Blog of a Million Dreams

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Reads A Lot





I've read a lot this summer...

Some of the books I've read so far are;


Microtrends by Mark Penn

This was a pretty interesting book. Mark Penn, according to his book, was responsible for getting the Clintons in office...because he was able to see the country's trends and understand what these trends meant. The premise of the book is that a small percentage of the world's population...a miniscule amount of people..can effect change. Because a small percentage of people is still a large enough number of people to create a market for something, finding a niche can create huge social change.

Some of the upcoming trends that Mark Penn talks about have to do with blogging, knitting, pet owners, extroverted technology-philes, older dads and more. I did disagree with his chapter about young women. He claims that in America today, there will be a larger percentage of single, unmarried women who will not find husbands because there are more men than women now then any other time in history. However, I believe Mark Penn failed to take into account the social engineering in Asia, where people are opting to abort their female children (or, worse, commit infanticide). And many Americans are choosing to marry non-Americans, so I think that American women will find husbands in Asian countries where there aren't as many women.

However, while it did at times drag on, this book did have a lot of ideas for thought. And it actually tied in with the next book I read, below.

I also read


Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

This book attempts to explain why some people are a huge (financial) success, while others flail away, never going anywhere. His book made a lot of sense. He shows the outlying factors that led to the successes of people like Bill Gates. He also explains why some people were failures (many times they were simply born at the wrong time, or, in the case of hockey players, born in the wrong month). He also described his own family and why (or more importantly, how) class matters. This was a good read.

Currently I am reading



In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

I've just started the book and it does drag a bit (especially when he cites these scientific papers). But I completely agree with what I've read so far. Eating processed food is a good way to get really, really fat.

So far I'm enjoying my books! Oh, I'm also reading Finding the Sweet Spot by Dave Pollard...but I have to do the exercises so I'm putting it off a little bit. Also, I checked out Debra Winger's book from the library but haven't had a chance to get to it.

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