John Tierney

Read this book along with Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood. I did not realize they would compliment each other so well. Wood doesn't put much stock in will power, but this book actually agrees with Wood by emphasizing that we have only so much energy related to glucose in order to to try and control our behavior and temptations. The book covers limitations, coping methods, and proper steps to make better use of our will power tank when needed. Besides it has a chapter on Allan's book Getting Things Done. One of my favorites.… (plus d'informations)

A lot of good stuff in the book, but I tired of the writing style, sort of punchy-rollicking-journalism rather than a more thoughtful science writing that I prefer. The dumb title and garish front cover gave me a “bad” impression to start with, but as I read the book I ended up liking it more as I went along.

One part I really had a problem with, though, was a long highly approving section about a chain of charter schools in NY:

“The Success Academy schools are publicly funded and open to anyone, with acceptance determined by lottery, so they’re educating a representative sample of the students in their neighborhoods.”

Well, this bit is plainly false, about them having a “representative” sample of kids. Number 1, only certain types of parents bother to enter a charter school lottery, and number two, the schools demand a huge time/energy commitment from the parents as well as the students, so this affects who chooses to go and who continues to go. Clearly they end up with a non-representative sample of students, so a portion of their ‘success’ (graduation rates, college admissions) has to do with what students they accept and retain, compared to the local public schools.

Anyway, I liked a lot of the book, but not the style so much.… (plus d'informations)