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In order to get a better understanding of literature, I've decided to do an abridged read-through of the most referred-to book in the western world: the Bible. This version includes a 90-day "Tour of the Bible" reading plan so I can hit the main points. For example, we'll entirely skip the book of Leviticus and its endless lists of clean and unclean acts.

Not bad so far, just introducing a few thousand characters. This may be the kind of book that I have to reread just to understand everything. For example, I thought Ned (who is also Eddard?) and Robert were brothers, but apparently that's not literally true. I'm also starting to see some rapey undertones from the constant mentions of Dany "waking the dragon."

We've made it to the Lonely Mountain. One thing I wonder is why they stay so long at the places they've stopped: when they got to Elrond's, Beorn's, and the lake town, they stopped for like two weeks each. Seems like a very casual approach to such an important mission. Also, apparently in the Age of Magic, "riddle" pretty much meant any obscure reference that the listener would never guess unless he already knew.

Still not a whole lot of hard information about her career or home life. It's more about how she felt going through each of those stages and the lessons she learned. A few sections are just straight lists of advice. Also, she constantly name-drops. I think she's mentioned her "good friend Louis CK" three times so far.

This isn't a laugh-out-loud funny book, though Poehler's charm certainly comes through in the audiobook and there are a few jokey bits here and there. It's also a little too convoluted to be a standard "my time with SNL" memoir. This is more like a story about her personal growth, about the most important lessons she's learned and how they happened.

Chapter 12 was interesting; his thesis is that marketers have gone so overboard with their claims and small print that advertising we're putting up walls and adding new caveats in our minds to everything they say. Chapters 13-14 were about dishonesty and theft; nothing new here. The three key components to casual theft are desire, opportunity, and rationalization.

Chapters 10-11 cover expectations. Nothing terribly groundbreaking here; if you tell somebody that a thing was really good, they'll enjoy it more. This expectation bias also extends to prices; a brand-name medication is actually more effective than a chemically identical generic simply because we believe it to be so.

Chapter 9 is pretty short. We don't like narrowing our options, even if we're not sure we want what those options have to offer. In fact, we'll expand an inordinate amount of energy to keep those doors from shutting. Great achievers are often great because they devoted 100% of their time and energy to one cause, but for most of us, that's too scary. What if I want the other thing later and I can't have it?

Chapters 8-9 are about commitment. In chapter 8, they discuss why it's so hard to get rid of clutter or downshift to a more relaxed lifestyle. Once we have something, even if temporarily or only in our imagination (like an eBay auction where you're currently the high bidder), we have a hard time letting go. That's why free 30-day trials work so well; once that treadmill is in your house, it's hard to send it back.

Chapter 7 continues with the "hot and cold" theme to discuss procrastination. Basically, when we're being calm and rational, we think we'll do what's best for ourselves. However, when the time comes and we're faced with a trade-off between short-term work and long-term benefit, we take the lazy way out. The author's solution was to provide an immediate pleasant consequence to offset the immediate work.

Mirkwood, spiders. Haven't made much progress on this because I wanted to burn through "The Martian". Will get back to it soon.

Wasn't planning to read this for a while, but after learning that the author was doing an AMA on Wednesday, I jumped in. Most of the "action" is growing plants and repairing equipment, which should be dreadfully boring, but the protagonist/primary narrator has a great sense of humor.

Chapter 15 was mostly about the victors' parade; the main takeaway is that it was huge, about as big as the parades marking the end of the Civil War. There's also a 15-page Epilogue describing the men's lives after baseball. Not surprisingly for such a rowdy and hard-living crew, many met an early end.

I had the ending prematurely revealed when Whispersync sent me to the end of chapter 14 instead of the beginning. Still, it was fun to see the pennant race play out and how all those little decisions could have made the difference.

I had the ending prematurely revealed when Whispersync sent me to the end of chapter 14 instead of the beginning. Still, it was fun to see the pennant race play out and how all those little decisions could have made the difference.

Chapter 6 says we're less rational and more impulsive when emotions run high. No surprise there. The bigger deal is that we don't understand that about ourselves. Even after the fact, we tell ourselves that it was a one-time thing and we're not really like that, almost as if we were somebody else at the time. Suggestions include automated monitoring and intervention when high-risk behavior is detected.

Chapter 5 is more about social norms v. market norms. Suggests that Cap & Trade may create a perverse incentive by allowing countries to pay for permission to pollute. It may be better to get govts to see pollution as a moral or human issue and act according to their consciences. Seems like that's what we've been doing for the last fifty years with little result.

Got through the Misty Mountains, met the eagles, now telling Beorn a story. More convinced than ever that Peter Jackson was trying to rip us off by stretching this out into three movies.

If you've ever had to explain to somebody why they can't give cash as a gift, chapter 4 explains this nicely. We often do favors for friends and family with the understanding that they'd do the same for us. Once money is introduced, we cross into the impersonal world of the free market and evaluate things more objectively, often meaning we'll only do as much as we're being paid to do.

Chapter 10 is the story of baseball's color line, focusing on Moses Fleetwood Walker, one of a few black major leaguers in 1883. The author's take is that some black players were good enough that many white players feared for their jobs (though that interpretation is probably as much a product of our time as theirs). Enough players threw a fit that the leagues banned black players, a ban that would last 60 years.

In terms of actual plot advancement, there's not much to say here. Chapters 5-9 are basically stories about curious characters or incidents from the 1883 season.

It's a quick read, but so far he hasn't said anything too revolutionary. It's more like a book that people read so they can shake their heads at "those poor brainwashed consumers." As for the advice itself, of course someone who grew up paying $15 for a CD is willing to spend more than someone who's accustomed to pirating music. If you make stuff free, of course it becomes more appealing. It's not rocket surgery.

Also, this book feels like it could be a lot shorter. I know that I'm ultimately responsible for my life, and if I don't like a situation I should change it or get out. I don't need fifty pages to understand that. Maybe you could have used some of that ink to explain that sometimes we avoid doing something because of unpleasant near-term consequences, but by doing so we compromise our long-term happiness.

A lot of the things in this book feel like clichés, but I suspect it's sort of a "Seinfeld is unfunny" situation; these phrases are common now because this book coined them, and they've since been copied to the point of becoming that cliché.

Done with Habit 1 - Be proactive. Basically the same message as "Fish!" but a little more eloquent and it doesn't sound quite as made up. The author also puts some thought into how a positive and practice attitude can help a person become more influential.

The busy season at work is done, so I'm using some of that time to read business books. So far, this one is pretty standard; the author criticizes other books as quick-fix remedies, whereas he has found The Truth(tm). The difference, he claims, is that his book isn't about tricks or strategies, but about building good character. If you want respect, be somebody who is worthy of respect and who respects others.

The first three chapters are basically just setting the stage for the 1883 season which is the main subject of this book. The NL's response to the Association was interesting because it wasn't about competition so much as a need to keep players on a short leash; as long as the NL was the only professional league in the country, the threat of perma-bans could be used to keep wages down and players in line.

One of the main themes in the final chapters is Yeltsin's pettiness and hypocrisy. He criticized the privileges of the Party, but he readily took those same privileges for himself, justifying it by saying that in their new capitalist world, anybody could have these things. Having campaigned for more openness and democracy, he continued to use the powers of state to harass and censor those with whom he disagreed.