{"id":342,"date":"2013-01-04T09:19:47","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T16:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tylersuzukinelson.com\/blog\/?p=1607"},"modified":"2013-01-04T09:19:47","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T16:19:47","slug":"2012-summary-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/2013\/01\/04\/2012-summary-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 Summary: Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a summary of my reading from this past year. I set a goal on Good Reads to read 25 books this year, and I just<\/em> managed to meet my goal. So here’s a summary of my reading from the past year, in descending order of my assigned rating.
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    1\/5 Stars<\/h2>\n
  1. Caitlin Kiernan’s Threshold<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: June 16, 2012<\/em>
    \nA friend lent me this book, but I didn’t enjoy it very much. As I recall, it is a fiction book which blurs the line between reality and delusion, but I found the blur to be too great to be sensible.<\/li>\n
  2. Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: September 7, 2012<\/em>
    \nAs a fan of Nabokov’s Pale Fire<\/em> and Lolita<\/em>, I had hoped that this book would be just as enjoyable. On the contrary, the book followed the unfortunate mishaps of Professor Pnin. As unfortunate as the mishaps were, however, I didn’t find any of them particularly interesting.<\/li>\n

    2\/5 Stars<\/h2>\n
  3. Harry Lorayne & Jerry Lucas’ The Memory Book<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: August 22, 2012<\/em>
    \nThis book seemed to be okay… …as a textbook. The book was too practice-based for me when I read it (I was taking no courses, and thus had nothing extensive to try memorizing). It was also to repetitive. I found the book to be mostly examples, all of which were extensions of only a couple of key ideas presented by the book.<\/li>\n
  4. Simon Sinek’s Start with Why<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: October 16, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n
  5. Shane Mac’s Stop With The BS<\/em>
    \nRead: December 4, 2012<\/em>
    \nI admit that I did find some of the ideas in this book interesting. However, on the whole, I found most of the experiences of Mac (this book was a compilation of short thoughts he had on random topics, all written while on a long train ride) to be all-in-all un-enlightening.<\/li>\n
  6. David Allen’s Ready for Anything<\/em>
    \nRead: December 30, 2012<\/em>
    \nAfter finding his Getting Things Done<\/em> to be quite useful, I thought I’d also check out Allen’s Ready for Anything<\/em>. In this book are 52 short essays, each covering some aspect of productivity. Unfortunately, more than new ideas, I found this book to be mostly essays on “How to fix your GTD… …when you’re doing it wrong.”     But I did<\/a> get quite a<\/a> few good quotes<\/a> from the book…<\/a><\/li>\n

    3\/5 Stars<\/h2>\n
  7. David Allen’s Getting Things Done<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: January 3, 2012<\/em>
    \nThis is Allen’s Getting Things Done<\/em>–one of the best known self-help books. It wasn’t my first time reading it, but it was my first time implementing the system. I’ve been using the system since (tweaking it here and there), but I’ve found it to be working pretty well. I’ll be revisiting this book again this week to touch up my GTD system before I go back to work next week.<\/li>\n
  8. John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: January 8, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n
  9. John Marsden’s The Dead of Night<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: January 22, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe second book in the Tomorrow<\/em> series.<\/li>\n
  10. John Marsden’s A Killing Frost<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: February 4, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe third book in the Tomorrow<\/em> series.<\/li>\n
  11. John Marsden’s Darkness, Be My Friend<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: February 23, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe fourth book in the Tomorrow<\/em> series.<\/li>\n
  12. John Marsden’s Burning For Revenge<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: March 24, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe fifth book in the Tomorrow<\/em> series.<\/li>\n
  13. John Marsden’s The Night is for Hunting<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: April 6, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe sixth book in the Tomorrow<\/em> series.<\/li>\n
  14. John Marsden’s The Other Side of Dawn<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: April 8, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe seventh (final) book in the Tomorrow<\/em> series.<\/li>\n
  15. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: April 15, 2012<\/em>
    \nI don’t have to say much about this book because it was so big this past year anyways… My brother had the box set, so I decided to borrow it and check out the series. As it turned out, the books turned out to be a very light read. I did like the series, as I found the plot and characters to both be interesting.<\/li>\n
  16. Suzanne Collins’ Mocking Jay<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: May 13, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe third (final) book in the Hunger Games<\/em> trilogy.<\/li>\n
  17. Kenneth Blanchard & Spencer Johnson’s The One Minute Manager<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: September 19, 2012<\/em>
    \nA super short read, this book talks about managing people effectively by developing goals with them, praising them for what they do right, and letting them know where they went wrong. I liked the idea of the book, but I didn’t like how it was presented.<\/li>\n
  18. Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: September 27, 2012<\/em>
    \nMiddlesex<\/em> is an autobiography by intersex individual Cal. I liked how the style in which the book was written, and I liked reading about all the challenges experienced by the narrator. What I didn’t like was the autobiography being more about Cal’s ancestry as opposed to Cal himself.<\/li>\n
  19. Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: October 27, 2012<\/em>
    \nAs a regular reader of     Newport’s blog<\/a>, I decided to check out his new book when he announced it on his blog. I thought it would be interesting to get a perspective countering the Passion Hypothesis. However, what I found instead was a common-sense argument against a weaker version of the Passion Hypothesis (ie. if you want to get a good job<\/em>, do what you love). His points I feel are an important reminder to some, but all-in-all I didn’t feel they brought many new ideas to the table for most.<\/li>\n

    4\/5 Stars<\/h2>\n
  20. Philip Dick’s Ubik<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: January 2, 2012<\/em>
    \nA science fiction read, Ubik<\/em> was the best book I’d read in a long time. I especially liked the style it was written in. However, it may be too bizarre for some to enjoy.<\/li>\n
  21. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: April 29, 2012<\/em>
    \nI think many people are familiar with the dystopia that is Brave New World<\/em>. I liked the ideas that were presented in this novel, but I do recall preferring the style of 1984<\/em> over that of this one. Still, a good read for an interesting thought experiment about various aspects of society.<\/li>\n
  22. Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: May 8, 2012<\/em>
    \nThe second book in the Hunger Games<\/em> trilogy.<\/li>\n
  23. Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: October 6, 2012<\/em>
    \nI feel that the ideas on personal development in this book are both practical and important. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People<\/em> looks at how you operate alone (eg. with your emotions and decision making), and then with other people. In looking at these aspects of life, it helps the reader explore whether or not they’re living life as they want to, and if not, it pushes them to change.<\/li>\n
  24. Daniel Pink’s Drive<\/em><\/a>
    \nRead: November 14, 2012<\/em>
    \nI feel that Drive<\/em> offers an important perspective on motivation that explains much behaviour in the world today. For instance, why are students not motivated to do their homework when we tell them they will get an A for getting it done? This book explains why carrot-and-stick methods of motivation do not always work, and why it is often important to consider autonomy, mastery, and purpose when considering motivation. I feel that this book provides a good overview of why this may be a better explanation for motivation than simply the carrot-and-stick motivation that was commonly referred to previously.<\/li>\n
  25. Matthew Inman’s How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you<\/em>
    \nRead: December 31, 2012<\/em>
    \nThis is the first laugh-out-loud book I recall reading since Azumanga Daioh<\/em> (see below; all the sub versions were cut horribly, so I decided to go with a dub). I thought it was a funny look at cats for cat-lovers.<\/p>\n
    \n

    https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jbz2cBeIS_M<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The post 2012 Summary: Reading<\/a> appeared first on \u5922\u3068\u611b\u306e\u5343\u591c\u4e00\u591c<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is a summary of my reading from this past year. I set a goal on Good Reads to read 25 books this year, and I just managed to meet my goal. So here’s a summary of my reading from the past year, in descending order of my assigned rating. 1\/5 Stars Caitlin Kiernan’s Threshold […]<\/a><\/p>\n

    The post 2012 Summary: Reading<\/a> appeared first on \u5922\u3068\u611b\u306e\u5343\u591c\u4e00\u591c<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,474],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}