was going to have a son, she relayed the message to her husband and said, “A man of God came to me […] he said to me, ‘You will be with child and will bear a son.  So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.  For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb, until the day of his death.'”  And because she mentions about his son’s dying day, Grossman has gone into deep reflection and written pages of explanation on what has driven Manoah’s wife to add these words.  To me, it is simple.  Because the angel says so.  And she is merely relaying the message to her husband.  To Grossman, one of his many interpretations on this particular phase is that ‘Samson has been deposited within her for safekeeping and she knows that things that are deposited must, in the end be returned’, among many emotional turmoils that Grossman has imagined.

Grossman describes Samson as an artist, starting from his episode with the lion’s honey.  Or rather, honey from the lion’s carcass.  Grossman has gone in great length on how Samson would feel scooping honey from the lion, sharing honey with his parents.  Grossman wrote:

Take a look at him: a he-man with a little licking boy inside.  (How astonishing and poignant, this gulf between enormous physical strength and an immature, childlike soul.)  He walks and eats, walks and licks, till he gets home to mum and dad, and gives them the honey, “and they ate it”, apparently straight from the palms of his hands.  What a marvelous sensual scene!

Personally, I would not interpret this a as ‘marvelous sensual scene’.  Samson is bound by a vow to eat nothing unclean.  He is not faithful to these vows and has contacted with a dead animal, even eats food from it.  My discomfort with “Lion’s Honey” is not only on how Grossman dramatizes the story by imagining ‘[Samson] playing with his parents, touching them and dancing for them and laughing with them like any normal person, with the honey dripping, flowing down a cheek, sliding to the chin, being licked up, as the laughter swells to the point to tears …’, but also how some of the crucial interpretations such as the breaking of vow have been omitted.

There are controversial interpretations on the Samson story too.  When the wife of Manoah said, “A man of God came to me (13, 6)”, I would interpret the message as it is: an angel appears.  But Grossman offers a different perspective.  The phrase ‘came to me’, to his tradition, also means copulation.  Hence, to follow Grossman’s lead, the wife may not be barren as mentioned in the Bible.  A stranger copulated with her and impregnated her.  Fast forward to the part on Samson’s death, the Bible wrote: Then they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze fetters, and he was put to grinding in the prison.  According to Grossman, the verb ‘to grind’ in Hebrew carries a clear sexual connotation.  Hence, to the author, Samson may well be used as a stud bull when ‘everyone brought his wife to him to the prison that she might bear a child by him’.  I do not read Hebrew.  This interpretation is beyond me.  I would interpret this part of a story as a simple act of punishment and would not further analyze on how Samson was punished in the prison.  In short, I am happy with the direct meaning of ‘grinding’.

The most disturbing interpretation of Grossman is perhaps the part on Samson having to entertain the Philistines.  The passage on the Bible is simple.  It wrote:

When [the Philistines’s] spirits were high, they said, “Call Samson that he may amuse us.”  So they called Samson from the prison, and he played the buffoon before them.  When the people saw him, they praised their god.

According to Grossman, it was a sex act that Samson has performed in front of three thousand men and women.  This is a disturbing interpretation.  I would rather stick with the understanding that Samson was given to clowning and joking that somewhat triggers my mental association to the story of Jesus being put on a purple robe and a crown of thorns (Mark 15, 17).  I am finding it difficult to add so much texture into Bible that can hardly be verified or cross referenced to.

For better or worse, because I have read “Lion’s Honey’, that has prompted me to read this part of the Bible in greater depth.  Grossman’s book does by and large offer insights to the story of Samson.  Some reviewers have mentioned that the Samson story is their favorite in Old Testament.  As for me, mine is the story of Elijah.  Paulo Coelho has done a great job in breathing life to Elijah in his book “The Fifth Mountain”.  Grossman has also attempted to breathe life to Samson.  Unfortunately, that has left a strange aftertaste.  To close off this entry, I would like to share the theology of the story of Samson according to Catholic Study Bible.

The activity of the Lord gives us an indication of the theology that is in the background of the story of Samson.  The Lord is responsible for Samson’s birth, for Samson will be the Lord’s instrument in defeating the Philistines.  To defeat the Philistines is also the reason that the Lord is behind his marriage to a Philistine woman (14, 4).  The Lord gives Samson strength in his encounters with the Philistines.  The Lord responds to Samson’s prayers: for water (15, 18) and for vengeance (16, 28).  That the Lord is active in all that Samson does is clear.  We can wonder about a chosen hero who has a weakness for women, but it is clear that his bedroom exploits, though not explicitly condemned, are not approved of by the authors.  Indeed, his downfall rests upon his inability to say no to a woman.  Also operative theologically in this story are the consequences of breaking a vow.  Samson is a Nazirite, but fails to live in accordance with their code and suffers as a result of his disobedience.  At the same time, even his defeat becomes an opportunity for the Lord to gain victory over the Philistines.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

The Grand Design By Stephen Hawking – Is There No Room For God’s Existence?

I could not help but to feel somewhat devastated after reading “The Grand Design”.  There is nothing wrong with the book.  In fact, it is one fine book.  A concise yet accessible read on the scientific theories and models from the past all the way to what we have today in an attempt to answer the laws that govern our universe.  I felt somewhat devastated because there was this huge void in my soul (which I can imagine if Hawking was to read this, he would tell me that soul does not exist).  When I first read the media review on “The Grand Design”, I was skeptical.  I thought it was the media wanting to grab our attention with skewed claims.  But the media is right about two things.  One, there is no room for God in the design and existence of our universe.  I would not go as far as to quote Hawking in saying “God does not exist”.  Because he did not write that.  What he says is that throughout the history of our universe, going back all the way to the singularity (i.e. big bang), there is no God.  And beyond that point, it is not a timescale that is of interest to us because time does not exist.  Does it mean that God does not exist?  I think it is meant to say that God – whom some of us come to know as the creator – according to Hawking does not play a role in the creation of our universe.  And Hawking has reminded us on how our notion of God has changed over time.  Maybe we are still finding what God is.  Maybe the scientists are still searching for the grand design (that will come into light after the M-theory is confirmed via observation).

Two, our universe creates itself from nothing.  This piece of information is probably the climax of “The Grand Design”.  The negative energy of gravitation plays a role in balancing out the positive energy needed to create matter.  Overall, the total energy of the universe remains as zero.  And since the gravitational energy shapes the time-space, it allows the time-space to be locally stable (like bodies such as stars and black holes) and globally unstable.  Spontaneous creation is the reason why we exist, why there is something instead of nothing.  And according to the book, God plays no part in that spontaneous creation.  Looking at the theories and models that arrive to this conclusion, I must admit that this concept does sound convincing.  Having said that, I wish Hawking and Mlodinow would spend more time to explain more on the negative gravitational energy, perhaps with more illustrations.  While the authors appear to accuse the scientists of the past to tweak the models in an attempt to make them fit, the way how the modern theories are modified (such as the dropping and resurrection of the cosmological constant) seems to be of little difference to a layman reader such as myself.

Beyond these two claims that have caught media’s attention, as someone who has studied science, “The Grand Design” is a joy to read.  A book that helps to revise on what we have learned in the past.  The laws of the universe are a fascinating topic.  Light was thought as particle, then as wave, and then as both particle and wave.  Buckyballs constructed using carbon atoms have found to exhibit mind boggling behavior of being able to acquire information of the slits in a screen in front when they are shot from a source (1999).  From Newton’s classic theory to quantum theory, from Einstein’s special and general relativity to the modern day string theory and M-theory, “The Grand Design” is a mind blowing read on how far we have come – scientifically speaking.  The fact that I being science trained probably explains why reading this book was a breeze.  But with the diagram illustrations and simple to understand and at times lighthearted writing style, this book should appeal to general readers as well.  It is quite an entertaining read as this book is not all about theories and observations.  There are mentioning of the historical events and the legends and rituals of the past.

I was momentarily devastated because I understand that science at the theory and model level can be cold.  For lack of better words, the laws are indeed cold hard facts that are aligned with the expectations and observations around us, under a certain set of conditions (for example, Newton’s theory works best for objects of our daily lives and quantum theory works best at the minuscule level).  Models are created by man in an attempt to explain our universe.  Under the conditions that are set within these models, I can accept why there is no room for God’s existence.  And if our universe within the realm of multiverse contains countless of possibilities happening at the same time, there is no room for miracles either.  So, what does the theologists got to say about this?

I do not believe that science can explain everything in life.  I have not yet seen how, for instance, love can be modeled and explained.  Where does compassion come from?  What makes one person forgive another?  I have not seen how science can create beautiful literature that inspires.  I would rather choose to believe that people whom I love and I have something special going on, than to think that all these are merely random encounters and one of the many possibilities that exists in the universe.  And I would rather choose to believe in the existence of faith and hope.  Science, in its pure essence, seems too cold to me.  Lastly, not to discredit the authors – because they are highly regarded in their respective fields – as a layman reader, I am still not seeing what the grand design is.  What we have today is a theory (M-theory) that suggests how this grand design comes into light.  A theory that has not been proven wrong so far and a grand design that is yet to be observed.  This book is still a major read not to be missed.  However, read it with the right perspective.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Nothing To Envy By Barbara Demick – A Look Inside North Korea Through 1 City, 6 Main Characters

This is indeed an outstanding work of journalism, the second of the two books I bought at the airport.  The book title “Nothing To Envy” is taken from one of the frequently used propaganda messages in North Korea.  Due to the restricted media access, much of what life is like inside North Korea is sealed off from the rest of the world.  Except perhaps Pyongyang that is staged to impress the international media.  Prior to reading this book, I only had a limited understanding of North Korea: a communist country that is poor, with her leader rather spends the resources on nuclear weapon than food and a country that is labeled as evil by the Bush administration.  But there is much more than that.

To tell the story of North Korea, the author has chosen one city – Chongjin – that is far away from Pyongyang, relatively inaccessible by the media, and was used to be a place for the exiled officials.  Chongjin is the third largest city in North Korea close to the Chinese and Russia borders and has important role to play during the Korea War.  To tell the story of the North Koreans, the author has chosen six North Koreans who came from the same city, Chongjin, and now defected.    To prepare for this book, the author has interviewed over a hundred North Koreans who have defected to either China or South Korea, made nine trips to North Korea between 2001 to 2008, and has reviewed some of the rare to obtain video footages and still photographs.  At the beginning of each chapter, a black and white photography is shown.  The one that has the most impact to me is the satellite image of Korea peninsula at night.  While the majority of South Korea is lit up at night, the entire North Korea is engulfed in darkness with a tiny dot of light at Pyongyang.  The entire country with a population of 23 million is out of electricity (out of food for that matter).  You may wish to stop for a moment and ponder upon what it means.

From the narration point of view, the author has done an excellent job in keeping the story fresh and accessible to the readers.  It is still a dry topic – the history of Korea War, the economic and social outlook from 1960s to today, the regime under Kim Il-sung, the famine of the 1990s, and the life as a North Korean today.  What the author manages to do is that through the main characters whom she interviewed and kept in touch over the years and through the stories told by the family and friends of these characters – a compelling story is weaved in telling what real lives in North Korea are like.  As an icing on the cake, there is even an element of romance in “Nothing To Envy”.  I could not help but to scream (in my head of course): There she has it, a wining story.  What it also means is that Barbara Demick has built a trusting rapport at a personal level to not only pry open what lives are like in North Korea, but also get them talking about the happiest and most painful moments of their lives.  No wonder the characters come alive with so much intimate details.

The characters chosen in the book are of a diversed background.  Some are of a relatively upper class while some are of the lower class.  Some have relatives in Japan, China, or South Korea.  In terms of people’s jobs, there is a miner, a school teacher, a young scientist, a factory worker, a doctor, and etc.  Each story thread has a moving story on why most initially vowed loyal to the Fatherland (as part of the indoctrination process that is probably hard to imagine for the outsiders), how they have to adapt and endure when the situation in North Korea has deteriorated a great deal, and how eventually they made it out of North Korea as defectors.

So what do I get out of “Nothing To Envy”?  At the macro level, I learn that against all odds, North Korea has survived the breaching of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the market reforms in China, the death of Kim Il-sung, the famine of the 1990s, and the two terms of George W. Bush’s presidency.  At the micro level, I have a better understanding on the indoctrination process powered by the North Korean media propaganda reinforced by neighbor watch and police force, the tragic reality of famine when people have to hunt for grass and weed and tree barks to eat as the last resort (many babies died because they were unable to digest these food) and the desperate things they did for food.  There is also good insight during and after the death of god-like dictator Kim Il-sung, on how the social landscape has shifted and how the illegal free market was born out of necessity when totalitarianism collapsed.  It is a painful revelation when some of the North Koreans have come face to face with the reality that the world outside has – in contrary to what they were made to believe – progressed while North Korea simply stuck at the 1960s.  How some of the North Koreans managed to flee the country as traders or even brides only to be caught and sent to the labor camps back in North Korea and then once out of the camps, they tried fleeing again.  One of the most relevant insights – to me – is how the North Koreans who are defected to South Koreans eventually settled down and tried to come to term with a reality, having to face free choices rather than the government to dedicate all that they do and receive.  Because that could well be a reality in the future should North Korea collapse one day.  To end this brief book summary, I would like to quote the author:

While the persistence of North Korea is a curiosity for the rest of the world, it is a tragedy for North Koreans, even those who have managed to escape.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

3,096 Days by Natascha Kampusch – A Moving Story Of Human Survival

It is hard not to be moved by this incredible story of survival.  I weeped reading it.  Natascha Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10, in Austria on 2nd March 1998.  In 2006, she managed to escape and shortly after, her kidnapper has committed suicide.  It is a tragic story with a relatively happy ending.

On my way to Hong Kong, at the airport, I picked up two books.  “3,096 Days” is one of the two.  Plane ride, to me, is the best time to read.  Besides the occasional meal breaks, there are absolutely no other distractions.  And it never fails to amaze me how fast I read on the plane.  I almost finished reading this 240 pages long book while we flew from Singapore to Hong Kong (about 4 hours).  Note: I am generally a slow reader.

Natascha Kampusch together with two collaborators Heike Gronemeier and Corinna Milborn have done a great job to articulate the story in a highly readable manner.  The opening chapter is dedicated to the childhood story of Natascha.  The broken family, the time separately spent with her father and mother, her relationship with her grandmother – these texts aim to provide the readers a glimpse of who Natascha was prior to the kidnap.  As the story develops, much is emphasized on the psychological impact, which makes the book a whole lot more encouraging to read.  As one would expect, throughout the 8 years of abduction, Natascha would have gone through the toll of physical and psychological abuse, depression, and possibly sexual abuse.  However, from the storytelling perspective, she has set the boundary of keeping the sexual abuse private and she has kept the writeup on depression and suicidal attempts to the minimum.  Instead, she focuses on how she made the best out of the situation, how she adapted in order to survive, the ongoing forgiveness she has for her kidnapper, and the complex relationship between him and her.  Natascha might have been imprisoned by her kidnapper.  But her kidnapper too was being ‘imprisoned’ by the situation for he could not let her go and return to a normal life after the kidnap has happened.  A deadlock situation that did not seem to lead to a happy ending for the both of them.

After reading “3,096 Days”, I feel that the author Natascha Kampusch – besides sharing with us her incredible survival journey – has a personal agenda against the media that backslashed and the cover-ups within the police force.  In any case, I belong to the camp that probably not empathize but sympathize with her.  As an even sweeter ending beyond the book, in spring 2010 at the age of 22, Natascha has graduated from university.  Bear in mind that she has received no formal education between the age of 10 to 18, that is one remarkable achievement.  How she did it?  The answer may lie in her book.

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Book Reviews Non-Fiction

How To Read Novels Like A Professor – Thomas C. Foster – Be Inspired As A Reader Or A Writer

This book is a heavy read for me, despite the amiable effort by the author to make it as readable as it can be.  The tone is friendly, the style is classroom instructional, and there are humours in the book too.  But unless you are trained in literature and are well read, you are going to go through the book in snail speed trying to digest the contents.  I may consider owning this book because reading once is not enough.  For all the effort, what do you get out of this book?  Cliché as it sounds, you may get to read novels like a professor.  As for me, I am still far from that goal.  Probably need to work a lot harder to get there.

“How To Read Novels Like A Professor” is structured in 22 chapters that are creatively named (such as Met-him-pike-hoses or Source Codes and Recycle Bins and my favorite When Very Bad People Happen To Good Novels).  Each chapter deals with one aspect of reading novels.  Some I am familiar with (or I have a conceptual preexisting idea).  Some I have unheard of.  Like the 18th episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses that begins and ends with the word “yes”.  That one sentence can go on and go forever.  What a demonstration of the meaning of drowning in the stream of consciousness.

The book starts with what readers can derive from the first page of a novel.  Namely style, tone, mood, diction, point of view, narrative presence and attitude, time frame, time management, place, motif, theme, irony, rhythm, pace, expectations, character, and instructions on how to read a novel.  Something familiar to – I presume – literature students (but not I of course).  Did you know that as far as narration goes, there are only seven possibilities and each has a different set of effects and functions?  The author then moves away from the basic and into subtle but important observations on how a novel is constructed, what to look out for.  For example, characters are made out of words that may not fully describe the characters.  It is the readers who ‘supply our own storehouse of information about how people or objects look in real world’ (that reminds me of the movie “Inception“).  It is impossible to write a novel describing all the details involved in, say, half a billion people achieving their freedom from colonial rule.  But a writer can help to form the picture by looking through the eyes of a main character.  The readers would supply the rest.  Any idea which book I am referring to (see footnote)?

Throughout the book, the author stresses the point that a novel is a work of fiction, the story is not real.  But yet, some novels are able to captivate readers’ attention and imagination.  Thomas Foster then examines a large repository of novels putting some of them side by side to illustrate his points.  I wish I have read even a fraction of what he has quoted.  Fortunately, Foster has done an excellent job in narrating some parts of the stories so as to make some of us who are not as well read feel inclusive to the discussion.

I agree with the author that it is the readers who keep a novel alive.  And books lead to books, ideas to ideas.  Although this book is titled as such, I am convinced that it is equally essential for those who are aspired to be a novelist.  At the end of the book, there is a list of books for further reading.  This list could be of value to those who are into this topic.  Believe it or not, I do own one of the recommended books: Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988) by Italo Calvino.  Now, that is a heavy read and I have yet to finish reading it, despite the numerous attempts.

PS. The book I was referring to is called Midnight’s Children written by Salman Rushdie.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

The Cloud Revolution By Charles Babcock – If You Need To Know What Cloud Computing Is As Of Today, This Is It

If you happen to fall under the category of someone who has heard of the term “cloud computing”, may have some ideas of what it is, but cannot quite pinpoint what it does and how we can benefit from it, “The Cloud Revolution” written by editor-at-large of InformationWeek Charles Babcock will get you acquainted with the topic in no time.  While the book is still technical in nature, those who have worked in and with the technology industry should have no problem following the materials from start to end.  The ideal audience would be those in the professions of application and system architect, data center specialist, business analyst, and all the way to CIO, CTO, and COO.  What “The Cloud Revolution” provides is a snapshot of where cloud computing is today and presents the snapshot in an easy-to-understand manner.  This includes both its potential and challenge.

In a nutshell, cloud computing enables on-demand network access to a shared pool of resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released.  It simplifies and drives down the cost of operations while enabling the business users to tap onto the computing power in a way never dreamed before.  Today, most businesses over provision what they normally need in terms of computing resources due to operational spikes.  But yet, when there is an unforeseeable demand spike, some businesses fail to delivery (have you ever tried to buy movie tickets online during the holidays?).  The idea is that instead of buying more and more servers to cater for the spikes and leave the servers way under utilized in normal day operation, outsource the spike (or even the entire operation) to the cloud.  How much would that cost?  For example, Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) charges $0.085 per instance per hour.

The cloud economy is hard to ignore.  Take web hosting as an example.  Most bloggers do not host their websites in a server at home (having said that, I know some do).  For those who have opted for a paid service, we often have to be mindful on how much disk space and monthly bandwidth we utilize.  Right after my holiday to Spain, I have published articles that came with photos on a weekly basis.  During the 12 weeks publication period, I had experienced spikes that busted my monthly bandwidth quota and had the site shutdown momentarily several times.  There are web hosting companies out there that have grown into a significant size and offer unlimited disk storage and monthly data transfer.  That is way more that what I would dream of (though I have my reasons to stay with my existing hosting company).  And that is an illustration on how such an economy of scale can benefit the consumers.  Imagine what this could mean for the corporates.

As highlighted in the book, there are challenges that corporate users faced with cloud implementation.  Not having a control on where the corporate data resides can be an issue.  It could be a security risk too.  There have been talks about ‘private cloud’ or even a ‘hybrid cloud’ in achieving the economic of scale that lowers the cost using existing data center setup as a benchmark.  If corporates can host their in-house applications through virtualization, outsource the spikes to a public cloud, or even consider conducting the system test, user acceptance test, stress test, and etc. that often do not contain real life data outside the private cloud, they may be able to reap the benefits of cloud computing.

Another barrier of taking cloud computing to the next level – as mentioned in the book – is that some of the major standards are still very much proprietary.  And it seems to me that the open standard is still at its maturing stage.  I think one of the reasons why this book is so named is because if the corporates wish to skip through the proprietary stage, the corporates need to get together and voice out what they want: No vendor lock-in.  That is a revolution in a sense, besides the fact that to make cloud computing works, there are changes in almost all levels.

The book has quoted some noteworthy implementations.  On the private sector, there is SalesForce.com’s cloud platform – Force.com.  On the public sector, in USA, there is NASA’s Nebula Cloud Computing Platform.  The author has also quoted a number of major players in cloud computing.  If you wish to pick up one book to know what cloud computing is as of today, “The Cloud Revolution” would be it.

External Link: To browse the book in Amazon.com, click here.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Neon Angel, A Memoir Of A Runaway By Cherie Currie – Heart Wrenching and Heart Warming At The Same Time

I seldom read memoirs.  But I was curious about the life story told from Cherie Currie’s perspective after watching “The Runaway” played by Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart.  “Neon Angel” has enough dramas that can pass as a great fiction.  The rise to stardom, the crash, substance abuse, brutal rapes, exploitation by the management, constant struggle amongst the dysfunctional family and band, and through it all, Cherie Currie constantly reinvents herself from a singer to actor to drug counselor to physical trainer to author to painter to one of the prominent chain-saw carvers in the world.  While it is hard to position Currie as a role model –  rather as a projected symbol of angst, rebel, and perhaps victim of the seventies, her survival spirit is astonishing.

Originally published in 1989, Currie reworks the materials with Tony O’Neill.  That explains why in this new edition, the events that happened more than thirty years ago are told in such a vivid manner, in such level of details and emotion.  And I suppose with age, the rework exhibits a better sense of mature reflection on the key decision points and milestones.  Some are deep regrets.  Some are triumphant.  For those who are interested in how the music industry worked in the seventies, “Neon Angel” has much to offer.  The road trips, the music creation and recording journey, the tours, and the fans.  A big chunk of the literature is dedicated to substance abuse – of hers and of those around her.  The honesty within thrills me: On how drug and alcohol has destroy hers and her family’s lives again and again.  No, I don’t despise her.  I sympathize her.

And in the mist of the chaos and illusions, there are glimpses of heart warming moments.  One ending chapter moved me to tears.  If you happen to like the movie “The Runaway”, this book “Neon Angel” will fill in the gaps on the stories that cannot be told in a movie setting.  The movie contains snapshots of events pasted together that may or may not follow the actual timeline.  I am short of saying that “Neon Angel” is an entertaining read (in fact it is).  Because the book is more than an entertainment.  It would mean different things to different people.  For those who are into the music industry or the sociological fabric of that era, the book is certainly an insightful read.  For the victims of substance abuse, broken families, and rape, there may be a common voice within.  Some parts of “Neon Angel” reminds me of a book I have read a long time ago – “Prozac Nation” by Elizabeth Wurtzel.  Yes, it is both a heart wrenching and heart warming read.

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In 2013, I have reread this book.  And the updated book summary can be found in here.

At Amazon.com: Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway