OK, before I continue with this post, I would like to establish that I am speaking with a somewhat biased opinion, the title did not intrigue me, and then after all the high praise for the book that I heard when I noted the boring title I had set my expectations rather high.
The entire book was about a boy named Holden Caulfield, a person who recently got kicked out of Pency academy. The book tells the story of his leaving Pencey and heading home, and taking his time doing it.
Holden is a very peculiar person to say the least. He is almost perpetually depressed, and can't make up his mind about anything. He is also a a self-confessed compulsive liar, which raises the question of if any of this actually happened. It COULD be one huge lie that Holden is telling for his own entertainment, or for some other random reason that may or may not exist, an interesting thought isn't it? Unless Holden was lying about his being a compulsive liar, which would make the story true. Which would mean he IS a compulsive liar...
Despite the little paradox I just presented, the entirety of the book was rather unexciting for me. Despite Holden being so peculiar, I didn't much like his peculiarity, and his manner of speech was odd, and rather dirty, I'd get myself into a lot of trouble if I suddenly started speaking like Holden.
However, perhaps my perception of the book would have been different if I wasn't looking for the reason a friend of my Dad named his son Holden to honor the book. After hearing THAT my expectations were somewhat on a god-like writing level, seeing as even my favorite books would never inspire me to do something like that. Since the writer of this book was obviously not god I guess I was setting myself up to be disappointed.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Salem's Lot-47 to go
This one is on the list!? I would have read this book even if it wasn't, Stephen King is an awesome writer, I have enjoyed all of the books by him that I have read, and this one is no exception
This book was about a small town called Salem's Lot that a vampire comes to feed in. The characters in the story eventually realize something is wrong and try to stop the vampire. The characters consist of Ben, a writer who returned home to use an old haunted mansion as inspiration, Susan, Ben's recently acquired girlfriend, Mark, a kid obsessed with monsters, Father Callahan, a drunken priest, and Mike, an English teacher.
Other characters are introduced, but mainly they just turn out to be vampire food. None of them play a major role in the story.
The story begins rather slowly as the vampire moves in and establishes his cover and takes in his first few victims. At that point nobody realizes what is happening, but slowly the pace picks up as several people have unexplained deaths (and become vampires) and the main characters get suspicious. Then accelerates more as the number of vampires practically doubles each night.
Towards the end of the story the characters do battle with the original vampire, named Barlow (and who claims to be older than the church, and thus has a over sized ego. A vampire's age is an indicator of superiority and power, that's not said in the book, that is just me having read so many vampire books that I am pretty much the ultimate authority on them. The same goes for most monsters in books, but I digress).
I won't spoil the outcome of the battle(s), nor will I say what the fates of each character was.
All things considered, I'm not sure what to reflect on here, it seemed to me that this was just a very good vampire novel, and it isn't even the original vampire novel (even though it is good enough, but Dracula is probably the first popular vampire themed novel, and legends of vampires go back so far before books that determining the original source of the legends is impossible.
I guess I will end now and allow comment questions to provoke deeper thought about this one, but I can't think of what they will be.
So good night, don't let the vampires bite. *insert evil laugh here*
This book was about a small town called Salem's Lot that a vampire comes to feed in. The characters in the story eventually realize something is wrong and try to stop the vampire. The characters consist of Ben, a writer who returned home to use an old haunted mansion as inspiration, Susan, Ben's recently acquired girlfriend, Mark, a kid obsessed with monsters, Father Callahan, a drunken priest, and Mike, an English teacher.
Other characters are introduced, but mainly they just turn out to be vampire food. None of them play a major role in the story.
The story begins rather slowly as the vampire moves in and establishes his cover and takes in his first few victims. At that point nobody realizes what is happening, but slowly the pace picks up as several people have unexplained deaths (and become vampires) and the main characters get suspicious. Then accelerates more as the number of vampires practically doubles each night.
Towards the end of the story the characters do battle with the original vampire, named Barlow (and who claims to be older than the church, and thus has a over sized ego. A vampire's age is an indicator of superiority and power, that's not said in the book, that is just me having read so many vampire books that I am pretty much the ultimate authority on them. The same goes for most monsters in books, but I digress).
I won't spoil the outcome of the battle(s), nor will I say what the fates of each character was.
All things considered, I'm not sure what to reflect on here, it seemed to me that this was just a very good vampire novel, and it isn't even the original vampire novel (even though it is good enough, but Dracula is probably the first popular vampire themed novel, and legends of vampires go back so far before books that determining the original source of the legends is impossible.
I guess I will end now and allow comment questions to provoke deeper thought about this one, but I can't think of what they will be.
So good night, don't let the vampires bite. *insert evil laugh here*
Thursday, June 2, 2011
1984-48 to go
This book was surprisingly well known, two teachers on two separate days commented on me reading it. One of them said I need to understand the Russian Revolution in order to truly understand the book.
I don't know the first thing about the Russian Revolution, (or about almost anything involving Russia for that matter, though I know about the cold war because it involved the USA and was briefly covered in my World History class, but I digress...) so I am guessing I won't get as comprehensive of an understanding of this particular book as I did the other books so far.
The book was about this "negative utopia" (term used in book synopsis, and i can't think of a better term for it) that wasn't a utopia in the classical sense (no war, high quality of life, freedom, etc...), in fact it was the exact opposite of a standard utopia. It is hard to describe the lack of intellectual freedom the characters posses. The "thought police" arrest the citizens of the negative utopia if they even begin to think of things that go against "the party" that rules it.
Also the concept of "big brother" is used throughout the book in a very literal sense. The concept that the government is always watching everything we do is made literal. Every house has what is called a "telescreen," which is like a television, only it goes both ways in order to monitor people. Also the icon of big brother is used in posters that are designed so that the eyes of the poster look like they are following and watching you (and judging by the theme of the book I guessed that they might actually be watching you, even though the book never says it).
This society uses propaganda in the extreme, It is currently allied with one of the other two societies and is at war with the other, four years ago they were at war with their current ally and allied with their current ally, but propaganda is used to the point where most people, if asked, will say that the situation has always been as it is now and that it never could be otherwise, even if they were alive four years ago when this was not the case.
Another defining factor is the new language that people use called "Newspeak," English is refered to as "Oldspeak." Usually new languages are designed to have multiple words for as many things as possible, "newspeak" is designed to have as few words as possible (e.x. there is no horrible or terrible, or even bad, they simply call a bad thing "ungood" and say "doubleungood" to say something is really bad)
Finally the purpose of all the war and propaganda is to keep the population mindlessly living (with the thought police arresting anyone who thinks) and to keep the quality of life as close to barely surviving as possible. The book has a section that explains the system very completely, but it still seems somewhat ridiculous even in that context.
Overall the whole governmental system seems like it should collapse, but amazingly the citizens are kept so ignorant that the system works. The fact that the thought police arrest people for even thinking anti-government things helps, but it all seems very unreal to me.
All in all this book was very strange, and I am almost in agreement that I can't understand it without something to compare it with, it is just that foreign to me. Though I was getting a communism vibe from the book due to everyone calling each other "comrade" and the structure of the governments seeming similar. Perhaps the Russian Revolution my teacher mentioned is when Russia became the communist Soviet Union? That would explain why I was getting the communist feel from the book.
I'm typing up a lot of "maybes" and "I don't knows" so I think I will stop speculating, perhaps I will re-read the book after learning about that Russian Revolution in history class and then come back to this post and revise it with my new understanding, but right now the whole book seems far-fetched and ridiculous, and for someone like me who reads a dozen fantasy books a week that's saying something. I could go on and give you a book report on this book and tell you exactly what happened, why it happened, and all the positive and negative connotations of each event, but I can not understand how such a government could ever come to be and continue to work.
I don't know the first thing about the Russian Revolution, (or about almost anything involving Russia for that matter, though I know about the cold war because it involved the USA and was briefly covered in my World History class, but I digress...) so I am guessing I won't get as comprehensive of an understanding of this particular book as I did the other books so far.
The book was about this "negative utopia" (term used in book synopsis, and i can't think of a better term for it) that wasn't a utopia in the classical sense (no war, high quality of life, freedom, etc...), in fact it was the exact opposite of a standard utopia. It is hard to describe the lack of intellectual freedom the characters posses. The "thought police" arrest the citizens of the negative utopia if they even begin to think of things that go against "the party" that rules it.
Also the concept of "big brother" is used throughout the book in a very literal sense. The concept that the government is always watching everything we do is made literal. Every house has what is called a "telescreen," which is like a television, only it goes both ways in order to monitor people. Also the icon of big brother is used in posters that are designed so that the eyes of the poster look like they are following and watching you (and judging by the theme of the book I guessed that they might actually be watching you, even though the book never says it).
This society uses propaganda in the extreme, It is currently allied with one of the other two societies and is at war with the other, four years ago they were at war with their current ally and allied with their current ally, but propaganda is used to the point where most people, if asked, will say that the situation has always been as it is now and that it never could be otherwise, even if they were alive four years ago when this was not the case.
Another defining factor is the new language that people use called "Newspeak," English is refered to as "Oldspeak." Usually new languages are designed to have multiple words for as many things as possible, "newspeak" is designed to have as few words as possible (e.x. there is no horrible or terrible, or even bad, they simply call a bad thing "ungood" and say "doubleungood" to say something is really bad)
Finally the purpose of all the war and propaganda is to keep the population mindlessly living (with the thought police arresting anyone who thinks) and to keep the quality of life as close to barely surviving as possible. The book has a section that explains the system very completely, but it still seems somewhat ridiculous even in that context.
Overall the whole governmental system seems like it should collapse, but amazingly the citizens are kept so ignorant that the system works. The fact that the thought police arrest people for even thinking anti-government things helps, but it all seems very unreal to me.
All in all this book was very strange, and I am almost in agreement that I can't understand it without something to compare it with, it is just that foreign to me. Though I was getting a communism vibe from the book due to everyone calling each other "comrade" and the structure of the governments seeming similar. Perhaps the Russian Revolution my teacher mentioned is when Russia became the communist Soviet Union? That would explain why I was getting the communist feel from the book.
I'm typing up a lot of "maybes" and "I don't knows" so I think I will stop speculating, perhaps I will re-read the book after learning about that Russian Revolution in history class and then come back to this post and revise it with my new understanding, but right now the whole book seems far-fetched and ridiculous, and for someone like me who reads a dozen fantasy books a week that's saying something. I could go on and give you a book report on this book and tell you exactly what happened, why it happened, and all the positive and negative connotations of each event, but I can not understand how such a government could ever come to be and continue to work.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Drive
Firstly, this book is not on the 52 list, but I recently heard that I should include as many books on my reading list that I send to colleges as possible, and this one was pretty darn interesting, so I am going to give it it's own blog post.
I'm also considering creating another blog for my non-classic books, but it will not be as sophisticated as this one, since I read books so fast that if I did a post like this for every one and then answered thought provoking questions afterwards that blog would consume my life!
Now to get on topic
The book "Drive" is about what motivates humans to do things and how that relates to business.
It says that businesses today operate on what it calls "Motivation 2.0," which is essentially a basic carrot and stick reward system, you do what the company wants, the company gives you money and benefits.
It goes on to say that people can not operate efficiently using this system because it does not provide intrinsic motivation, which is an actual enjoyment of the task at hand. It provides extrinsic motivators like money, but those motivators actually wind up providing a negative effect on our motivation.
The book then proposes the concept of a system upgrade to "Motivation 3.0," where extrinsic rewards are given, but intrinsic motivators are also incorporated through various methods. The main method of doing this is to encourage autonomy, also known as self direction. Basically the book says that if someone isn't pressured to do something a specific way and are allowed to engage their creativity then they will not only do the work, they will do it efficiently and enthusiastically.
An example of how this would work is given. Imagine that it is Friday and a large batch of posters that need to be packaged into tubes so that they can be mailed out by Monday, so your workers need to work on the weekend, which is something they don't normally do. In "Motivation 2.0" we would simply see a increase in pay for the work, and a set method of how and when the posters should be packaged (e.x. work from 3:00-6:00 p.m, and roll the posters up exactly like this) . In "Motivation 3.0" you allow the employees to work out how they do the work, just so long as they get it done by the deadline. Allowing workers to control how they get this work done makes it seem like less of a big hassle, and by extension motivates the workers to do it more than just giving them a bigger paycheck.
The book also goes into numerous experiments that were used to discover that offering money as a reward for tasks can actually decrease motivation. One such experiment was performed with puzzles and two groups. The first group was offered a reward for solving puzzles, the other wasn't. After a certain time the researchers said they would need to leave in order to get another puzzle, but actually they left in order to observe the test subjects. The group getting paid for each puzzle they completed continued to do puzzles for a little while, but soon stopped. The group with no rewards continued solving puzzles for the fun of it for almost three times as long as the reward group.
The results of this test indicate that people motivated by intrinsic motivators are more motivated than people encouraged by extrinsic motivators.
That was just one example of a test backing these conclusions, there were plenty others proving that intrinsic value increases efficiency and motivation.
As I read this book I thought about my own job working as a secretary of sorts for my Mom so that I could afford certain things that I want to buy. I Always find the work incredibly dull and tiresome, all it requires of me is the repetition of the same actions over and over. I can't manage to do that work without having music playing to engage my creativity. Even with music I am sick of the work after a few hours, and the motivator of money is barely enough to keep me working.
I imagine that if the work allowed more creativity that I would be almost eager to work, how that could be accomplished is beyond me, but the point remains that if there was any intrinsic value in the work I would be a much happier worker. I would also be a better worker, I start my day working at a very fast pace, but as I grow bored I slow down substantially.
I also connected this to my love of science fiction and fantasy novels, they engage my creativity just because of their nature, whereas non-fiction or historical fiction novels that I dislike with a passion do not engage creativity, again due to their nature.
This book gave me a lot to chew on, and I am mulling over ways to implement intrinsic motivation into my business, but seeing as I'm not sure what type of business I will run most of my ideas end in "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it." I believe there was a section about how this could potentially be applied to business, but I only skimmed that part since it wasn't actually part of the book (it was an extra thing added to boost sales, and those are usually almost worthless, though if there was an exception it probably would have been this...)
I'm also considering creating another blog for my non-classic books, but it will not be as sophisticated as this one, since I read books so fast that if I did a post like this for every one and then answered thought provoking questions afterwards that blog would consume my life!
Now to get on topic
The book "Drive" is about what motivates humans to do things and how that relates to business.
It says that businesses today operate on what it calls "Motivation 2.0," which is essentially a basic carrot and stick reward system, you do what the company wants, the company gives you money and benefits.
It goes on to say that people can not operate efficiently using this system because it does not provide intrinsic motivation, which is an actual enjoyment of the task at hand. It provides extrinsic motivators like money, but those motivators actually wind up providing a negative effect on our motivation.
The book then proposes the concept of a system upgrade to "Motivation 3.0," where extrinsic rewards are given, but intrinsic motivators are also incorporated through various methods. The main method of doing this is to encourage autonomy, also known as self direction. Basically the book says that if someone isn't pressured to do something a specific way and are allowed to engage their creativity then they will not only do the work, they will do it efficiently and enthusiastically.
An example of how this would work is given. Imagine that it is Friday and a large batch of posters that need to be packaged into tubes so that they can be mailed out by Monday, so your workers need to work on the weekend, which is something they don't normally do. In "Motivation 2.0" we would simply see a increase in pay for the work, and a set method of how and when the posters should be packaged (e.x. work from 3:00-6:00 p.m, and roll the posters up exactly like this) . In "Motivation 3.0" you allow the employees to work out how they do the work, just so long as they get it done by the deadline. Allowing workers to control how they get this work done makes it seem like less of a big hassle, and by extension motivates the workers to do it more than just giving them a bigger paycheck.
The book also goes into numerous experiments that were used to discover that offering money as a reward for tasks can actually decrease motivation. One such experiment was performed with puzzles and two groups. The first group was offered a reward for solving puzzles, the other wasn't. After a certain time the researchers said they would need to leave in order to get another puzzle, but actually they left in order to observe the test subjects. The group getting paid for each puzzle they completed continued to do puzzles for a little while, but soon stopped. The group with no rewards continued solving puzzles for the fun of it for almost three times as long as the reward group.
The results of this test indicate that people motivated by intrinsic motivators are more motivated than people encouraged by extrinsic motivators.
That was just one example of a test backing these conclusions, there were plenty others proving that intrinsic value increases efficiency and motivation.
As I read this book I thought about my own job working as a secretary of sorts for my Mom so that I could afford certain things that I want to buy. I Always find the work incredibly dull and tiresome, all it requires of me is the repetition of the same actions over and over. I can't manage to do that work without having music playing to engage my creativity. Even with music I am sick of the work after a few hours, and the motivator of money is barely enough to keep me working.
I imagine that if the work allowed more creativity that I would be almost eager to work, how that could be accomplished is beyond me, but the point remains that if there was any intrinsic value in the work I would be a much happier worker. I would also be a better worker, I start my day working at a very fast pace, but as I grow bored I slow down substantially.
I also connected this to my love of science fiction and fantasy novels, they engage my creativity just because of their nature, whereas non-fiction or historical fiction novels that I dislike with a passion do not engage creativity, again due to their nature.
This book gave me a lot to chew on, and I am mulling over ways to implement intrinsic motivation into my business, but seeing as I'm not sure what type of business I will run most of my ideas end in "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it." I believe there was a section about how this could potentially be applied to business, but I only skimmed that part since it wasn't actually part of the book (it was an extra thing added to boost sales, and those are usually almost worthless, though if there was an exception it probably would have been this...)
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