{"id":213,"date":"2006-05-17T09:14:50","date_gmt":"2006-05-17T16:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=213"},"modified":"2006-05-17T09:14:50","modified_gmt":"2006-05-17T16:14:50","slug":"audio-books-ive-been-listening-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":"Audio Books I&#8217;ve Been Listening To"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>The Search<\/em>:<em> How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture<\/em>, by John Battelle.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Fascinating listening.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Battelle knows his stuff, and presents a thoughtful, well-rounded look at search that ranges from the theoretical to the historical, anthropoligical, technological, and literary aspects of search.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 He starts his book by examining what he calls the database of intentions.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 This is the aggregate or click-stream that comes from people&#8217;s searching habits.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 What people are searching for is what they care about.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 You can see a snapshot of this at <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Google's snapshot of the Database of Intentions\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/press\/zeitgeist.html\">Google Zeitgeist<\/a>.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 For some damn reason, Battelle occassionally uses profanity when it&#8217;s probably not needed.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I found that *%^&#038;ing odd.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 In the epilogue, he lays out a brilliant narrative of the human search for immortality, drawing from the Epic of Gilgamesh, mankind&#8217;s earliest known writing. Overall, this book is moderately recommended.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I <strong>really<\/strong> enjoyed it, but I think most of my readership would just kinda&#8217; enjoy it.<\/li>\n<li><em>The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People<\/em>, by Stephen Covey.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 For some reason, I felt a little cheesy listening to this as an audio book.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I was back in the 80&#8217;s, listening to self-help literature on a cassette tape as I rush from one big-city sales meeting to another.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 But the material itself was decent.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve read the book twice previously, so it was mostly review for me.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 But the author, who was also the reader, did throw in some new material by way of examples and such.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Covey&#8217;s psuedo-Christian Mormon-ness emerges pretty strongly.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Good concepts, though.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 The book is divided into two parts.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 In the first part, he sets up principles on which he bases the habit.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 In the second part, he enumerates the habits themselves.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I found the second part particularly useful.<\/li>\n<li><em>The DaVinci Code<\/em>, by Dan Brown.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve read the book, and I really enjoyed it.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I know what you&#8217;re thinking: &#8220;Isn&#8217;t that an anti-Christian book?&#8221;\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Well, sorta.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s more anti-Catholic than anything.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It kind of promotes goddess worship and pagan practices.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 By now you might think I&#8217;m looney or have turned from my faith or something because I said I enjoyed the book.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I assure you, I haven&#8217;t turned from my faith.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 (I may be a little looney, though.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ll let you judge that for yourselves.)\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 The reason I enjoyed the book is that it&#8217;s darn good fiction.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s a fun read, and I&#8217;ve always been a sucker for a fun read.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Also, I have the ability to read critically.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t believe or buy into everything I read.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m not going to read the DaVinci code and worship goddesses any more than I&#8217;m going to read it and start searching for the holy grail (also featured).\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 You see, Brown starts from a flawed premise: that right religion worships equal parts male and female god, and the Catholic church has been suppressing the female side of that equation for centuries.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 He also has a bit of a flawed assumption that the (pre-Christian) ancients know more than we do today.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 To assume such is to deny both the power of revelation and the wisdom gathered through a long lilterary tradition of philosophers, scientists and Christistian thinkers.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m able to enjoy the book because I can take the entire work as fiction and enjoy the story while analyzing and walling off the mistruths, flawed premises, and outright fabrications.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I listened to 6.25 hours of the audio book yesterday, so compelling is the storytelling.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If anyone wants to borrow any of these audio books, I have CDs of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, by John Battelle.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Fascinating listening.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Battelle knows his stuff, and presents a thoughtful, well-rounded look at search that ranges from the theoretical to the historical, anthropoligical, technological, and literary aspects of search.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 He starts his book by examining what &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=213\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Audio Books I&#8217;ve Been Listening To<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report","category-religion","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdZlL-3r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}