The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick

The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick

This is a wonderfully written fantasy novel. What sets this novel apart is that it is not just big men with swords and wizards. Everything in it from the pipe smoking woman with a red talking cat to the giant ancient magical sailing ship where most of the story resides is beautifully described. The details of the characters are very well done. For example the villains don't just fight and cast magic; they deceive, poison, bully, steal, and enslave.

The heros are quite intriguing, a tarboy (child which mends sales and ropes on ships) named Pazel with a gift for tongues, an intelligent rat, an ambassadors daughter and her bodyguard, and a wizard in the body of a mink. They face many trials from a villainous conspiracy whch is trying to start a war and disguising it as an attempt at peace.

The writing makes the escape into another world seamless. I especially like the creatures in the story, like the ixchel; tiny men who are treated like rats, and the flickermen; men who light up like fireflies and steal children into slavery.

This is a very entertaining story that is intelligently thought out. I look forward to reading the next book in the trilogy which comes out in 2010. If you want an fantasy novel that will keep you up late at night reading this is one of them.

Daily Thoughts 7/11/2009

Pearl Buck receiving the Nobel Prize from King Gustavus V in Stockholm

Daily Thoughts 7/11/2009

The book Free by Chris Anderson is generating a lot of controversy. It is something we ordered a while ago. I think the controversy will make more people want to read the book. I read The Long Tail also by Chris Anderson and was not that impressed. It reminded me of a new way to package niche marketing. Thttp://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670080.html?desc=topstory

I walked up to my local library and dropped off a few books. It was very pleasant outside today. I did not get any more books to read.

I have been reading Marketing Without Advertising. It is a fairly dense text. The premise is that advertising is not the best way for small businesses to get customers. It describes ways to build a client base by having excellent customer service, generating recommendations, using informational products like brochures, and generating goodwill. The book has lots of recommendations in it.

Sometimes when you are looking through the magical land of the internet, you find odd things. Michael Jackson's visit to the Strand Bookstore. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-bass/the-day-i-met-michael-jac_b_225954.html

Daily Thoughts 7/10/2009

book wall at House of the Book in the city of Leipzig/Buchwand im Haus des Buches in Leipzig

Daily Thoughts 7/10/2009

I spent some time looking at http://www.spdbooks.org/ Small Press Distributors which is a nonprofit organization focused on distributing small press titles. Many of the titles are unique and high quality. There is a lot of poetry here, especially modern fiction and poetry. Some of it is experimental and would never be distributed by large publishing houses or book distributors.

I also spent a little bit of time looking at the New Releases section of the Mysterious Bookshop. They include a few espionage novels which look quite interesting. http://www.mysteriousbookshop.com/?page=shop/browse&category_id=21&CLSN_2723=12472333322723e70ee980e4654b4b63

Today was another fairly busy day. I used the content of my postcard on ebooks to redo it as a flyer which should look very interesting. I also did a display of some of our rare books from storage. Some of them are quite interesting. We have a first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica which is interesting to look at. We also added some more baskets for the nonfiction area of our slat walls. I am still doing some evaluation of the 700s.

I picked up two books to read this weekend, Marketing Without Advertising Easy Ways to Build a Business Your Customers Will Love & Recommend by Michael Phillips & Sally Rasberry and The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Both look like very interesting books.

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

This book is about how people make decisions. The book cites many scientific studies on decision making and brain science. Jonah Lehrer focuses on emotions and how they affect our decision making. He argues that emotions are the primary source of decision making. The ability to make the simple choice between yes and no is an emotional one.

We learn about the weaknesse in reason which lead to faulty thinking like spending too much with credit cards; why too much information can lead to bad decisions; and when it is best not to analyze and go with your feelings.

There are many examples of high pressure decisionmaking illustrated in this book; crashlanding an airplane, football quarterbacking, and surviving a forest fire are a few of them. A lot of these decisions are intuitive and analysis of the decisions are made afer they are done.

The book also describes decision making in poker and backgammon where there is both an element of feeling and a certain level of logic. Champion poker players know the odds but they also must be able to bluff and gage their opponents reactions.

I found the book useful. It reminded me that sometimes it is a good idea to let a decision wait a while and not think abut it consciously. I waited a couple days before writing this review.

This book challenges the idea of pure Cartesian logic. It argues that we are in a constant dialogue between our reason and our emotions. This is often not at a conscious level. Our emotions are the startng point. It describes a model of decision making centered in emotions and modern brain science. It also cites one of my favorite books, Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio.

Jonah Lehrer writes for the Mind Mattrs blog for Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=mindmatters

Daily Thoughts 7/9/2009

Menander, A Painting from Pompeii

Daily Thoughts 7/9/2009

I am off by a little bit today, it really is the ninth, I put the tenth down by mistake and then corrected it. A whole day disappeared. Today was another day. I have been working with the collection. We had a meeting to discuss technical services. I am going to be shifting some books in the 700s pretty soon.