"Libraries are my candy store."

 Now, dear reader just because I haven't posted "What I'm Reading This Week" since egads May, doesn't mean I stopped reading. Far from it. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph some of them. No matter, we'll play catch up today. For a while now something

niggled at me while reading. Why was I more easily bored? Why did I compulsively scan and skim? Maybe this has happened to you: you simply are reading less because you can get your news or any other info online. Who needs to read an entire book when you can read a synopsis on your smart phone? My fears and suspicions cheered when I read The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. It’s true. The Internet is actually rewiring our mushy little brains and not in a good way. Check out his website for more of the scientific data written with wit.The Shallows

I needed something brainless after reading that. What better than a wonky memoir from Brit bad boy comedian Russell Brand? Who is their right mind titles a memoir My Booky Wook? The memoir is more of a rambling free fall recording than a book. It’s funny in parts but trying a wee bit to hard to be outrageous.Russellbrand.com

 

The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich paints an unflattering view of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg grew up a five minutes from my house where his dad, a dentist still lives and works from.  I can remember my annoyance while held captive in his dental chair, mouth open wide and frozen as he flashed a copy of Mark on the cover of a magazine. He was more interested in talking about his accomplishments than my teeth. He’s no longer my dentist but I am begrudgingly on Facebook. Like father like son, this quote sums up his persona. "Marketing is conversational, says Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and advertising is social. There is no intimacy that is not a branding opportunity, no friendship that can't be monetized, no kiss that doesn't carry an exchange of value. The cluetrain has reached its last stop, its terminus, the end of the line. The social graph, it turns out, is a platform for social graft."

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon has the most enticing cover I’ve seen in long time. Evocative of another era and clever in having the too short jacket expose an image of books.

The effect depicted in The Shallows was in full force. I skimmed to no avail. The writing is dense, chewy and good but I wanted fast food not a five coarse meal. Sadly, it was too long for me to finish. I hope you have better luck. It’s worth it. I love his website. A treat for readers or writers. carlosruizzafon

 

As a professional intuitive, I wanted to hate this book but I didn’t. The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons The Invisible Gorilla  is beguiling with research of how our mind distorts and plays tricks on us. Fascinating stuff but it’s like throwing the baby with the bath water. Real intuition exists and the authors at times use the word intuition in misleading ways. Intuition is the result of the way our brains store, process and retrieve information on a subconscious level says Professor Gerard Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organizational Strategy, Learning and Change at Leeds University Business School. According to his research, intuition is a real psychological phenomenon, which needs further study to help us harness its potential.

Through analysis of a wide range of research papers examining the phenomenon, the researchers concluded that intuition is the brain quickly drawing on past experiences and external cues to make a decision on a non-conscious level. In other words, it happens so fast that we’re not aware that the intuition actually stemmed from a supercharged burst of logical thinking. “People usually experience true intuition when they are under severe time pressure or in a situation of information overload or acute danger, where conscious analysis of the situation may be difficult or impossible,” says Hodgkinson.

Hodgkinson cites the recorded case of a Formula One driver who braked sharply when nearing a hairpin bend without knowing why he was doing so. As a result, the driver avoided hitting a pile-up of cars on the track ahead, which undoubtedly saved his life.“The driver couldn’t explain why he felt he should stop, but the urge was much stronger than his desire to win the race,” explains Professor Hodgkinson. “The driver underwent forensic analysis by psychologists afterwards, where he was shown a video to mentally relive the event. In hindsight he realized that the crowd, which would have normally been cheering him on, wasn’t looking at him coming up to the bend but was looking the other way in a static, frozen way. That was the cue. He didn’t consciously process this, but he knew something was wrong and stopped in time.”

The research published in the current issue of the British Journal of Psychology, suggests that intuitive experiences are based on the instantaneous evaluation of such internal and external cues – but does not speculate on whether intuitive decisions are necessarily the best ones. However, if intuition is anything like it’s slower counterpart known as “logic”, then it is not infallible as amply demonstrated by men like George W. Bush, who often say they are “going with their gut” as opposed to thinking the matter through. As with all things, there is such a thing as too much of good thing. Of course, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean it’s useless either.

Hodgkinson, who is a chartered occupational psychologist, is interested in studying how intuition works within a business framework, where executives and managers often claim to use intuition over deliberate analysis when a swift decision is called for. “We’d like to identify when business people choose to switch from one mode to the other and why – and also analyze when their decision is the correct one. By understanding this phenomenon, we could then help organizations to harness

 Okay enough musing. My intuition says it’s time to fire up the BBQ and I predict fireworks in my future this evening hehehe.