Five books to keep you safe in 2017
1) THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS: FINDING MODERN TRUTH IN ANCIENT WISDOM by professor Jonathan Haidt : This book unearths 10 great theories of happiness as discovered by thinkers of the past from Plato to Jesus to Buddha to reveal a supreme abundance of common tangents. For example Shakespeare: “There is nothing either good or bad, but […]
1) THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS: FINDING MODERN TRUTH IN ANCIENT WISDOM by professor Jonathan Haidt : This book unearths 10 great theories of happiness as discovered by thinkers of the past from Plato to Jesus to Buddha to reveal a supreme abundance of common tangents. For example Shakespeare: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” From Buddha: “Our life is the creation of our mind.”
Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality. It is only because our emotional brains work so well that our reasoning can work at all.” Haidt takes the ambitious analysis of philosophical thought over the centuries and examines it through the prism of modern psychological research to extract a remarkably compelling blueprint for optimizing the human condition for happiness.
2) Malcolm Gladwell is an essayist and non fictional writer of great repute. His books are about self improvement, self analysis and deeply philosophical. Using real life examples, Gladwell ensures that every reader of his book comes away better educated, well apportioned and ready to go. Every book has a failure and success theme going on and each one has a eureka moment to provide top level illumination. From THE TIPPING POINT, to WHAT THE DOG SAW, Gladwell continues to achieve that which a simple class teacher, parent or even some mentors fail to achieve. Addressing those issues that you have thought about for a long time that becomes clearer is a gift that Gladwell has. His researches are spot on, the lessons are unparalleled. If you do nothing for yourself this year, buy a Malcolm Gladwell book to set 2017 apart for you. His debut book THE TIPPING POINT, defines a tipping point as “ the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point”. The book seeks to explain and describe the
“mysterious” sociological changes that mark every day life. As Gladwell states: “Ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread like viruses do.” The examples of such changes in his book include the rise in popularity and sales of Hush Puppies shoes in the mid 1990s and the steep drop in New York’s City’s crime rate after 1990. I particularly enjoyed What The Dog Saw but all of Gladwell’s books are genius.