Jul 13, 2015 | Reading Life
How I Came Across the Title
The real question is, How could I not come across Thinking, Fast and Slow? The book was displayed wherever books were sold when it came out in 2011. I was always tempted to buy it due to its very intriguing title, but that year was when I resolved to read the unread books already in my possession. When the Kindle version of the book was on sale for $2.99 last year, I jumped on it. Of course, it took me more than a year to finally read it, but I’m definitely glad I can be counted in the company of those who have finished it!
Thoughts on the Book
I always appreciate books that make me think about thinking and that can refine my thinking. This book details how judgments are made in our mind and warns against false intuitions, biases, and illusions of truth. I posted a few thoughts as I went through the book:
Don’t Jump! – about jumping into conclusions
When Size Matters – about evaluating statistical information
OK, But Not OK. Not OK, But OK – about the discrepancy between perception and reality
I’ll be writing an overall review for BookWoms soon, but in short, I really enjoyed the book!
The Trail
The subject matter of the book lies in the intersection between economics and psychology. If this book appeals to you, you’d probably also like the following books:
The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
As for me, reading this book makes me want to read these two books by Nassim Taleb, who is quoted a number of times in the book:
The Black Swan (Good thing this book is already on my bookshelf)
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Enjoy Thinking!
Jul 10, 2015 | Faith, Reading Life
This post was featured in Joseph Nally’s blog last year.
When you open the front cover of a book, you symbolically open a door to your mind. You are letting the author of that book to enter your being and make changes there.
Reading is a form of transaction. You are giving the author—stranger, friend, or foe—a piece of your life, your time, and your thoughts. The author has the opportunity to make claims, explain them, and persuade you to think like he does. In exchange, he is offering you enlightenment, new knowledge, new line of thinking, or perhaps just an opportunity to exercise your brain and refine your thoughts.
Reading is a form of communion. But it is not like any other hangout session as we often have with our friends and acquaintances. Only those in our innermost circle get the license to hearing our deepest thoughts and convictions for an extended amount of time.
In reading, however, you and the author have access to each other’s deep convictions for hours at end. You can’t cut each other’s sentences or rebut thoughts instantly. The luxury of time allows you to understand the other side much more, if you let him finish his thoughts to the end of the book.
Reading changes you. Consciously or not, your mind changes slightly with every book you read. You may conform to the author’s ideas or reject them. In either case your mind will take a different shape than when you first began.
Which is why a Christian should take care when choosing his reading materials, for he may end up conforming to a shape contrary to what he intended. Because of the intimate communion that takes place in reading, the author will always imprint a certain character of himself to the reader.
Yet what better way it is to spend a piece of your life with the Book that contains the Word of life. The Bible, when read with awe and respect, opens up a communion with an Author who transcends matter, time, and space. It is a mind-to-mind communion with God, the Creator of the universe. Who better than Him to transform and change you? Whose ideas are better to agree with? And whose mind is better to mirror than God’s? Any other book, even a Christian one, must needs take a lesser rank.
Visit many good books, but live in the Bible. – Charles Spurgeon
