Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking by Robert H. Schuller

In many ways Robert H. Schuller was the model of the modern megachurch pastor. He can be seen as a successor to Norman Vincent Peale in his blend of religion and self-help. They both preached that what you think matters.

Schuller wrote about what he called possibility thinking. He put it in the title of his book Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking.

Possibility thinking is a focus on how valuable ideas can be implemented and worthy goas achieved. Schuller contrasts this with impossibility thinking, a focus on why something won’t work or can’t be done. He believed a lot of great ideas were killed at conception in a rush to find problems, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Move Ahead has the feel of a how-to book. Each chapter looks at some aspect of practicing possibility thinking. He breaks them down into a list of steps; he even numbers each step. He elaborates on the steps, usually including an illustrative story. Many of these stories draw on his experience founding a new church in California or on the experiences of members of his congregation. Other come from famous people, many of whom he had met.

Schuller speaks often of Christ and his religious faith. However, if you removed these references from Move Ahead, it would still be a self-help book—just a little shorter.

Robert H. Schuller also wrote

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good

Self Love

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

I Declare by Joel Osteen

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Reposition Yourself by T. D. Jakes

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can, You Will by Joel Osteen

Schuller, Robert H. Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking. 1967. Old Tappan, NJ: Spire Books, 1978.

Good Naked by Joni B. Cole

Writing can be challenging, outstanding writing usually is, but writers don’t have to be miserable. Author, editor and writing instructor Joni B. Cole offers some perspective for writers in Good Naked.

Cole dispels myths of writing. For instance, writers rarely produce perfect first drafts; mediocre writing is okay because it is a place to start. You don’t have to suffer to produce art, but you do have to put in the effort and deal with the difficulties.

Writers need a balanced optimism. Acknowledge the challenges, but believe you can overcome them. Add to it a touch of humility; Cole believes real writers put aside pride and get the help they need to reach their goals, such as joining a writing group.

Cole also runs counter to some popular advice on writing. She doesn’t believe in outlines. Instead, work the parts that are meaningful, that call out to you. You can arrange them and fill in the gaps later as the big picture forms in your mind. It’s easy to imagine her chapters coming together this way, with images, stories, ideas and remembrances being assembled and reworded until they flow together.

Each chapter of the book is an essay. Though the book as a whole has an order and flow, one could read or reread a helpful chapter without needing to flip back to preceding pages to make sense of it.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Write Naked by Jennifer Probst

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Cole, Joni B. Good Naked: Reflections on How to Write More, Write Better and Be Happier. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2017.

Learn Python 3 the Hard Way by Zed A. Saw

I’ve been putting some effort into learning to code in Python. One of the books I turned to is Learn Python 3 the Hard Way by Zed A. Shaw.

Shaw leads one through Python coding by providing an example of code in each chapter. You can enter it in your editor and run it. He then provides a set of exercises to break, test, modify or improve the code or come up with something on your own.

Actually, this isn’t a particularly hard way to learn coding. It takes time and effort to work through all the exercises in the book, but learning anything challenging and worthwhile takes time and effort. You’ll learn a lot about Python, what works and how to approach programming computers in general as you work through the book.

I don’t know that I have a good way of elaborating on a book like this. It is a workbook. You work through it slowly, step-by-step at the keyboard of your computer.

If you’re a beginner in programming, this is a good place to start. Python is reputed to be easy to learn, but is a powerful general-purpose language the you can use to do about anything you want. The early chapters and exercises are quite easy and Shaw builds skill upon skill as you proceed. In that sense, Shaw makes it easy, you just have to put in the work.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in:

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

How to Build and Android by David F. Dufty

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

Shaw, Zed A. Learn Python 3 the Hard Way: A Very Simple Introduction to the Terrifyingly Beautiful World of Computers and Code. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2017.

Write Naked by Jennifer Probst

Romance writer Jennifer Probst has written more than a score of published books. In Write Naked, she shares her experiences, both successes and mistakes, of building her career as a professional writer.

Probst was not an immediate success. She wrote six books before writing one that was published. One of the lessons of the book is that it takes persistence, time and effort to develop you skill and find a place for your work. Even after writing successful books, the book you’re working on can be a struggle; Probst confesses to finding challenges in writing her most recent books.

Success itself can be a challenge. When she finally made it, she made it big, with a large sale and a book that hit the bestseller lists. After that, the pressure was on. She felt the expectations of her editor and readers to produce another hit that they would love. The pressure to meet those expectations made the next book much harder. It was successful, but not as successful, which she found very disappointing. She points out the reality that you won’t hit a home run every time you step up to the plate, but a base hit is still a success.

I admit that I’m not a fan of romance. However, I am a bit in awe of the ability to many successful romance writers to produce. They turn out books and their books sell. This requires work—they have to get it done. Probst’s advice includes dealing with that aspect of writing. She treats it as her business. She writes every day. She sets goals. She creates deadlines (or gets them from her editor) and meets them. She sets aside time to promote her books and interact with readers. She also says no to things that don’t fit her life and career as a writer so her time and energy isn’t drained away from where it is needed.

Some might thing Probst’s revelation of her experience takes some of the romance out of writing. Of course, whether it is romantic or not, there are realities to making a career of writing. An aspiring writer will need to deal with it.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

No Plot? Not Problem! A Low Stress-High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Probst, Jennifer. Write Naked: A Bestseller’s Guide to Writing Romance and Navigating the Path to Success. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2017.

Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg

You may be like me in the sense of wanting to get more done and falling short. I realize I can’t do all the things I imagine I might do. There aren’t enough hours in life for it and I can let much of it go. However, there are some things that are important to me. It bothers me that I make so little progress on them.

Journalist Charles Duhigg considers this problem of productivity in Smarter Faster Better. Rather than turning to standard self-help fare, he sought out scientifically supported strategies.

For instance, there is a lots said in self-help books about motivation. Duhigg makes the interesting point that motivation can be learned. We can learn to push ourselves to make decisions and take action.

That is a neat concept. If you see motivation as a skill, you can quit beating yourself up and accept that you are not good at motivating yourself yet. Instead, you can focus on improving the skill. You can reward yourself for the effort—however imperfect—and seek lessons to do better next time.

You might start with Duhigg’s tip to think of what it feels like to be in control and how good it is. The memory, and the positive emotion attached to it, may be the boost that gets you moving. Also ask yourself why you are doing something; uncover why it is meaningful to you.

You can learn to pay attention to the right things at the right time, too. Productive people have good mental models that help them ignore the noise and see the details that make a difference. You can develop these models by telling yourself stories throughout the day about what you expect, why you expect it and how your experience matches or varies from the tale.

This imagination can help you make decisions. We can’t know the future, but if we accept uncertainty and imagine the possibilities—good and bad—we can make good guesses.

Another bit of advice from Duhigg is that when you learn something new, you should do something with it. In the last chapter of the book, he recaps by showing how he used the strategies to get his research and writing done.

Charles Duhigg also wrote The Power of Habit.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara A. Oakley

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Duhigg, Charles. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets to Being Productive in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2016.

Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M. Pittman & Elizabeth M. Karle

We can face all kinds of situations that cause anxiety. For some of us, that anxiety can be overwhelming and get in the way of living the life we want. Feelings of anxiety are produced in the brain as a response to triggering circumstances, and we can retrain our brains to lessen our anxious responses. Psychologist Catherine M. Pittman and her co-author Elizabeth M. Karle explain this in Rewire Your Anxious Brain.

The authors devote quite a bit of the book to describing the workings of those parts of the brain most involved in our sense of fear and anxiety. These are the amygdala and the cortex.

The amygdala has a lot of control over our fight, flight or freeze response. It is centrally located and well connected in the brain, so it can produce a powerful response before our thinking mind—the cortex—can figure out what is going on. In addition, the amygdala has its own emotional memories, independent of the cortex, so you may have an anxious response to a stimulus you have little conscious awareness of.

A big part of dealing with anxiety is retraining the amygdala. This can be difficult because it involves exposure to situations that produce anxiety. When you face those situations and see that there is no negative impact, or that they were less than you expected and you can handle it (you didn’t die), your amygdala learns that these situation aren’t so threatening and it will stop producing anxious responses. The authors show how you can take this in steps, starting will less anxiety-inducing stimulus and working your way up, but it may be faster to dive into the deep end.

Retraining the amygdala can be aided by relaxation. The book describes several relaxation practices.

Though the amygdala is always involved in producing anxiety, the cortex can be the source of it or can perpetuate it. Retraining the cortex is mainly a matter of changing your thinking. When you recognize anxiety-producing thoughts, you can change what you are thinking. You might use countering thoughts that you prepared for the situation or you might distract yourself by thinking of something altogether different. Mindfulness is a helpful practice in that it helps you to recognize that your thoughts are not necessarily the reality and you can remain peaceful while the thoughts come and go.

The book is a mix of science and how-to aimed and helping anxious people find relief. The authors strongly suggest that you get help, and I think this is a reasonable suggestion. If anxiety is interfering with your life, you will probably benefit from the aid of a professional. This book can help you understand what is happening and what can be done about it, but you may need some help to actually adapt them your own needs and put them into practice.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Pittman, Catherine M., & Elizabeth M. Karle. Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic & Worry. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2015.

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

As I read Writing Down the Bones, the writing guide by Natalie Goldberg that was first published in 1984, I found myself being more courageous and honest in my writing. At least I’m more that way in the writing I do for myself.

That is where it starts. Better writing comes from the practice of writing. Goldberg recommends timed writing as a practice. Set the amount of time you plan to write, even if it is as short as 10 minutes, and write as fast and freely as you can.

I’ve been doing something similar for a while. What helped me break through to more scary and fruitful territory is Goldberg’s advice to write a little more. If you feel you’ve written all you can about something, write a little more. I found it pushed me to write down thoughts and feelings I didn’t want to admit I had. I don’t know that these confessions to myself had made me a better writer, but when I break through I feel like I may be able to deal with something I’ve been avoiding.

In both of these practices, writing is a kind of meditation, which Goldberg discusses in several of the book’s short chapters. She draws on Buddhist practices such as meditation throughout the book.

Her Buddhist practices also involve being present, which she suggests is helpful for writers. Be present in your everyday life and in your writing. Be attentive, listen, and you will fill your mind with the wonderful things. These become specific details that ground your writing in real life. Instead of writing about something, you can write what is; your readers will conjure up on their own the emotions associated with the experience you capture in your words.

“Whatever is in front of you is your life, so please take care of it,” Natalie Goldberg, Afterward to Writing Down the Bones

Goldberg believes writing should be tied to the rest of your life. Whatever you’re doing, you’re a writer, and even though you can and should give your full attention to the person or task in front of you, the writing mind is still being primed for its work. And writing is work; it requires effort. Like any worthwhile thing, you get out of it what you put into it. Writing is a process and it needs to be approached with joy, honesty and patience if it is to bear fruit.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Switch on Your Brain by Caroline Leaf

Take the Leap by Heather McCloskey Beck

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. 2^nd ed. Boston: Shambala, 2005.

How to Improve Your Memory by James D. Weinland

James D. Weinland’s How to Improve Your Memory is, in my mind, primarily a book on study skills. Weinland’s interest is learning, and memory is an important part of that.

As I read the book, it seemed to me that learning successfully is built on four areas: intention, attention, repetition and organization. Weinland has tips related to all of these.

Intention to learn is easy to come by when you have an interest in a subject. If you’re not interested, you’ll need to find some other motivation. Think about why you’re studying a subject and the benefits you hope to achieve. Even if you’re a student and you “have to” take a class, think of the opportunities that might open up to you if you get a good grade.

Attention is very important to memory and learning. If you forget something, it is very likely you weren’t paying attention to begin with. Remove distractions from your environment and mind (this wasn’t an issue when this book was published in 1957, but put away your cell phone and put it out of your mind). Engage as many senses as you can.

Remember that attention isn’t an infinitely available commodity. Get the rest you need. Don’t burn yourself out by focusing too long on one subject or closely related subjects. Give your mind, especially the executive functions a break, by alternating unrelated subjects, switching back and forth from mental to physical activities and making a little time for rest and recreation.

Repetition is important to memory, but it doesn’t need to be boring. Allowing time between practice sessions can actually improve performance.

Organization can go a long way to making learning easier. Some of the most successful mnemonic techniques involve arranging and associating things we want to remember with things we already remember well, especially locations. For instance, pigeonholing involves creating a spacial arrangement, such as a grid, with things to be remembered in each space. Mind maps do something similar with a more free-form arrangement that also takes advantage of our ability to remember images and colors. Memory castles are sophisticated applications of this strategy. Understanding how things are divided into wholes and parts or groups can help you break down subjects into smaller, easier to remember, parts that are connected so that remembering on item helps you remember the others.

I tend to connect the use of meaningful association to the idea of organization. Meaningful association builds on what you already know. This could be building on or filling in your background on a subject, finding analogies to familiar or using acronyms and rhymes. A related practice is it to come up with an outrageous image that represents what you want to remember. We find it easy to remember images—the more unusual the image the easier it is to recall—so we can take advantage of that by associating what we want remember with a crazy image that reminds of it.

The book is dated, but I think the advice is applicable even if the science of memory has advance. In addition, the book has the advantage of being short.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Weinland, James D. How to Improve Your Memory. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1957.

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Shut Up & Write! is a guide for new writers by author and teacher Judy Bridges. It is one of the most straightforward and simple writing guides I’ve seen, which I like. As you go through it and read about the process and techniques described, you may feel she is describing the very process she use to write the book in your hands.

There are several other things to like about this book. I’ll mention a few here in no particular order except the last.

The book is broad; it covers the writing process from idea to publication. It remains a short book, though, and doesn’t get into excessive detail. I think it is enough to have a generally direction. As a beginning writer, you should be writing and making your work as good as you can; you can figure out the details you need as you go.

Bridges doesn’t elevate fiction writing over nonfiction. If someone writes histories, news articles, technical manuals or advertising copy, they are still writing. Many of the same skills and requirements apply to any type of writing.

I like Bridges’ suggestions for organizing or plotting a story. It is very simple and visual. It is also something that could work for a short piece or a long book. Good planning tools should help one write, not spend a lot of effort on planning.

Possibly the best thing about the Bridges’ advices is that she does not sugarcoat how hard it is to write a book—at least a good one. She tells her readers to put at least two years into a book. Admittedly, many of her students and the audience for this book will be aspiring or part-time writers with limited time, but writing a quality book is about more than time. This realistic expectation will help readers who hope to write a book get in the right mindset.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

No Plot? Not Problem! A Low Stress-High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

Bridges, Judy. Shut Up & Write! Milwaukee, WI: Redbird Studio Press, 2011.

Depreciation Systems by Frank K. Wolf & W. Chester Fitch

Depreciation System, by engineering professors Frank K. Wolf and W. Chester Fitch, describes methods for estimating depreciation for utilities. Rates of regulated public utilities are usually based on balancing the public need for affordable rates with then investor’s need for a reasonable rate of return. While it is only one factor in setting utility rates, a reasonable accounting of depreciation is needed to determine the rate base and assure that the capital of the investors is recovered.

Depreciation can be estimated in several way, some more practicable and popular than others. Wolf and Fitch present these methods in a systematic and orderly fashion. They present a system of classification by which methods can be compared or contrasted using a handful of more basic concepts or methods. This permits them to be thorough, though the result is sometimes tedious. Fortunately, they do not give equal attention to every possible combination of elements because some are not used or are not very workable.

Some of the methods they describe have been in use for more than a century, but the book was written in the early 1990s, so the authors assume the readers will be using computers. Because this is mostly a matter of spreadsheets, the computerized calculation methods hold up even after 20 years. However, depreciation methods do not change rapidly; many depreciation professionals are still using software that was developed in the mid-1980s, which is still considered current (at least from a methodological point of view).

Like most references or textbooks, this does not make for interesting reading. I undertook the task for professional reasons. It is a good reference, though. In some cases it may be a little too complicated for someone new to the profession. In general, the authors try to focus more on the concept than the more complex details (you can’t write a reference that prescribes a solution to every problem a depreciation professional might face), while still presenting thorough descriptions, with examples, of the major methods in use.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in:

Public Utility Depreciation by NARUC

Wolf, Frank K., & W. Chester Fitch. Depreciation Systems. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1994.

Public Utility Depreciation by NARUC

I don’t usually read reference books, or textbooks, all the way through like I did with Public Utility Depreciation Practices. Because of my new job as a “depreciation engineer,” I undertook reading this guide from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).

The title describes the content of the book. It includes some historical and legal background, but the bulk of the book is aimed at the practicalities of determining depreciation expenses.

The main elements going into depreciation rate determination are depreciation base, service life, net salvage, and depreciation computation methods. Depreciation base is the starting point; it represents the initial investment of capital that is to be recovered as a cost through depreciation. Generally it is the book cost (original cost of the infrastructure including materials, equipment, labor and related costs).

Most methods of computing depreciation are referred to as age-life methods. These methods spread the cost of the expected life of a piece of infrastructure. The preferred method is straight line depreciation. To apply these methods, one will need to know or estimate the life of the infrastructure under consideration and the net salvage value. The depreciation rate is the difference between the base and the net salvage, divided by the life of the infrastructure. With the exception of unique pieces, like types of infrastructure are lumped together because they are expected to have a similar life (wooden poles, steel poles, copper wire, conduit, etc.).

Life expectancy can be estimated by several methods. Survivor curves are developed from statistical studies of the life of particular types of infrastructure, though other methods may be used depending on the type and quality of data available.

Net salvage is estimated based on experience. The gross salvage is the price received for the equipment or materials retired. The cost of removal is subtracted from this to calculate the net salvage. Sometimes it can cost more to remove infrastructure than the value of the retired equipment and materials, so net salvage can be negative.

Calculating depreciation is more art than science. Projections of future values are inherently tricky. Growth can cause infrastructure to become inadequate before it is expected, or slower than expected growth can extend the life infrastructure. New regulations can make infrastructure obsolete in an instant, as can new technologies. In addition, utilities are constantly adding and retiring infrastructure. Amidst this uncertainty, regulators must balance the level of service needed by utility customers with the returns needed by utility investors in a complex environment.

Admittedly, a book from 1968 may seem dated. However, many of the practices described are still in use. Government regulation of monopoly utility rates in the United States has been occurring for more than a century, and the practices to not change rapidly. Even so, some of the practices described were considered obsolete, or near obsolescence, at the time of publication, and are not likely to be encountered now unless you’re a financial historian combing through moldy account books.

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Public Utility Depreciation Practices. 1968. Washington, DC: Author, 1974.

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

In Double Your Brain Power, Jean Marie Stine doesn’t tell you how to make your brain more powerful. She tells you how to get more out of the power your brain already has.

There are five major areas of brainpower covered by the book: learning, memory, reading, listening and thinking. Under each part, a few short chapters introduce specific techniques for improving performance.

I was particularly interested in the chapter on reading. I read a lot for pleasure and work. If I can get my work reading out of the way more quickly, I’ll be able to manage my other duties better. If I can read more books, I’ll be able to post more reviews on my blog. I’ve picked up some books on speed-reading and found the techniques to be so tedious that I never followed through on developing the skill. Stine doesn’t try to teach speed-reading. Her focus is on reading smarter, getting the information you need without reading every word, and remembering the important information. The techniques probably won’t help you get through Moby Dick in a day (though they might get you through it faster than if you didn’t use them), but they probably will help you plow through the paperwork, memos, and reports that come across your desk.

I also paid close attention to the chapter on memory. If you’ve read books on mnemonics, you’ll have seen some of the techniques Stine includes. The down side of mnemonics is it takes time and effort to be good as using the techniques. Fortunately, this is not the only, or even the primary, thing in the chapter.  There are effective, and easily mastered, methods for remembering better that Stine includes.

There are recurring themes that apply to many areas of brainpower. Be attentive. Relax because your brain works better when you relax. Believe you can do better and have a firm intention of improving. Focus and concentration improve all areas of brainpower. Make connections to the things you want to learn and remember, both to things you know and to your personal experiences. Use your feelings as well as you thoughts. Review important information.

Double Your Brain Power is almost a model how-to book. It focuses on specific areas one may want to improve and skills for making those improvements. Stine built some of the skills she teaches into the structure of the book, especially reviewing. The reviews are very brief, so the book does not seem repetitive. Illustrative stories are few, brief, and directly related to the skills discussed.

This structure lends itself to including a lot of information and to brevity. I find that to be a very good quality in a nonfiction book.

In addition, Stine follows the old adage about speaking or teaching: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them.” This is not as bad as it sounds. Stine does not linger on introductions and reviews. They serve their purpose of reinforcing the major points briefly.

Double Your Brain Power does not have a great deal of original concepts, and the author readily acknowledges when ideas or techniques are adapted from others sources. The advantage of this book is that it brings many useful skills together, gets to the point and describes them briefly.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Stine, Jean Marie. Double Your Brain Power. 1997. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2000.