One of my least favorite book about China is being made into a film.., what a surprise. Throw in a little blond, with some tits and ass, and a miserable attempt at a sex and the city + lost in translation, and you got it.
:dead: :beadyeyes2: :sleeping:
Anyway, check out these books from my collection:
Edit to add, forgot to post names.
http://www.librarything.com/work/438047&book=15235961. Mr. China By Tim Clissold- reviews :
I doubt I'll read a better business book this year. A cracking tale of a man trying to set up and invest in businesses in China, it reads sometimes like a drama, sometimes a soap opera, sometimes a comedy and sometimes a travelogue. It works on all these levels too. You can't help feel sorry for Clissold as he wrestles with business case situations that would be near impossible to control in the West never mind China, involving fraud, cheating, lying, shooting, rioting and cultural racism. The stress almost kills him, but underneath it all there is an affection for this country and all its foibles that allows him to forgive it and its people. He wants to help them to a better life, and believes capitalism is the answer. Money, however, seems to bring out the worst in many people whatever culture they're from, and millions are squandered in every chapter. One of the most amazing cultural depictions therefore, is that of Wall Street, dolling out hundreds of millions on the strength of a presentation or two. This is a sobering picture of what the capitalists are doing with your hard-earned money you put away for your retirement - gambling it on a fashionable whim with about as much information as you could pick up from an edition of Newsweek. I'd thoroughly recommend this book. ( 5 stars )
uryjm | Sep 4, 200
Now, this is how a memoir should be written, especially on a subject like China. He was charmed by the mystery of China, and moved there on a whim and a prayer. (Actually I felt that his Madam Butterfly reference is fairly correct, because that's almost how China is. )
He moved to Beijing around 1988/89, and tried to learn Mandarin. He ate cabbage Beijing style, and watched the slow transition of a country's rise from communist country to that of a quasi captialist one. As Clissold has said in the book, the Chinese are captialists in heart.
In less than 20 years, China has risen from a super poor country to a quasi economical super power. The burning passion from every Chinese to escape poverty, crime, governmental control, and their attempts at building a brighter future for themselves are all presentd here in this book.
This isn't a sucess story. In fact, this is a story about failures, but the more he "failed", the more he learned about China in a more fundamental way. The last chapter is especially touching. He decided to travel 1000 kms on his bike through some of the poorest regions of Northern China. And how he felt when he went to Pudon in Shanghai. In his own words, "I felt like I've been inside for too long, and when I came out, the sunlight was blinding me."
His parting wisdom is important to all that players effecting China - China will be China, and it will do things on its own pace, in its own way. You can't hope that China will change on your behalf, because it won't. All those people that said that China will eventually see light of reason and play the way everyone plays, well.., read this book.
HIGHLY recommend it. (5 stars )
Shiva | Mar 11, 2007
http://www.librarything.com/work/928813&book=203866422. The Cultural Code. By Clotaire Rapaille If you have ever traveled anywhere that has a remarkably different culture than yours, you'll start the appreciate what he is saying.
http://www.librarything.com/work/3394404&book=54424813. The long tail : why the future of business is selling less of more
by Chris Anderson
I should begin by stating that I'm not a fan of audiobooks. I've tried them on multiple occasions but I don't like the fact that I don't have a book in which to underline salient points or to thumb through later for reference. These are shortcomings that I have never gotten past. These deficiencies also make it difficult to write a well-supported review. With my bias on the table, here 'tis:
The Long Tail is a book that focuses on one of my favorite subjects - Internet commerce. In his book, Chris Anderson proposes the theory that the Internet has/will change the future of retailing (and TV, movies, communication, etc.) from a culture of "hits" to one of hyperindividualism. He states that there are several reasons for this but two of the primary reasons are the limitless "shelf space" of the Internet and the superior search/filtering tools of the web.
He explains that the graphing of sales for almost any type of good when delivered through a shelf-driven delivery system (i.e. store) will show a very tall spike on the far left for those items which are extremely popular (the "hits") and then that tail drops quickly. Given the limited amount of shelf space, retailers are also extremely selective about what goes on shelves. Therefore, once that spike ends, the tail is rather short. If an item doesn't move a minimum level of product, it gets pulled from the shelves. This is not the case on the web. There is limitless shelf space because hard drives and bandwidth are cheap. With that constraint removed, they carry in the range of 10 - 100x the number of products of their brick and mortar competitors.
However, there are studies that have shown that when people are given too many choices, they go into a sort of analysis paralysis buying less than they would with a well-defined and manageable selection set. Is that the case with the web? Actually, no. Anderson explains that consistently across multiple web retailers (Amazon, Rhapsody, etc.) around 98% of the offered products sell at least one unit each month.
Why are they not going into this analysis paralysis? Anderson posits that it's because of the superior recommendation functionality built into the fabric of the Internet. You have intelligent search capabilities, peer ratings, peer and expert recommendation lists, etc. All of these pop up with the simple typing of a few keywords. For example, while there may be 2000 different books on guitars on offer (daunting if you saw them on the shelves), you can search for a book on guitar music theory and the field is narrowed to 50 that are ranked in descending order by customer/peer ratings. You can then filter that further with a click or two. Wow. As you can imagine, the average retail employee can't be an expert on every topic so your results in a store may be hit or miss. On the web, you have a collective intelligence and excellent tools to help guide you.
On the web, since so many of these products sell at least a few units, it detracts from the highest selling products. Sure, the best sellers will still be best sellers but the sales spike is flattened somewhat and a very long tail stretches out the curve. Anderson explains that >25% of total sales of Amazon and other examples are in that tail of selling one or two units per month. Interesting.
These are the two real takeaways from The Long Tail. For these two points and the support of them, the book deserves five stars. It's a revolution that we're seeing through the Internet and it won't slow any time soon.
So why did I give it 3.5 stars? Unfortunately, Anderson continues on to get into more theoretical topics that he doesn't do as good a job of supporting. There's a lot of "I would argue that..." going on and his opinions on the future impact of the Internet. For example, he debates whether or not human culture will suffer as a result of people creating relationships and communities online rather than in person. Will people become less social and suffer as a result? I would suggest that this is the topic for another book. Anderson makes a mediocre argument for the topic and it seemed out of place with the rest of the text. There were other similar discussion points in the book that were incongruous with the core theme of The Long Tail.
Nonetheless, this is a very informative book that brings into focus some of the changes we're experiencing as a result of our friend the World Wide Web. I'd recommend it. ( )adamallen | Aug 4, 2007
4.
http://www.librarything.com/work/36980 Perfume : the story of a murderer
by Patrick Suskind; German title: Das Parfum. Die Geschichte eines Mörders.
I was curious about this book as it is such a hype. Naturally, I had a lot of expectation so I saved it for proper savouring during a recent mountain trip. I finished it in two days as it was an easy read.
The writer picks an unusual angle to tell his story: he explores the world through smell. The book, originally written in German, is a story of a young man, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who is born without a smell on its own (how that is even possible I am not sure) but instead is blessed with a keen sense of smell. He then works at a perfume house in Paris and then becomes obsessed with the quest to create various types of human smells. The obsession turns him into a killer.
Let me start, as always, with the good stuffs. The descriptions are amazing. How do you thoroughly describe smells? Even prolific wine writers must resort to nasty descriptions such as odors of manure and wet dog to describe their tastings due to lack of descriptive vocabularies. Through his creative narration, the writer evoke a powerful olfactory journey in his written world. He can even describe the smell of a doorknob!
Süskind also brings in an interesting notion that smell plays an important albeit stealthy role in us being accepted in our social pack. As Grenouille has no smell on his own, he becomes an outcast. I guess he is talking about pheromones and Grenouille's lack of it.
Reading the book, I did not imagine the brick-and-mortar Paris but the smell of Paris built on wisps in different thickness and colours to represent odors. It is extremely unique.
The story line, smooth and wonderful as it is, is a little strange. The tight pace unfortunately unravels to a looser thread and creates a plausible ending which is a pity. The immediate reaction when I finished was I didn't know what the fuss was all about. It is certainly unique, it is creatively written, it is engaging but something is missing and up to now, I really cannot pinpoint what that is.
I can wholeheartedly say that this book is recommended. However, like the delicate, wispy and fluid nature of smell, the goodness of the book keeps on coming in and out of my grasp. I cannot really say whether it's a good book or not. This is unsettling, just like the book. ( 3 1/2 stars)
vtn | Dec 24, 2006 |
5. Sophie's world : a novel about the history of philosophy
http://www.librarything.com/work/26151&book=1526914by Jostein Gaarder; Norwegian title: Sofies verden: Roman om filosofiens historie
As I read Sophie's World, I was suddenly assaulted with visions of my characters plotting against me -- and in more dire ways than not co-operating when I wish to write about them.
Sophie's World is a book about philosophy. I never would have thought of a novel as a way to teach philosophy, but it works very well, for Gaarder (or would it be the major?) can make Sophie's life illustrate the very ideas she's studying, to the point that it can even descend into absurbist drama to illustrate Sartre's existentialism. (I'll be reading more about Sartre and Beauvoir, among others.) I've often wanted to study philosophy and didn't know whose writings to choose as a beginning -- and all the overviews I found were hopelessly dry -- until Gaarder's novel. Though he has by no means covered, or even mentioned, all the important philosophers, he's given me a place to begin.
More than a book on philosophy, Sophie's World is also a book about books...books within books...books that appear within themselves, until the reader starts to wonder if he himself might be fictional after all, just a figment of some author's imagination.
I can only say I hope my author is nicer to me than I'm being to my poor Jack.
(I'm off to hide under the bed now.) (5 stars )
regency_cate | Mar 10, 2007
