Week Thirty Three: Connected by Nicholas Christakis MD, PhD & James Fowler, PhD

Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas Christakis MD, PhD & James Fowler, PhD - (draw a breath) - is basically everything it says it is in the title.

This book was fascinating for introducing me to the obvious but in logical and reasonable ways - making what I thought (and sometimes the opposite) a rational choice or an untenable position.

A few key concepts, people don't act rationally - this we know from plenty of other books I have read in the last 33 weeks (59 seconds, Freakonomics & Sway) - but newtorks act oddly rational if you can see the wider connections.

Weaker ties can be much more beneficial than stronger ones. Cliques are exclusive and harder to penetrate, weak ones to strongly tied individuals are great for recruitment of new and also for idea and evolutionary innovation.

Positional inequality is often a better driver for success and recognition that hierarchical inequality. In HI there can be only one, a highlander style event that eliminates and isolates all but the top. In PI you can connect to people with a good HI or other trait and by distance and strength of tie you can shortcut your path to influence and recognition.

Fascinating book and a lot of ideas within will migrate to my new job. I will put it aside and note down ideas of relevance in each chapter as I gather the thoughts I had while reading this.

Next week - Philip Zimbardo needs to be finished. Or something else if that gets too depressing (the reason I have not finished it to date).

Week Thirty Two: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones marks the first two books in this project by one author I have read one after the other. Every thing I have read by Jones, I have loved. his writing is clear and lyrical and heat achingly good.

Mister Pip is sweet, fairytale imaginary and shockingly real. The shattering of their otherworldly reality by the factions of Papua New Guinea is both surreal and hyper real and took me completely by surprise and did a great deal to unsettle me as the reader. I can see and feel it taking place.

It is going to be a movie shot in PNG and NZ, starring Hugh Laurie as Mister Watts the teacher. I can totally see that and I think it will make a great film.

Next week: I don't know. Candidates include Sara Paretsky, A book on social networking, a segue to the State of Jones or Mother Jones. One of these I guess.

Week Thirty One: The Book of Fame - Lloyd Jones

The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones is one of those weird books where you cannot separate fact from fiction. Based on the Originals Tour of the UK, by way of France and America it's a snapshot (or more rightly hundreds of little snapshots) of Rugby, Kiwi Life and the dawning realisation that New Zealanders are a people to be reckoned with on and off the field.

National Identity by way of a game of Rugby. Sounds sad, but is not. Thanks to Steve, by way of Paul who loaned the book to me after being loaned it quite some time ago.

Really enjoyed this book and it reminded me in style of Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke, but with an infinitely better aftertaste.

Next Week expect great things or prepare to be connected to something - we'll see.

Week Thirty - More Than Human

More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon is a classic sci fi novel written back in the 1950's and is way ahead of it's time when aliens and spaceships reigned supreme.

The idea that the next phase of human evolution would be to share hive-mind features and become Homo Gestalt rather than the tradational psychic, telekinetic or other mutant gene selections. Getting away from the selfish "what would you want to evolve" and writing a book about the next phase that arrives without choice, without understanding and without ethics.

In three parts it starts each time in one place and unravels back from there to understanding and eventually resolution.

Enjoyed - the only Sturgeon I have ever read, but may have to dig out some more.

Next week, whatever I can fit around moving ...

Week Twenty Nine: The Prince by Machiavelli

The Prince by Niccolo Machivelli is a misunderstood work of history. Maybe for it's time it was unthinkable to think like a person in the age of reason, but that's really what this book is about.

Supposedly an amoral treatise on how to screw others out of power and how to be a tyrant, the actuality is far from that.

Perhaps this is the original Richard Dawkins, dropping for once in the time of the Medicis the conceit that God, Morality and Power are all linked, Machiavelli dares to suggest that there are many shades of grey and that assessing your situation and reacting accordingly is the "right" thing to do.

Also the idea that perhaps psychology and behavior can be predicted and our actions can affect them in others. Best quote, a man who relies on fortune for good will be at it's whim when fortune turns foul (or something like that).

Surprisingly good read for an old Italian book.

Next Week - something short, less wordy and archaic.