Category: Writing

author: Lise Eliot
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/14
date added: 2010/09/21
shelves: gender, health, non-fiction, psychology, science, sociology
review:
Great review of all the science on gender differences in children, and how our gendered society conflates tiny differences into separate childhood cultures. On a practical level, each chapter includes how to compensate for the weaknesses and use the strengths that do have a genetic component. (She has 3 kids, by the way, 2 boys and a girl, and uses them as anecdotes from time to time.)

If you have ever gnashed your teeth walking through a Toys R Us, this book is for you.

author: Lise Eliot
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/04/14
date added: 2010/09/21
shelves: non-fiction, psychology, health, science, sociology, gender
review:
Great review of all the science on gender differences in children, and how our gendered society conflates tiny differences into separate childhood cultures. On a practical level, each chapter includes how to compensate for the weaknesses and use the strengths that do have a genetic component. (She has 3 kids, by the way, 2 boys and a girl, and uses them as anecdotes from time to time.)

If you have ever gnashed your teeth walking through a Toys R Us, this book is for you.

author: Chip Heath
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/03
date added: 2010/09/21
shelves: business, non-fiction, psychology, read-again, science, self-help, wishlist
review:
They pull together a lot of the literature around the psychology of personal change and organizational change into something very clear. (Much like Made to Stick, as you might imagine.) It’s been a couple of weeks since I actually read it, so some of the details are weak in my memory now, but the overarching metaphor remains helpful. Would like to pick up a copy for my personal reference.

author: Chip Heath
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/03
date added: 2010/09/21
shelves: business, non-fiction, psychology, science, self-help, read-again, wishlist
review:
They pull together a lot of the literature around the psychology of personal change and organizational change into something very clear. (Much like Made to Stick, as you might imagine.) It’s been a couple of weeks since I actually read it, so some of the details are weak in my memory now, but the overarching metaphor remains helpful. Would like to pick up a copy for my personal reference.

author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/15
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:
Awesome, as always. Kay remains pretty much my favorite fantasy author ever, or at least in the top 5. Fascinating story with lots of twists & turns, vivid setting (a fantasy China/Mongolia), and complex compelling characters. Plus: ghosts! assassins! warrior monks! palace intrigue! spooky stuff! Devoured the whole book in about a day, which is probably a little crazy; in my defense, it was a sick day. Sometimes his endings are painful, this one splits the difference with both happiness & melancholy.

C just finished it yesterday, and as he notes, it’s also great fuel for my still-developing Central Asia-based game world, up to and including the inside-cover map. 🙂

author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/15
shelves: fantasy, fiction, favorites
review:
Awesome, as always. Kay remains pretty much my favorite fantasy author ever, or at least in the top 5. Fascinating story with lots of twists & turns, vivid setting (a fantasy China/Mongolia), and complex compelling characters. Plus: ghosts! assassins! warrior monks! palace intrigue! spooky stuff! Devoured the whole book in about a day, which is probably a little crazy; in my defense, it was a sick day. Sometimes his endings are painful, this one splits the difference with both happiness & melancholy.

C just finished it yesterday, and as he notes, it’s also great fuel for my still-developing Central Asia-based game world, up to and including the inside-cover map. 🙂

author: Diane Ravitch
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, sociology
review:
She closely reviews the literature around accountability testing and school choice, after describing how she came to be an advocate for those things. Curiously enough, she wrote the history curriculum for CA in the late 80s that I went to high school under. And the data doesn’t follow what she had hoped for, in fact in many cases it’s entirely counter-productive. If you’ve followed this stuff at all, then there’s nothing massively surprising, but lots of interesting food for thought. (A friend of mine is a high school English teacher in Texas; I’ve listened to a few rants.) A good reminder that there are no simple options for improving education, altho there are lots of simple obvious ones…that happen to be wrong.

What I find curious, personally, is that she was an advocate of these ideas at all. Her background is in looking at the simplistic education fads of the past, so choice and testing ought to have sounded warning bells. A testimony to the power of peer pressure, I suppose.

author: Diane Ravitch
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, sociology
review:
She closely reviews the literature around accountability testing and school choice, after describing how she came to be an advocate for those things. Curiously enough, she wrote the history curriculum for CA in the late 80s that I went to high school under. And the data doesn’t follow what she had hoped for, in fact in many cases it’s entirely counter-productive. If you’ve followed this stuff at all, then there’s nothing massively surprising, but lots of interesting food for thought. (A friend of mine is a high school English teacher in Texas; I’ve listened to a few rants.) A good reminder that there are no simple options for improving education, altho there are lots of simple obvious ones…that happen to be wrong.

What I find curious, personally, is that she was an advocate of these ideas at all. Her background is in looking at the simplistic education fads of the past, so choice and testing ought to have sounded warning bells. A testimony to the power of peer pressure, I suppose.

author: Raj Patel
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/09/01
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: economics, environmentalism, history, politics, read-again, sociology, urban-studies
review:
It hit a raw nerve for me about where I am in life and society, and I’m still trying to figure out how to describe that experience. I’d like to read it again and maybe make some notes as I go. Left with a vague sense of wanting to do something, but not enough of a strong direction of what exactly that ought to be. (That may just be about me.) Recommended with that reservation.

author: Raj Patel
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/09/01
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: economics, environmentalism, history, politics, read-again, sociology, urban-studies
review:
It hit a raw nerve for me about where I am in life and society, and I’m still trying to figure out how to describe that experience. I’d like to read it again and maybe make some notes as I go. Left with a vague sense of wanting to do something, but not enough of a strong direction of what exactly that ought to be. (That may just be about me.) Recommended with that reservation.