Christopher Meyer (Author), Julia Kirby (Contributor)
5 stars (N=5)
kindle, hardcopy
For half a century the US has sat at the center of the global economic system, and Western-style capitalism has dominated. Now, it's no secret that the center of gravity is shifting. The advanced economies that in 2000 consumed 75% of the world's output will, by 2050, consume just 32%. Meanwhile, the emerging economies of the world--Brazil, India, China, and others--will surge forward.
As these fast-growing, low-income economies mature, will they adopt the practices of the old guard? Or will they make their own way, and create the next prevailing version of capitalism? What new opportunities will that create for firms around the world?
Standing on the Sun tackles these questions with fresh ideas and provocative examples. Based on firsthand observations of companies defying capitalism's old rules yet prospering, the authors outline new principles for commercial success. Among them:
• The obsession with return on equity gives way to more broad-based measurements of success.
• Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market is redeemed by the "invisible handshake" of collaborative networks.
• Businesses take ownership of the impacts they now call "externalities."
Those who need to understand the emerging shape of global capitalism will benefit from Standing on the Sun.
See also this review.
From Booklist
British doctor Goldacre is funny and blunt as he bashes journalists, nutritionists, homeopaths, politicians, and pharmaceutical companies—his favorite targets. Many supposed experts, he writes, are actually people like Gillian McKeith, who recommends enemas for forehead pimples and whose PhD comes from a nonaccredited correspondence course. Goldacre also criticizes South Africa’s health minister, who turned down antiretroviral drugs for AIDS sufferers, instead advocating for raw garlic, lemons, beetroot, and potatoes. Weaving in medical history, he covers famous mistakes, such as Dr. Spock advising moms to put their babies to sleep on their bellies (now known to increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome) and Dr. Andrew Wakefield erroneously linking vaccines and autism (which led many parents to stop immunizing their kids). No coward, he takes former prime minister Tony Blair to task for refusing to say whether he had vaccinated his son. Some readers may wish for more American examples and institutions because this was supposedly retooled for the U.S. market. But all in all, Bad Science is a fun, informative read. --Karen Springen
Review
“Ben Goldacre, a British physician and author, has written a very funny and biting book critiquing what he calls “Bad Science.’’ Under this heading he includes homeopathy, cosmetics manufacturers whose claims about their products defy plausibility, proponents of miracle vitamins, and drug companies and physicians who design faulty studies and manipulate the results . . . While it is a very entertaining book, it also provides important insight into the horrifying outcomes that can result when willful anti-intellectualism is allowed equal footing with scientific methodology.” —Dennis Rosen, The Boston Globe
“I hereby make the heretical argument that it is time to stop cramming kids’ heads with the Krebs cycle, Ohm’s law, and the myriad other facts that constitute today’s science curricula. Instead, what we need to teach is the ability to detect Bad Science—BS, if you will. The reason we do science in the first place is so that ‘our own atomized experiences and prejudices’ don’t mislead us, as Ben Goldacre of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine puts it in his new book, Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks. Understanding what counts as evidence should therefore trump memorizing the structural formulas for alkanes.” —Sharon Begley, Newsweek.com
“Dr. Ben Goldacre’s UK bestseller Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks is finally in print in the USA, and Americans are lucky to have it. Goldacre writes a terrificGuardian column analyzing (and debunking) popular science reporting, and has been a star in the effort to set the record straight on woowoo ‘nutritionists,’ doctors who claim that AIDS can be cured with vitamns, and vaccination/autism scares. Bad Science is more than just a debunking expose (though its that): it’s a toolkit for critical thinking, a primer on statistics and valid study design, a guide to meta-analysis and other tools for uncovering and understanding truth . . . The book should be required reading for everyone who cares about health, science, and public policy.” —BoingBoing.net
“One of the best books I’ve ever read. It completely changed the way I saw the world. And I actually mean it.” —Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist
“Ben Goldacre lucidly, and irreverently, debunks a frightening amount of pseudoscience, from cosmetics to dietary supplements to alternative medicine. If you want to read one book to become a better-informed consumer and citizen, read Bad Science.” —Sandeep Jauhar, author of Intern
“This is a much-needed book. Ben Goldacre shows us—with hysterical wit—how to separate the scam artists from real science. In a world of misinformation, this is a rare gem.” —Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek“Smart, funny, clear, unflinching: Ben Goldacre is my hero. Bad Science should be kicking up the dust on every high school science curriculum in America.” —Mary Roach, author ofStiff, Spook, and Bonk“Ben Goldacre uses a brilliant mix of science and wit to challenge and investigate alternative therapists and the big pharmaceutical corporations. Bad Science is an invaluable tool for anybody who wants to protect themselves from the snake-oil salesmen of the twenty-first century.” —Simon Singh, author of Big Bang and Fermat’s Last Theorem
“Ben Goldacre is exasperated . . . He is irked, vexed, bugged, ticked off at sometimes inadvertent (because of stupidity) but more often deliberate deceptions perpetrated in the name of science. And he wants you, the reader, to share his feelings . . . There’s more here than just debunking nonsense. The appearance of ‘scienceiness’: the diagrams and graphs, the experiments (where exactly was that study published?) that prove their efficacy are all superficially plausible, with enough of a “hassle barrier” to deter a closer look. Dr. Goldacre (a very boyish-looking 36-year-old British physician and author of the popular weekly Bad Science column in The Guardian) shows us why that closer look is necessary and how to do it . . . You’ll get a good grounding in the importance of evidence-based medicine . . . You’ll learn how to weigh the results of competing trials using a funnel plot, the value of meta-analysis and the Cochrane Collaboration. He points out common methodological flaws . . . ‘Studies show’ is not good enough, he writes: ‘The plural of “anecdote” is not data.’” —Katherine Bouton, The New York Times
“British physician and journalist Ben Goldacre takes aim at quack doctors, pharmaceutical companies and poorly designed studies in extraordinary fashion in Bad Science. He particularly loathes (most) nutritionists, especially Scottish TV personality Gillian McKeith. To prove that her American Association of Nutritional Consultants membership isn't so impressive, Goldacre describes registering his dead cat Hettie for the same credentials online. Goldacre shines in a chapter about bad scientific studies by writing it from the perspective of a make-believe big pharma researcher who needs to bring a mediocre new drug to market. He explains exactly how to skew the data to show a positive result. 'I'm so good at this I scare myself,' he writes. 'Comes from reading too many rubbish trials.’” —Rachel Saslow, The Washington Post
4.4 (N = 6)
Metaphors, moral panics, folk devils, Jack Valenti, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, predictable irrationality, and free market fundamentalism are a few of the topics covered in this lively, unflinching examination of the Copyright Wars: the pitched battles over new technology, business models, and most of all, consumers.
In Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, William Patry lays bare how we got to where we are: a bloated, punitive legal regime that has strayed far from its modest, but important roots. Patry demonstrates how copyright is a utilitarian government program--not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a Reaganite "magic of the market."
The way we have come to talk about copyright--metaphoric language demonizing everyone involved--has led to bad business and bad policy decisions. Unless we recognize that the debates over copyright are debates over business models, we will never be able to make the correct business and policy decisions.
A centrist and believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.
3.8 stars (N = 8)
Note: Reviewers note that the Kindle edition has poor typesetting
Since the rise of Napster and other file-sharing services in its wake, most of us have assumed that intellectual piracy is a product of the digital age and that it threatens creative expression as never before. The Motion Picture Association of America, for instance, claimed that in 2005 the film industry lost $2.3 billion in revenue to piracy online. But here Adrian Johns shows that piracy has a much longer and more vital history than we have realized—one that has been largely forgotten and is little understood.
Piracy explores the intellectual property wars from the advent of print culture in the fifteenth century to the reign of the Internet in the twenty-first. Brimming with broader implications for today’s debates over open access, fair use, free culture, and the like, Johns’s book ultimately argues that piracy has always stood at the center of our attempts to reconcile creativity and commerce—and that piracy has been an engine of social, technological, and intellectual innovations as often as it has been their adversary. From Cervantes to Sonny Bono, from Maria Callas to Microsoft, from Grub Street to Google, no chapter in the story of piracy evades Johns’s graceful analysis in what will be the definitive history of the subject for years to come.
From Publishers Weekly:
The recording industry's panic over illegal downloads is nothing new; a century ago, London publishers faced a similar crisis when pirate editions of sheet music were widely available at significantly less cost. Similarly, the debate over pharmaceutical patents echoes an 18th-century dispute over the origins of Epsom salt. These are just two of the historical examples that Johns (The Nature of the Book) draws upon as he traces the tensions between authorized and unauthorized producers and distributors of books, music, and other intellectual property in British and American culture from the 17th century to the present. Johns's history is liveliest when it is rooted in the personal—the 19th-century renegade bibliographer Samuel Egerton Brydges, for example, or the jazz and opera lovers who created a thriving network of bootleg recordings in the 1950s—but the shifting theoretical arguments about copyright and authorial property are presented in a cogent and accessible manner. Johns's research stands as an important reminder that today's intellectual property crises are not unprecedented, and offers a survey of potential approaches to a solution.
by Paul Lockhart
3.9 stars (N = 25)
“One of the best critiques of current mathematics education I have ever seen.”—Keith Devlin, math columnist on NPR’s Morning Edition
A brilliant research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching kids reveals math to be creative and beautiful and rejects standard anxiety-producing teaching methods. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart’s controversial approach will provoke spirited debate among educators and parents alike and it will alter the way we think about math forever.
Paul Lockhart, has taught mathematics at Brown University and UC Santa Cruz. Since 2000, he has dedicated himself to K-12 level students at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York.
Customer review
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Once in a while we read books that we just know are especially important, and that we know we will be thinking and talking about long after reading them. This book is one of them for me.
I am a returning adult student, and I am about to finish my training to become a math teacher. Having gone through my education program, my enthusiasm was just about completely drained, and I've been having trouble remembering why I ever wanted to become a math teacher in the first place. Why would anyone?
Paul Lockhart knows, and his book has reawakened my desire to help students discover the joy of mathematics. His argument is concise, and he makes it forcefully. His book is a joy to read, mainly because his understanding of the subject and his passion for it are clear in every page. He reinforces ideas I already had about how school sucks the life out of math (and all subjects), but he also challenges some of my opinions. I think this will happen with most people who read it.
Once he finishes making his argument about math education in about the first two-thirds of this short book, he devotes the remaining section to describing what he finds wonderful about mathematics itself. This section should make just about anyone want to become either a mathematician or a math teacher.
I want people to read the book for the specifics of his arguments, but I want to discuss one important point that he makes. Many people in math education claim that in order to make math more understandable and interesting to students, we need to show how practical it is and how it is used in everyday life. I've always felt like this idea was wrong, or at least limited in its usefulness in that regard. Well, Lockhart demolishes the idea, essentially claiming that practical uses are simply by-products of math, and that the real excitement and beauty of mathematics is in the abstract, imaginary, and creative world of mathematical ideas that have no specific connection to the everyday. By-products and applications can make math seem boring and secondary to the uses it serves. I agree with him--and much more now after having read his argument.
I honestly think just about everyone should read this book. Of course math teachers should, as should anybody involved in math education in any way. But I think people outside of math education should read it too. The specific mathematical ideas discussed in the book do not require a strong mathematical background, and I can't think of a better book that so concisely conveys the nature of the subject and the way it is viewed and misunderstood in society. I'm still not sure I agree with Lockhart's every point, but I love this book. (And I might agree with his every point after more thought and experience in the classroom.)
From Publishers Weekly
Freedman (coauthor of A Perfect Mess) makes the case that scientists, finance wizards, relationship gurus, health researchers, and other supposed authorities are as likely to be wrong as right. Drawing from personal interviews with experts on experts, he leads the reader on a merry chase down the road of skepticism, uncovering conflicting solutions to how to sleep better, lose weight, avoid heart attacks, build a financial nest egg, lower cholesterol, etc. In accessible language, Freedman explains the flaws that all too easily worm their way into research, including deliberate fudging of data and downright fraud. Fellow journalists, more interested in flashy copy than accuracy, come in for their share of the blame. Google and other Internet search engines add to the problem, sending unfounded facts to millions of computer users. Fortunately, after pulling the rug from under the reader's feet on every imaginable topic—from the relationship of body fat to dementia, the effect of Tylenol on dogs, and how to prevent inflation, Freedman provides 11 never-fail rules for not being misled—but of course, he admits, he could be wrong. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
"An exposé of the multiple ways that society's so-called experts let us down, if not outright betray us. It's a chunk of spicy populist outrage, and it can be a hoot....It's news you can use." (New York Times Dwight Garner )
We are, as Mr. Freedman puts it, living in an age of "punctuated wrongness," usually misled, occasionally enlightened. His goal is a broad account of this phenomenon, how it takes shape through specific problems in measurement, how it spreads through the general idiocy of crowds, and how we might identify and avoid it. Bravo!...[Mr. Freedman] turns to the right kind of experts to articulate general principles-biostatisticians, for example, who can see deeper than the average scientist into the way the data are gathered, analyzed and screwed up...What makes Wrong so right-it being as good as any general account of the fragility of what we take as expert knowledge-is that it raises the right questions." (Wall Street Journal Trevor Butterworth )
"Mind-bending...[A] compelling case that the majority of people frequently recognized as experts...base their findings on flawed information more often than not....readers of Freedman's evidence might mitigate their unwarranted trust in the "experts" who so often offer sound bites on the morning television news-entertainment programs as well as the "experts" promoted by Oprah, Dr. Phil and others of that ilk." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch Steve Weinberg )
"Forcefully argued, focusing on the point where error shades into deceit...Wrong makes a powerful case for the prevalence of scientific ineptitude."
(Washington Post Michael Washburn )
"This is by far one of the most interesting non-fiction books to have come out in recent times. David H. Freedman reveals why and how a lot-if not all-expert advice is either misleading, manipulated as to mislead, or just plain wrong. Freedman, a journalist by profession, pierces through the shell of intellectual confidence in studies-scientific or otherwise-and exposes 'expert advice', 'studies reveal' and 'survey says' as false catch-phrases designed to fool people into believing that we humans know more about the world around us than we actually do." (The Malay Mail Amir Hafizi )
"A revealing look at the fallibility of "experts," and tips on how to glean facts from the mass of published misinformation...Informative and engaging, if not groundbreaking news to more cynical readers." (Kirkus Reviews )
PRAISE FOR A PERFECT MESS:
"An engaging polemic against the neat-police who hold so much sway over our lives." (The Wall Street Journal )
by Paul Midler
4.4 stars (N = 88)
From the Inside Flap
It was a world gone wrong, one in which manufacturers thought little of manipulating product quality levels in order to save the smallest amounts, where savvy foreign business leaders were made to feel in control while they were taken for a ride by their partners, where entire manufacturing facilities sometimes vanished right into thin air… Welcome to Poorly Made in China!
At the height of the boom export manufacturing, Paul Midler returned to East Asia, a recently graduated Wharton MBA. In the right place at the right time, he was sought out by a number of foreign companies who wanted help in navigating the new economy. The adventures came fast, as did the business and cultural lessons.
Poorly Made in China is a dramatic romp through China's export manufacturing sector, one that reveals what really goes on behind the scenes. The story follows the author from one project to the next, taking the reader through a diverse set of industries and revealing a number of challenges.
An engaging business narrative told with doses of humor and insight, this true story pulls back the curtain on the rising Chinese economy, providing a closer look at the rough-and-tumble environment in which so many of our consumer products are being made. For those trying to make sense of why so many quality failures could come out of China at once, this book is an especially interesting read.
Poorly Made in China is the tale of a modern-day gold rush and its consequences, the chronicling of a rising economic power and its path along a steep growth curve. Entertaining and eye-opening, the book highlights the extent to which culture affects business dealings, and the ultimate suggestion is that we may have more to be concerned about than product failures alone.
Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin
5.0 (N = 8)
Think of the toughest problems in your organization or community. What if they'd already been solved and you didn't even know it?
In The Power of Positive Deviance, the authors present a counterintuitive new approach to problem-solving. Their advice? Leverage positive deviants--the few individuals in a group who find unique ways to look at, and overcome, seemingly insoluble difficulties. By seeing solutions where others don't, positive deviants spread and sustain needed change.
With vivid, firsthand stories of how positive deviance has alleviated some of the world's toughest problems (malnutrition in Vietnam, staph infections in hospitals), the authors illuminate its core practices, including:
· Mobilizing communities to discover "invisible" solutions in their midst
· Using innovative designs to "act" your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting
· Confounding the organizational "immune response" seeking to sustain the status quo
Inspiring and insightful, The Power of Positive Deviance unveils a potent new way to tackle the thorniest challenges in your own company and community.
by Kwame Anthony Appiah
4.2 stars (N = 8)
In this landmark work, a leading philosopher demonstrates the revolutionary power of honor in ending human suffering.
Long neglected as an engine of reform, honor strikingly emerges at the center of our modern world in Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Honor Code. Over the last few centuries, new democratic movements have led to the emancipation of women, slaves, and the oppressed. But what drove these modern changes, Appiah argues, was not imposing legislation from above, but harnessing the ancient power of honor from within. In gripping detail, he explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over footbinding in nineteenth-century China, and the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery. Finally, he confronts the horrors of "honor killing" in contemporary Pakistan, where rape victims are murdered by their relatives. He argues that honor, used to justify the practice, can also be the most effective weapon against it. Intertwining philosophy and historical narrative, Appiah has created a remarkably dramatic work, which demonstrates that honor is the driving force in the struggle against man's inhumanity to man.
From Publishers Weekly:
Rooting his analysis firmly in historical manifestations of honor, Appiah (Cosmopolitanism), a professor of philosophy at Princeton, offers four case studies in what he calls moral revolutions, attesting to how altering notions of honor can provoke positive changes in social behavior. Codes of honor surrounding dueling, Chinese foot binding, the Atlantic slave trade, and the ongoing practice of honor killing in contemporary Pakistan are all examined to reveal the various dimensions of honor as it relates to notions of respect, shame, and dignity. Appiah argues for a distinction between honor and morality that underpins how and why abhorrent practices so often continue despite their criminalization. While the author devotes too much space to basic historical narrative and not nearly enough to the complex issues of how honor relates to morality and how it can be distinguished from the constellation of notions like respect that he draws on, it is nonetheless a compelling read and represents a refreshingly concrete solution to the question of how to alter deeply objectionable, deeply intractable human practices.
Review
... the author ... often achieves a Malcolm Gladwell-like balance between argument and storytelling. He stirs in spoonfuls of narrative honey to help his medicinal tea go down. Dwight Garner --The New York Times
Reading [The Honor Code] is like attending a lecture by a lucid and ebullient professor who chuckles over his colorful anecdotes but is ultimately intent on making you think for yourself. Paul Berman --Slate
by Steven Johnson
4.1 stars (N = 71)
From Publishers Weekly:
Johnson--writer, Web guru, and bestselling author of Everything Bad Is Good for You--delivers a sweeping look at innovation spanning nearly the whole of human history. What sparks our great ideas? Johnson breaks down the cultural, biological, and environmental fuel into seven broad "patterns," each packed with diverse, at times almost disjointed anecdotes that Johnson synthesizes into a recipe for success. A section on "slow hunches" captivates, taking readers from the FBI's work on 9/11 to Google's development of Google News. A section on error takes us through a litany of accidental innovations, including the one that eventually led to the invention of the computer. "Being right keeps you in place," Johnson reminds us. "eing wrong forces us to explore." It's eye-opening stuff--although it does require an investment from the reader. But as fans of the author's previous work know, an investment in Johnson pays off, and those who stick with the author as he meanders through an occasional intellectual digression will come away enlightened and entertained, and with something perhaps even more useful--how to recognize the conditions that could spark their own creativity and innovation. Another mind-opening work from the author of Mind Wide Open.
From Booklist:
The figure of the lone genius may captivate us, but we intuit that such geniuses’ creations don’t materialize in a vacuum. Johnson supported the intuition in his biography of eighteenth-century scientist Joseph Priestly (The Invention of Air, 2009) and here explores it from different angles using sets of anecdotes from science and art that underscore some social or informational interaction by an inventor or artist. Assuring readers that he is not engaged in “intellectual tourism,” Johnson recurs to the real-world effects of individuals and organizations operating in a fertile information environment. Citing the development of the Internet and its profusion of applications such as Twitter, the author ascribes its success to “exaptation” and “stacked platforms.” By which he means that curious people used extant stuff or ideas to produce a new bricolage and did so because of their immersion in open networks. With his own lively application of stories about Darwin’s theory of atolls, the failure to thwart 9/11, and musician Miles Davis, Johnson connects with readers promoting hunches and serendipity in themselves and their organizations. --Gilbert Taylor
5 stars on 3 reviews
You have probably have heard of Geoffrey Nunberg -- that brilliant and funny linguist on NPR. He has a brand new asshole book called Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First 60 years. I first heard about it a few weeks back when I was contacted by George Dobbins from the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. He asked if I might moderate Nunberg's talk on August 15th, given we are now fellow asshole guys. I was honored to accept the invitation and I hope you can join us that evening -- you are in for a treat.
The book is a satisfying blend of great scholarship, wit, and splendid logic. It is a joy from start to finish, and the reviewers agree. I loved the first sentence of the Booklistreview “Only an asshole would say this book is offensive. Sure, it uses the A-word a lot, but this is no cheap attempt to get laughs written by a B-list stand-up comic."
Nunberg starts with a magnificent first chapter called The Word, which talks about the battles between "Assholes and Anti-assholes." I love this sentence about the current state of public discourse in America "It sometimes seems as if every corner of our public discourse is riddled with people depicting one another as assholes and treating them accordingly, whether or not they actually use the word." As he states later in the chapter, he doesn't have a stance for or against the word (although the very existence of the book strikes me as support for it), the aim of the book is to "explore the role that the notion of the asshole has come to play in our lives."
He then follows-up with one delightful chapter after another, I especially loved "The Rise of Talking Dirty," "The Asshole in the Mirror," and "The Allure of Assholes." I get piles of books every year about bullies, jerks, toxic workplaces, and on and on. Although this isn't a workplace book, it is the best book I have ever read that is vaguely related to the topic.
I admired how deftly he treated "The Politics of Incivility" in the chapter on "The Assholism of Public Life." Nunberg makes a compelling argument that critics on the right and the left both use the tactic of claiming that an opponent is rude, nasty, or indecent -- that they are acting like assholes and ought to apologize immediately. Nunberg documents "the surge of patently phony indignation for all sides," be it calling out people for "conservative incivility" or "liberal hate." He captures much of this weird and destructive game with the little joke "Mind your manners, asshole."
I am barely scratching the surface, there is so much wisdom here, and it is all so fun. Read the book. Read and listen to this little piece that Nunberg did recently on NPR. This part is lovely:
Well, profanity makes hypocrites of us all. But without hypocrisy, how could profanity even exist? To learn what it means to swear, a child has to both hear the words said and be told that it's wrong to say them, ideally by the same people. After all, the basic point of swearing is to demonstrate that your emotions have gotten the better of you and trumped your inhibitions
3.5 stars on 62 reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Humorist and social critic Rakoff (Fraud) skewers everything from high society to lowbrow politics in this collection of trenchant essays about American culture's excesses and deficiencies. His understated, suave delivery has endeared him to throngs of public-radio fans, and it's an excellent foil for setting up his frequently stinging brand of ridicule. Like David Sedaris, Rakoff's smart writing is elevated by reading his own material, including his hilariously imagined rejoinder to fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. Rakoff clearly writes from a liberal perspective, but his most important viewpoint is that of the savvy and often affronted outsider, whether taking wing amid the opulence of the Concorde or being offered wings in the markedly less elegant comforts of Hooters Air. Whatever the case, his deadpan style and barbed observations bring more than a few targets down to earth.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The belly laughs start on page 7 and occur regularly throughout Rakoff's frequently impertinent, occasionally irascible, yet always inimitable take on contemporary American society. A newly minted U.S. citizen, a process he reveals in all its maddeningly hypocritical inconsistency, Rakoff embarks on a series of journalistic assignments as peculiar in their phantasmagoric diversity as, well, America itself. From the pretentious preoccupation with gourmet dining to the rigor of fasting, Rakoff contemplates the extremes to which we will go in pursuit of our particular, often downright peculiar pleasures. A trip on the Concorde is followed by a jaunt on Hooters Air, and visits to Beverly Hills plastic surgeons segue seamlessly into a tour of a cryogenics storage facility in Arizona. Whether interpreting popular culture or investigating political calumny, Rakoff's cogent observations are delivered with a comforting mixture of appropriate moral outrage and unabashed mocking wonder, as he unfailingly elicits the inherent truths behind our most cherished and churlish institutions. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“If I were to die suddenly while the reading of this book were in my recent memory, I would probably beg to be reincarnated as a bird so that I could eat seed out of Rakoff’s hand. I can’t write a more loving review than that.” —Pop Matters
“A cannily satirical tour guide.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The pleasures of reading what results when an exceedingly sharp pen encounters an exceedingly inviting target are not to be denied, and Rakoff offers many such delights in these pages.”
—Washington Post
“The belly laughs start on page 7 and occur regularly throughout Rakoff’s frequently impertinent, occasionally irascible, yet always inimitable take on contemporary American society.”
—Booklist
“Rakoff’s strength is the turn of phrase that deftly and wittily dissects its subject at a stroke.”
—Chicago Tribune
4.5 stars on 15 reviews
What do these scenarios have in common: a professional tennis player returning a serve, a woman evaluating a first date across the table, a naval officer assessing a threat to his ship, and a comedian about to reveal a punch line?
In this counterintuitive and insightful work, author Frank Partnoy weaves together findings from hundreds of scientific studies and interviews with wide-ranging experts to craft a picture of effective decision-making that runs counter to our brutally fast-paced world. Even as technology exerts new pressures
to speed up our lives, it turns out that the choices we make––unconsciously and consciously, in time frames varying from milliseconds to years––benefit profoundly from delay. As this winning and provocative book reveals, taking control of time and slowing down our responses yields better results in almost every arena of life … even when time seems to be of the essence.
The procrastinator in all of us will delight in Partnoy’s accounts of celebrity “delay specialists,” from Warren Buffett to Chris Evert to Steve Kroft, underscoring the myriad ways in which delaying our reactions to everyday choices––large and small––can improve the quality of our lives.
Review
Roger Lowenstein, author of The End of Wall Street and When Genius Failed
“Having mined the best of American research in fields as wide-ranging as finance, behavioral economics, and law, Frank Partnoy has written a beguilingly readable treatise that boils down to a single, easily digestible conclusion: in our busy modern lives, most of us react too quickly. Wait will naturally and rightly be compared to Daniel Kahneman’sThinking, Fast and Slow as a trail-blazing book exploring the hidden crannies and the treacherous pitfalls of human decision-making. I whole-heartedly recommend it."
Bethany McLean, co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here
“Wait is one of those rare books that will change not just the way you think, but the way you act. The book is full of ideas that are fascinating, useful—and at times mind-blowing. I was captivated.”
Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind
“Frank Partnoy turns conventional wisdom on its head with this counterintuitive approach to decision-making. Rather than telling us how to make decisions faster and faster, he mines and refines a rich lode of information from experts in a surprising variety of fields to demonstrate the power of delay, whether measured in milliseconds, days, or decades. Wait is a great read, chock full of fascinating insights.”
Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“A fascinating addition to the study of decision-making…. While there is a high premium today for speed, the author suggests that there are serious downsides to rapid decision-making.… Partnoy’s results are groundbreaking and a potential corrective to modern pressures for rapid response, whether on the playing field, in high-speed computer trading and corporate boardrooms, or on the battlefield…. File alongside Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Ariely, [and] Jonah Lehrer.”
Strategy + Business
“Gladwell-esque … the book uses case studies of ‘delay specialists’ in realms as varied as stand-up comedy and warfare, extending the implications of postponing responses in order to improve outcomes in every part of our business and personal lives. Procrastinators everywhere will rejoice.”
Washington Post Express
"Citing fascinating studies in tennis serves and first dates, [Partnoy] deftly makes a case for exercising something we could all use more of: patience. Plus, you gotta love a guy who dedicates his book to his golden retriever.”
Jack Covert, 800-CEO-READS
“Well-written…. Chapter Three is particularly fascinating in its implications for how we make decisions and manage the world.”
Margaret Heffernan, CBS Money Watch
“Marvelous … Wait is an impassioned and thought-provoking book."
Christopher Chabris, Wall Street Journal
“Mr. Partnoy's intention in Wait is to take on those who evangelize the power of thinking quickly, ‘getting things done’ and leading an organized life. We can praise efficiency but fail to take note of what is sacrificed in its name. Wait offers a valuable counterweight to this attitude, reminding us that quality should matter as much as speed."
Economist
“A popular new book…. Mr Partnoy argues that too many people fail to recognize what good public speakers and comedians all understand: that success depends on knowing when to delay, and for how long.”
Financial Times
“A superior example of the genre. It is a departure from his earlier books about financial crises, but written with the same easy elegance. ... Partnoy makes mincemeat of the idea of ‘thin slicing’ – the art of making snap decisions based on very little information – that was made so popular by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink. ... As a collection of fascinating case studies, Wait is a gem."
Winnipeg Free Press
“[Partnoy’s] latest offering is a skeptical response to Malcolm Gladwell's 2005 bestseller, Blink... Partnoy spends a lot of time synthesizing recent scholarship, providing clear and accessible accounts of work in an impressive range of academic fields. While the breadth and the depth of his research gives the book's rather straightforward message its complexity and rhetorical power, the book's charm comes from Partnoy's ability to juggle such seemingly disparate topics as, on the one hand, an engaging discussion of recent science on animals and their conceptualization of future time and, on the other hand, an unabashedly doting analysis of the comic timing of Jon Stewart.”
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“Partnoy draws on the latest research in neuroscience and behavioral economics to provide a delightful, insightful and often surprising ‘Wait, wait, do tell me’ account of decision-making in many areas of everyday life, ranging from sports to surgery to speed-dating and stock-picking…. Wait is chock-full of arresting insights about the complexities of decision-making"
Creditcards.com
"A lively, reader-friendly survey of scientific research into the pros and cons of rapid decision-making."
Bloomberg
“An intellectual romp through the science of how timing influences human decision-making.”