Garret Bonnema

This last book is a terrific conclusion to the Mistborn series. In this book, we learn a lot about the two forces in the world, Preservation and Ruin. We also learn the fates of Vin and Elend as well as who is the Hero of Ages. After the second book, I was getting a little worried that this series might have a depressing ending but this turned out great. I liked how Sanderson wrapped up the story.

Unfortunately, The Mistborn series is complete. It’s a little depressing although there is a fourth book called The Alloy of Law which occurs 300 years after times in The Hero of Ages, but it is not technically part of the series. I have already started this book and got though half of it in a day – again demonstrating my obsession with Sanderson’s stories. Anyhow, I give The Hero of Ages 5/5 stars… the whole series is 5/5 for me. Definitely near the top of my list along with the Stormlight Archive, The Farseer Trilogy, and The Kingkiller Chronicles.

The Well of Ascension is the second book of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. The story takes a dark turn in this book – things start looking really bad. We find out that the Lord Ruler wasn’t such a bad guy after all and was responsible for keeping the world from ending. Plus, a great evil is unleashed upon the world with destruction as its goal. The book follows many of the characters from the first book and how they attempt to manage the new empire they have created.

Sanderson is amazing. I really grew connected to the characters – particularly Vin, Spook, Sazed, and Elend. Great book again… this is looking like a great series. My rating 4.5/5 stars.

After a few books on the Holocaust, I was ready to get back to some fun reading. Last year, I read the first book of Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, the first book in his Stormlight Archive series. It was one of my favorite books from last year’s reading. So last month, I started his original Mistborn series. The first book in the series is titled “The Final Empire”.

In this book, the world is ruled by a tyrannical god-like being who has enslaved a large portion of the population called the skaa. A group of skaa thieves join together for the biggest job of their lives – to overthrow the Lord Ruler. Each thief brings something unique to the group. Each has a special talent based on the Mistborn’s magic system. Each person can burn a specific metal for a specific ability. Two of the thieves can burn all of the metals. The book is an entertaining read of how they work together to do the impossible.

I loved the story and basically got through the book in a week. As I initially enjoyed in his The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson is a great story teller.  His writing style really puts you into the story. Great book: 5/5 rating.

Viktor Frankl’s autobiography sparked my interest in the holocaust and I picked up another biography of a woman who survived Auschwitz. Rena and her sister were both located in Auschwitz. Being the older sister, Rena was driven to ensure both her and her sister would survive the Nazi concentration camps. The life in the concentration camp were much more detailed compared to Frankl’s book. Rena tells how she and her sister narrowly avoided being medical guinea pigs for the Nazis. The sisters were inseparable. They even made a pact that if one was selected to go to the gas chamber that the other would go with her so that they could be together.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting read. Rena and her sister have such an incredible story and their strength and determination during that time was definitely inspring.  I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Stumbled across this guy’s story on the web.

 

I stumbled across this 60 Minutes segment on the rise of automation in the US economy. It’s pretty amazing the strides robotics and computer systems have made in the manufacturing sectors of our economy.

It brings up a lot of questions: If the prevalence of robotics in industry continue to rise, will we be able to generate alternative jobs for those low-wage, low-skill people? Even though low skill positions may be replaced first, eventually robotics will replace the higher skill positions too (accounting, engineering, science). How does the rise in automation affect countries like China and India? Chinese and Indian workers may be the first to be impacted by these changes. This video suggests this is the case. When will that happen? Do these changes result in a paradigm shift in society and how wealth is distributed? Is capitalism still possible when the robots do all the work?  Will robotics produce so much in abundance that people will not be required to work? For example, will computers decide adequate economic distributions for each person? If computers do everything better and cheaper than humans, are we heading to a technological-induced socialism? Is that a good or bad thing?

A few days ago I somehow stumbled upon an article on The Atlantic titled There’s More to Life Than Being Happy. The article introduced me to the writings of Viktor Frankl – a man that survived the Nazi concentration camps and eventually became a world renown psychiatrist. One of his key ideas is that happiness should not be the thing that drives a person. Instead, a person should be driven by a purpose. After reading this article, I picked up Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, which he wrote in a few weeks shortly after being liberated from the concentration camp.

To start off, Frankl’s story is amazing. The Holocaust is maybe the one topic that always shocks me every time I learn more about it, whether if that’s in a book, a program on TV, or visiting a museum. The stories that really have an impact on me are those where people overcame horrific conditions and cruelty (e.g. Anne Frank, Corrie Ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, Viktor Frankl). There seems to be some profound insights into human nature by how these people overcame these conditions. Frankl is a great example. Although there was a definite element of luck to his survival, Frankl’s perseverance was based on an underlying purpose for his life. That may be the drive to get back to loved ones, to finish an uncompleted work, etc. Frankl talks about how many prisoners lost that purpose and consequently lost the motivation and drive to overcome the horrific conditions in the concentration camps.

I wonder if Rick Warren referenced Frankl’s work in his book the Purpose Driven Life as the title seems a perfect fit for Frankl’s story and underlying philosophy. (I’m not sure as I haven’t read Warren’s book although I know of its popularity). Frankl’s purpose driven philosophy and the corresponding psychotherapy is known as logotherapy.

The book is a great read. Frankl’s autobiographical story is amazing, yet I’ll remember this book for his philosophy. I feel like every page contains an awesome quote. Here are a few of the quotes I highlighted as reading through the book:

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. 

The salvation of man is through love and in love. 

Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.

I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, “homeostasis,” i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. 

[Decent people] form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. 

I highlighted my favorite of these quotes. It eloquently states one of my typical mental states – that I should be better, that I’m underachieving in the important areas of life – love and charity. I feel like this is a book I should read again. It has an amazing story and contains some profound truths. My rating is 5/5.

So I actually started a textbook on Genetics but it was dragging on so I bought The Kronos Interference from Amazon. Similar to the Wool series, I found this one simply by its high recommendations on Amazon. This science fiction novel deals with time-travel and how changes to the past can have huge unforeseen implications in the present. It was a fun read, especially thinking of how the protagonist of the story would resolve his issues. Pretty good and quick read. My rating: 3.5/5

For my fifth book of 2013, I purchased Wool Omnibus Edition by Hugh Howey, which is actually five mini books. Maybe they’d be called novellas… I’m not sure. I had never heard about this book but it popped up in Amazon with both really high ratings and a lot of reviews. Since I was looking for a good science fiction book, I bought it (and it was cheap at $5.99).

The Wool series started as short stories that were published for free on Amazon’s Kindle platform. Howey’s story caught on and became a big hit on Amazon. I read somewhere that he now makes over $100k each month for this series. Pretty awesome for something that he originally just gave away.

Wool is a post apocalyptic account of people who live in an underground silo shielded from the toxic world above. The people in the silo are also shielded from the truth about why they are there and the world around them. It’s an exciting read to watch the truth unravel in the five novellas. I’d definitely recommend the Wool series. The initial few books in the series were just ok for me. I was thinking maybe a 3/5 rating. The story really started picking up for me in books 4 and 5. I’d rate these 5/5. Fortunately, Howey has added several more books since these so I’ll be adding them to my read list soon.

So overall, I give the Wool Omnibus Edition a 4/5 stars.

A few weeks ago I saw Dr. Lustig on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square on CNN. Dr. Lustig has a new book called Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Foods, Obesity, and Disease. During that show, Dr. Lustig’s take on sugar and processed foods struck a bell with me. I have a friend up in Boston who graduated from Harvard Medical School. A few years ago, I asked her what’s the “right” diet. Her response was eat natural, unprocessed foods. I thought it made a lot of sense although I never really changed my diet. Hearing Dr. Lustig’s take a few weeks ago reminded me of that conversation. So after watching his interview on Zakaria’s show and browsing a few of his videos online, I bought Lustig’s book.

I think it is fair to say Lustig is leading a crusade against sugar. He does an excellent job laying out the fundamental biochemistry and how sugar is driving our obesity epidemic. It’s understandable too – I haven’t had a chemistry class since high school. He puts sugar in the same category as tobacco and alcohol – both in terms of addiction and problems for health. Beyond sugar, Dr. Lustig also describes how removal of fiber from processed foods (for shelf life) and adding trans-fats (for shelf life) are part of this problem. Fortunately, trans fats are being addressed effectively, unlike sugar and fiber intake.

In the end his recommendations are very sensible: stop drinking sugared drinks including cola and juice, eat lots of fiber, stay away from processed foods (shop around the periphery of the grocery store), and exercise. Dr. Lustig was also very reasonable when it comes to meat and high protein diets. He admits that some meats are better than others. As you might expect, fish that is high in omega-3s is better than turkey is better than beef… etc. He also recommends eating a high protein breakfast as this will help you feel full as you start the day.

I thought Lustig did a great job laying out his case against sugar and processed foods. His recommendations on taxing sugar seemed a little tough to swallow, simply because it would be a huge regressive tax. He addresses this but I wasn’t quite convinced afterwards.

In the end, Lustig convinced me on sugar’s role in our obesity epidemic  - I have already started changing my diet. Tonight I had whole grain pasta with a salad.

My recommendation: 4/5. (the book, not the pasta)