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Mahjong is a popular Chinese game, which was a huge fad in the Western world in 1920s and has since lived through waves of popularity. Currently the game is on the rise again. This handbook is from 1960's, but still very much worth reading. The copy I have says it's first printing from 1964, but I believe 2007 is the correct year.
Whitney covers a form of mahjong that was current in the 1960's, the Japanese classical mahjong. The game isn't played that way in Japan anymore, the more modern riichi mahjong is much more popular there, but it doesn't make this book obsolete (unless you're looking for information on mahjong as played in Japan today), because classical Japanese mahjong is a good mahjong rule set for beginners.
This handbook is a good choice for beginners: the rules explained in the book are simple and sensible, the presentation is excellent and the new edition looks really smart. Whitney covers the basic rules, scoring, offers plenty of alternative and optional rules to spice up the game and the book even has a pretty strong section on beginner mahjong strategy.
So, if you've got a mahjong set and want to learn how to play (perhaps your set came with rules you can't understand), getting Whitney's handbook is a good idea. [ Mah Jong Handbook at Amazon.co.uk ]
Classic economics is based on the expectation that people behave rationally and with their best interests in mind. From a common sense approach this seems like an odd expectation, as people generally don't seem to act rationally. Professor Ariely agrees and continues to say that the irrationality of people is actually highly predictable.
This book goes through plenty of examples, demonstrated by experiments that prove the point. Ariely shows how free is more attractive than very cheap, how more expensive medicine works better than a cheap pill, how things you own seem a lot more attractive to you and so on - the predictable irrationality becomes clear.
The result is an interesting book that offers lots of entertaining insights to human psychology. If you're trying to sell something, this book will give you tools to push your customers to paying higher prices for the products you want them to buy. Then again, if those customers read this book, they'll learn to see through their irrationality and make at least slightly more rational decisions.
Behavioral economics - as Ariely's field is called - is rather interesting, and this was an educational and interesting book. [ Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions at Amazon.co.uk ]
The science magazine New Scientist features Last Word, a weekly where readers can send questions about the science of everyday life. The answers are collected from other readers, who include experts in many different fields. Some of the more interesting questions are collected in this little book.
The questions vary from mundane to quite obscure, and all are answered thoroughly and with expertise. Most of the topics are from everyday life, but others are stranger. How to make sure your body is fossilized after you die? Well, read this book and you'll know.
This is a fun little book, full of entertaining science. Some answers are useful, others are less so, but all are rather delightful and often feature good sense of humour. Anyone with a healthy curiosity and appreciation for science will enjoy this book. (Review based on the Finnish translation.) [ Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Questions (New Scientist) at Amazon.co.uk ]
I love a good history book that explains the origins of something mundane and common-place. Kurlansky's Salt is a perfect example. This book is about mirrors, which is another great topic. And sure enough, the book starts well by describing the history of mirror-making. It's an interesting story, if a bit French-centric, and features suspense and the makings of an agent novel when France and Venice competed against each other.
However, from there on the book gets downright boring. The author forgets the concrete objects and focuses on literature, sociology, philosophy and metaphysics. Perhaps the rest of the book works for a reader who is interested in the effects of mirrors in the psyche of a French nobleman in the 17th century, but that's not me. I would love to hear more about making mirrors, really.
There's no doubt that the author is French, so extensive is her use of French sources and her focus on French life. The book could be titled The Mirror - A French History. I did read through the whole book, but skipped along rather briskly in the end. Only occasionally I found something worth a deeper look.
So, I'm recommending this book with some reservations. The first part is interesting and definitely worth reading, but if the beginning of the second part doesn't please you, read no further: it doesn't get any better. (Review based on the Finnish translation.) [ The Mirror: A History at Amazon.co.uk ]
Other blogs writing about the book:
Syaffolee: Zzzzz
Allen's Getting Things Done is something of a legend in the field of productivity consulting. The book is a major best-seller that has sold an obscene amount of copies in several languages. And why not? The book is definitely a reasonable guide to being more productive in work and life in general. Modern information workers have problems with the boundaries of work: instead of concrete objects, they deal with neverending projects and information flows. Too much energy is spent to figuring out what needs to be done and when. Inboxes flood with things to deal with.
Allen offers a solution. His method is simple, but efficient. It involves creating a simple organisation system and using it to resolve matters as soon as they arrive: as soon as something hits your desk, you file it to the correct place in your organisation system or get rid of it. Large projects are looked at from the point of view of next action. The purpose of the system is to free the mind to focus on creative thinking instead of worrying about missing things.
The system seems sound. The book convinced me enough to give a reduced version of the system a go: I now have a bunch of lists on my computer to keep me up to date with all of my projects - hopefully! Getting Things Done is an inspiring and pleasantly concrete book that avoids the philosophical meanderings and focuses on simple and easy-to-implement devices and methods. If you're in trouble managing your projects, read this book! (Review based on the Finnish translation.) [ Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity at Amazon.co.uk ]
The God Delusion was both entertaining and illustrating. I suppose you can guess my religious views now? Dawkins hits a full barrage against religion and the results are hit and miss. At times he's just ranting crazy, at times he's right at the mark. The result is, indeed, entertaining, but best if not taken too seriously.
Still, Dawkins has good points and at least parts of the book would be worth reading to some people - perhaps that would help those people understand the atheist's view of the world. Of course, reading some other parts would make those same people tremble in divine anger, so perhaps it would be best to just distribute the best parts... [ The God Delusion at Amazon.co.uk ]
Other blogs writing about the book:
One Good Thing: The God Delusion.
David Takes on the World: David Takes On: The God Delusion and The Conservative Right
Notes in Samsara: Book Review: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
This book promises to teach all the necessary tricks and tips so that the readers can achieve the desired status of a cool dad. There's party games, outdoor fun, magic tricks, urban legends, funny facts, all sorts of stuff.
It is rather entertaining collection. The illustrations could be better and some of the material is less inspiring, but for a small book, it's reasonably packed with neat stuff. Oh, and mothers can use it just as well! [ Be the Coolest Dad on the Block: All of the Tricks, Games, Puzzles and Jokes You Need to Impress Your Kids (and Keep Them Entertained for Years to Come at Amazon.co.uk ]
Other blogs writing about the book:
Boing Boing: Be the Coolest Dad on the Block -- book pick
Do you want to sell something with a web site, but aren't satisfied with your sales? You know your copy could use some editing, but aren't sure how to proceed. Worry not! Writing killer web copy is easy when you know the secrets of doing it right. In this book, Maria Veloso reveals the secret of writing web copy that sells, and all you need to do is to buy this book and you too can sell like a pro.
If this book works, that should motivate you all to go buy this book. Well, I don't know how effective the teachings of this book are, but Veloso certainly appears qualified (it's hard to find anything non-commercial about her in the web) and presents a clear, easy-to-follow formula of writing web copy. The ideas seem effective and Veloso's writing is enthusiastic - though at least to my eyes the book seems a tad pushy and aggressive in selling it's ideas, but perhaps I'm not just to used to the American style of direct marketing (I have a feeling that marketing in Finland is considerably less aggressive).
So, if you have web copy to write, reading this book won't hurt and will likely improve your copy, especially if you're interested in the advertorial style of copywriting and write for a web site that's purely dedicated to selling something. [ Web Copy That Sells - The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time at Amazon.co.uk ]
Other blogs writing about this book:
Magnetic Messages: Web Copy That Sells, by Maria Veloso
Shogi is the Japanese version of Chess. It has some rather curious features, but perhaps the most shocking of them for players familiar with the Western Chess is the drops: a captured piece may enter play owned by the captor. That alone makes sure endgames are not boring wars of attrition!
The game can be fairly hard to learn, though, and not the least because of the pieces which are identified by Japanese calligraphy symbols. The same learning curve issue affects this book as well, because Fairbairn uses the Japanese symbols in his diagrams. That's the way to do it, I suppose, as everybody has to learn the symbols anyway to play the game, but it sure makes the book hard to read.
If one is willing to overcome that obstacle, Shogi for Beginners is a fairly thorough introduction to an interesting game. Fairbairn explains the rules in a (mostly) clear way and then continues to basic strategy: castles, openings, middle game, endgame and so on. Shogi isn't easy to learn, but if you're willing to put some effort to it, this book will certainly help. [ Shogi for Beginners at Amazon.com ]
Chinese Chess or Xiangqi is an interesting, fast-paced variant of Chess: similar enough to be fairly easy to learn, yet different enough to be interesting even to those thoroughly bored by Western Chess. It's clearly a game worth exploring, but books on the game are rather rare and hard to come by. Sloan's book is from 1980s and slightly dated, but the game hasn't changed, of course, so the lessons contained are still valid.
To be honest, the book could certainly be better. It does cover everything necessary: it introduces the pieces, explains the rules, explains strategy, has sample games... All good and well, yet the presentation could be clearer, the text a tad more captivating and I would really prefer if the sample games were included in their entirety. Still, it works, and to those who prefer reading books to reading web pages, this is still worth considering. The prices currently asked for the book in UK Amazon are way too much, however. It's not that good... [ Chinese Chess for Beginners at Amazon.co.uk ]
