A round up of the books I read in the last couple of months.

1. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Like Satanic versus for Christians but without the fatwa. :)

2. A Case Of Exploding Mangoes

Even though I have sworn off fiction like other sickly sweet calorie laden treats in my life, Mohammed Hanif is a an excellent writer that you just can’t help but binge on. Heard him speak at the Karachi Literary Festival (best speaker of the day) and apparently he’s coming out with another book soon.

3. Building Social Businesses

Best part of the book is that is really gets to the nitty gritty of discussing successful (and un-successful) attempts at social businesses, plus a how-to manifesto. I hope, aim, plan one day to put it into action in something I do.

4. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Excellent book. Like a hard-boiled crime thriller for the financial age. Not much to be said since it spent like most of last year on the NYTimes bestseller list. I would say A LOT of understanding specifically how the financial instruments worked and the particular micro/macro effect of it went over my head. And honestly, that’s after like two years of listening to NPR Planet Money Podcast which really breaks it down for the lay person, so I’m not sure how easy it is to dig into for the uninitiated.

5. The Rules of Life: A Personal Code for Living a Better, Happier, More successful kind of Life

I admit, I’ve become a self help junkie. The first step is admitting you need help. :P  Well anyways, I think there were some good nuggets in this book that I jotted down for future reference.

6. What the Dog Saw

So Gladwell-y, Glaswell-esque.  Lacked a central theme, as it was random essays thrown together in book format so I would say Blink, Tipping Point and Outliers were all more enjoyable for me.

7. The Male Brain

Continue to love all things science-y + brain-y. Actually, despite my decent amount of reading on the wonders of the brain it is interesting to find out how early (as in the belly) male and female brains get shaped. I think the author wrote ‘The Female Brain’ as well which I’m going to read sometime soon. This book isn’t supposed to be a whole ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ b-s, but it does make you more accepting of the times when you feel like the men in your live are living on the same planet with different understanding of basics of physics.    :P

1.  Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women WorldwideThis book is E Y E   O P E N I N G. (Yes, in the all caps sense.)  I’m not exactly why, but I never actually realized how oppressed and lacking in resources and opportunity most women are.All the more ironic since I’m currently living in Pakistan. This should be at least a little bit more in the forefront for me. I can just say its a testament to how totally awesome my parents are ’cause I can honestly say I’ve never had less freedom, opportunity and benefits to live a fulfilling life just because I’m a girl.The book is immensely readable with stats and stories to show how empowering the women of the world is the key to solving some of the worlds biggest problems (exploding population and starvation level poverty).  Plus, what I love about this book is the practical steps that the enraged reader (read: me) can take to ‘make a difference’.  Recommended for all. Especially men.

2. Risk: The Science and Politics of FearI think I’ve read this book before in some other format. Yes, humans are irrational about how we process fear and risk. It’s ’cause our stupid caveman brain.  It’s got silly rules of thumbs and you know panics first thinks second because you know – it need to survive. Yes, the political / business marketing machine uses this to sell us stuff (products and votes). Got it.Basically, nothing new here for me. It’s get’s a little repetitive for me. But I guess a good read if you are new to the subject. Ok, wait one thing was new. Apparently we are ACTUALLY underestimated/under-fearing the risk of a meteor hitting us and making us extinct like the dinosaurs. Time to PANIC.

3. Happiness: The Science behind Your SmileI’m only 1/4th of a the way into this book.  All I can tell you is that I’m not increasing my happiness level. (j/k).I’ve only read like 1/2 of a self help book (How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have), which despite the supposed shame of reading a self help book, I actually found quite insightful and useful.  It will be interesting to see what the science perspective of happiness will be. Will report back.

Here are the cliffnotes:

1. Men are extreme:

On the smart and stupid scale.

2. Men have a biological / evolutionary inventive to be risk takers:

Fight to get more women, which they impregnate, spreading their seed etc. You know, the usual evolutionary stuff.

3. Brain Stuff:

Dyslexics are more often men, their brain has functional differences that drives system level / conceptual thinking.

4. Successful Women Opt-ing Out (in particular Out of Science / Technology but basically high earning careers):

They need people connection, work less intensively to have / raise kids. Want to raise own kids even if more economically profitable to let someone else do it.

5.  Women are more Emphatic:

Evolution prompted this so we could understand babies needs before speech. (Also raise babies in groups).

6. Women don’t plan careers:

They fall into very successful, lucrative career patterns based on others expectations. They are very successful, which gives them the flexibility to opt-out. Women want flex time for family, personal life more than men.

7. (Some) successful women feel they are impostors:

Less ego centric – less likely to thing recognition, advancement is because of own success (true or not) vs. men (true or not).

8. Men are more competitive:

Again, the whole evolution / biology thing.

IMHO

So the basic idea is that hidden behind current gender equality in (western) societies is the reality that women want and are motivated by different things in their life (and hence career) which is reflecting the ‘real gender’ gap in the workforce. The big missing link in the book so far is how do we (as individuals) and as a society effectively manage these differences given that what women want leads to them having less economic power?

What I Love.

• Really fast delivery! I ordered a book on Monday and it was delivered to my door by Tuesday evening
• I was happy to learn that there isn’t a reoccurring cost model with the program. You select which ever level you want to be at (minimum is 500PKR per month, unlimited rentals, one book out at a time). Once you rent a book you pay your monthly fee upon delivery and you have 30 days from that date to borrow unlimited number of books. I think this model is really well adapted the local environment; there would probably be a HUGE barrier to trial if you had to pay for the rental via a monthly billing program. As it is, you only pay for the first book you rent if and when you choose to rent it.

What they gotta work on.

• Surprisingly, the biggest weakness of the readers club is not service delivery, or even catalogue size, but the website itself. I found that the search feature doesn’t work well (e.g. I searched for “in defense of food” which is the title of the book and found no results, but if I search for the author Michael Pollan I found the book).
• Thanks to Amazon, Google, and other repositories of information which not only help us find what we are looking for but to also help us find stuff when we don’t know what we’re looking for. The site had ‘readers club picks’, but I really missed features like similar book, reader reviews, most read books (by category), reading lists etc.  I found myself basically looking for books I might want to read on Amazon and then searching on the readers club to see if they had them.

What they should do.

• I would be great of the readers club would be able to create a partnership with other clubs like Karachi Club or Gymkhana both of which is a decent library. The readers club could offer a white-labeled online book rental solutions to these clubs offering members the ability to rent books online and not have to both with pick / drop facilities.
• If they are getting the rental part right, then there are lots of other products they could venture into. What about rental of kids toys? Sounds funny – but it’s happening. How about rental of school books? I’d also love to see rental of sports equipment like roller blades, skateboards, bikes etc.

Beware and Watch Out.

• Well the photocopied books available at Sunday bazaar might be a threat. Maybe e-books eventually in the future (at least 3 years for a country like Pakistan). Probably the biggest threat is that we don’t have enough people reading (in any language) in Pakistan.