The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer - Part 4

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 151

  May 31, 2017 

Book 45 - The Believing Brain - From Ghosts and God
to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs
and Reinforce them as Truths
Michael Shermer (2011)
 Part 4 - pages 164-227
Reading Time - 1 hour

A trio of chapters that cover Belief in God, Aliens and Conspiracies. We are apparently hardwired to believe things, so belief comes first and reasons second. Religiosity is, in large part, genetic. Naturally, the author does not believe in God, as it is impossible to prove that God exists from an empirical scientific point of view. He also argues that a highly advanced extraterrestrial would be indistinguishable from God. Which makes sense. If we dragged Noah forward into the 21st century... he might think he was surrounded by "gods".

As for aliens and abduction stories, the author basically dismisses them as bunk. He repeats his theory that belief comes first and then we look for evidence. Which I think isn't all that different from the scientific method. Many scientific theories are based on a hypothesis... "I think this is what is happening"... and then we test for evidence to support or disprove the theory.

And then there are conspiracy theories... like the assassination of JFK and 9/11. He claims that the conspiracy theorists have their pattern-detection filters wide open and that there is no screening. Unexplained anomalies lie at the heart of conspiracy theories. It's almost like... don't confuse them with facts, their minds are made up.

At this point, I am just plodding through this book... and it is a hard slog. The author repeats himself and his primary theory quite a bit and it's a bit tedious.

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer - Part 3

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 150

  May 30, 2017 

Book 45 - The Believing Brain - From Ghosts and God
to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs
and Reinforce them as Truths
Michael Shermer (2011)
 Part 3 - pages 111-163
Reading Time - 1 hour

This section left me in the dust. A whole chapter is called The Believing Neuron and it is a bunch of fairly detailed information on cognitive neuroscience. A few tidbits I picked up... dopamine is a belief chemical... which means that ideas can be as addictive as substances. Creative people tend to find new patterns and generate more ideas than others... partly because of dopamine it seems. Belief comes quickly and naturally... skepticism is slow and unnatural.

Another chapter dealt with Belief in the Afterlife. The author doesn't believe in an Afterlife... in part because he says it is not scientifically provable. Everything for him comes down to science. He says it is natural for us to believe we have a timeless and eternal essence... so the belief comes first and then we look for reasons to support that belief. All of the near-death experiences, he says, can be put down to misfiring electrical impulses in the brain and oxygen deprivation. I'm not sure I like this author... he takes all the mystery out of things!

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer - Part 2

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 149

  May 29, 2017 

Book 45 - The Believing Brain - From Ghosts and God
to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs
and Reinforce them as Truths
Michael Shermer (2011)
 Part 2 - pages 56-110
Reading Time - 1 hour

This section was fairly interesting. The author talks about Patternicity - how our brains are set up to see patterns in things, even if we are wrong. It's a leftover from our days in the savannah when... if we heard a rustle in the tall grass, we needed to quickly make a decision as to what caused the rustle. If it was just the wind... no worries. But if we thought it was the wind and it was a tiger... that's bad. Better to err on the side of caution and interpret the rustle as a tiger. Better to be wrong and safe rather than be wrong and dead! Our brains are set up as believing engines, as recognition machines. We have a tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful things and in meaningless noise. Our default is to assume that all patterns are real. People believe weird things because of an evolved need to believe non-weird things.

Some things can make us more susceptible to superstition though... if we feel we don't have control over our life and if we are in danger... we tend to be more superstitious. We don't like uncertainty, so we will gain it perceptually. Rather than saying "I don't know what caused that".... we will create certainty... "a ghost caused that".

We also tend to ascribe agenticity to things. There is a difference between an inanimate force (like a tornado) and an intentional agent. We tend to infuse patterns with meaning, intention and agency. We figure that a ghost did it... or aliens... or a secret government conspiracy... or God... or whatever. We tend to believe that objects, animals and people contain an essence. Ask a bunch of people if they would accept a heart transplant from a murderer... and... most would say "no". We have a belief that something of the murderer lingers in the heart.

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer - Part 1

The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 148

  May 28, 2017 

Book 45 - The Believing Brain - From Ghosts and God
to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs
and Reinforce them as Truths
Michael Shermer (2011)
 Part 1 - pages 1-
Reading Time - 1 hour

Another book that is not on my reading list but that looked intriguing. This book seemed like a natural follow-up to the Nonsense book by Jamie Holmes. The premise of this current book is that beliefs come first and explanations follow later. Beliefs form for a variety of reasons in a variety of environments. Our perceptions about reality are dependent on the beliefs that we hold about it. We look around us and find patterns and then infuse them with meaning based on our beliefs. Even more so... we look for and find evidence to confirm our beliefs. The tricky thing is... we form models of the world and think that they are the absolute truth but... there could be other models that explain the world equally well.

The author is a self-acknowledged Skeptic... and doesn't believe in otherworldly forces. No angels, no ghosts, no God, no aliens. Which makes me wonder... based on his own arguments... if he doesn't believe in otherworldly forces then naturally he won't look for evidence of them... he won't be able to seeing them. It's kind of a circular argument for him... but I'll see what else he has to say.

He does tell an interesting story about some researchers who pretended that they had had an auditory hallucination (heard voices). They were admitted to psych wards where they acted perfectly normally. The psych ward doctors interpreted their normal behaviours as evidence of crazyness because the doctors believed that the patients were crazy. What you believe is what you see...

He gives three personal stories at the start of the book - one of a guy who heard a voice from the Source, one of a Dr. Collins who went from atheist to theist, and one for the author himself, how in his teens he converted to Christianity and then left it. I don't really think that his story is a great example of a believer becoming a non-believer. Someone who is a believer for a few years doesn't have the depth of belief as someone who has been a believer since childhood. I have to admit the author is annoying me and I've been stuck on reading the next section for a couple of weeks now... we'll see if this blog can get me going again. I'm hoping it gets a bit more general... we'll see.

Burn your Mortgage - Sean Cooper - Part 1

Burn Your Mortgage - Sean Cooper

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 147

  May 27, 2017 

Book 44 - Burn Your Mortgage -
The Simple, Powerful Path to Financial Freedom for Canadians
Sean Cooper (2017)
 Part 1 - pages 1-216
Reading Time - 4 hours

I bought this book as an e-book and read it pretty quickly. Sean Cooper was in the news last year after paying off his mortgage in 3 years. He had bought a bungalow with a basement suite in the Greater Toronto area (I think). He lived in the basement and rented out the upstairs (more rent). He worked several side gigs in addition to his regular job. He also biked to work and used transit during the winter months. Basically, he saved every penny that he could and threw it at his mortgage.

This book is a summary of his advice on how to burn your mortgage. I know some people might think that in this age of ultra low interest rates, it makes no sense to pay off your mortgage faster but... we are on the same path as Sean. Our mortgage rate is 2.99% interest... which is nothing but... interest rates will go up at some point... And a piddly 1% rise in interest rates for us would mean a 12% jump in our mortgage payment. That's a big jump!! Our goal (in line with Sean's) is to pay off our mortgage ASAP. We're not big believers that a mortgage is "good debt". Any debt is bad...

Now... as to the book. A lot of the stuff in the book is very familiar to me, having read Gail Vaz Oxlade's books over the last few years. There are many different tips on how to save money... brown bag a lunch, take transit, buy a used car instead of a new car, etc. For someone who isn't conversant with the material from other sources, it's probably a very useful read. I'm glad I bought the book (always want to support people like Sean) but not sure I'll be reading it again.

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes - Part 4

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 146

  May 26, 2017 

Book 43 - Nonsense - The Power of Not Knowing
Jamie Holmes (2015)
 Part 4 - pages 155-233
Reading Time - 1 hour

Uncertainty can be useful... it can generate innovation. But... our education system doesn't teach us that. The author says that the Western education system is obsolete. Rote learning prepares workers for a world that no longer exists. Lectures in university are as good as reading a text book. We don't teach students how to approach a problem that doesn't have a single right answer. We don't let students know that it is safe to feel confused and to fail. Because... in the real world... things fail all the time! But if... when things fail... we blame others - we are less likely to learn for next time. If, on the other hand, we take responsibility... we are more likely to improve. But... if, when things go well... we are too self-congratulatory... that can lead to errors later as well. When things go wrong... we tend to debrief and figure out what went wrong and how to do better. But, less commonly, do we debrief when things go right... That is of critical importance... we need to know what went right... we are always learning. We always need to be open to being challenged... and to finding a new and different answer.

When we look at something... and if it is close to some category of what we have in our minds... we put it there. But that means we stop scrutinizing it. We look at, say, a candle, and think... it's for burning and making light. But... it has many other uses. If you were really desperate... you could use a candle taper as a shoelace. How? Just break off the wax and free the wick. The trick is to break things down into their most basic component parts. And to identify the key features of an object. Objects can have 32 types of features (weight, height, taste, length, colour, texture, composition... etc)... but when asked to describe an object, people generally miss two thirds of the features of an object!

The author ends with a story from Jerusalem and a school called Hand-in-Hand. The school has mixed classes of Arab and Jewish children, taught by both an Arab and a Jewish teacher. The students are bilingual and there is a direct correlation between bilingualism and creativity. Bilinguals have a better ability to focus, a capacity to inhibit previously acquired information, and an ability to hold information in the mind. Being bilingual makes us think harder. We are comfortable with linguistic ambiguity and are able to get unstuck more easily. Prejudice... no surprise... can be a traced to a general cognitive outlook characterized by a hunger for certainty. We need to be comfortable with contradictory ideas... because the world is an uncertain and changing place.

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes - Part 3

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 145

  May 25, 2017

Book 43 - Nonsense - The Power of Not Knowing
Jamie Holmes (2015)
 Part 3 - pages 111-154
Reading Time - 1 hour

One of the things the author does in this book is apply the notions to various real-life situations. So, for example, in the last section, he looked at the Waco, Texas standoff and how some people's discomfort with uncertainty ultimately led to a disaster. In this section, he takes a look at the medical profession. We, as patients, are uncomfortable with uncertainty. We want answers to our symptoms. What is wrong with us? Doctors, too, are uncomfortable with that... and often, before we have even finished reciting our list of symptoms, they have identified our "illness". But... there are also a lot of misdiagnoses out there. And extra testing doesn't always help... sometimes that can actually cloud the picture even more.

Another real life example is the hemline hassle. Back in the 1970s there was a push in the fashion industry to shift consumers from the mini-skirt to the midi (halfway between the knee and ankle). Some retailers, believing the predictions of the fashion industry, ordered tonnes of midis and... ended up losing their shirts. The consumers weren't ready to shift from the mini to the midi... and the fashion gurus were wrong. One thing we need to get is that ambivalence... a state of wanting and not wanting at the same times, is a more natural state of mind than we realize. We can't always resolve things by seeking more information.

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes - Part 2

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 144

  May 24, 2017 

Book 43 - Nonsense - The Power of Not Knowing
Jamie Holmes (2015)
 Part 2 - pages 63-110
Reading Time - 1 hour

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, there were a tonne more marriages than normal. When we feel threatened... we want certainty. For some that might mean getting married. For others... it might mean getting divorced. We might have been sitting on the fence for a while... but along comes a threat... and we choose one side of the fence or the other. We want certainty. And it isn't always a direct connection. Uncertainty from a traumatic event can make ambiguity in others areas of our lives less tolerable. As uncertainties add up, we want ever more certainty and the windows of our mind can shut and lock. Stress can lead to urgency... and that makes our minds inflexible as well. The thing is though... uncertain times really call for more flexibility. But the opposite happens... which isn't the best thing. What we really need to do is be calm and take time to make a decision. We need to be comfortable with uncertainty for a period of time... even if it is uncomfortable. But that isn't our first tendency. Our first tendency when faced with a grey area is to look for a solution. Our other tendency is to fix on one aspect of a complex and shifting reality.

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes - Part 1

Nonsense - Jamie Holmes

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 143

  May 23, 2017 

Book 43 - Nonsense - The Power of Not Knowing
Jamie Holmes (2015)
 Part 1 - pages 1-62
Reading Time - 1 hour

This book isn't on my 2017 reading list either but... it looked intriguing and... off we go. So... here's the thing, our brain doesn't like uncertainty (no surprise there). Our mind erects barriers to things that it doesn't know. The trick is to move from stressful apprehension to calm curiosity - to venture into the unknown. We learn way better from calmness than from stress and anxiety. In the face of ambiguity... our minds snap shut. We have a need for closure and if we encounter a partially meaningful situation, one full of ambiguity, our minds will try to find an answer... because any answer is better than no answer and the confusion that comes with that. Some people are intolerant of ambiguity and apparently that is a sign of an unhealthy mind. We have a need to resolve uncertainty and to make sense of nonsense but... what matters most is how we deal with what we don't understand.

Cause the thing is... we see what we expect to see. They've done experiments with playing cards... where the researchers reverse the colour of the suits... so you might get a red spades or a black diamond. They flash these cards to some poor people and see what happens. Turns out our preconceptions actively distort our experiences. Our minds are constantly filtering and simplifying the information with which we are bombarded every day. This filtering is based on a working theory of what we're going to encounter... black spades and red diamonds. When we don't encounter that... our mind either makes us see what we expect or... we just can't compute it. The key here is that belief is the engine that makes perception operate. We have beliefs about the world... and we then "see" things that confirm our beliefs... whether they do or not. Our expectations and assumptions bend and warp the world we see. Which is kind of freaky.

When reality and our views don't line up... we are in an uncomfortable place which is rooted in a cognitive dissonance. A subtle physical anxiety is generated and that motivates us to establish order after encountering disorder. Basically... we have a coherent meaning-making system that responds to incoherence in a predictable sequence:

• some event happens that disturbs our sense of order and consistency
• we enter a state of anxious vigilance and collect clues from our environment
• then can move to assimilate the event (into what we know) or move to accommodation (adjust our beliefs to make it fit)
• then affirm our beliefs and can get more strident in them

This explains why, when our beliefs are challenged, we can get even more intolerant of opposing beliefs and push our point of view even more strongly.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Part 1

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 142

  May 22, 2017 

Book 42 - Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte (2016)
 Part 1 - pages 1-256
Reading Time - 1 hour

I was on a trip recently and had my e-book reader along. I had downloaded some free books from the Gutenberg library and browsed through them, looking for something different to read (other than Dick Francis). I decided on Wuthering Heights. I might have read this in high school... but had only a very vague notion of what the book is about. I know some blogger friends who are totally enamored with the "hero" of the story, Heathcliff, so I thought I'd give it a read.

Well... it was nothing like what I imagined... or what I imagined that I recalled about it. It's a pretty brutal story with a fair bit of cruelty and downright psychological abuse. This was the only book that Emily Bronte wrote... she died fairly young... and I can only wonder what made her write such a brutal story. It is definitely not a Victorian romance... and maybe that is the point. The story may, perhaps, show the real interactions that go on behind the doors of fancy houses. It wasn't all sweetness and light. It took a bit to get used to their old-fashioned way of speaking but it was definitely readable.

Straight - Dick Francis - Part 1

Straight - Dick Francis

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 141

  May 21, 2017 

Book 41 - Straight
Dick Francis (2016)
 Part 1- pages 1-200
Reading Time - 4 hours

Another Dick Francis book... this one is a about a steeplechase jockey, Derek, who is laid up with a busted ankle. His brother, Greville, a gem merchant, dies in an accident and Derek must piece together the pieces of his brother's life. The story involves over a million dollars in missing diamonds, a mistress, betrayal and a bit of murder and mayhem (surprise). We have here another stoic hero, not quite as depressed as the hero of Proof. One thing that is rather amusing is how technologically dated the stories are now. There are no cell phones in this story - a lot of phone calls and personal visits. I wonder how a modern Dick Francis story would read! This story is another one of my favourites!

Proof - Dick Francis - Part 1

Proof - Dick Francis

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 140

  May 20, 2017 

Book 40 - Proof
Dick Francis (2016)
 Part 1 - pages 1-200
Reading Time - 4 hours

I've been reading a few light fiction books on the side. This is one of my favourite Dick Francis books. I've read it dozens of times and always enjoy it. It tells the story of a wine merchant who gets sucked into a mystery about some stolen scotch. This book, like all of Francis' books, has a tangential relationship to the world of horse racing but the real focus is on the alcohol. The hero of the story is, like many of Francis' heroes, a rather stoic fellow who keeps plugging along despite losing his wife, witnessing a horrific accident, and seeing murder and mayhem.

The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier - Part 4

The Coaching Habit -
Michael Bungay Stanier

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 139

  May 19, 2017 

Book 39 - The Coaching Habit -
Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier (2016)
 Part 4 - pages 160-223
Reading Time - 1 hour

Last 2 questions... Question 6 is the Strategic Question. It is based in the notion that being busy is a form of laziness - which is kind of a weird thought! But being busy is a reflection of lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy means we say "yes" to everything and don't choose. So the essence of strategy is choosing what NOT to do. The questions is phrased as: "If you're saying "yes" to this... then what are you saying "no" to?" A follow-up question could be: "What could being fully committed to this idea look like?" It's good to remember that a yes is nothing without the no that gives it boundaries and form. Another helpful thought is to learn how to say "no" by saying "yes" more slowly. Often we say "yes" too quickly without getting all the facts or all the parameters of whatever it is we're being asked. We could be curious, ask some questions and get clear if this is something we really want to say yes to.

Question 7 is the Learning Question... People don't learn by being told something... or by reading something, or even by experiencing something. They learn when they have a chance to recall and reflect on what just happened. So the question to ask is: "What was Most Useful to You?". Tricky, eh. It's not... "How was this useful"... or "Was this useful to You"... because each of those could be answered... "It wasn't useful at all!". By asking... What was most useful, it makes the person look and see... there was something in all of this that was useful... what was it? It forces people to extract value from something. One final bit of advice is to use every channel to Ask a Question - not just conversation, but email works also.

Finally... the author encourages us to build a habit of Curiosity. That's really the core of this I think... is being curious about the other and what answer they will come up. We always think we know the right answer... but we don't. I liked this book and the questions it offered up. I am going to type them on a little card, post it on my desk near the phone and use it for work conversations!

The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier - Part 3

The Coaching Habit -
Michael Bungay Stanier

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 138

  May 18, 2017 

Book 39 - The Coaching Habit -
Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier (2016)
 Part 3 - pages 105-159
Reading Time - 1 hour

Questions 4 and 5 are powerful ones as well. Question 4 gets to the heart - What do You Want? What do you Really Want? There is a distinction to be made between wants and needs. But ultimately, under every seemingly frivolous want is an underlying Need. They can be grouped under the following main broad categories: Affection, Creation, Recreation, Freedom, Identity, Understanding, Participation, Protection, Subsistence. Oftentimes when we are griping out something or coming with a huge list of problems and issues - this is a good question that can get to the heart of the matter. On the other hand... having been asked this question myself, I find myself a bit stymied in answering it. Do I really know what I want?

One of the tips the author offers is... get comfortable with silence. If you ask someone one of these coaching questions... sit in the silence after the question and allow the person time to formulate this answer. We might feel like a minute has gone past, but on average it's only a few seconds. Just sit and be calm.

Question 5 is the Lazy Question... which is an intriguing title. So... here's the thing... when we help someone... we raise our status and lower theirs. In any interaction, there are three Archetypal roles that we tend to circulate through: Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer. We can get caught in a Drama Triangle, cycling through all three of these in one interaction. How do we break out of the cycle? Ask the following - How can I Help? It gets us out of thinking we know how to help and shifts the responsibility to them. Another way to phrase it, a bit more bluntly, is: What Do You Want From Me? And... in case you want to soften that... preface it by "out of curiosity..." or "Just so I know..." or "To help me understand better..." or "To make sure I'm clear...".

At all costs... avoid the cheddar on the mousetrap... when someone asks you "What do you think I should do about..." Don't answer it!! Remember... we don't have the answer... they do. And if we ask a question... we really need to listen to the answer.

The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier - Part 2

The Coaching Habit -
Michael Bungay Stanier

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 137

  May 17, 2017 

Book 39 - The Coaching Habit -
Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier (2016)
 Part 2 - pages 49-104
Reading Time - 1 hour

Alright... we get Questions 2 and 3 in this section. The first three questions that open up the coaching for development work together really well.

Question 2 is the AWE question... "And What Else". So when the person has finished telling you What's on Their Mind... you ask... And What Else... so that every comes out onto the table. Most of the time, we work with binary solutions - this or that... but by asking the AWE question, we can actually find more solutions. The AWE question also tames the Advice Monster in each of us that, once it hears What's on somebody's mind, wants to jump in there and fix things. We don't have the answer... but we think we do! You have to stay curious when you ask this question, and that seems to be a common theme... stay curious... and stay genuine! Apparently, most people do not ask the AWE questions often enough... the author suggests 3-5 times. And if you end up with 4 options/solutions... that's a good number.

Question 3 is the Focus Question. When someone first tells us what is on their mind... we can think that that is the actual/real problem. But it's usually not. We do want to fix it though but we can end up wasting our time fixing the wrong problem. First problem is not always Real problem... So... ask - What's the Real Challenge here for You? It gets them to cut to the chase because sometimes, when you've asked what's on their mind, you get a huge pile of problems. Sooo... by asking What's the Real Challenge here for You?, you get them to identify it. The author says that just adding "for you" to the end of other questions can also work wonders.

There are also some Question tidbits in here... If you know what question to ask... get to the point and ask it. Stop doing the opening chit-chat. Just get to it. A good opening line is "Out of curiosity....".

Another tidbit... don't disguise ideas as questions... we can be bad at this. "Have you thought about...?" "What about....?" These "questions" are just advice with a question mark attached. Stop it.

Another tidbit... stick to questions starting with "What" rather than "Why". A why question can very easily end up sounding like "What the heck were you thinking!!?" Better to ask... "What were you hoping for here? What made you choose this course of action?" "What's important for you here?". These tend to keep the conversation open and flowing rather than sending someone into their defensive little hole because they feel like they are in trouble.

The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier - Part 1

The Coaching Habit -
Michael Bungay Stanier

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 136

  May 16, 2017 

Book 39 - The Coaching Habit -
Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier (2016)
 Part 1 - pages 1-48
Reading Time - 1 hour

This book is more of a "work" book for me. I am realizing that this book challenge is a bit more of a challenge than I thought. There have also been some hiccups in my life and I'm finding that I can't devote all the time to reading that I would like to. So... we're going to have to stitch in some other books that I've been reading in addition to the book challenge books. Otherwise... this challenge is going to fall flat!

This book starts off with the rather provocative thought: You're probably not getting very effective coaching; and you're probably not delivery very effective coaching. Given that I work in a field where coaching is part of the air we breathe... this was a bit of an eye-opener. The author comes at the idea of coaching from the premise that we give too many solutions... and don't ask enough questions. There is a distinction between coaching for performance (giving advice, solving problems for people) and coaching for development (they solve their own problems - more rare and more powerful).

Sooo... we're going to learn 7 questions that will support us in becoming better coaches. One tidbit he offers is this... ask one question at a time! Good thing to remember.

The first question to ask is: What's on Your Mind? This is a nice opening question... not too broad and not too narrow. It gives the person the opportunity to share what is in their space. Out of that... you'll get enough information to see... do you need to coach a person, a project or a pattern of behaviour.

Ways of Seeing - John Berger - Part 2

Ways of Seeing - John Berger

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 135

  May 15, 2017 

Book 38 - Ways of Seeing
John Berger (1972)
 Part 2 - pages 83-155
Reading Time - 1 hour

A whole essay on oil paintings - 1500s to 1800s and how... well... the paintings are really about the things that people back then valued. That they were wanting to live a certain lifestyle, and owning oil paintings brought them some of that. I must admit, I didn't totally get this chapter...

The last essay though... did make more sense. It's essentially about advertising and publicity. The idea that publicity "proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer-- even though we will be poorer by having spent our money." Ads show us people who have been "transformed" and are enviable... we want to be like them. "The state of being envied constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour." Well... that explains the Kardashians... seriously, I still have no idea why these people are in the news all the time and why they are so enviable... but obviously I am not watching the right ads... The thing with publicity is... it's all about being the envy of others. We want to own that Jaguar because then other people will envy us...

There was an interesting thought in this last essay:... "the industrial society which has moved towards democracy and then stopped halfway..." ... "existing social conditions make the individual feel powerlesss. He lives in the contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be. Either he then becomes fully conscious of the contradiction and its causes, and so joins the political struggle for a full democracy which entails, amongst other things, the overthrow of capitalism; or else he lives, continually subject to an envy..." Well... that's fascinating and succinctly put. We are only halfway to democracy... stuck in a capitalistic cauldron where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Food for thought. Here's another one.... "publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy"... that makes sense!

It's a fascinating little book although... the images that are reproduced are tiny and in grey-scale which really detracts from the impact of the work. Some essays were just photographs and I didn't really get them at all, mostly due to the poor quality of the images. I know that there is a series of YouTube videos of John Berger discussing this topic... which might be worth viewing. Episode 1 is here... apparently there are a total of 4 episodes, each about half an hour in length.

Ways of Seeing - John Berger - Part 1

Ways of Seeing - John Berger

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 134

  May 14, 2017 

Book 38 - Ways of Seeing
John Berger (1972)
 Part 1 - pages 5-82
Reading Time - 1 hour

This book is actually on my official 2017 Reading Challenge List! Hooray!! It's a strange book though... with a lot of images of art work. The idea, which is intriguing, is that there are an infinite number of view points for something. For example, a family photograph is shaped by the eye of the picture taker. Whoever the photographer is, decides when to take the photograph and sets up the camera and what image fills the view finder. It begs the question... is any photograph or image really objective? Or are they coloured by the way of seeing that the picture-taker brought to the image?

The other idea is that how we view art is different today. We don't go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. We look at it online or in books, or on t-shirts. We don't value art for it's own merits, but more for how much it is worth, or who painted it, or something else. We come to art with preconceived notions and assumptions on: beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, taste, etc.

The book is divided into a series of essays, some of which are made up purely of art images, mostly Renaissance. One essay dealt with the issue of how women are portrayed in Renaissance art - as nudes. The author argues that men "act" and women "appear". That women, at least in Western Society, are judged by how they appear... and that they judge themselves in relation to this as well. Most of nude Renaissance portraits have the woman staring out at the observer, usually presumed to be a man. Women are portrayed quite differently from men (even today) not because they are feminine, but because the ideal "spectator" is always assumed to be male... and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him. To prove the point, the author suggests that one look at any of nude art work and transform the woman into a man... notice the violence that the transformation does... not to the image... but to the assumptions of a likely viewer. Interesting experiment.

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 6

The Hidden Life of Trees -
Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 133

  May 13, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 6 - pages 200-250
Reading Time - 1 hour

So here's an interesting thing... air is cleaner under trees. The trees act as huge air filters and pump out oxygen and other substances into the air. If you've ever walked in a forest, you know that smell. Fresh, tree smell. The author asks the question though... can one feel more comfort in one forest vs. another? For example, is a beech forests in Europe (which is a native forest) a different experience than a spruce forest in Europe (which have been imported and planted)? A few years ago, an aunt of mine came over to the West Coast of Canada for a visit. She was dreading walking in our coniferous forests because back in Germany, those types of forests gave her a bad feeling. She was surprised when she came here, because our forests were totally unlike her experience in Germany. No wonder... think about it. A spruce plantation in Germany is not a native forest. The trees are "unhappy" and anyone walking through the forest, with any sensitivity, will sense that. On the other hand, a beech forest in Germany is a beautiful, happy place. Here in Canada... it's different. Our coniferous forests are native, and the ecosystem is native... they are a happy place and create good energy. Totally makes sense to me.

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 5

The Hidden Life of Trees -
Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 132

  May 12, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 5 - pages 147-199
Reading Time - 1 hour

Do individual trees have character? Good question... The author talks about a cluster of three oaks that grew in the same conditions but behaved very differently. One tree would turn colour much earlier in the fall than the other two. It was a more "sensible" tree, hedging its bets and not courting the disaster of an early frost. Interesting.

The author also laments what he calls the "street kids" of trees. These are trees that were introduced into Europe from the New World - things like redwoods and spruce. They were planted in parks and were pampered by being watered. But they had no parents and grew too quickly. There roots were shallow and they were surrounded by other types of trees. When the watering stopped... the trees were in trouble.

Trees generally have great tolerance for climatic variability. When seeds are set, they are set for the conditions of that year. So if it's a drought year, the little seeds are prepped to be drought tolerant. Which means that even though trees can belong to the same species, they can have a high genetic variability. Some might deal better with drought (cause they were set in a drought year) whereas others might deal better with cold (cause the seeds were set in a cold year).

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 4

The Hidden Life of Trees -
Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 131

  May 11, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 4 - pages 99-145
Reading Time - 1 hour

I learned a few cool things about trees in this chapter... like trees can alter microclimates. They can calm winds, reduce evaporation and enhance the soil.

I also learned that forests are of huge importance for the hydrologic cycle. We know the cycle. Water flows down to the ocean from the continents, evaporates off the ocean, falls as rain over the edge of the continent when it encounters mountains. Rinse and repeat. The thing is... How does rain get further inland than the first 100 km or so? Well... rain falls on forests along the coast, but then a lot of it evaporates back into the atmosphere allowing it to be carried further inland. Alberta can thank BC forests for any rain that they get! Which makes me wonder... if we clear too much of our BC forests... what will that do?

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 3

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 130

  May 10, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 3 - pages 60-98
Reading Time - 1 hour

I have to admit, all these chapters get a bit overwhelming after a while. There is so much information! How trees age... what the bark means. Why some trees get really furrowed bark (like Douglas Fir) and why some bark remains smooth for a very long time (like Beech or Arbutus). I learned that trees in distress send out tonnes of anxious suckers at the base. Which makes me look at our old plum tree with some concern! I also wonder about our plum tree... it is a cultivated plum grafted onto wild rootstock. Which makes me wonder... is there a bit of a struggle going on between the root and the tree? Because the suckers that are coming up are all from the wild rootstock.

Old clonal tree - Sweden

Which leads to another question. What is a tree exactly? One shrubby Norway Spruce tree in Sweden is 9500 years old, with multiple little stalks. The tree in Sweden is not the world's oldest tree. It is the world's third oldest clonal tree "that has regenerated new trunks, branches and roots over millennia rather than an individual tree of great age."

 The underground part of the tree seems to be the most permanent... which makes one wonder if that is where experience and knowledge are stored. Do the electrical impulses in tree roots represent thoughts and intelligence?

The truth is... we know even less about the world underground than we do about the ocean (and we know precious little about the ocean!). Half of the biomass of a forest is in the soil, which is a crazy thought. There is so much life down there... and we have no idea about it.

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 2

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 129

  May 9, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 2- pages 31-59
Reading Time - 1 hour

Tree babies... little saplings... so cute! But saplings that look really young, can actually be very old. Growing up under the canopy of the older trees, most saplings have access to very little light. So they tend to grow very slowly. This is actually a good thing, because trees that have a very slow youth, can live to a ripe old age. When a mother tree dies, the young saplings can sprout up and head for the sun.

Trees need to learn a few things as they grow. There is an ideal shape for each tree that aids their stability. If trees grow a bit crooked or get forks, they will discover, over time that they lack some stability. Another lesson trees need to learn is conserve moisture. If trees don't conserve moisture, they can get splits, which is very dangerous. Fungi and bacteria get into the split and the tree tries desperately to repair and heal the wound. The thing that puzzles scientists is this... if trees can learn, where do they store the information?

Trees are social beings who help each other out... with the aid of the fungal networks. One fungi can cover 2000 acres and be over 2500 years old. The fungi and the trees partner up. The fungi help to connect the trees and in return, the fungi get about 1/3 of the tree's food resources. They can also filter heavy metals out of the soil and fight off bad bacteria and fungi. While trees can partner with different fungi... most fungi are sensitive to what trees they work with.

One of the mysteries that remain about trees is how they draw water up from the ground into their leaves. Scientists have looked at several options like capillary action, transpiration and osmosis. None of those explain the process so... scientists really have no idea! There is so much we don't know about trees... and yet they are all around us.

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 1

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 128

  May 8, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 1- pages vii-xv; 1-30
Reading Time - 1 hour

I've been wanting to read this book for over a year. I was on the Hold list at the library but... even though they had 33 copies, I was not moving up the list all that quickly. Not with 257 people ahead of me. So I broke down and bought the book.

The author of the book if a forester in Germany and, like many of us who worked in the forestry industry, knew very little about the hidden life of trees. Trees were mainly seen as lumber... the same way farmers see cows as beef steaks.

The foreword to the book introduces us to some of the wild and crazy things about trees that we don't know. Trees live on a different time scale than us. Many live for hundreds of years, some live for thousands of years. There is a tree in Sweden that is 9500 years old. Trees have electrical impulses that travel along their roots at the speed of 1/3" per second... very slowly indeed. But the presence of electrical impulses makes scientists think that it is a form of communication or intelligence. Trees can also release chemicals into the air when they sense danger (like bugs chewing on leaves). Other trees can smell/taste the chemicals and then alter the taste of their leaves to make them less appealing to the bugs (or to browsing herbivores). Tree roots are linked underground with an incomprehensibly huge fungi network. I knew a bit about this from last fall. My Mom and I had been out picking mushrooms and I did a big of research and learned that mushrooms are just the fruiting bodies of an underground network of ultra-fine fungi tendrils that can extend over a vast territory. Mind-blowing! Through the fungi network (the wood-wide-web), trees can share food and also communicate with one another.

The book is structured in relatively short chapters that almost feel like stand-alone essays. In the first chapter we learn about an ancient tree stump that still had green bark around the outside. How could that be possible? It would appear that surrounding trees were keeping the old stump alive through the fungi networks. Forests aren't really composed of individual trees... rather they are a super-organism with some similarities to an ant colony. Many trees growing together create an ecosystem that moderates the extremes of heat and cold and also produces and conserves humidity. Each tree is valuable to the community, because if one tree dies, an opening in the canopy can lead to blow-down. So trees support each other when they are sick. On a sadder note... planted trees, or our urban trees, have usually had their roots damaged and never develop those supportive networks. They are essentially blind/deaf/dumb trees - and that is a sad thing.

Trees, as we learned above, can communicate via scent as well as electrical impulses (very slowly). There is also some intriguing research that suggests that trees can communicate via sound waves. I think, that the next time I go into the woods, I'm going to have a very different experience of the forest!

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski - Part 3

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 127

  May 7, 2017 

Book 36 - Sharing is Good - How to Save Money, Time and Resources through Collaborative Consumption

Beth Buczynski (2013)
 Part 3 - pages 55-165
Reading Time - 1 hour

There are all sorts of different ways that we can share, and that can seem a bit overwhelming at first. The trick is to start small. To start viewing things as items to be exchanged. To start viewing friends and neighbours as resources. There is, naturally, a risk in everything. There can be accidents, misrepresentation, theft and vandalism. But those who participate in the sharing economy say that those are minimal.

The last 85 pages of the book list all sorts of different sharing economy options. Ideas and sites where we can exchange Goods, Skills, Time, Housing, Transportation, Food, Space or even Money. Everything from couchsurfing to bike sharing, to yard sharing, crowdfunding, freecycle, etc. I know personally, I find a lot of useful stuff on Kijiji - particularly their Free section. We've found firepit blocks there, firewood, kindling, rocks... It is a cool resource and it's nice to know that we are keeping stuff out of the landfill. I also realize that there are a lot of different ideas out there. One of them really intrigued me... the idea of a church or some other community organization having a Tool Loan Cupboard.... where you can donate your tools... and then borrow them when you need them. On the other hand... we borrowed a post-hole digger from a friend last April (2016) and still haven't returned it! Oops!!! Time to start digging those post holes and get that thing back to its rightful owner and off my guilty conscience!

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski - Part 2

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 126

  May 6, 2017 

Book 36 - Sharing is Good - How to Save Money, Time and Resources through Collaborative Consumption

Beth Buczynski (2013)
 Part 2 - pages 21-54
Reading Time - 1 hour

Now... even though sharing is part of our DNA... it doesn't come easily sometimes. Ask any 2-year old who is supposed to share their toys! Selfishness creeps in. We see sharing as cheating by those who don't work as hard as we do. Why should we share with them when we've worked so hard and they haven't!

There are a few other reasons why we are reluctant to share... we're too busy. The truth is... we don't really use our time efficiently... particularly if we spend 2-3 hours a day watching television.

Some people are reluctant to share because of safety concerns. Sharing means we have to be flexible and interact with our fellow human beings... some of whom might be strangers. We have a weird aversion to trusting each other. Caution is a good thing... but mistrust is bad.

The truth is... there are more and more of us than ever before and half of the 7 billion people on this planet live in poverty. We are consuming more and wasting more... and that is not sustainable. There's no way the earth can support 10 billion people who want to live the way we do. Which means... that maybe our individualistic, capitalistic, materialistic mentality is not the best example to follow. It's even kind of weird that more and more... we call ourselves "consumers" rather than "people" or "citizens".

We sometimes hear about the Green Economy... let's save the planet by buying eco-friendly stuff. But that is still consumerism! We need a radical new way of thinking. There are all sorts of different ways to share things: skill-shares, time-banks, cooperatives. The idea is to keep money, resources and talent in the community. When we share, instead of buy... we invest in each other. At the same time, waste is dramatically reduced and we extend the life cycle of physical goods. Particularly if we can get manufacturers away from the idea of planned obsolescence.  Make things that last and/or that are easy to repair and replace.

I keep thinking of credit unions and how the money that we invest in credit unions supports people in our local communities. They are an example of a cooperative... and it makes me think it's time to say good-bye to the Big Banks.

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski - Part 1

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 125

  May 5, 2017 

Book 36 - Sharing is Good - How to Save Money, Time and Resources through Collaborative Consumption

Beth Buczynski (2013)
 Part 1 - pages vii-x; 1-20
Reading Time - 1 hour

Another book I picked up off the library shelf. This one introduces the idea of the Sharing Economy - which is a sustainable economy built around the sharing of both human and physical resources. I had come across different versions of this before. The idea of sharing the stuff that we have in our garages, rather than everyone in the neighbourhood buying a pressure washer (or whatever).

We are programmed to share, but as a society we have worked very hard to forget that. I would add, that the corporations have also worked very hard to make us forget it! We've moved from a society where trolleys were the main means of transportation (sharing) to a society in which everyone wanted their own car. Crazy, really.

We do still have some clear evidence of sharing though... libraries, laundromats, leasing an apartment or a car - all of these are shared resources. And nowadays, with technology, it is every easier to share things. Bartering is one of the earliest forms of sharing. I'll trade you a sheep for a sword. I'll trade you one baseball card for another. The problem with bartering is everyone needs to agree on a value. Is a sheep worth a sword? We also need to find someone who makes swords who needs a sheep. Or we then need to trade our sheep for a wheelbarrow of pottery which we can then trade for a sword. Sooo... that can get complicated pretty quickly. Which is where currency came into being. Everyone could agree that a sheep was worth 10 shekels and a sword was worth 10 shekels. I could "sell" my sheep to someone for 10 shekels and then turn around and use those to "buy" a sword. The thing with currency (as we learned in Ben Hewitt's book "Saved") is that it only has value because we say it does. Currency doesn't determine a thing's value... we determine the value of currency.

There have been cases around the world of using alternate currencies. For example, during the Depression for example, people bypassed the market system by issuing scrip. It had an agreed-upon value and was used so that trade could continue. Alternate currencies force money to bang around the local economy much longer than a dollar would. The central banks don't like alternate currencies however. Mostly because they can't control it...

The Sharing Economy is based on the idea that the world already has all the supplies and resources we need... most of them just sitting idle or being wasted. Think of the lawnmowers that sit idle most of the week - only being pulled out for 2 hours every 7 days. That means that they are used only... 1.2% of the time. Or 2.4% of daylight hours. If we could shift to a sharing economy, we could reduce poverty and resource consumption.

The Sharing Economy includes everything all sorts of things: traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting and swapping. When we realize that access, not ownership is essential to meeting our needs and wants... we can free ourselves up from a lot of things... debt being one of them. We don't need to "own" a lawnmower... we just need to be able to have access to one.

It would require a paradigm shift in how we produce, consume and govern... but we could turn out consumption-obsessed society into an economic democracy.

America Beyond Capitalism - Gar Alperovitz - Part 6

America Beyond Capitalism -
Gar Alperovitz

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 124

  May 4, 2017 

Book 35 - America Beyond Capitalism -
Reclaiming our Wealth, our Liberty and our Democracy

Gar Alperovitz (2005)
 Part 6 - pages 197-240
Reading Time - 1 hour

I am beginning to see the pattern in the author's ideas. A tax on the super-rich. He basically says there are 2 classes in the United States - the top 2% ultra rich and then everybody else. President Bush (not sure if #1 or #2) showered special benefits on the super rich. And while that's happening, regular Americans are working more and more ours but getting farther and farther behind. There has been talk of giving everyone a basic income... and the way to fund that would be taxing the super-rich.

The other problem is one I've come across in some of the other books. The economy cannot grow at an exponential rate forever. The earth and the ecosystem is finite. Americans, and the First World in general, use an inordinate amount of the earth's resources. But we are trying to keep up with the super-rich Joneses. I saw an advertisement today for teeth-whitening. Only $399. Who can afford that? The Home Support people who care for my Dad are driving really posh new cars. Do they really earn that much? Or are they in debt up to their eyeballs? All in the name of keeping up appearances. One option is to tax luxury items. Another is to change the tax laws so that advertising is no longer tax deductible. But ultimately, we, the plebes, need to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. We are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into debt... and whether we admit it or not... debt IS slavery.

The book concludes with a burning question - Can the System be Changed? The author's main points are:

1. Need new institutions to hold wealth for the public good
2. Need to rebuild democracy in everyday life
3. Need decentralization
4. Need individual economic security and free time
5. Need to change ownership of wealth

On a sobering note... the author notes that things are likely to get worse before they get better. On the other hand, changes may come more quickly than we can imagine.

America Beyond Capitalism - Gar Alperovitz - Part 5

America Beyond Capitalism -
Gar Alperovitz

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 123

  May 3, 2017 

Book 35 - America Beyond Capitalism -
Reclaiming our Wealth, our Liberty and our Democracy

Gar Alperovitz (2005)
 Part 5 - pages 167-196
Reading Time - 1 hour

Well... that was interesting. Did you know that Income Tax in the US only started in 1913 and that it was directed at the top 2-4% of the population? After World War 2, the elites were taxed at 91%. In 1964, the rate was 77%. And during the Reagan era, the rate was reduced even further. But while tax rates for the super-rich are going down, the real income for the bottom 50% of US citizens has gone down from 1973-1995. Where there does seem to be a rise in income, it's because people are working longer hours (1679 hours/year in 1973 - 1878 hours/year in 2000). Wages are stagnating and the prices of essential goods  are going up. It's not a good scenario. The only real answer seems to be taxing the super-elites.

The other problem that is looming on the horizon is Social Security and Retirement. In 2001, the average retiree had $50,000 in retirement savings which won't take anyone very far. People are saving less and less. The Social Security piggy bank is getting rapidly depleted. An aging baby boomer population is going to put a huge strain on the health care system as well. And yet the super-rich continue to have their taxes reduced. And America goes ahead and elects one of the super-rich to be President. You have to wonder what the future holds for a country where whites are increasingly in the minority and the poor non-whites are moving into the majority?

America Beyond Capitalism - Gar Alperovitz - Part 4

America Beyond Capitalism -
Gar Alperovitz

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 122

  May 2, 2017 

Book 35 - America Beyond Capitalism -
Reclaiming our Wealth, our Liberty and our Democracy

Gar Alperovitz (2005)
 Part 4 - pages 123-166
Reading Time - 1 hour

One of the questions that has been asked is - Is local democracy even possible in the global era? The truth is... 60% of US economic activity is local and most of it is service-oriented. There is less and less manufacturing in the US... and more and more services. The trick is to keep local money circulating locally - to build up the local economy. Buy Local is a slogan that we hear more and more nowadays. Community is of key importance in a democracy and it makes me wonder how we can build up our local community more. One way... shop less at Superstore and shop more at local grocery stores and farmer's markets!

The author touches on the whole environmental issue. At the national level... we aren't really making progress with environmental problems. We have maybe slowed things a bit... but we are not reversing trends. People are afraid to challenge pollution because they might lose their jobs provided by some large corporation. Local firms are more enmeshed in the local community and less likely to pull up stakes and leave. One major problem though, is that over 1 million acres of prime farmland are lost in the US each year to urban sprawl. People keep heading further out looking for cheaper houses, but then have to drive farther to get to work in the city centre. We need economic strategies to conserve neighbourhoods... we need to alter the design of our cities. Home, work and school need to be brought closer together. Smaller cities are generally better than bigger cities... but why do so many people flock to the larger urban centres?


The author then touches in more detail on the regional restructuring and decentralization of the United States. The thing is... while the US is ginormous... today there are 5 workers for every retiree. By the year 2030... it will be 2 workers for every retiree. That's not sustainable. Either there will need to be more workers through population growth or more workers through immigration. A place like California is already as big (or bigger) in terms of economy, size and population as some of the bigger EU countries. The idea would be to get smaller states to group together... It makes sense in a way. I could see Washington and Oregon grouping together. And the New England States are a logical grouping.



Today marks 1/3 of the way through my 2017 Book Challenge. At this rate, I should be able to finish 100 books by the end of the year. I hope.