Mike Han

Love the way the author illustrated many of his points using stories that he had encountered during his experience as a professional psychiatrist/psychotherapist for many years.

The book opened with a bang, highlighting many of the wonderful things about a human mind, the discipline required to wield that power, the butterfly effects that life brings to you when you take one too many actions mindlessly.

The 2nd section is mostly about love – the definition, different kinds of love, the action of love, the sacrifices, the risks involved, the mistakes that are made and the whole mystery of it.

Section 3 dealt with stories about religion and in section 4, the author argued that our unconscious mind is where God resides and through spiritual growth we must attain the power that be.

The author lost three stars from my review of this book at the ending. Although some of the points that he had made in these sections are pure gold, by refusing to keep the narrative secular, I had a lot of trouble getting through to the underlying message.

In fairness, written in the 70s, the book must have been intended for a completely different audience that didn't include me. So, I'm giving it 3/5.

Helpful scientific tips based on solid scientific research papers of developmental science. The tips are a minor part of what makes this book great.

How well researched the topics are and how rigorously assessed the conclusions are - makes this book absolutely amazing for a scientific minded new parents or parents-to-be.

The imaginative girl, Rachel, on the train dreamed of a story of a perfect girl Jessi/Megan while Rachel's life was crumbling around her. When Rachel discovered something different about Jessi one day, her last glimmer of hope was shattered beyond repair.

Told in the perspective of three main characters (Game of Thrones style) whose lives intertwined each other, mixed with two halves of the story progressing in parallels, filled with nothing but despair, in a gloomy set-up of sub-urbs of London, it's not a wonder I took as long as I did to finish up to half the book. At that point, subtly placed foreshadowings had given me an inkling of the end that I finished the rest of the book just in one evening with the purpose of simply confirming my theory.

All and all, I find the read morbid and thrilling at the same time.

The first book I read of his was Burma chronicle, I was surprised that this travelogue takes a much darker theme of loneliness and general uncomfort of being in a foreign country with less than a handful of people that you can communicate with. I was painfully reminded of my first few months of my time back in Singapore, reading this book.

Predictably Irrational informs how ignorant we are about our irrational behaviors through stories and experiments. The ingenuity of the experiments, and the mere knowledge that the author himself is the one (of the many) who conducted them made the book much more enjoyable. Definitely the book to read if you want to feel smarter.

There is no you-know-who that the whole world should be afraid of, there is no single hero with boundless moral authority, there is no global issues that tells epic stories. Each and every character are the villains and the heroes of their own story (more or less) and their challenges, as small as they may be, are real and relatable.

It started out slow and stoppable until I was half-way in. I thank myself now that I persisted.

This is one of the very few books I have read through in less than a months period of time and being 600+ pages long I have got to give credit to Walter Issacson and his informative writing. Sure it may come across as something that's lacking of an opinionated voice from the biographer, but for a person as complex as Steve Jobs, he did well enough to put enough information on the table for one to be able to draw their own conclusion on it. And I'm sure there will be many other books that will try to do the same.

As for Steve Jobs.. I'm inspired and I could related to the some of the things that he did and why he would have done them (was I caught in his charisma to think I am so much like him?)... Kudos to Jobs' balls of steel to think different, assert his views to the world and will the world and the rules to his liking...

A series of letters from Daw Aung San Su Kyi during the brief gap of 20 plus years long house arrest during the 90s to be published in a certain newspaper. (She might have mentioned the name in the book, but I couldn't remember)

Unlike her other book Freedom from Fear, this book is filled with many poignant stories about her daily life, lovely stories of cultural events and political events centered around her life as a political dissident. I love many of her delicate metaphors. The tremendous mental strength - facing the challenges that laid before her - emerges through her writings and inspired me unlike any other books I have ever read.