Father Fiction... Things that made me think

95% of prison inmates are men
85% of these are from fatherless homes
      I hadn't heard this stat before, I think the first stat is more shocking than the second.  What makes men more corrupt than women?  Is there some other reason for this stat?
What are your thoughts?


There will always be a reason to feel sorry for ourselves. And sometimes it really is appropriate to grieve something terrible that has happened in our lives. But we also have to move on; we have to set ourselves free from the trap of self-pity.
      

Father Fiction - Donald Miller

I found this title at my online library.  It was an experiment because I had not used this before.  I went through about 100 of their books and placed on hold the ones that looked interesting.  This book, however, was ready to borrow straight away along with a couple of others.

I got the book just because of the author.  I've heard a lot of people talking about 'Blue Like Jazz' as a good/ controversial read so I thought this might be similar.  The only thing I thought after considering the title was that this could possibly be about wrong thinking about God - Father Fiction.  I was slightly off on this.

As I listened, I realized that this book was not aimed toward me.  Father fiction, as I could have easily seen if I had had the front cover of the book, is for a 'fatherless generation.'  This, it seems, is Miller's autobiography.  One that took a long time to pluck up the courage to face and write.  It also contains chapters that you would find in these guidance books such as one on sex and on work ethic.  I think these are what he sees as some of the main issues that affect fatherless children.

He grew up for most of his life without a father and although his mother brought him up very well he always felt as though he was missing something.  He has some figures in his life whom he projects his fatherlessness onto (as he himself describes) including John, his photographer friend who brings him under his wing.

I was surprised that he is not married with kids - I guess this is my presupposition of renowned and accepted authors.

I felt a strange kind of immaturity from Miller (says me who laughs at fart jokes), I'm not sure if this was just because of listening to the story of his younger self or because he is in a different place to me.  It seemed that, although he had a lot of good thoughts and a grip on psychology, he didn't necessarily have it all together.  Perhaps this was because some of these thoughts on parenthood, for example, were not self experienced but learned from others.

True to form (so I hear) Miller is very honest and has great stories to take the reader on a journey.  I think it is a good read for the fathered or fatherless and should make you feel thankful for having The Father who cares for you.

Here are a couple of quotes that made me think.

Things that made me laugh - Garrison Keillor pt3

A guy walks into a bar in Cork, in Ireland, and asks the barman: "What's the quickest way to get to Dublin?" 

"Are you walking or driving?" asks the barman. 

"Driving," says a man. 

"That's the quickest way," says the barman.

An accountant is having a hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor. "Doctor, I just can't get to sleep at night."

The Doctor replied "Have you tried counting sheep?"

The accountant stated "That's the problem - I make a mistake and then spend three hours trying to find it."

Three professionals were sitting around talking about the oldest profession.

The Doctor says, "Well, the Bible says that God took a rib out of Adam to make woman. Since that clearly required surgery, then the oldest profession is surely medicine."

The Engineer shakes his head and replies, "No, no. The Bible also says that God created the world out of void and chaos. To do that, God must surely have been an engineer. Therefore, Engineering is the oldest profession."

The Lawyer smiles smugly and leans discreetly forward. "Ah," he says, "but who do you think created the Chaos?"

Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

This one was a quick library visit pick up.  I remember thinking 'Eoin Colfer is a pretty talented writer' after reading 'Plugged'.  This being his famous book it should be even better.  The only thing I was skeptical about was that it said recommended for 12-17 year-olds.  Being slightly past this age group (my wife just chuckled as I wrote this) was this going to be a boring childish read?

My wife did, however, reassure me that this kind of book can be a fun quick read like 'The Hunger Games.'

I read/listened to the book in one day.  I think it was about 7 hours long, which went quickly.

The story line was as follows - Artemis Fowl is a rich youth who has experienced a lot of adventures with fairies (not the fairies that you picture when you hear the word) and their magic and is therefore wise beyond his years.  His mother contract some kind of disease, which Artemis diagnoses and has to go back in time and battle himself for the cure... (it seems slightly forced when you read it like that but flows naturally in the book)

The suggested age range is probably because it is entertaining enough to keep teenagers attention and therefore mine pretty well also. Despite the younger intended audience the plot was still fairly complicated. The twists and turns and then paradoxes of the time stream and time travel meant you had to think intensely about what was going on especially as there were two sets of the same character.  I appreciate these kinds of things because it usually gets my mind going even after I'm finished reading.

One of the nuances of the story was the contrast of its mythology with common stories such as 'Lord of the Rings' and folklore. For example, dwarves appear somewhat kind hearted, crackens are docile creatures, centaur are fat and lazy and demons are nerdy.  All of these little subtleties made me smile and enjoy the story even more.

It did seem like the kind of book that would have many sequels and prequel about it.  (after I wrote this I looked it up and realized this was the sixth book in the series, probably why there was not a lot of character development.  In light of this I should probably do some research before I read books like this, especially one with a subtitle on the front cover)

Things that made me laugh - Garrison Keillor pt2

An Iowan walks into a hardware store and asks for a chainsaw that will cut 6 trees in one hour. The salesman recommends the top of the line model. The Iowan is suitably impressed, and buys it. The next day he brings it back and says, "This chainsaw is defective. It would only cut down 1 tree and it took ALL  DAY!" The salesman takes the chainsaw, starts it up to see what's wrong, and the Iowan says, "What's that noise?"

(Make sure you imagine the Scottish accent in this one)
(Also pardon my french... /scottish)

A recent Scottish immigrant attends his first baseball game in his new country and after a base hit he hears the fans roaring run ... run! The next batter connects heavily with the ball and the Scotsman stands up and roars with the crowd in his thick accent: "R-r-run ya bahstard, r-run will ya!" A third batter slams a hit and again the Scotsman, obviously pleased with his knowledge of the game, screams "R-r-run ya bahstard, r-r-run will ya!"

The next batter held his swing at three and two and as the ump calls a walk the Scotsman stands up yelling "R-r-run ya bahstard, r-r-run!" All the surrounding fans giggle quietly and he sits down confused. A friendly fan, sensing his embarrassment whispers, "He doesn't have to run, he's got four balls." After this explanation the Scotsman stands up in disbelief and screams, "Walk with pr-r-ride man!"

Things that made me laugh - Garrison Keillor pt1

What do you call someone that doesn't fart in public?

A private tooter

The Queen had come to open a new surgical clinic at the local hospital. The ceremony finishing slightly early, she decided to visit some patients in other parts of the hospital.

She walked into the next ward and went up to the first bed. "Why are you in hospital?" she asked.
The man looked at her and said, "My luve is like a red, red rose, that's newly sprung in June."
Somewhat taken aback, she moved on to the next bed. "And why are you here?" she asked.

"Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast, on yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee," came the reply.

Really confused now, the Queen tried once more. She moved on to the next bed. "Why are you in hospital?" she asked.

"Wee, sleeket, cowran tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie!" was the answer.
The Queen turned to the hospital manager. "Is this the psychiatric ward" she asked?

"No, it's the Burns Unit." 

A local preacher was dissatisfied with the small amount in the collection
plates each Sunday. Someone suggested to him that perhaps he might be
able to hypnotize the congregation into giving more. "And just how would
I go about doing that?" he asked.

"It is very simple. First you turn up the air conditioner so that the
auditorium is warmer than usual. Then you preach in a monotone.
Meanwhile, you dangle a watch on a chain and swing it in a slow arc above
the lectern and suggest they put 20 dollars in the collection plate."

So the very next Sunday, the reverend did as suggested, and lo and behold
the plates were full of 20 dollar bills. Now, the preacher did not want
to take advantage of this technique each and every Sunday. So therefore,
he waited for a couple of weeks and then tried his mass hypnosis again.

Just as the last of the congregation was becoming mesmerized, the chain on
the watch broke and the watch hit the lectern with a loud thud and springs
and parts flew everywhere.

"Crap!" exclaimed the pastor. 
It took them a week to clean up the church. 

Plenty of Pretty Good Jokes - Garrison Keillor

I found this at my online library, I don't really remember a lot of jokes but everyone loves hearing them so I got this thinking maybe I would intentionally remember some.  

I didn't really know what the format would be - one liners, people telling stories.  I started listening and it didn't seem like something that was recorded specifically for an audiobook, more like a radio show.  I looked up Garrison Keillor and such enough he is a radio presenter.  

Anyway, I thought rather than reviewing these jokes I would just start a segment called 'Things that made me laugh...'

Here's the first installment

Earn What You're Really Worth... Things that made me think

Work 2 hours extra each day, read for an hour a day, listen to audio books daily, work through lunch, volunteer for everything and maintain the relationships in your life. 
       And for the other  minutes in my day I guess I'll sleep.

He would mention in different ways that All the top executives in the world do...  All the top 1% of money earners have this characteristic...
       I presume he interviewed all of them

Earn What You're Really Worth - Brian Tracy

Back to my usual meat.

As you can tell I chose this book because of the vibrant cover...  Really I went to the library because I had finished The Brother's Karamazov and didn't want to read another free book.  I just grabbed the first business-ie book I could find because I didn't have much time.

My expectations were that this would be bland and it didn't/did disappoint.  It wasn't that bad really.

The book is all about getting a good job and getting promoted faster than other people.  I couldn't tell if it was too general or too specific.  It would give advice on how to get promoted quicker such as 'work harder than everyone else around you' or 'don't take lunch breaks' or 'dress nice.'

 

Ummm... thank... you..?...

Then he would have practical things to do at the end of each chapter that were meant for people in a specific type of business, most of which I couldn't do.  I'm sure his profound advice to me would be - get a different job.  

Usually the things that brighten these books up are the stories.  There was nary an ounce of inspiration between them (I wonder if that's how you use that word).

This was the opposite of '4-hour work week'.  A slow paced get-rich-slow book.  I'm sure there were some useful things in there but the only thing I really learnt was, do judge a book by it's cover.  

The Brothers Karamazov... Things that made me think

Even though this was fiction there were some interesting things about it

Translated by Contance Garnett - this was another thing that was mentioned every chapter.  It was translated into English at the turn of the 20th century.
       It made me think about how few words we use these days.  Some words have been lost to history.
       Words I need to use: Supercilious, nary, tarry and base.

There were many different characters and the author went deep inside the mindset of at least five.
       Did Dostoyevsky associate himself with all of them in different ways?
       What was his motivation for writing this?  It can't have been just a story because most of it ins't story

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky pt2

12 books and 40 solid hours later and I'm done with The Brother's.  What to say about it?

One thing I will say is I understand why there are abridged versions of books.  I've always wondered what they cut out of the full version but I can see now that whole chunks of this book could be thrown away without really taking away from the story line.  Not that these pieces aren't interesting but sometimes they seem like a spin off.

For example there is a whole book devoted to the teachings of Father Zossima, who is obviously an integral part of the mentality of Alyosha (the main protagonist).  However, by the end of the story you forget who this person was and Alyosha does not even seem like someone influenced by this monk.  I think this was mainly an opportunity to get some of Dostoyevsky's thoughts out to the public.  

As I said this wasn't necessarily uninteresting, in fact I was surprised by the orthodoxy (in the literal sense) of these theses, while surrounded with the Eastern Orthodox beliefs and superstitions (that were obvious in other characters).  It would be interesting to read up on Dostoyevsky (maybe a Cliff note book). 

The story only really got going in the last few books with the murder of Fyodor Karamazov but there are no cliff hangers even in this as the narrator tells you of the murder the suspects and the verdict before each one is even close to happening.  The interest comes in how each is resolved.  

Apart from abridgment this book did make me thankful for a few things.  

Good parenting - Fyodor the father (interestingly the same name as Dostoyevsky) was the worst.  He abandoned all his children so that he could hedonize.  The servants that did take care of them didn't do the greatest job and the result was four very different boys.  Only one of these seems emotionally secure presumably because of his lengthy contact with monasticism.  

Forensic science - the trial at the end would not have existed if it was set 100 years later.  Maybe this is why our books are so much shorter.  

Audiobooks - This would be one of those books where, as you read you drift off and realized 5 minutes later that you haven't read a single word.  Thankfully, when I drifted off on this one the narrator kept going and I didn't really miss much.  

The Library - This was a Librivox recording from the public domain, which I was reminded of every chapter by a multitude of different speakers.  Some of these had thick accents that I could just about understand.  Not only did the characters in this book have many names each but each one was pronounced differently by the speakers.  You get what you pay for.  

So many more things could be said about this book but I've come to appreciate less words so I'll  stop.

Off on a tangent... Dream Movie

If someone can get these three actors together in a Movie I will watch it no matter what it's about.

  

We got pretty close with now you see me.  Maybe if Steve was the Morgan Freeman character we could have had the perfect movie.  

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky pt1

Wow! A slightly different book than I've been used to so far.  

I chose this one because I had run out of books to listen to and I didn't have any time to go to the library.  There are thousands of free audio books online that have been released into the public domain, so I found one that ended up on many people's top 100 list.

Without looking at any details I had in my head the movie 'The Brothers Bloom' (probably because I'd just watched 'Now you see me' with Mark Ruffalo (one of my favorite actors see tangent)) so my expectations were slightly off.

I'm 3 books into this and I'm still not really sure what the plot is.  It's has mainly been character development.  Each time a major new person is mentioned a chapter is devoted to showing you who they are.  This is a pretty good format, it is still, however, difficult to follow people because each one is called by many different names.  For example, one of the main people you follow is Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov but is also called Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alxeichick, Lyosha, Lyoshenka.  Confusing??

I had to make this family tree/ key to really understand what was going on.  

So far we have had a number of monologues about various things, God comes up quite a lot as you would expect when you put an atheist and a Hedonist in with a bunch of monks.  I feel like something is building and perhaps going to happen between Fyodor and Dimitri who are both after the same woman.  Quite a few people hate each other so I also expect some violence at some point as well.  Hopefully something will happen soon before I get bored with 'one of the best novels ever written'.

I'll finish this review when I finish the book.

Buyology - Martin Lindstrom

The last of the three business books I grabbed.  I read them in the order that I thought they would hold my interest, so this one didn't have high expectations.  

You have to get through the usual 'Why you should read this book'  hype up session in the first few chapters but after that it becomes very scientific.  Situation - Abstract - Experiment - Results.  This would be pretty boring but the experiments are somewhat interesting:

Smoking ad's and their effects
Product placement in American Idol
Subliminal messages
Superstition and religion and how these sell products
Does sex sell?

I think they also tried to make this book more interesting by having one of those gruff voiced voice over guys narrate.  I'm not sure if this was a well researched decision but I don't think it has the same punch after the normal 10 seconds.

I'm making this sound worse than it is, really it kept my attention.  I have an interest in both science and marketing so this wasn't going to be the worst read ever.  

After the hyping up the author goes into what he has been doing; investing $7m into a research campaign involving a focus group with a difference.  Instead of just discussing what they thought of a subject they are hooked up with brain scanners and put in an MRI machine.  This way showing how their brain reacts.  

The most interesting part is when they brains response contradicts what they said they felt about something.  This, Lindstom explains, is why a lot of business flop even after $$$$$ spent on market research.  See New Coke, Segway and Colgate's Kitchen Entrees. 

The 'Sex sells' chapter was a bit disturbing, thankfully I havent seen a lot of what he described, the interesting part of this was that the brain scanners showed that most of the time sex distracts away from the product rather than emphasizing it.  The main reason some of these commercials have done well in the past is because of the controversy and free publicity that comes with that.  He predicts that as companies seek out this publicity the envelope will be pushed further and further.  

Other predictions that are made in this book are that sounds and smells will play a lot bigger part in advertising and of course that Neuro-marketing (presumably headed up by Lindstrom) is the way of the future and the only way to truly see what the response to a product will be.  

See a few more details in Things that made me think. 

Buyology... Things that made me think

A $7 million dollar project with huge results and the future of marketing.

       Why haven't I heard of this before?

We are a highly over stimulated culture.  Part of our brains shut down because of excessive advertising. 

       I wonder if people would be more observant if they were put somewhere without images constantly bombarding them.  

I wonder how my brain would betray me if it were tested?  HGTV, food network maybe I just dislike these by principal rather than viewing displeasure.

100 people in each test.  People are put in a MRI machine.
       n=100 really isn't a great sample size for n experiment.  Also if I was out inside an MRI machine for an hour and told that if I move the whole thing has to start over again, I think it might affect my emotions slightly.  

Rain: What a Paperboy Learned About Business... Things that made me think

The dinner table is the first place where children experience negotiation, meeting new people learn manners, ask questions, learn the art of conversation.  
       That dinner table we bought could be a good $50 investment.  Its tough working nights and trying to eat together but its probably worth it.

Referrals are powerful marketing tools.
       I have a business idea brewing at the moment that would benefit a lot from this.  In a small town where everyone knows everyone its probably even more key.

Parables are so good for remembering things.  I remember way more of Rain's stories than the business principals the were talked about afterwards.

He goes off on a bit of a tangent presumably to justify his pursuit of money.  Saying that the 'killjoys' got it wrong, 'The correct line is - The love of money is the root of all evil'.
       He could have at least got the quote right, it might even have got his point over better.  'The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil' - 1 Timothy 6:10

Rain: What a Paperboy Learned About Business

This was one of the three business books I picked up at random from the Library.  I think my only expectations of this book were that it would be mainly educational, a study of how paper delivery relates to big business and that it would have something to do with how weather affects business or outside factors affecting sales or something.  

The latter assumption was way off, the first was a bit closer to the mark but it did happen quite like I thought.  

The first two thirds of the book are the story of Rain the paperboy.  Either a fictitious character or based on Fox' childhood memories of delivering papers.  Either way the story sets up perfect situations for Rain to navigate through and give us a chance to analyze business principals.  

To start of with I thought this was a real kid with a strange name but as the story progressed it got me thinking, there's no way I would have done that as a thirteen-year-old.   I did have a paper route for a while but I was way more interested in cutting corners than customer service.  Maybe if English people tipped I might have had some incentive.

It would be interesting to see what teenagers thought of this book, if it would inspire some entreprenuerialism.  Maybe ill find it again in ten years and give it to my son.  

The book sounded like it was being read by Fat Tony from the Simpsons.  I felt like I was going to be made an offer I couldn't refuse by the end of the book.  Perhaps this is because the Mafia happen to be very creative in their business endeavors.  

One slightly odd point that was made in the book was in the chapter 'Crime and Punishment.'  Rain skips school and is punished by having to help out at an old peoples home, where he manages to get even more newspaper sales.  The point being made was obviously 'take advantage of all situations that arise' but just as obvious was 'you don't have to follow all the rules.'  In business maybe but I might have to talk my son through this one.  

I'll look at a few random things in the 'Things that made me think' post on this book.