by Craig Cross ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2014
A work in progress that’s already bearing serious fruit.
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Another guidebook to London, this one proving its worth.
Guidebooks—there’s one for every occasion. And now a new guide to London, a city with enough guidebooks to plaster every window and wall within. But wait. London boulevardier Cross isn’t here with the latest quirky take on the oubliette under the Tower of London. “The aim of this book is just to give you a feel for each place, and to let you know what to expect when you get there.” That calls for atmosphere, for psychogeography, for all the elementals that make a place: lights, sounds, smells, scenery, architecture, the level of neighborhood care, and the ephemeral things noticed only by serious walkers and nose pokers. Among the color photos, maps, and paintings, Cross can be practical: his guide offers opening times, prices, routes, stations, recommended time for appreciation. For the tourist who hopes to not look like a tourist, he has tutorials on phones, postage, Wi-Fi spots, and—thank goodness—public restrooms. The book is divided into sensible parts: landmarks, sightseeing buses and boats, itineraries (some afield), and a very choice chapter of “Top Ten Lists,” enumerating the good, the bad, and the ugly. “A trip to Abbey Road is the perfect day out for me,” he says. “And it’s also the perfect place to see a bit of road rage too.” Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of 1666 started, may be a letdown, being in rather good shape, but Cross has an idea: “Let’s burn it down again!” Then there’s the Chatham Dockyard, a ride on the Eye, the Whispering Gallery, the Globe Theatre, Soane’s Museum (getting so close to Seti I’s sarcophagi, you breathe his ancient exhalations), etc. Cross is a hoot, a fine blend between the footloose guides and those on the erudite side, a Nagel or a Blue. Stick this 900-plus-page guide in your e-pocket, and you’ll only be disappointed if you so choose.
A work in progress that’s already bearing serious fruit.Pub Date: April 21, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 836
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Craig Cross
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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