Books 7 & 8 - 2015
Book 7: The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East by Kishore Mahbubani - 293 pages
Description from bookdepository.co.uk:
For two centuries Asians have been bystanders in world history, reacting defenselessly to the surges of Western commerce, thought, and power. That era is over. Asia is returning to the center stage it occupied for eighteen centuries before the rise of the West. By 2050, three of the world's largest economies will be Asian: China, India, and Japan. In The New Asian Hemisphere, Kishore Mahbubani argues that Western minds need to step outside their "comfort zone" and prepare new mental maps to understand the rise of Asia. The West, he says, must gracefully share power with Asia by giving up its automatic domination of global institutions from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council. Only then will the new Asian powers reciprocate by becoming responsible stakeholders in a stable world order.
Thoughts:
As I’ve mentioned before, I am studying a Masters of International Business/International Relations, and I am quite into reading on the topic, partly because I feel it makes me better at my job, and partly because I eventually want to work overseas. Knowing I was going to be doing this degree, I picked up a whole stack of books on international business at the beginning of my semester, but it ended up taking me most of the semester to finish them. This was one of them and it fed nicely into an earlier book I read. Basically, this book looks at the influence Asia is expected to have in the next century in particular, as it rapidly modernize over half the world’s population (I still personally wonder about how this will end up being sustainable but that’s a topic for another day). This is actually a fairly interesting read, on a topic that could actually be quite dry. I learnt a fair bit about the emerging Asian economies, and the impact a substantial middle class has on the likelihood of world peace (quite a strong positive correlation there - who knew?). There are some points that I think might be a bit generous to some of the countries mentioned, but like all things, only time will truly tell us how right our predictions are. Nonetheless, this book gave me a much more positive view on the economic situation we can hopefully look forward to as we settle into the twenty-first century. GFCs be damned!
7 / 50 books. 14% done!
2072 / 15000 pages. 14% done!
Book 8: Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs - 331 pages
Description from bookdepository.co.uk:
This is the gripping new Temperance Brennan novel from the world-class forensic anthropologist and Number 1 bestselling author Kathy Reichs. Tempe is faced with the horrifying possibility that the killer who got away in Monday Mourning is back...For a decade, Temperance Brennan has been haunted by the one who got away. The killer of young women. The monster. And the one who has now come back. Feeding on fear, grief and rage. Killing again. Killing girls. Getting closer. Coming for Tempe.
Thoughts:
At my time of reading this, this was the last Bones book published (there has since been another), and I was thrilled to say that I had FINALLY caught up with the series. This book definitely ends on a cliff hanger that I did not see coming, and was pleasantly surprised by after slogging through so many of these books. I won’t deny that I do not remember the killer from Monday Mourning that this book returns to, probably because I read that book some five years ago, and I don’t enjoy these books enough to go back and re-read them. The introduction of Tempe’s mother was interesting, though I find it convenient that so many of these type of characters have some random friend or family member that is some sort of techie (this hasn’t stopped me from using this same cliché in my own story, but at least mine’s a freaking alien!). Overall, this was by far one of the better Bones books, which I find strange because numerous reviews I read before and after reading this book suggested otherwise (maybe I just seek out different things when I read crime books). Probably for the first time, I find myself looking forward to the next one!
8 / 50 books. 16% done!
2403 / 15000 pages. 16% done!
Currently reading:
- Work’s Intimacy by Melissa Gregg - 198 pages
- The Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited by Richard Florida - 465 pages
- Jaco the Galactic Patrolman by Akira Toriyama - 247 pages
And coming up:
- The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Volume 3: White Gold Wielder by Stephen Donaldson - 500 pages
- The Odyssey by Homer - 324 pages
- Guernica by Dave Boling - 368 pages
Description from bookdepository.co.uk:
For two centuries Asians have been bystanders in world history, reacting defenselessly to the surges of Western commerce, thought, and power. That era is over. Asia is returning to the center stage it occupied for eighteen centuries before the rise of the West. By 2050, three of the world's largest economies will be Asian: China, India, and Japan. In The New Asian Hemisphere, Kishore Mahbubani argues that Western minds need to step outside their "comfort zone" and prepare new mental maps to understand the rise of Asia. The West, he says, must gracefully share power with Asia by giving up its automatic domination of global institutions from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council. Only then will the new Asian powers reciprocate by becoming responsible stakeholders in a stable world order.
Thoughts:
As I’ve mentioned before, I am studying a Masters of International Business/International Relations, and I am quite into reading on the topic, partly because I feel it makes me better at my job, and partly because I eventually want to work overseas. Knowing I was going to be doing this degree, I picked up a whole stack of books on international business at the beginning of my semester, but it ended up taking me most of the semester to finish them. This was one of them and it fed nicely into an earlier book I read. Basically, this book looks at the influence Asia is expected to have in the next century in particular, as it rapidly modernize over half the world’s population (I still personally wonder about how this will end up being sustainable but that’s a topic for another day). This is actually a fairly interesting read, on a topic that could actually be quite dry. I learnt a fair bit about the emerging Asian economies, and the impact a substantial middle class has on the likelihood of world peace (quite a strong positive correlation there - who knew?). There are some points that I think might be a bit generous to some of the countries mentioned, but like all things, only time will truly tell us how right our predictions are. Nonetheless, this book gave me a much more positive view on the economic situation we can hopefully look forward to as we settle into the twenty-first century. GFCs be damned!
7 / 50 books. 14% done!
2072 / 15000 pages. 14% done!
Book 8: Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs - 331 pages
Description from bookdepository.co.uk:
This is the gripping new Temperance Brennan novel from the world-class forensic anthropologist and Number 1 bestselling author Kathy Reichs. Tempe is faced with the horrifying possibility that the killer who got away in Monday Mourning is back...For a decade, Temperance Brennan has been haunted by the one who got away. The killer of young women. The monster. And the one who has now come back. Feeding on fear, grief and rage. Killing again. Killing girls. Getting closer. Coming for Tempe.
Thoughts:
At my time of reading this, this was the last Bones book published (there has since been another), and I was thrilled to say that I had FINALLY caught up with the series. This book definitely ends on a cliff hanger that I did not see coming, and was pleasantly surprised by after slogging through so many of these books. I won’t deny that I do not remember the killer from Monday Mourning that this book returns to, probably because I read that book some five years ago, and I don’t enjoy these books enough to go back and re-read them. The introduction of Tempe’s mother was interesting, though I find it convenient that so many of these type of characters have some random friend or family member that is some sort of techie (this hasn’t stopped me from using this same cliché in my own story, but at least mine’s a freaking alien!). Overall, this was by far one of the better Bones books, which I find strange because numerous reviews I read before and after reading this book suggested otherwise (maybe I just seek out different things when I read crime books). Probably for the first time, I find myself looking forward to the next one!
8 / 50 books. 16% done!
2403 / 15000 pages. 16% done!
Currently reading:
- Work’s Intimacy by Melissa Gregg - 198 pages
- The Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited by Richard Florida - 465 pages
- Jaco the Galactic Patrolman by Akira Toriyama - 247 pages
And coming up:
- The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Volume 3: White Gold Wielder by Stephen Donaldson - 500 pages
- The Odyssey by Homer - 324 pages
- Guernica by Dave Boling - 368 pages