Category: Books
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How to write good
How to write good By Frank Visco Avoid Alliteration. Always. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.) Employ the vernacular. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. Contractions aren’t necessary. Foreign words and…
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“Made in America” by Bill Bryson – reading notes
Made in America is an interesting story of the history of the English language in America. Anyone with an interest in language, writing or US history would enjoy it. I read the book in May/June 2012. This is a printout of my reading notes that contains new terms and ideas. Made in America By Bill…
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Gettysburg Address
Parsed for memorization. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can…
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“Virus of the mind” – margin notes
This book was published in 1996 by Richard Brodie, the original author credited with publishing Microsoft Word. Although I may be reading it 15 years late, it seems that some of the concepts are more relevant today than when the work was published. These are unformatted margin notes from my reading, published here in my customary…
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Excuses Be Gone – margin notes
by Wayne Dyer read in January 2012. These are the margin notes: Tao relation to Bruce Lipton p. 6 memetics – the habitual mind “We don’t like to use the term “cured” in the mental counseling profession, it’s bad for repeat business”. (TV show) meditation – p. 29 visit Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond in…
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Applebee’s America reading notes
– by Douglas Sosnik, Matthew Dowd, Ron Fornier 2006 – “A How To book on fooling the public” p 218 Gut Values Connections “it’s not issues that count but gut values connections” Life Targeting It’s the Lifestyle Stupid Navigators and Influentials Religion of business; Corporations infecting faith Lloyd Hill of Applebee’s: Emotional investment in people…
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Review of “The Biology of Belief”
Is there scientific evidence for a spiritual afterlife? If so, it’s easy to conclude that it will not found in the way that many of us expect. If not, how do we explain the growing body of scientific findings that conclude that DNA and known environmental factors do not encode all of life’s development? Dr.…
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book review: “The Secret” reading notes
My take home notes from The Secret: The law of attractions really works. How am I feeling? (I can’t have good thoughts while feeling bad). To attract money, focus on wealth. Visualize checks in the mail. Feeling happy is the best way to bring money into your life. Focus on qualities I love about myself…and…
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Reading notes for “Storms of My Grandchildren”
“Storms of My Grandchildren” is a book that needs to be rewritten. Climate change may be the most important and most complex issue that our generation may need to grasp and James Hansen is the clear authority on the subject. That makes it particularly regrettable that this is only the second book reviewed this year that I do not have overwhelmingly…
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book review: Reading Notes for “The End of The Line”
“The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What We Eat” by Charles Clover 2006 University of California Press – read October 2010 The Problem 75% of world’s fisheries are fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted. Demand continues to grow sharply. Commercial fisheries use modern “fish-killing machines” (p 42); technology creep increases…