Books – Kōrerorero

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Not a bad read, its very very anecdotal, but thats what makes it a fun read. Dont base your life on it, but it does raise some interesting points.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I bought this book at one of the bookstores in the Heathrow airport, W H
Smith probably but it doesnt really matter, and it is a great read. Its not
groundbreaking or revolutionary or anything like that, but it is
entertaining and it does remind you to not take things at face value. In
fact all of the reporters in NZ should be required to read it, just so that
they might finally understand that correlation does not imply causation.

Some fun ideas

Ive been playing with a couple of neat little things. One of them is indy.tv From the site:
“Indy is a music discovery program that learns what you like, and plays more of it. And it’s free.

Indy makes it easy for you to find great new independent music. Just download Indy and double-click: as it plays songs, you rate what you hear. Indy quickly learns what you like and gets really smart about sending you more music you’ll like. Let Indy help you find your place in the collective consciousness as you help other people find theirs.”

The other is Connectviabooks which is like an online book club.

Man and Wife – Tony Parsons

Well I got about 82 pages into this and gave up. Its probably an alright
read, but it sure isnt my cup of tea.

The Colonizer and the Colonized

By Albert Memmi.
A great read, not exactly uplifting, or light bedtime reading but hugely
insightful. Written from the perspective of a Tunisian Jew, who was one of
the colonised but whose people identified more with the coloniser, Memmi
shows how colonisation damages both the coloniser and the colonised.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

A great read, this must be the sixth time ive read it. And I still enjoy it everytime. That reminds me I must buy Monstrous Regiment.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

As always a hugely enjoyable read, and a great way to spend the trans tasman
flight. It certainly beats the shite that they were pretending was a movie,
or eating the shite they were trying to convince us was food. I remember
back in the day, Air New Zealand used to win awards for its food and wine
service, now its worse than the food they used to serve in the hostel
kitchens of uni in the last term when they had blown the budget.
Anyway this isnt supposed to be a rant about crap airline food, but rather
to say that this a book thats well worth reading.

Category: Books