I can across this article about how what you read shapes you, especially women. Go ahead and read it then come back I can wait. I remember reading so many different things as a child but I never really like romantic novels, they were just too mushy wushy for my taste. I don’t remember being a tomboy or boyish, I was just different. I clearly remember reading all of the Asterix and TinTin books I could find at the public library when we lived in Scotland. Before that I remember going through the entire Ramona Quimby series. After that I got interested in Nancy Drew books and the Hardy Boys too. I read every single one I could find. Then somehow I stumbled across the Evil prime minister series. It is about an evil prime minister who hypnotizes the kids to do his bidding and has world domination plans. That lead to trying to sneak into the adult section to read more about hypnosis, the lovely librarian told me it was too complicated a book (I was 10 at the time), but I have always had no doubts about my abilities so I begged to borrow it and she let me. I didn’t understand a thing, but it did start a lifelong interest in all things related to the human brain. Then the crafts books always interested me, Origami, Friendship bracelets, Macrame, and things like that. Totally random things like how to solve a Rubik’s cube and how to learn YoYo tricks too made their way to my reading list. The older I got the wider my range of books became. I would sometimes read romantic novels but never with the fervor some women have towards them. To me they were just like movies, entertainment but not too much value of them to me. But I felt I should read them because everyone else was reading them and raved about them. I went through a phase where I would read the books people recommended because I felt that I should fit in even in my reading. I sometimes read poetry, which I love but can’t read too much of it. My favorite kind of books is still a non fiction book that has lots of information that I can store in my brain. Autobiographies and history books have also been added to my reading list.
So have these books shaped me, or was it the other way round? Was I born this way and chose the books because this is who I truly was? I think the book chooses you because you attract the book.
When I do enjoy a romantic novel it is usually because the heroine is a strong woman who is the hero of her own destiny. But if you really want to know what kind of fiction books I like, I still like things like Harry Potter where you can enter magical worlds where reality does not have to dictate the storyline. Mythical creatures, magic potions and spells. Things that make life less mundane and interesting. Things that you can not compare to your real life and wish you had them, just a good gripping book that makes you happy while you read it. I also love novels which are set in totally different places and eras than mine. I read My name is Red a while back by Orhan Pamuk and felt totally immersed in the different culture of a totally different era. I want to read a book that takes me into a new world and let me walk around and take it all in at my own pace.
And like the author of the article mentioned, the authors of these books usually deal with their own issues thru the characters in their books. Sometimes it is healthy to relate to protagonists and sometimes it is just healthier to look for it elsewhere. After all these characters live only in the confines of the pages of a single book or series of books, but we don’t.
Now that I am older and have less free time to read all the books I want to read I am even pickier. If the book won’t make me happy or help me learn something new I just won’t read it. When I was younger even if I hated a book I would still force myself to read it, now I guiltlessly put a book down and start a new one if I don’t feel I am getting what I want or expect from it.
Growing up I never had many friends so I made friends with my books. It is sometimes thought that the nerdy kids don’t have friends because they lack in social skills, I would like to disagree. Sometimes they just find that the books are more interesting and more accommodating and fulfilling to their needs. Moving a couple of times through childhood it was hard to keep friends, but a book fits into your bag.
I have come full circle my favorite books are the same as when I was 10, I read for my own personal pleasure and my own personal growth. I read because it satisfies a hunger and fills a need. I read because at the end of the day I still haven’t settled down in a single place long enough to make life long friends but I can fit a friend in my bag.
I am still selecting books, but now I am picking out books for my little girl and perhaps my own character will lead me to specific book. Books where girls are strong and can do anything. Books with magnificent creatures and stories. Books with values and morals I would like her to learn for a lifetime. But I still accept the fact that eventually she will make her own choices and perhaps totally different books will choose her, but that’s ok, because I know that the right books will want to be her friend.
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A while back Juka sent me a copy of her book To Each Her Own, which is now published and on the shelves of bookstores in Egypt and will soon be available from Amazon too.
All this goes back to November 2008, or at least for me it does when she posted her bucket list of things she would like to do and one of them was publishing a book.
The story or should I say the story line because it is not like a conventional story with a beginning and an end but more like looking into the lives of a group of young Egyptian women on a timeline in their lives. It leaves you with the feeling that the girls are now your friends and that you will pick up the phone and check on them.
A book by a young woman for young women, well men can read it, but I think it touches women more. Six young women who are ambitious and live purposeful lives are always a great example for other women. The characters are so real and that is not a surprise since they are based on real people.
A lovely read, yet it might leave you inspired to find yourself, embrace it and move full speed ahead in your own life of purpose. It should also make you reach for the phone and call your friends because the feeling of friendship and camaraderie in the book is quite high and heart warming.
Juka, I wish you all the best and hope that this debut book is just the beginning of a long list of bestsellers and I want a signed copy of this one too.
“Five Truths about Fear Truth 1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow. Truth 2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it. Truth 3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out… and do it. Truth 4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else. Truth 5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.”
~ Susan Jeffers quotes from Feel The Fear… And Do it Anyway
You would think that a book titled “Feel the Fear and do it anyway” would only be about dealing with your fears, but it is not. It is about opening yourself. living a fuller more fulfilling life and finding happiness, peace and balance. Many of these self help style books are not cross culture friendly, meaning that they might not apply to you if you don’t live in the USA or Europe but not this book, it is written for a very wide audience. You can read this book and benefit from it no matter how old you are or what your gender is.
We all have our fears and things that hold us back. This book is not about fixing these fears or trying to find out why we have them, it is about overcoming them, accepting that we will always be afraid of things and how to use that fear as a stepping stone to get to where we want to go.
Some of my favorite concepts from the book:
Taking responsibility of our lives without blaming anyone else or beating ourselves up. I used to go back and forth to these two extremes and always felt stressed and unhappy. Now I can easily tell myself that other people’s happiness is not my responsibility without feeling guilty. My happiness is my responsibility and no one else’s. It is not fair or healthy to blame other people for what goes on in our lives if we have decided to give up control of our lives.
Saying “Yes” to the universe. Accept what the universe has given you and say yes to it and everything will change. This concept is very different that normal positive thinking. It stops at acceptance and then the rest is where you have to work for change. Just thinking positively does not change your situation, it is only the very first but very important step.
“Act as if you were important” There was one really interesting story about a woman who hated her job and thought it was only temporary until she found something better and was instructed by the author to act as if she were really important and mattered at her job even if she felt otherwise. A week later she returned and told the author how things had changed dramatically at her job. She took a plant and pictures to make her cubicle better, she went to work earlier and had more energy, even her co workers noticed the change and commented on it. She was told that whatever she was on, to keep taking it. Sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking that we don’t matter, that our contribution is too small or irrelevant but that is so untrue. If you start to believe that your contribution is very important you will act accordingly.
The best thing about this book is that it is not preachy and is full of tools that can help you on your journey and little stories about people who either felt the fear and did it or those who buckled under the strain of their fear. It is like a friend talking you out of a mess, slowly but surely.
It also couldn’t have come at a better timing for me. I got over my own fears and started my crochet business and failed at selling finished items, which turned out to be a huge blessing. I realized I was more talented at creating and selling designs instead. At first I was afraid no one would be interested or buy anything, but I felt the fear and did it anyway and found out that I had been wrong. I felt that there were these amazing designers out there who much be so much more talented than I am so why would anyone buy from me, until I cam across something Doris Chan had written who is a prolific designer with hundreds of very successful designs and how she became a designer totally by chance, an opportunity presented itself and she took it. I had to ask myself why was I afraid of taking the opportunity that is sitting right in front of me. I am still anxious whenever I publish a new pattern but it is not the crippling kind of anxiousness, it is a liberating kind. The ability to step out of my comfort zone is amazing.
I was planning to give the book away to someone else to read but I have decided against it, I definitely want to keep this book and read it again later.
Really, I did. Did anyone else want to be Ms. Drew? I thought she was awesome. The sharp young red head was my super hero. She didn’t have any super powers except her brain so I thought I could eventually be like her.
I was at Jarir this morning and came accross these books and felt really happy. Happier than a 10 year old nerd in a library.
I read all the copies that were available at our public library when we lived in Scotland. Then my parents got me some more. Unfortunately my mom gave them away to a second cousin or cousin a couple of years back. I thought of buying one, but I am not buying any books until I finish the ones I already have so boo hoo. I turned around and saw a shelf full of TinTin and Asterix books. Other favorites but not as dear as Nancy Drew.
Oh well, maybe when Lulu is older I can introduce her to Nancy Drew.
Who was your favorite fictional character as a kid?
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{Note this was in my drafts folder dated February 10th, but totally forgot about it}
I was tidying up the bookshelves and saw the copy of The Alchemist which I gave to my husband when we were engaged. I asked my friends what book would they give to their significant other. I got some interesting answers (The Alchemist, What Life Taught me – Galal Amin, War and Peace and Have a Little Faith).
{Until this morning when I saw Ola’s post on Cinnamon Zone}
I love the idea.
So why don’t you give a friend a book that might be useful.
Who would you give a book to and what would it be?
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In a conversation with my sister mentioned that she was reading God’s Debris and mentioned something about the chapter called Relationships in it. I read the book back in 2004 so I couldn’t really remember it. It was a free ebook and it still is available for download for free. I do remember that it was a philosophical eccentric crazy book but I did enjoy reading it very much. It is the kind of book that you need to read with an open exploring mind. The author of the book is Scott Adams, who is also the creator of Dilbert, the books is a very interesting and unexpected if you keep who the author is in mind. He describes the book as a thought experiment. I looked up the section she was talking about, and felt I had to share. If you are interested the link for download is at the bottom.
Excerpt from the book page 110 – 114
“Women believe that men are, in a sense, defective ver-
sions of women,” he began. “Men believe that women are
defective versions of men. Both genders are trapped in a
delusion that their personal viewpoints are universal. That
viewpoint—that each gender is a defective version of the
other—is the root of all misunderstandings.”
“How does that help me?” I asked.
“Women define themselves by their relationships and
men define themselves by whom they are helping. Women
believe value is created by sacrifice. If you are willing to give
up your favorite activities to be with her, she will trust you.
If being with her is too easy for you, she will not trust you.
You can accomplish your sacrifices symbolically at first, by
leaving work early to buy flowers, canceling your softball
game to make a date, that sort of thing.”
“Why does it seem like the rich and famous guys get all
the women?” I asked.
“Partly because the rich and famous are capable of mak-
ing larger sacrifices. The average man might be sacrificing a
night of television to be with a woman. The rich and famous
man could be sacrificing a week in Tahiti. There is much to
be said about the attraction of power and confidence exuded
by a rich and powerful man, but capacity for sacrifice is the
most important thing.”
“What do men value?” I asked.
“Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and
they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a
woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If
she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not
love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she
would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives
for her are reasonable.”
“What objectives?”
“The objectives are different for each man. Men rarely
share these objectives because doing so is a recipe for disas-
ter. No woman would tolerate being given a set of goals.”
“So what should a guy do if the woman in his life
doesn’t meet these secret objectives? How can he get her to
change?”
“He can’t,” he replied. “People don’t change to meet
the objectives of other people. Men can be molded in small
ways—clothing and haircuts and manners—because those
things are not important to most men. Women can’t be
changed at all.”
“I’m not hearing anything helpful here.”
“The best you can hope for in a relationship is to find
someone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It is
futile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someone
who is capable of significant change; that sort of person
exists only in our imaginations.”
“Let’s say I find the person whose flaws I don’t mind,”
I said. “The hard part is keeping her. I haven’t had much
luck in that department.”
“A woman needs to be told that you would sacrifice any-
thing for her. A man needs to be told he is being useful.
When the man or woman strays from that formula, the other
loses trust. When trust is lost, communication falls apart.”
“I don’t think you need to trust someone to communicate.
I can talk to someone I distrust as easily as someone I trust.”
“Without trust, you can communicate only trivial things.
If you try to communicate something important without a
foundation of trust, you will be suspected of having a secret
agenda. Your words will be analyzed for hidden meaning and
your simple message will be clouded by suspicions.”
“I guess I can see that. How can I be more trusted?”
“Lie.”
“Now you’re kidding, right?” I asked.
“You should lie about your talents and accomplish-
ments, describing your victories in dismissive terms as if they
were the result of luck. And you should exaggerate your
flaws.”
“Why in the world would I want to tell people I was a
failure and an idiot? Isn’t it better to be honest?”
“Honesty is like food. Both are necessary, but too much
of either creates discomfort. When you downplay your
accomplishments, you make people feel better about their
own accomplishments. It is dishonest, but it is kind.”
“This is good stuff. What other tips do you have?”
“You think casual conversation is a waste of time.”
“Sure, unless I have something to say. I don’t know how
people can blab about nothing.”
“Your problem is that you view conversation as a way to
exchange information,” he said.
“That’s what it is,” I said, thinking I was pointing out
the obvious.
“Conversation is more than the sum of the words. It is
also a way of signaling the importance of another person by
showing your willingness to give that person your rarest
resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation
reminds us that we are part of a greater whole, connected in
some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce.
Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless.”
For the next few hours the old man revealed more of his
ingredients for successful social living. Express gratitude.
Give more than is expected. Speak optimistically. Touch
people. Remember names. Don’t confuse flexibility with
weakness. Don’t judge people by their mistakes; rather,
judge them by how they respond to their mistakes. Remem-
ber that your physical appearance is for the benefit of oth-
ers. Attend to your own basic needs first; otherwise you will
not be useful to anyone else.
I didn’t know if I could incorporate his ingredients into
my life, but it seemed possible.
Someone shared a link to an ebook called Archewallogy by Tarek Chemally. Being a book lover and someone who just can’t pass the idea of Free and Book together in the same sentence I downloaded it. And offffffffff offff offfff I loved it! It is a collection of photographs of walls all over Beirut. Alot of these images are of things that no longer exist. Chemaly then collaborated with Ashekman a group of graffiti artists/rappers and came up with both a video called “El hitan am tehkini” (The walls are talking to me) and the book. I loved the video clip too, it’s like an urban/retro mix that is interesting with even more interesting lyrics. This would make a really interesting coffee table book.
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Malcolm Gladwell is the author of Blink and The Tipping Point, which I read a while back and enjoyed. I love how his style is simple, straightforward and well researched. The way he explains everything using stories from a human point of view instead of scientific statistics or case studies to drive a point is what makes me always go back for more. So back in November when I came across this Poptech video about what sepparates extraordinary people from ordinary people which was basically part of his book, I put Outliers on my “To Read” list. The problem is that my list is long and being a busy mom, finding quiet time is always a challenge. But I love reading and when I do find a good book, I wake up extra early or wait until my daughter has fallen asleep to enjoy it. My sleep deprivation was so worth it, the book does not dissapoint.
Outlier is a scientific term used when something happens totally out of the ordinary and appears to have no obvious explanation. It is when someone appears to have succeeded immensely without an obvious explanation where most people would have failed. Instead of looking at the person’s personality, character and hard work, the author suggest looking deeper and farther into that person’s history, life and circumstances that might have helped created the spark to succeed. Gladwell felt compelled to write the book to explain the phenomena of success
In the case of Outliers, the book grew out a frustration I found myself having with the way we explain the careers of really successful people. You know how you hear someone say of Bill Gates or some rock star or some other outlier—”they’re really smart,” or “they’re really ambitious?’ Well, I know lots of people who are really smart and really ambitious, and they aren’t worth 60 billion dollars. It struck me that our understanding of success was really crude—and there was an opportunity to dig down and come up with a better set of explanations.
The book is broken down into two parts; Part One: Opportunity and Part Two: Legacy. Each describing different causes and routes to success. The first part is about being in the right place at the right time and doing your part to succeed. If you want to achieve greatness, the book claims, you don’t only have to work hard, but other factors help to give you a boost too. Like for example because of cut off dates for hockey players in Canada, this gives players born in the earlier months of January a much better chance of playing because they will be larger and more physically mature than their counterparts born in December because in children, those months make a world of difference. This does not mean that the player doesn’t still have to train really hard to make it into the major leagues, but his birth month has already given him an edge he did not really earn by himself. As for hard work, Gladwell claims that 10,000 hours is the magic number, it is the number of hours that differentiate between mediocre and excellence. Musicians, athletes and even programmers who have trained, worked or performed more than 10,000 hours are usually amongst the greats because they have gone the extra mile in hard work. All this is not really new, we already know that with lots of hard work and with a little bit of luck you can become a rock star in your field. What was new to me was the fact that hard work could be measurable in hours and had a number attached to it too. It also meant that luck was not 100% random.
I found Part Two even more interesting because it was more about human traits that are inherited from one generation to the next. You know how we always say that certain cultures have specific behavioral tendencies or traits. Apparently this is something of a legacy that can be passed on from generation to generation. It explains why Asians have always outperformed themselves in math while the rest of the world is slightly behind. First, their number is system is different, the numbers are phonetically shorter, helping them have a longer number memory sequence. In other words, their numbers are monosyllabic words, making it easier for them to remember longer number sequences than we do. Fifty to them is five tens, which makes learning basic arithmetic much easier. Beyond their numbering system, they have a culture of hard work because of a history of cultivating rice. Rice? What does rice have to do with math? Unless you are counting rice it has nothing to do with rice. But not according to Gladwell, the way rice is cultivated is very work intensive and has taught the generations that hard work is the norm which is probably why to this day they work much harder than other cultures that were wheat growers for example. A couple of days ago I read something somewhere about Chinese hairdressers going from door to door in Cairo to offer their services. This is what I mean, they have a different work ethic than Egyptians for example, not necessarily because they are better people but because it has been ingrained in their very fiber of being to work really hard.
My favorite chapter was about high IQ in children and how it can be harnessed. This is a personal issue for me as a parent because well just like every other parent out there we believe we can help our children become great. What I did conclude from this chapter was that children who did succeed were the ones who came from families who’s parenting style was of concerted cultivation and helped children learn entitlement (positive not the negative type). Children who are engaged and taught early on how to deal with life and have their own interests and pursuits and engage in lots of different activities are the ones who go one step further in life.
The book itself is the size of a small paperback which made it easy to hold in one hand and read in bed, which in my world is an awesome thing.
In conclusion, this is definitely a book I would recommend. I would love to discuss this with anyone who has read it.
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Yes, it is true. I got this book as an audio book and listened to it while running errands. If you saw a grown woman driving her toddler around and laughing like a loon then you saw me while I was listening to it. Written by Robert Fulghum, it is absolutely a wonderful read/listen to. It was just what I needed to hear. Funny, deep, profound and totally true; his ideas were like a breath of fresh air. All I need to know I learned in Kindergarten was first published in 1986, but its wisdom is timeless and Fulghum does a great job of telling it like it is in a way even children in Kindergarten would understand it and appreciate it. The book contains fifty short essays, ranging in length from approximately 200 to approximately 1,000 words, which are ruminations on topics ranging from surprises, holidays, childhood, death, and the lives of interesting people including Mother Teresa. In his introduction, Fulghum describes these as having been “written over many years and addressed to friends, family, a religious community, and myself, with no thought of publication in book form.” One of my favorite essays is the one about crayons. He talks about how a box of crayons (I love crayons) makes adults and children alike giddy with happiness.
Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air — explode softly — and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth — boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap either — not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peace and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death. A child who touched one wouldn’t have his hand blown off. [from the book]
I am definitely going to buy this book give them away as gifts to friends and loved ones. We all need innocent childlike curiosity and cheer in our lives.
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