Wedellsblog: Books

Blog moved to Wordpress

2007-11-16T22:02:00.000+01:00

I migrated this blog to Wordpress, where I am also hosting my other blogs:

http://booksbooksbooks.wordpress.com/

Please update your bookmarks and feeds to point to the new site:

Number crunching - a useful introduction

2007-10-08T17:45:00.000+02:00

The book: Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted
Author: Ian Ayres
Genre: Business book

Interesting book touting the power of number crunching over intuition and gurus; it holds lots of amusing examples of how established experts fail to predict the future more accurately than simple data-driven decision-making tools such as regression analysis. I took a course on this stuff in my MBA, and it is a seriously fascinating; Super Crunchers is a great introduction to the subject for people who are unfamiliar with number crunching, but curious about how it can be used. A very relevant book, especially for the creative industries.

On a side note, it also forms an interesting counterpoint to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink (my review here), which heralds intuition and first impressions as the keys to making good decisions. While Gladwell’s book is well argued and has a slightly different aim, I have to say that I think the evidence favors the data-driven approach championed by Super Crunchers. The human mind is simply not very good at grappling with large amounts of variables, and suffers under a number of well-known biases, described in Cordelia Fine's entertaining book A mind of its own (my review here).

Creativity and innovation – some academic introductions

2007-09-17T22:10:00.000+02:00

Genre: Academic
Readability: Scientific (not suited for casual reading)

If you are interested in exploring creativity and innovation from an academic standpoint, here’s a few good places to start.

Robert Sternberg’s Handbook of Creativity is a solid and wide-ranging collection of journal articles, most of them classics within the area. This book is probably the best place to start, if you haven’t read about the subject before.

Similar to Sternberg’s book, but more focused on the domain of business innovation is Davila, Epstein and Shelton's newly published three-volume series The Creative Enterprise. The series covers three main aspects of creativity and innovation in business – strategy, culture, and execution – and contains more up-to-date research articles. The books are good, but very expensive, so it might make sense to borrow them at your local library instead. (Disclaimer: Davila is an old professor of mine from IESE Business School).

Next, Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity is not a collection of articles, but a longer, unified work based on hundreds of interviews with creative people. The book provides lots of case stories about creativity at work, and Csikszentmihalyi’s theoretical framework is interesting; however, the strong reliance on interviews makes some of his conclusions seem anecdotally based. As with many of the titles in this genre, it is mostly focused on creativity as it occurs within art and science; business innovation is touched upon, but not explored in depth.

Finally, if you (as I do) have a specific interest in brainstorming, then you might also consider checking out Paulus and Nijstaad’s Group Creativity, which focuses exclusively on this subject. Again, this is an academic book - if you are looking for practical brainstorming advice, check out IDEO's The Art of Innovation (see my review), which contains some good tips on this.

New personal website

2007-03-23T17:53:00.000+01:00

I've created a personal website where I gather the feeds of all my different blogs - visit it on http://wedellsblog.wordpress.com/

Stickiness - a recipe for mental adhesives

2007-01-30T04:13:00.000+01:00

The Book: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck
Authors: Chip and Dan Heath
Genre: Viral marketing

This book is a kind of sequel to Malcolm Gladwell's eminent book The Tipping Point. Informed by science, it explains what makes messages stick in our minds/go viral, and it does so in a way that is immediately applicable to whatever nefarious message you might be trying to spread at the moment.

It is as well-written as Gladwell's books, and more practically useful.

Idea Development at Ideo

2006-12-27T22:30:00.000+01:00

The book: The Art of Innovation: Success Through Innovation the IDEO Way
Author: Thomas Kelley (co-founder of Ideo)
Genre: Business/idea generation

A thought-provoking book about brainstorming and product development, Ideo-style. Worth reading both because of the practical tips on how to develop innovative products (and innovative cultures), and because of the portrayal of Ideo, a super interesting product development company. Lots of good case stories, as well.

A guide to the creative industries

2006-11-04T18:54:00.000+01:00

Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce
Author: Richard E. Caves
Genre: Academic - microeconomics in action

If you are interested in getting an in-depth understanding of how the creative industries work - movie production, book publishing, art galleries, music distribution, etc. - I know no better starting point than this book.

It explains why Hollywood occasionally releases ten ton turkeys like Travolta's infamous 'Battlestar Galactica', it illuminates exactly how difficult it is to get a fiction book published (and why), and it exposes how major music publishers have been ripping off their artists in a thorough and systematic manner. And lots more. Not a light read, but really interesting stuff. If I were to teach a course on either the creative industries or media economics, this would be the core curriculum.

The Medici Effect

2006-11-04T18:42:00.000+01:00

The Medici Effect
Author: Frans Johansson
Genre: Business/innovation

Inspiring book about how innovation happens when you mix up different fields and disciplines, with lots of case stories. While a lot of the evidence presented in the book is anecdotal, the main argument still rings quite true.

The Medici in the title refers to the Renaissance Italian merchant family - according to the author, the intellectual environment in Florence at the time of the Medicis was an early example of an innovation powerhouse.

Dead, funny, fascinating

2006-10-21T20:39:00.000+02:00

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Author: Mary Roach
Genre: Popular (yet ghoulish) science

This is a book about what happens to our bodies after we die. Dissection, cremation, decomposition, organ donation, forensic work – you name it, this book has it. Ever wondered whether people retain consciousness when they are beheaded, say, by a guillotine? I have. And so has the author, Mary Roach; in fact, she has been wondering about a lot of weird things, and she didn't stop there. The expression 'morbid curiosity' doesn't quite cover it.

Sounds grisly? It is. It is also eerily fascinating, and often laughing-out-loud funny. It’s a highly palatable read, but don’t bring it to the dinner table. Also, don’t read the section about what happens to people who fall out of airplanes when you are, as I was, sitting in an airplane.

Thanks to Sean Geer for this one. Sean, I strongly suspect this won’t be the last time I thank you for a book recommendation.

The Science of Happiness

2006-08-04T01:35:00.000+02:00

Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile
Author: Daniel Nettle
Genre: Popular Science

Happiness is an interesting concept - we spend much of our lives chasing it, yet very few people define themselves as being 100 percent happy, no matter the level of their material wealth.

Actually, there is a reason for that, and the idea has been labeled the hedonic threadmill. No matter how much we get in life, we adjust to it very rapidly, so even the biggest lottery win will bring us happiness for a few months only.

This is one of the many interesting findings about happiness that Daniel Nettle write about in his book. (Despite the title, it is not at all a new age self-help kind of book - although it actually explains why these books sell so well.) Instead, Happiness presents a well-written summary of the latest knowledge about happiness as a scientific subject

The books ends with an informative review of how people can work on increasing their happiness. Amusingly, one of these pieces of advice is simply to do more of the things that make you happy. This may sound completely self-evident - and it is - but the troubling thing is that many people actually spend their lives doing anything but the things that would make them happy. Read it to get an explanation as to why this is.

Igor, Bring Me A Brain

2006-07-30T14:51:00.000+02:00

A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives
Author: Cordelia Fine
Genre: Popular Science

Interesting, well-written and entertaining book about the peculiarities of the brain we walk around with, and how it influences our judgments and our actions.

The Book of Illusions

2006-07-12T19:12:00.000+02:00

The Book of Illusions
Author: Paul Auster
Genre: Fiction

I actually don't like Paul Auster's books too much. Acclaimed literary wunderkind or not, I generally find his writing overly artificial (this impression based on having read the New York Trilogy and The Music of Chance, which may be too small a sample to judge him). Frankly speaking, in these books, I feel that he sometimes drops the ball in the quest to produce intellectual writing.

However, I really liked The Book of Illusions, which is both beautifully written and - unlike the above books - actually has a real ending, as Auster tells the story of an author who goes in search of a lost actor from the silent-movie days. He definitely has a way with words, and in this book, his abilities are not hampered by a plot that is too contrived. I'd be happy to hear of other Auster titles in the same vein.

Never Let Me Go

2006-07-12T18:56:00.000+02:00

Never Let Me Go
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Genre: Fiction

A melancholically tinged coming-of-age story with a dark twist, Never Let Me Go tells the story of Kathy, a girl growing up on a bording school where not all is what it seems.

Ishiguro has also written The Remains of the Day, later made into a movie with Anthony Hopkins, and Never Let Me Go is spiced with similar undertones of regret. A captivating and at times chilling read - I flew through it in a few days. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Talking to Your Television

2006-07-10T18:37:00.000+02:00

The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places
Authors: Byron Reeves & Clifford Nass
Genre: Academic
Readability: Good

Two researchers, Reeves & Nass, did an interesting thing: they took a number of established theories from the social sciences and tested them on computers. Or rather, they tested them on people who dealt with computers, televisions, and other types of media.

Their finding was consistent: people generally treat media as if they were other people. For instance, they found that people are polite towards their computers.

More generally, The Media Equation explains the many different ways our human nature affects how we deal with new and old media. Interesting book – check it out if you are curious about how we interact with computers, televisions, radios, etc.

Great Introduction to Good Design

2006-06-07T18:06:00.000+02:00

Title: The Design of Everyday Things
Author: Donald E. Norman
Genre: Business/design bible

This book is an excellent introduction to the idea behind usability design – or, in plainer words, designing things so that humans find them intuitive to use. As Norman shows, using lots of examples, it is relevant in almost everything we do; from making doors in a way so people understand they should push, not pull, to designing cockpits in a way that minimises the risk of human errors (surely a desirable goal).

One word of warning. Reading The Design of Everyday Things is the mental equivalent of a one-way street: once you get into the habit of thinking about the design of everyday objects, it is not easy to let it go again. This is a good thing.

Game Theory in the Real World

2006-05-01T20:49:00.000+02:00

Title: Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction
Author: Colin F. Camerer
Genre: Academic/game theory
Readability: Scientific

Game theory is the formalised study of strategic interaction, and was first started back in the 1960s – one of the better known theorists within the field is John Nash, who is portrayed in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Game theory is an extremely interesting field, and has lots and lots of applications in everything from sports to biology to how you deal with your wife and kids, and how men and women behave towards each other. Unfortunately, since its invention, it has mostly been studied from an dry analytical perspective, and most books about game theory reflects this, being filled with equations and similar tools well suited to scare away anything but hardened economists and mathematicians. I only became interested in it because I first encountered it in Richard Dawkins’ fascinating book The Selfish Gene, where it was explained in a way that you could easily understand (see my review of The Selfish Gene elsewhere in this blog).

Luckily, scientists such as Colin Camerer has begun to take a new perspective on game theory. Instead of studying complex formalised games, they got out of the laboratory and started looking at how people actually behave when they deal with each other. This approach has led to a range of interesting insights about human behavior, such as social preferences, reciprocal altruism and strategic impotence. In Behavioral Game Theory, Camerer summarises a lot of the research in the area and outlines some further research perspectives. The most fascinating thing about the different experiments is what they reveal about human nature and the way we make decisions.

The book is academic in nature and requires some familiarity with game theory. If you are new to the field, you will probably be better off starting with a standard economic textbook, or, better yet, by reading the relevant chapters in Richard Dawkins' book (mentioned above).

The Selfish Gene - A Classic

2006-05-01T20:11:00.000+02:00

Title: The Selfish Gene
Author: Richard Dawkins
Genre: Popular Science/evolutionary biology and genetics
Readability: Excellent

Approximately ten years ago, The Selfish Gene started me off on a voyage of intellectual discovery into a field that I am still fascinated with, namely evolutionary biology. It is the perfect popular science introduction to the subject of genes, biology and evolution, and Dawkins’ smooth writing style and love of his subject matter makes it a pleasure to read. If you enjoy watching nature documentary movies on Discovery Channel or Animal Planet, this will likely be something for you.

Dawkins also produced a host of other books on the subject, but a lot of them are somewhat repetitious, rehashing knowledge that he already wrote about elsewhere. A good exception to this is The Extended Phenotype, the follow-up to The Selfish Gene.

Influence and Manipulation

2006-04-25T12:56:00.000+02:00

Influence: Science and Practice
Author: Robert Cialdini
Genre: Popular Science/Psychology
Readability: Excellent

A highly interesting book on the subject of influence (or, if you prefer, manipulation). Cialdini sums up a lot of research on the subject of how to influence people’s behaviour, and presents it in an accessible and entertaining way (one of my favorite examples is the copying machine experiment). Many of the examples in the book are recognisable in your own life, as well as in the way good marketing people try to get us to purchase their products.

Linked + Six Degrees - two books on networks

2006-03-29T15:20:00.000+02:00

Titles: Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life and Six Degrees: The New Science of Networks
Authors: Albert-Lászlo Barabási (Linked) and Duncan Watts (Six Degrees)
Genre: Popular Science/sociology/networks
Readability: Linked is very easy to digest, Six Degrees is at times more academic.

Two recent books I have read about the emerging science of networks, as it is applied to areas such as social networks and the diffusion of ideas, the spread of AIDS and other epidemics, and the structure of the internet.

Linked is the best of the two books. It is eminently readable, serving its findings in neatly chopped up chapters with lots of interesting case stories. Examples range from the story of Patient Zero of the AIDS epidemic (a homosexual flight attendant called Gaetan Dugas who bonked his way though innumerable airport lounges) to the Kevin Bacon game and the classic experiments of Stanley Milgram, who first discovered the 'Six Degrees of Separation' effect. It is a very good introduction to the subject.

Watt's Six Degrees is also well written and covers basically the same subjects, but goes more into the technical details of the science. One thing it does offer, though, is a fascinating insight into how you can use math to gain important insights from a theory. I've gotten more interested in math as a consequence of reading this; previously, I didn't really understand the value of mathemathical modelling in testing scientific theories. (He also wrote a scientific version of the same book, called 'Small Worlds', which is full of equations and obviously intended only for math students or similar. I didn't read it.)

Buying both books doesn't make sense, so if you are interested, go with Linked unless you are curious about mathematical modelling.

Why We Buy - The Science of Shopping

2006-03-20T22:59:00.000+01:00

Title: Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
Author: Paco Underhill
Genre: Factual/retail business
Readability: Very good + entertaining

For more than 20 years, the retail consultant Paco Underhill has studied how people behave in department stores and the like, using video recordings and a host of researchers. In this book, he basically sums up all the knowledge he has gained about our shopping habits, and he does so in a very accessible and humorous way.

Why We Buy has an almost anthropological feel to it as it describes the weird shopping habits of women, men, children, and women who drag their men and children with them. A favorite of mine is the Butt-brush Factor, which refers to the fact that a woman will leave a store display immediately if the aisles are so narrow that passers-by accidentally brush the woman's butt while she is contemplating the goods on display. The book is filled with little observations like this one.

A must read for people who are in the retail business, and a good read for just about everybody else interested in consumer behaviour. I felt like trying to run a department store after reading it.

By the way, Underhill also wrote a follow-up, Call of the Mall. That one, though, is not nearly as good, and is written in a really annoying style. ("We are driving towards the mall. It is big. [etc.]") Only read it if you have a specific interest in American shopping malls.

The Wisdom of Crowds

2006-02-25T23:10:00.000+01:00

Title: The Wisdom of Crowds
Book author: James Surowiecki
Genre: Factual/decision making
Readability: OK - although slightly long towards the end

The basic idea of this book is that groups of people often make better decisions than individuals, even if these individuals are experts. Surowiecki makes his argument with a number of different examples, from democracy to the stock market. He also explains the instances where group decision-making processes go wrong, and what can be done to ameliorate them.

The Wisdom of Crowds is well argued and solidly based in science. It has a slight academic bent, which can make a few of the later chapters somewhat heavy to get through, but most of the book is quite readable. Should be of significant interest to people who are interested in political science, in the stock market, or in similar cases of collective decision making.

Blink + The Tipping Point

2006-02-25T22:50:00.000+01:00

Titles: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Genre: Factual/business/marketing
Readability: Exceptional - he writes very fluently

Most people have by now heard of The Tipping Point, and with good reason. It is an excellent book, full of ideas and interesting facts, and Gladwell writes very well. I ran into the book in Harvard's wonderful bookstore, The Coop, when visiting my brother in Boston in 2000, only to see it grow into a phenomenon during the next couple of years.

Most of the ideas in the book are not Gladwell's own, but he summarises and connects existing theories with eminent clarity. Everything related to social networks is in here - six degrees of separation, strength of weak ties, critical mass, etc. Definitely a book that will make you think - and especially relevant for people with an interest in marketing, viral and otherwise.

Gladwell's second book, Blink, is equally well written, but contains notably fewer ideas. Instead, he explores his main proposition - that snap judgments are often better than careful analysis - from several different angles, and does so convincingly. A good book, certainly a worthwhile read, but not comparable to The Tipping Point. His occasional articles for The New Yorker are also worth a visit.

The Pillars of the Earth

2006-02-25T22:38:00.000+01:00

Title: The Pillars of the Earth
Author: Ken Follett
Genre: Fiction
Readability: Very good - despite the length

Ken Follett normally writes decent-but-not-divine thrillers about secret agents and stuff. Don't hold it against him. This book is his absolute masterpiece, different from everything else he has written, and one of the most captivating fiction books I have ever read. And I am rarely this enthusiastic about books.

In essence, it is about a group of people in medieval times trying to build a church. Not your average sales pitch for a book, I know, but it is nothing short of riveting. I know many people who consider this book one of their favorites. It is long - over 1.000 pages - but don't let that scare you. You will likely breeze through it in a few days.

Enough said. Do yourself a favor and see if you like it.

The Paradox of Choice

2006-02-25T21:57:00.000+01:00

Title: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Author: Barry Schwartz
Genre: Factual
Readability: A fast and easy read

The subtitle of this book - 'why more is less' - pretty much sums up the basic point of the book: that we currently have too many options available to us, and that we would be better off if we had fewer things to choose from. This is applied to everything from consumer goods to educational choices. The book parades the value of freedom from choice rather than freedom of choice.

The main idea is that having excessively many options force us to spend more time searching for information and deliberating about the choices that face us. And to top it off, we do not feel happier with our choices. Schwartz claims that the so-called satisficers - people that settle for 'good enough' - are generally happier than the maximisers, who always try to get the very best of everything.

Like many American books of this type, The Paradox of Choice is slightly longer than it should be; it spends quite a lot of time repeating its basic point across different fields. There are some interesting anecdotes and facts in it, though, especially on how people make decisions. Check out this example of how memory works, taken from the book.

Wedellsblog goes live

2006-02-25T21:19:00.000+01:00

I love books. They make me feel nice and warm all over. There are very few things better than sitting down with a good book, and none of them can generally be purchased for under 20 EUR.

I have repeatedly tried to transfer this love of books to my friends. For years on end, they could look forward to finding 'Molecular Biology Explained' or 'Arthur Clarke's Greatest Sci-Fi Stories' under the Christmas tree. Only belatedly did I realise that my gifts were not received with the same amount of enthusiasm as, say, a nice sweater or an envelope full of cash.

So now, I have instead decided to start blogging about the books I read. I'll tell you about the good ones, and warn you about the worst ones. On occasion, for the factual books, I'll even provide short summaries so you can pretend to your friends you have read them, too.

Obviously, a number of my first postings will be about books I read a while ago, but the plan is to keep it fairly current. More than a 'favorites' list, I mean this to be an inspiration to people who are interested in the cool new books that come out with some regularity.

Just to warn you: I have somewhat idiosyncratic tastes. For instance, when it comes to fiction, most of the so-called classics doesn't do anything for me; I simply find them too long-winded compared to the standards of contemporary writing. A lot of the supposedly great comtemporary writers are not to my liking, either. I found John Fowles' 'The Magus' completely plotless. Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth' bored me. Of Paul Auster's stuff, the only book I liked is 'The Book of Illusions' - the rest were too pretentious and artificial for me.

As to the world of factual books, this will be somewhat caleidoscopic; I am interested in a very wide range of subjects, from business to brainstorming, from sex to sociology, from economics to evolutionary biology.

Just so you know what to expect. Enjoy the reading.