Book review I think the first thing I should say, upon re-reading The Wee Free Men, is that the nostalgia goggles are in full effect here. I still remember exactly where I was the first time I picked this book up. I couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, and I was staying the …
Book review This is a totally refreshing take on fairytales: everything is part of The Tradition (imagine scary music entering). And I’m not kidding when I say the Tradition can be scary. There are people who are sort of chosen, around which the Tradition gathers potential, a power that drives them to follow a certain …
Book review It makes me sad that my bookclub friends did not like the Alanna books. If they had read them as kids I know they would have loved them. To some degree I can see how they did not enjoy these books as adults. They were Pierce’s first published books and so they are …
Book review Guys, guys, guys, I love this book! Where has Mystic and Rider been all my life? Where has Sharon Shinn been? With Troubled Waters, I expected adventure, so you can imagine my surprise when it was a rather “calm and tension-free” story, mostly about self-discovery, which wasn’t bad because the magic and fantasy …
Book review I missed Tris! Four books was far too long to go without her. But what a freaking pay off. Boy is she a fantastic, complicated, deeply fascinating young woman. I love how clear it is that she is the intellectual in the group of four. She is always pondering the why and how …
Book review As I have started teaching my oldest child’s math course this year, this book became a necessary addition to my study. It was proposed by the school, as consonant with their constructivist philosophy. Although already a radical constructivist on many levels, from my philosophical affinity to phenomenology and constructivist epistemology, and my deep …
Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers – Jo Boaler Read More »
Book review Notes from “A Mind for Numbers” – Skim through the titles and look at questions (psets) before reading the chapters– Metaphors are powerful to learn – Using focused mode, you can learn a lot of skills in whatever area. The diffused mode is better for big perspective things, like learning smth new– Einstellung …
Book review This book totally shifted my thinking about problem solving in general. Probably ‘in general’ is a great phrase to use with this book because the methods and heuristics described here seem so widely applicable, I would recommend this book to nearly anybody who’s work involves some kind of problem solving. The book takes …
How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method – George Pólya Read More »
Book review One of the best Reacher novels I’ve read so far. Reacher is sucked in by a damsel in distress–an Hispanic woman who has been beaten by her husband and sneered at by the dominant white community for years but who refuses to run away making her daughter and herself ‘illegals.’ She’s hoping Reacher …