Nurture Shock

This book by Bronson and Merryman discusses some of the new research based thinking on children and even young adults. There is quite a bit of interesting information presented, but better presentation/layout would have made the book more effective, if you ask me.

Many major topics are covered such as the INVERSE power of praise, how lowering average sleep time is REALLY a problem, race relations (and how integration in school may INCREASE segregation into racial groups), kids and lying, the errors in trying to evaluate giftedness too early, sibling rivalry, teens and arguing, self control/focus, educational TV and aggression, developing language skills early and even something on gratitude in the conclusions. Much new research turns previous thinking on its ear. Some of the results are very surprising, but maybe not if you really think about them for a while.

One point the authors make is that maybe we have been wrong about children, because we start with the assumption that they are really the same as adults, when studies indicate that their brains are different and hence so is their behavior at times - and not just a little different.

I have recommended the book to several friends with children on the way, with children of different ages, and even to some with grown children who seem to wonder why bringing their kids up was so hard. I think even people who never had/have children could really get something out of the book.

The real drawback of the book is that it is not that well presented. Message to authors and book editors: with non-fiction, it is usually more effective to have many subheading in a book covering many topics/subtopics so that readers can easily follow you. Numbering points sometimes helps as well.

I also found the book was best near the start and near the end. In the middle, it was kind of harder to get through for some reason - maybe it was just me.

But, don't let presentation issues put you off. They weren't that bad, and the book makes a lot of interesting points. Recommended.

The Man in the High Castle

This is a book by PKD. It is regarded as one of his best.

Overall, I like the book very much, but I think I'll put it this way and say that the very last part of the book and the ending were not the best parts. I like it better when a book has a satisfying ending of some sort - here things were left unresolved.

The plot in basically this. The Allies lose WWII and the Germans and Japanese (except for a little part to Italy and some buffer zones) split the world more or less. The Germans get the eastern part of the USA and the Japanese the Pacific coast. The middle part of the country is some sort of semi-independent buffer zone. Several characters are brought together in various ways and readers learn details of what life is like in this alternate world.

The Japanese seem to be semi-benevolent victors; the Germans seem not to be overly horrible in the part of the USA that they got, at least if you are white and non-Jewish. The Nazis apparently did some really bad things to the Slavs and even worse in Africa - the latter is only hinted at as if to say it is too horrible for words - after the war. The Germans focus on technical accomplishments, and they are colonizing the solar system. The Japanese are behind in technology. The story itself is set about 15 years after the war in the 1960's and takes place mostly in San Francisco.

Japanese people appear to be obsessed with the I Ching oracle and many Americans have adopted this as well. This is a very essential feature in the story.

The Japanese are also very fond of things from the pre-war USA with the range going from civil war guns to Mickey Mouse watches - you name it and they pay big bucks.

The Germans are united on the surface, but are very divided just under the surface, with the various factions involved in all sorts of machinations.

Add to all this a best selling book that the Nazis are very unhappy about that posits an alternate history where the USA, Britain and Russia won the war - with events a little different from the way we all remember them though.

Several Japanese, Germans and Americans are thrown together into this mix to complete the recipe so to speak.

So who is the Man in the High Castle? Well, I won't spoil that for you, but he has something to do with the book mentioned in the story here.

I guess the point of the story is to answer "what if" in some respects. But more importantly, it may be about what winning a war really means - pay attention near the very end especially on this point.

The book is very good overall as I said, but the ending is of the unresolved type. I don't care for those myself, but don't let that put you off as the story is still very good and the book well written; the way it is written is perhaps not "grammatically correct" everywhere, but it works better this way as I think you will see when reading it. Despite the ending, the book should really hold your interest.

Th book was written a while back, but does deserve to be read today. Give it a try.

Tea Time for the Tradtionally Built

This is the 10th in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency book series by Alexander McCall Smith set in Botswana.

I have to agree with other reviewers I have read that this book was good, but not nearly as good as the earlier books in the series. Has the author run out of steam for this series? I hope not, as he had such a winner here, and with a great TV series to go with it too.

In this installment, there may be a player throwing games for a major soccer team in Gaborone. Mma Makutsi's nemesis Violet Sephotho is back and seems to be after Phuti, Mma Makutsi's fiance. Mma Ramotswe's tiny white van has died and has been replaced, or has it?

There was a lot of potential here, but the author did not get the characters as involved and active as he could have with all this going on. Things just went very slowly it seemed. Not at all like in other books in the series.

If you are a fan, read it to keep up with the series, but let's hope book 11 is better.

Fool Moon

This is the second in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Overall, I liked the book, but it has some weak spots.

Before I forget, if you have not seen the TV series, I highly recommend it. I think only Book 1 actually was made into an episode, but the other episodes followed the basic plan of the book series. Too bad there was only one season. So much bad TV, and this gets canceled - go figure!

Back to the book. In this installment, Harry Dresden, a wizard detective, gets involved in a case involving different sorts of werewolves. I never knew this, but there are more or less four types: classic werewolf, hexenwolf, lycanthrope and loup-garou. The classic transforms via simple magic, while the hexenwolf transforms via a charmed wolf skin belt; the lycanthrope is human in appearance, but acts wolf-like and beserker. The loup-garou is the most dangerous and is a truly monstrous wolf creature. All four are in the book.

Needless to say, there are dead bodies all over the place with all these werewolves running around, although, some aren't as bad as others. There is a lot of description of the killings, but the author does know how to stop before going too far. He had to explain it in some form, or the book would lose its punch.

I really liked the Dresden character as I did in the first book and the TV series. He is a powerful wizard, but somehow still a regular, good guy. He does need to get his act together, but this may be one reason he is so likeable. It is the way his life is off kilter that makes this so; he is not a loser. Read the books, and you will see what I mean.

The Murphy character is great in the TV series and OK in Book 1, but I wanted to strangle her in this book. She was a total unreasonable witch. I hope Butcher fixes this in later books. Enough said.

Maybe it was just me, but I thought I detected inconsistencies in this book and between it and Book 1. They were not major, but see what you think.

The book was well written, however, at least in the sense that it made me want to keep reading. How is Dresden going to get out of this situation? I kept asking myself over and over. Somehow he did.

Mostly the way was clever and still believable, but a few times, it seemed a bit contrived. It was also a little bit tiring as there were a few too many of these situations, and the fight scenes went on a little too long in some cases. Also, Harry just got beat up too many times in too short period of time. I think the author should have cut the book down 50 pages or so, and it would have been a much better book. Or, he could have filled the space made this way by having Dresden interact more with Bob - their interactions are always great. Of course, this is an early book in the series and maybe the author has gone a better way in later books. Still, the story as written did hold my attention and was very entertaining.

The parts of the book written from or describing the viewpoint of the werewolves was really well done. However, this was also very disturbing in what it showed. You just have to read the book to see what I mean.

All in all, it is a good story, and I recommend it.

2010

It's hard to believe that it is already 2010. Seems like it was 2000 last week.

I hope that the coming year and decade will be better than the last.

Happy New Year!