I recently read Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely. This book is well written, and easy to read.

If you think you’re a rational person, read this book as soon as possible. It will help you understand how we are wired and/or conditioned to be irrational, and we typically aren’t even aware of it. This concept can be a bit disheartening, but the good news is that we can fix at least some of this irrationality by being aware of how it can occur and by making a steady effort to compensate for it. The key, it seems, is increasing our awareness and planning to be irrational (this concept is explored in-depth in The Black Swan
as well).

Not only is this book very interesting and enlightening, but I found it to be quite entertaining as well. I would put this one near the top of your reading list.

Finished 7/13/09, Rating: 9/10

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Predictably Irrational, The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

48 Days to the Work You Love will likely help you find inspiration, motivation, and just may spark a few ideas. However, there isn’t much ‘meat’ to the book. It only glosses over these topics at a high level and leaves you still to do the work of figuring out the details and coming up with a plan for finding new work or making money on the side. It offers nothing that you can’t find on hundreds of websites for free, but if you want to spend some money on this book you’ll have it packaged into an easy-to-read, paper format.

If you think that earning an hourly wage, working for someone else is the only way to make a living, you can certainly benefit from reading this book. If you already know that isn’t your only option, and/or you are already earning money on the side, you probably won’t find anything new here. I’d say it’s worth reading if you think you need some help finding a new direction with your work and income. If you already have that part figured out, there isn’t anything else for you here.

Finished reading on 7/15/09, Rating: 7/10

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48 Days to the Work You Love

Anyway, regardless of the reason for reading it, A Wrinke in Time is a great book and a quick, easy read. It has an interesting combination of a sort of fantasy and sci-fi theme. I don’t want to give away any of the details, so I’ll leave it at that. I sort of got a C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia feeling from the book. I can definitely see a relationship to Lost as well, again I won’t mention any details in case you haven’t read the book or seen Lost.

I enjoyed it very much and I definitely recommend reading it.

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A Wrinkle in Time

I just finished reading The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company
, by David A. Price. This was an interesting book, starting with the history of Pixar (I had no idea Pixar was started about 30 years ago) and finishing with Pixar’s current state of success, shortly after the merger with Disney and just before launching Ratatouille.

One big theme in the book is conflict. Steve Jobs is obviously difficult at times and Disney, particularly Michael Eisner, proved to be just as difficult to work with. In the end, Jobs and Pixar definitely won, though Disney Animation was also saved in the process when Disney acquired Pixar. Surprisingly, this deal was also what made Steve Jobs a billionaire, not his involvement with Apple.

Not to imply Jobs was only a negative influence on Pixar. I’m quite amazed that he had the vision to see what Pixar could become and put his money at risk on what was at the time a completely unproven company in 1986 (though clearly Pixar was loaded with brilliant, creative people).

In my mind, John Lasseter emerged as the creative force most responsible for the amazing success of Pixar’s movies. What is even more interesting is that he was fired from Disney (where he was an animator) prior to his joining Pixar. Disney had a real problem seeing the future of animation and computers and couldn’t let go of it’s old 2D animation dogma until long after seeing Pixar’s success.

I read this book looking for business lessons, not because I’m a fan of Pixar (I’ve seen most of its movies but not all). This book is long on the history of Pixar, but maybe a little short on the business details. However, I thought one of the greatest business lessons found is the importance of having the ability to look outside your circle of expertise (where Disney animation was stuck for a long time) and see what is changing in the world around you (fast rate of technology growth changing the way animation would be done in the future).

I think the other key lesson to be learned from this book is to not let personal grudges get in the way of business. A lot of money was left on the table due to stubborness or personal vendettas. This was a problem for virtually all parties involved—clearly the ability to put these issues aside could provide a huge advantage in business.

Overall I enjoyed the book. If you are a fan of both technology and business (or just a Pixar junkie) you’ll definitely enjoy it.

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The Pixar Touch – The Making of a Company

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Alice in Wonderland

I just finished reading Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity. This book is an introduction to the key fundamentals of Economics, as well as a bit of Personal Finance. It’s a relatively small book too, one you can easily read in a day. This is a great book to read if you are new to Economics, haven’t studied Economics for a long time, or if you are currently clueless about your money and/or the Economy.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I borrowed it from the library, but I intend to purchase my own copy soon. Both for future reference and so I can loan it to friends. It makes for a great Economics primer and the section on Government’s role in Economics is excellent, and quite timely given the current insanity in our nation’s bailout-addicted political climate.

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Common Sense Economics

I’m going to get started by listing the books I’ve read recently. Then, for all future posts, I hope to have one post per book with some (hopefully) worthwhile thoughts to go along with it.

Over the past month or so I have read the following:

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – I had never read this, but I vaguely remember seeing a film version when I was a child. Overall, the book was excellent, though at times a bit dry. There are sections of the book that contain long, detailed descriptions of sea creatures. This probably adds to the ‘realism’ the book is going for, but it can feel like a bit of a chore at times. However, there were plenty of suspenseful and action-packed sequences to keep you engaged. This is definitely one you should read if you never have before.

A Christmas Carol – Reading this was a bit odd as I have seen many different versions of the story in cartoons and movies. Knowing the basic story going in, it’s a little more difficult to engage in the book. It’s fairly short, so you can knock it out quickly if you like. This is an unusual case where I would not automatically say the book is better than film versions of the story, yet it’s a little hard to compare because I have been so heavily exposed to this story in so many different ways on film. Still a worthwhile read however.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – This one was really interesting to me. One of the first things I noticed was the horrible racism and lack of education afflicting the characters in this story. Strongly influenced by the time and place I’m sure, but none-the-less this was a little hard to get past at times. The story was quite compelling and there was quite a bit of action and intrigue. Of course, all throughout this interesting story, you are being punched in the face with the sickening racism of the day. It’s hard for me to believe this story took place in our country. I guess it’s good that we have stories like this around so we can see how bad things were and how far we’ve come as a country, yet at the same time it’s something I’d rather not spend much time thinking about.

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My Reading List