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the-real-xmonster · 6 years

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Do you mind giving me some book recs? I always have trouble finding stuff I like because I'll read anything but only love about 1%. My favourite books are Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Dune, Misery, Broken Soup, and Elsewhere (Gabrielle Zevin)

Oh, a non-skating ask, how rare :D (Not that I am, in any shape or form, against skating asks, but I’m always happy to get something out of the ordinary).

So let me see...

If you like historical fiction with a twist, try Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London? It’s a quirky mystery slash fantasy, somewhat Neil-Gaiman-esque, but with more mystery and actually, now that I think about it, more fantasy too, so basically, Gaiman on steroids. As a bonus, well, I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in London, but if you have, you’d be delighted by this book because it’s obviously written by someone who knows London thoroughly and intimately.

If you like historical fiction that reads like a true period piece, maybe try C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces? Normally I’m not a big Lewis fan, but I think this one has got to be his most underrated work. It’s a retelling of the tale of Psyche and Cupid, only it’s told by a most unusual narrator, Psyche’s sister, Orual. The character development of Orual I think is particularly moving and insightful.

For contemporary fiction along the line of Eleanor Oliphant, try Less by Andrew Sean Greer. It’s such a charming book, at times humorous and bittersweet, and the ending is infectiously uplifting. The writing is both playful and lyrical - immensely enjoyable (and well, it did win the Pulitzer). This is my one best feel-good book so far this year.

For something in the Dune vein... well this one is tough. I’ve been reading the Themis Files series by Sylvain Neuvel and I’d highly recommend book 1 and book 2. The premise of the series is outside the box, the form the author chose to deliver the story is innovative (it’s a series of interview transcripts, military reports, personal notes - and surprisingly Neuvel made all of these work wonders as storytelling tools), and the plot lived up to the great, promising premise (which is the key thing I ask for in a sci-fi novel). Book 2 (Waking Gods) IMO is the absolute highlight. Book 3 was... well... I didn’t like it as much, but it did bring the story to a satisfying closure so, hopefully, you’ll enjoy it more than I did.

I haven’t read Elsewhere, will add it to my reading list - thank you :D

For some general recommendations, Circe by Madeleine Miller is one of the best books overall that I’ve read this year. It’s a stunningly beautiful re-imagining of Greek mythology, the writing is superb, and Circe is very probably the best female depiction that I’ve come across in recent years. Also, do you read non-fiction? If you do, I’d very much recommend Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. It’s a mind-expanding piece of investigative reporting and it reads like the most dramatic crime show out there, except it’s better because it’s all real (or maybe not, crime can’t be “better” if they are real, can they? Anyway, you know what I mean).

Those are what I have for now. Hope at least one of these works for you. Oh and, guys, I’m always available to talk about books!

#replies #book recommendation #anonymous

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scottspizzatours · 7 years

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Who Is the Winking Chef?

Back in 2013, I wrote a book called Viva La Pizza! The Art of the Pizza Box. Wired Magazine referred to it as “…an intensely researched love song to [pizza boxes]” and the New York Times called it "…delightful and informative." OK, enough plugging.... on to the important stuff. Even though most of the book is filled with captioned pictures of some of the world’s most interesting pizza boxes, I sprinkled bits of info that dig deeper into the world of printed cardboard. I touched on structural engineering and visual design -- two subjects I personally know very little about but am deeply interested in because of their connection to my beloved pizza box.

One of my goals was to uncover the origin of the ubiquitous Winking Chef. We’ve all seen him -- the chubby mustachioed man wearing a chef’s hat and often making a gesture of approval with his hand. I dug around as much as I could -- searching old magazines and websites looking for the origin of the image. Of course generic chef images go way back in print advertising but I was looking for one image in particular, the one I grew up with on my pizza boxes in New Jersey. Who was this guy? Was the image based on a real person? What’s the deal????

I know what you’re thinking. This chef isn’t even winking! WHAT GIVES? The image above is apparently a modification of a pre-existing chef face that’s been bouncing around the clip art world for over half a century. The box from Sam’s (above) seems to have to major modifications from the one from Sal’s (below). Sam’s chef has a right eye (Sal’s is winking) and it also has sideburns (Sal’s does not). Printers clean up their art all the time when they have to make fresh printing plates so it’s not a big deal for modifications like these to pop up from time to time.

But there’s still the question about the identity of the face on the box and the artist who drew it. It’s embarrassing to admit this, but a major clue eluded me during my search when I wrote Viva La Pizza.

On a pizza tour last month, we stopped by J&V Pizzeria in Bensonhurst for their cheesy and pillowy Sicilian pizza. The staff there know I collect pizza boxes and were excited to show me a new one that just came in. Slice shops like J&V use paperboard boxes printed with stock graphics rather than custom images, so they never no what art is coming in next. I took one look at the “new box” and yawned because it’s one of the most common images I’ve seen. Just another chef. I was sure I’d seen it a million times and already added it to the collection.

We were riding back to Manhattan at the end of the tour when I noticed a name in the lower right hand corner of the box. It was a signature. Whoa. I usually notice artist signatures on pizza boxes because they’re super rare but for some reason this one had eluded me. Maybe it wasn’t on other versions I had seen. Maybe I hadn’t even seen this box before. My mind started to reel. Was this the clue I had been looking for?

Someone on the tour looked up Gill Fox and found that he was a famous comic artist and two-time Pulitzer prize nominee! According to Gil Fox’s obituary, “Examples of his line drawing and advertising illustration include the chef, winking and making an OK sign, who was nearly ubiquitous on pizza boxes in the 1980s.” WHOA!!! HOW DID I MISS THIS???? So we know that this man Gill Fox drew this particular chef, and that he was an illustrator around the time pizza was becoming big in America, but major questions remain. The obituary describes Mr. Fox’s chef image “winking and making the OK sign,” but the J&V box doesn’t exhibit either trait. Was this image modified from an earlier version? Are there other Gill Fox chefs floating around?

I did a bit more digging and found an amazing interview with Mr. Fox by another comic artist named Jim Amash. I contacted Jim and he had some great insight into the chef image. I’ll quote directly from our correspondence:

“Gill drew that for a clip art service in the early 1950s. As a gag, he drew it in the style of his friend and comics/ad artist Creig Flessel, who worked for Johnstone & Cushing, where Gill worked, too. All of Creig's friends were in on the gag, and razzed Flessel about moonlighting from J&C. Flessel denied he drew it, but the fellas all said they knew his style, and that they knew he did it. Finally, Gill confessed to the drawing it to Flessel, who realized all the guys were just having fun with him about it. Unfortunately, Gill didn't tell me the name of the company he drew it for... or if he did, I don't remember the name. I really don't think he told me.

As for the basis of the face, Gill did use photographs in ad art as did most everybody, but I strongly suspect that he came up with this face from his own imagination. The pose and gesture is too cartooned to have come from a model, and by that time, Gill had been a working artist since the mid-1930s, so he likely invented the face.”

Pretty awesome! There’s still more of the story to be told, but this is some good headway. I’m still looking for the chef from the Sam’s box, but that one’s a bit more elusive. I will report back with new info as I get it.

And as for the gesture the chef often makes with his hand, I found a cool reference to it from the second century AD Golden Ass, by Apuleius:

Multi denique civium et advenae copiosi, quos eximii spectaculi rumor studiosa celebritate congregabat, inaccessae formositatis admiratione stupidi et admoventes oribus suis dexteram primore digito in erectum pollicem residente ut ipsam prorsus deam Venerem religiosis <venerabantur> adorationibus. (Golden Ass, 4.28)

“Many of the citizens and plenty of visitors whom the rumor of an outstanding spectacle had gathered with crowded curiosity, would be stupefied in admiration of her unapproachable beauty. Moving a right hand to their mouths with the forefinger resting on an outstretched thumb, they revered her as though she were Venus herself in religious adoration.”

So when you see that gesture on a pizza box, or in real life, it’s a sign of approval that compares the pizza to a beautiful Goddess. I’m cool with that! Big thanks to Uncomely Broken for posting that juicy insight!

#pizza #pizza boxes #pizzaboxart #winking chef

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swipestream · 6 years

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Sensor Sweep: Gardner Fox, Manitou, Lost Race novels, Sagas of Midgard

Fiction (Gardnerfrancisfox.com): This is the first volume collected and illustrated by Kurt Brugel. The short stories collected in the volume are from Mr. Fox’s earliest (1944) to his last story published (1982). There are all types of stories being told. They range from 2 spooky/creepy (The Weirds of the Woodcarver and Rain, Rain, Go away!), 3 sword & sorcery (The Return of Dargoll, The Holding of Kolymar, and Crom and the Warlock of Sharrador), 4 cosmic adventures (Heart of Light, The Rainbow Jade, Temptress of the Time Flow and The Man Who Couldn’t Die) and 1 history lesson (Cleopatra).

Cinema (Eldritch Paths): Hard Boiled and the Rule of Cool

I’ve been noticing a trend toward “realism” recently. I see this a lot in fantasy circles where many demand “realism” in their fantasy or complain about the lack thereof. I never understood this. If I wanted realism, I’d just go outside.

Now, I’m not necessarily against realistic fiction. I’ve read classic British novelists like George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. They’re great authors, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I’m against the idea that “realistic” fiction is somehow intrinsically better than non-realistic fiction.

RPG (RPG Pundit): I think that after a few hundred years to consider, it might still be too soon to tell, but it’s starting to look to me like the invention of the modern novel was, in the final balance, a big mistake. And it’s hilarious to see articles being published (like this one here) suggesting that somehow modern literature is better because in pre-modern literature heroes just went and did stuff, and you didn’t get a lot of information by the author (like you would in a novel) explaining what they were feeling or how their inner monologue was going or what their motivation was.

Fiction (Wasteland and Sky): Welcome to the third part of this mini-series covering volume 27 of the Pan Book of Horror Stories. In the first part we covered a set of odd shorts that were vaguely horror-ish but more in the vein of satire (at least, I hope so), and in the second part we went over three stories that each had their own weaknesses. Halfway through this book and I’ve started to question just how this once vaunted series had fallen so far. I keep hoping the back half will improve in quality.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): Today, October 15, marks two more birthdays. James Schmitz (1911-1981) and E. C. Tubb (1919-2010).

Schmitz wrote space opera in the 1950s and 1960s, although he sold his first story, “Greenface” to Unknown in 1943.

Most of Schmitz’s work is set in the Hub. While there are a variety of characters, the two principle recurring characters are Telzey Amberdon, a young woman with psi powers who tends to find herself in a jam on a regular basis, and Trigger Argee, an agent for the government.

Art (Tellers of Weird Tales): Boris Dolgov did not exist. The man who bore that name may have existed, but there never was a man in the United States with that name until 1956, too late forWeird Tales. At least that’s what public records say. Search for Boris Dolgov or Dolgoff or Dolgova or Dolkoff or any other permutation you can think of and you’re likely to come up empty . . . except for a Russian-American farmer who now lies buried in a Jewish cemetery in Washington State.

Fiction (Locus Magazine): Does any genre of fiction ever actually become extinct? And if a genre does go extinct, does that mean that its subject matter, its core material and reason for existing, has no relevance or holds no interest any longer for a contemporary audience?

Most long-time readers can adduce a few genres that, if not extinct, have decidedly gone out of fashion. Westerns once seemed on the verge of disappearing entirely, but while they are certainly not produced in the vast numbers of yore, they do persist at some level. What about “nurse novels?” Fiction about the medical profession continues, and such novels might include nurses.

RPG (Black Gate): It’s been awhile, and not because there’s been any shortage of Norse-themed role playing games! In this time, we’ve had the derivative Dragon Heresy, a d6 system called Vikingr, older campaign settings such as Hellfrost and systems such as Trudvang

Chronicles, and many others. Our topic on this Odin’s Day, however, is the latest of these: Sagas of Midgard.

Honestly, I had kind of retired from investment in Viking-age rpgs. My home game hasn’t involved the Norse-specific setting for more than a year, my pocketbook doesn’t drip nine golden rings as Odin’s Draupnir does, and there isn’t much utility in owning much more, since I doubt I’d be able to wrest my gamers from my tabletop version of Fourth Age Middle-earth anytime soon.

Fiction (James Reasoner): I always try to read some horror fiction for the Forgotten Books post closest to Halloween, and this year it’s THE MANITOU, the debut novel from prolific horror, mystery, and historical novelist Graham Masterton. This book was published in 1976 and was very successful, selling enough copies that they turned up in used bookstore overstock well into the Eighties. When I owned a used bookstore during the era, I always had multiple copies on my shelves. I never got around to reading it until now, though. (There’s also a movie adaptation from 1978 that I’ve never seen.)

Fiction (Woelf Dietrich): Last week I blogged about accepting the Pre-Tolkien Challenge. You can read that post here. Other blogs taking part in the

challenge can be read here and here. And you can find the originating post that started this challenge here. In short, I have to identify three short stories published before Lord of the Rings. That is to say, three stories published before 1954. And in my review, I have to look at the differences and/or similarities with Tolkien’s world. Today’s my first entry in this exciting challenge so let’s get started.

I grew up reading Conan stories.

Art (Davy Crockett’s Almanac): Gallery of Famous Fantastic Mystery pulp magazine covers.

Art (Lawrence Person): Here’s two unusual Robert E. Howard-related items I picked up off eBay relatively cheaply. I think both of these were originally freebie giveaways to promote fancy illustrated editions of Howard’s work.

Fiction (Grave Tapping): A three-man strike force accustomed to rescuing prisoners of war in the jungles of Vietnam is stateside on a rogue mission in Los Angeles. Mark Stone, known as the MIA Hunter, is asked by an old war buddy, now a deputy chief with LAPD, to help rescue Rick Chavez from a Colombian drug cartel. Chavez is a Pulitzer award winning journalist who has been writing a series of hard and insightful articles about the drug trade in L. A. The articles have enough detail that the LAPD and the drug gangs—Crips, Bloods and their Colombian suppliers—want to know where his information is coming from.

Fiction (Frontier Partisans): Thanks to a tip from Italian Front scout Davide Mana, I picked up the first Dark Horse Conan Omnibus for $2 on Monday. The first story is Born on a Battlefield, depicting the Cimmerian’s youth. The art is by Greg Ruth and I like it very much.

Ruth also illustrated the Ethan Hawke Apache Wars graphic novel, Indeh, which was a disappointment — but not because of the art. I liked that very much, too.

So, I started scouting out the interwebs for more of Ruth’s work and stumbled upon an intriguing trail. Ruth illustrated a series of YA novels titled The Secret Journeys of Jack London. How can I resist a tale of Jack London that involves the Wendigo? It’s on it’s way up from the Bend Library…

Calendar (Mens Adventure Magazines): In recent years, I’ve had the pleasure of becoming friends with actress model Eva Lynd.

I started writing posts about her on this blog before I met her several years ago, when I learned that she was a favorite model of Al Rossi and Norm Eastman, two of the great artists who did illustration art for the men’s adventure magazines I collect and focus on here.

In this post, I’m happy to announce the Authorized 2019 Eva Lynd Calendar is now available.

Sensor Sweep: Gardner Fox, Manitou, Lost Race novels, Sagas of Midgard published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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foursprout-blog · 6 years

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5 Fascinating Books On How To Break Bad Habits

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/5-fascinating-books-on-how-to-break-bad-habits/

5 Fascinating Books On How To Break Bad Habits

***

Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here.

***

Psychological research shows people overestimate themselves in nearly every arena — including modesty. Which raises an interesting question… What’s the one thing almost everyone will cop to being utterly dismal at?

Self-control.

From Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength:

Ask people to name their greatest personal strengths, and they’ll often credit themselves with honesty, kindness, humor, creativity, bravery, and other virtues—even modesty. But not self-control. It came in dead last among the virtues being studied by researchers who have surveyed more than one million people around the world. Of the two dozen “character strengths” listed in the researchers’ questionnaire, self-control was the one that people were least likely to recognize in themselves. Conversely, when people were asked about their failings, a lack of self-control was at the top of the list.

I’ve posted about breaking bad habits numerous times but somehow we have not all been miraciously cured of procrastination, overeating, and wasting time on the internet. (I gave it my best shot, mom, I swear.)

As much as it pains me to say, sometimes a mere blog post just won’t cut it. Sometimes we need to go deeper because curated tidbits aren’t a miracle cure to problems that have plagued your happiness and productivity for years. Go figure. So we have to break out the big guns…

And actually read some books. Yes, they still make those. (Some silly people even spend years of their life writing them.)

Well, I read them. A lot of them. And you can benefit from my excessive Kindle expenditures. So when it comes to breaking bad habits, which books are worth your time? Are based on legit evidence? Actually help? And won’t bore you to tears?

You have come to the right corner of the internet, my friend…

Let’s look at 5 books that will teach you how habits work, why your brain won’t do the “right” thing, how to address these issues, and how to defeat the dark forces that are actively working against your best intentions.

Okay, time to break things. Let’s get to it…

1) The Power Of Habit

You’ve probably heard of this one. And there’s a very good reason for that. It’s solid, thorough, and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg.

He cites a Duke study showing a full 40% of your daily choices aren’t choices — they’re habits. You’re on autopilot for nearly half the day. So if your habits are bad, you’re basically a robot programmed to run around screwing your life up.

So you need to understand how bad habits work, how to snap out of the loop, and how to get yourself happily addicted to better habits.

The primary secret Duhigg focuses on? Replacement. As you well know, habits are really hard to break. So don’t. Keep the habit, but replace the troublesome part at the end where you do something not-so-good. And Duhigg clearly and enjoyably walks you through how to do that.

If you read one book on habits, this is the one.

Check it out here.

Alright, learning the ins and outs of bad habits is great but when we’ve engaged in them long enough — and repeatedly tried and failed to overcome them — an understandable question arises: What the hell is wrong with me?

Here’s an answer that’s a lot cheaper than therapy…

2) Willpower

How does willpower work? And why don’t we seem to have any?

Don’t worry; you’re not broken. Research shows we all spend a quarter of our day resisting desires – and fail half the time.

But with a deeper understanding of how willpower really works we can make simple changes in our lives that better align our actions with our hopes and dreams. An example?

One study shows you can increase willpower with a mirror. Yup, a mirror. When we can see ourselves, we naturally compare who we are with who we should be. And that makes us act in ways more consistent with our values.

Top researcher Roy Baumeister and acclaimed science writer John Tierney deliver a book chock full of eye-opening research and excellent insights that explains why we do what we do — and how we can do better.

Check it out here.

But some people will still be skeptical. They’ve lost the battle against willpower for decades and feel their bad habits would make Keith Richards blush.

They’ll insist that they can only overcome their self-control issues with secrets culled from ancient tomes and fine tuned by bleeding edge neuroscience. So do you have anything like that to recommend, Mr. Fancy-Pants-Blogger-Man?

Actually, I do…

3) The Craving Mind

You will not have to rely on teeth-gritting willpower. Nor will you have to replace your bad habits as Duhigg recommends. But you will need to learn about your brain and maybe even meditate.

Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, explains a method that combines neuroscience research with mindfulness practices to devastate your naughty impulses.

But does such a trendy-sounding method really work? In a controlled study, Brewer’s approach went head to head with the leading technique for helping people quit smoking. His system didn’t just win — it was twice as effective in getting people to give up cigarettes.

And learning mindfulness doesn’t just help you ditch bad habits. It also has other tiny side effects like “increasing happiness” and “making this godforsaken world tolerable.”

Check it out here.

So far we’ve been hitting the bad habit bug with broad spectrum antibiotics. What about being more targeted toward some of the most common addictions we’re all dealing with these days?

4) Irresistible

46% of study subjects said they’d rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone. 70% of office emails are checked within six seconds of arrival.

Our robot overlords have already arrived, were warmly welcomed, and are now safely ensconced in our pockets. And out-and-out quitting this bad habit isn’t an option. We need to manage it because our work and personal lives demand we stay connected.

But NYU professor Adam Alter leverages the research to show us how to find harmony with our devices and take back control.

Check it out here.

Now beating technological habits can be particularly difficult because we’re not merely fighting our impulses. There’s an active enemy in this war. Many companies are deliberately trying to make their services more addictive. How do you overcome an opponent who is working hard to thwart your noble efforts?

By reading their playbook, of course…

5) Hooked

No, this is not a digital Necronomicon that uses the dark arts to ensnare the minds of your children. It’s a finely crafted book that answers the question: What is it that makes Facebook and Instagram so addictive?

Nir Eyal, who teaches courses on applied consumer psychology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, explains what makes products and apps so “sticky.” (And Nir is not evil, by the way. In fact, he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.)

By learning what it is that hooks you, you can better understand what you need to do to break free.

Check it out here.

Alright, we’ve learned a lot. Let’s round it up and find out about a book that can help us decide what we should be doing once we’ve freed up that time previously spent on bad habits…

Sum Up

Here are 5 fascinating books on how to break bad habits:

The Power of Habit: How bad habits work and how to replace them so you can get to work.

Willpower: How to potty train your brain so you stop pooping all over your goals.

The Craving Mind: No, it’s not “The Craven Mind.” That’s my forthcoming autobiography. This one beats bad habits with the Iron Man/Doctor Strange team-up of science and mindfulness.

Irresistible: The best way to stop checking your phone (that doesn’t involve throwing it in a river.)

Hooked: Know thy enemy. Learn the dark arts being used against you to better resist their Cthulhu magic.

Georgetown professor and productivity guru Cal Newport says that clearing the decks of your unproductive habits isn’t enough. Stopping the bad doesn’t magically make you start doing the good — if you even know what the “good” is.

Nature abhors a vacuum (and so do most house cats.) So what’s a book that can show you what we should be doing in order to achieve our goals?

Yeah, I wrote it. But don’t let that talk you out of giving it a read…

Often when we have more time we just waste it — or spend it in less-than-optimal ways. I went through gobs and gobs of research to dispel the myths about success and get the real answers to what we need to be doing to get where we wanna go in our careers and personal lives.

Check it out here.

Habits deserve the deep dive we can only get from reading full books. As that study showed, 40% of your choices aren’t choices; they’re habits. So nearly half the time, your habits make your choices for you.

And that’s why getting rid of bad habits and starting good ones is so critical. As the old saying goes:

We all make choices. But in the end, our choices make us.

Join over 320,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy

New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful

How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert

The post 5 Fascinating Books On How To Break Bad Habits appeared first on Barking Up The Wrong Tree.

#Happiness

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foursprouthappiness-blog · 6 years

Text

5 Fascinating Books On How To Break Bad Habits

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/5-fascinating-books-on-how-to-break-bad-habits/

5 Fascinating Books On How To Break Bad Habits

***

Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here.

***

Self-control.

From Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength:

And actually read some books. Yes, they still make those. (Some silly people even spend years of their life writing them.)

You have come to the right corner of the internet, my friend…

Okay, time to break things. Let’s get to it…

1) The Power Of Habit

You’ve probably heard of this one. And there’s a very good reason for that. It’s solid, thorough, and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg.

So you need to understand how bad habits work, how to snap out of the loop, and how to get yourself happily addicted to better habits.

If you read one book on habits, this is the one.

Check it out here.

Here’s an answer that’s a lot cheaper than therapy…

2) Willpower

How does willpower work? And why don’t we seem to have any?

Don’t worry; you’re not broken. Research shows we all spend a quarter of our day resisting desires – and fail half the time.

But with a deeper understanding of how willpower really works we can make simple changes in our lives that better align our actions with our hopes and dreams. An example?

Check it out here.

But some people will still be skeptical. They’ve lost the battle against willpower for decades and feel their bad habits would make Keith Richards blush.

Actually, I do…

3) The Craving Mind

You will not have to rely on teeth-gritting willpower. Nor will you have to replace your bad habits as Duhigg recommends. But you will need to learn about your brain and maybe even meditate.

Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, explains a method that combines neuroscience research with mindfulness practices to devastate your naughty impulses.

And learning mindfulness doesn’t just help you ditch bad habits. It also has other tiny side effects like “increasing happiness” and “making this godforsaken world tolerable.”

Check it out here.

So far we’ve been hitting the bad habit bug with broad spectrum antibiotics. What about being more targeted toward some of the most common addictions we’re all dealing with these days?

4) Irresistible

46% of study subjects said they’d rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone. 70% of office emails are checked within six seconds of arrival.

But NYU professor Adam Alter leverages the research to show us how to find harmony with our devices and take back control.

Check it out here.

By reading their playbook, of course…

5) Hooked

By learning what it is that hooks you, you can better understand what you need to do to break free.

Check it out here.

Alright, we’ve learned a lot. Let’s round it up and find out about a book that can help us decide what we should be doing once we’ve freed up that time previously spent on bad habits…

Sum Up

Here are 5 fascinating books on how to break bad habits:

The Power of Habit: How bad habits work and how to replace them so you can get to work.

Willpower: How to potty train your brain so you stop pooping all over your goals.

The Craving Mind: No, it’s not “The Craven Mind.” That’s my forthcoming autobiography. This one beats bad habits with the Iron Man/Doctor Strange team-up of science and mindfulness.

Irresistible: The best way to stop checking your phone (that doesn’t involve throwing it in a river.)

Hooked: Know thy enemy. Learn the dark arts being used against you to better resist their Cthulhu magic.

Nature abhors a vacuum (and so do most house cats.) So what’s a book that can show you what we should be doing in order to achieve our goals?

Yeah, I wrote it. But don’t let that talk you out of giving it a read…

Check it out here.

And that’s why getting rid of bad habits and starting good ones is so critical. As the old saying goes:

We all make choices. But in the end, our choices make us.

Join over 320,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy

New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful

How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert

The post 5 Fascinating Books On How To Break Bad Habits appeared first on Barking Up The Wrong Tree.

#Happiness

0 notes

music-of-silence · 6 years

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NICE COMMEMORATION AND FINE TRIBUTE With the kind of resources available to the folks at Time Magazine, you wouldn't expect anything less than a highly informative, if not at times overly sentimental response, to the passing of one of Rockdom's all-time great legends. This read is a short (less than 100 pages) anthology-style biography and includes many illustrations. "Time" claims to be a major factor in launching Bowie's ultimate stardom and they make a pretty good case in this bio to support it. Don't think this effort will win a Pulitzer Prize, but it is very nicely done, interesting, informative and well worth the price for anyone who was a Bowie fan/enthusiast like I am. Go to Amazon

Content is good The content is good, but I found the picture quality lacking. I get that you don't want people using this as an easy, digital, way to make prints, but it's disappointing for someone just wanting to look at it. Go to Amazon

Breathtaking look into Mr Bowie's life. Gorgeous. Definitely framing this once I am done reading. I, myself has always been a huge fan of David Bowie and his passing was a huge blow emotionally. Thank you to TIME magazine for doing this lovely piece on him. The pictures are beautiful and I'm learning things I never knew before. Go to Amazon

Great photo's and information on David Bowie Great photo's and information on David Bowie. If your a fan of his, I would highly recommend this magazine. Also check out the special addition of the rolling stones magazine as well...also right up there with this copy. Go to Amazon

Bowie is the BEST! My favorite musician of all time! This book captures the essence of Bowie's career! I saw him many times over the years in the States as well as Europe and found him to be one of the most talented musicians in the world. Go to Amazon

Five Stars Great booklet. Good photos and nice recap of his life. I have it on my coffee table. Go to Amazon

Salute to my favorite. One of our greatest artist. Go to Amazon

A great overview of Bowie! This short book is great for anyone looking for a quick overview of the life and works of Bowie. It offers great context for his albums, and gives insight into his many eras. Overall a very solid, quick read about one of the worlds finest entertainers. Go to Amazon

Five Stars Wouldn't tell my sister I got it for her Five Stars Two Stars Five Stars Four Stars Five Stars He has always been such a huge Bowie fan so this made the perfect gift even better Five Stars

#1947-2016: The Editors Of TIME: 9781618931832: Amazon.com: Books

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genevievewrites · 7 years

Text

Chapter One - Ready to Launch

I heard once on NPR that our memories can’t be trusted. This is especially true for the ones we revisit the most. Because every time we recall a moment from our past, it gets a little less true. Through the process of bringing back that memory, we are changing it without even realizing that we do.

I don’t completely trust this story, because I have told it so many times. It’s one of those touch stones in my life that I use to contextualize who I have turned out to be.

In my story, I am ten. My parents, who got me tested as a kindergardener to ensure I was in the gifted and talented class, and who were at this moment in the process of figuring out how to use the magnet program to make sure I could attend a better middle school than the one in our neighborhood, sat me down. They told me that they couldn’t afford to send me to college, so it was up to me. I needed to work very hard, get good grades, and get a scholarship. So, I did.

In fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Barbee, asked us all to draw rocket ships and write our dreams on them. I don’t remember what any of my classmates wrote, but I do remember mine. I wanted to graduate with an International Baccaleureate diploma, and I wanted to become a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist.

That is a lot of pressure for a young person just starting middle school.

Now, I’m twenty-nine. I did not get an IB diploma, because I was too busy being a Drum Major in the marching band, a lead in the one act play, the president of the French Club, and working on my near-perfect GPA. I also did not become a journalist. By the time I got that full tuition scholarship to a small liberal arts school a few hours from my home town, many more dreams had come and gone. More would soon come to take their place. One thing was constant - I was going to do something truly remarkable. Something I cared about. Something that mattered.

I kept a card my aunt sent me when I graduated high school, because it spoke to the core of my being. “Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.”

Thanks for nothing, Aristotle. *** My last semester of college - which I would finish in four years, debt free - was when my carefully constructed life plan would start to unravel. I didn’t realize it then, but as I embarked on a graduate degree in Women’s and Gender Studies that was supposed to propel me into wild success as an academic whose true passion was molding young minds and creating the feminist future, I was beginning to fall apart.

There were things I had expected to happen while I was in college that never came to pass. I hadn’t met the love of my life. In fact, I was graduating totally single. I had found plenty of love, and like, and lust on that small campus in the city. But no one who stuck like they were supposed to.

I didn’t feel especially enlightened or grown up. I felt more like a child than I had when I’d arrived - an eighteen year old full of that grating self-assurance that they know everything there is to know about life before they’ve even started to live it. I had applied to graduate school with the intention of pursuing a doctoral degree and becoming an incredible feminist professor after writing an insightful dissertation on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the patriarchy slayer who lives in each of us. By the time I was actually heading off to school, the plan had changed again.

I sold my car and all of my possessions that wouldn’t fit in my suitcase or my closet at my mom’s house. I wasn’t ever coming back, I told my friends and family. I was going to get my master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies, find an internship at a women’s rights nonprofit in New York City, and never look back.

When I landed in New Jersey with one hundred pounds of luggage, I managed to find my way to New Brunswick by New Jersey transit. I grabbed a taxi from the train station and, proud of myself for making it alone across the country to start this new phase of my life, confidently told my taxi driver that I needed to go to Rutgers.

“Which campus?” he asked me.

“Campus?” I replied, confused by his question.

“Yes, which campus do you need me to take you to?”

“I don’t know,” I said, panic beginning to set in, “I need to get my keys and ID card to move into my on campus housing.”

Unlike my alma mater, a small school of 5,000 students landlocked to two square miles in the middle of a medium-sized city in Texas, my graduate school was a complicated maze of disconnected and sprawling campuses in multiple cities. I was far away from home and completely unprepared.

I somehow managed to figure out exactly which of Rutgers’ five campuses I was going to, and the address of a building where I could get the necessary key to open my room. It took so long for the patient cab driver and I to find the office, the after hours staff were the only ones there when I arrived.

When I finally found the small house that I would live in, rolling all of my belongings in a hundred pound bubblegum-pink suitcase across the Cook/Douglass campus, I felt a huge wave of relief. I dropped my bags, pulled out my new key, and reached for the door - which didn’t have keyhole. Instead, I saw a card reader. I did not have a card.

Since I had arrived after hours, I wasn’t able to take a picture and get the ID card that would have opened the front door of the house. I did have a key to my individual room, which I hoped one day I would get to see.

It was hot, and late, and by this time my phone was dead. First, I sat down and cried like any twenty-two year old would do. Then, I walked to the house next door and knocked.

In a stroke of pure luck, one of the girls had already moved in next door. And she was willing to let a perfect stranger use her cell phone to call the emergency after-hours number for graduate housing. They would bring me a temporary key card, but it would take about an hour.

Maha helped me get my things on to my porch. Then, she invited me into her house, where she gave me a glass of water while we watched TV and waited for my card to arrive.

It was dark by the time the RA got around to dropping off the temporary card. I thanked Maha and finally opened the door to my on-campus graduate housing.

I had selected a room in a small house, in a row of ten similar houses. This was the cheapest housing option for graduate students on campus. While I had my own room, I would be sharing a bathroom with the other two girls on my floor. Five of us were assigned to the house in total. I was the first to arrive.

It seemed hot inside but I was starving. Finding the air conditioner would have to wait. I had assumed that New Brunswick would be an extension of New York City - compact, walkable, without the need for a car. I would eventually learn that the university had it’s own bus system that was complimentary for students, so we could travel between campuses and residential areas. But on that first night, I had no intention of leaving my house. I found the number for a pizza place in my welcome packet that the after-hours housing staff had given me with my room key and ordered a large pepperoni pizza. Then, I sat on my twin bed in my gray room in New Jersey and cried a little more.

Once my tears had started to pool with my sweat, I thought it was time to figure out the air conditioning situation. There was no thermostat in my room. New Jersey may not be Texas, but that August day the temperature was in the high nineties, and it wasn’t cooling to much less. After a fruitless search of all the common areas, I realized that I hadn’t seen a single vent. My room had a radiator, which I only vaguely recognized from movies that took place in cities where snow actually stayed to accumulate on the ground, but no vent for conditioned air to blow through.

I, a native Houstonian who had spent ten out of twelve months in icy air conditioned comfort for the last twenty-two years of my life, had moved into a house with no AC.

Still reeling from the shock that there were buildings made without air conditioning, I opened the windows and moved my bed closer, hoping to catch a breeze. As I waited for my pepperoni pizza to arrive, a thunder storm rolled in. And that was when I learned that while the screen could keep out mosquitoes, it certainly didn’t guard against rain.

My pizza arrived, expensive and unexceptional. I saved most of it, as I didn’t know how I was going to get to a store to buy food any time soon, and cried into a slice of pepperoni pizza as rain splattered the edge of my bed.

What had I done? How had I made such a huge mistake? I was stuck there in New Jersey, in a sad room in an old house without air conditioning, far away from everything I knew and loved.

While most of the buildings on the Cook/Douglass campus had recently been upgraded with wifi, these houses were the last on the list and I hadn’t thought to bring an ethernet cord with me to New Jersey. I didn’t even have the internet to distract me from my lonely, scared, exhaustion.

I curled up in my bed, as close to the window as I could get without risking the rain, and thanked whatever gods were listening that I had all seven seasons of Buffy on DVD. Joss Whedon’s brilliance temporarily disctracted me from an unsettling truth - for the first time in my sheltered, Millennial life, I was not sure what was going to happen next. That first night, I cried myself to sleep.

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