Book Review: Einstein

The challenge of capturing the life of Albert Einstein in one book tickled my curiousity, and forced me without hesitation to buy the book. In fact, the challenge of doing Einstein, or even his biography justice in a simple review still stands, and stands tall.
Walter Isaacson presents a true masterpiece and a unique style in collecting this treasure of a book. Having written “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” previously, he sure had the credentials, and may I say, lived up to the challenge.
Walter was successful, with his unmatched narrative skills, in perserving Einstein’s stature, while also bringing to life Einstein the human being and scientist alike. With the advantage of recently uncovered historical detail, he maintained a significant level of scientific accuracy along with very human revelations about Einstein’s life.
He disclosed amazing stories of childhood, such as the fact that Albert did not speak words until he was 2, or the fact that he did not excel at subjects pertaining to language and arts. Always thinking miles away from the box, Isaacson describes how Albert always asked the wrong questions, or so it was assumed.

 
Stories of his relationships, such as those in which Einstein would take his wife on a romantic outing, which only consisted of a trip to the mountain to sit together and solve equations, were ones you know you would only read of in Albert’s life. The comprehensive presentation Walter reviews Einstein’s political and philisophical views make you think it’s no wonder President Roosevelt took his advice preceeding the World War.
Einstein was granted American Citizenship in 1940, and was sure to mention what bliss the Americans were in for being able to express without the pressure of a social barrier.
After a life for the history books, and dedication to science, to universe and to humanity until death, it does not strike you with surprise that they removed his brain during his autopsy without consent, in wishful hope of service to neuro science.
On a final note, walking down one of the streets of Manhattan, I read a sign, that summarizes the book and gives hope to our young ones. It read : “As a student, he was no Einstein”. Quite simply, his name is undoubtedly synonymous with the word “Genius”.

Book Review: The Autobiography of Malcom X

This story was filled with irony, and by this story i mean me actually reading and reviewing this book. I like irony, I am a sarcastic person myself. The fact that I initially picked this book off the shelf because Malcom X‘s picture on the cover looks like actor Denzel Washington makes me grin.
The real story at hand is of a brave man who walked in danger, for he had taken the suffering of a suppressed people, and made it a suffering of his own. A man who was unreservedly comitted to liberating the black man, who had been trained to conceal his real thoughts as a mere matter of survival. A man who took the matter of freeing the black man, rather than integrating him into a society that crushed him and then penelized him for not being able to stand up.
I like to devide Malcom X’s life into two major parts. His childhood troubles, jail and joining the Nation of Islam into the first part, and his travel to Makkah for Hajj into the second. Although, first part is threefold the second part in duration, my biased eyes and heart naturally leant towards the second.
After a troubled childhood, teenagehood of crime and jail, Malcom finally joined the Nation of Islam – which is not by any means related to true Islam. The X denotes freedom of the last name given to him by the white slave master of his grandfather, and every member of the nation was given that X. 
A seperation from the nation however, led Malcom to seek the real truth of Islam, and travel to Makkah, where he beautifully describes the signs of God in form of warmth and brotherhood of the Muslims, and the true colorblindness of Islam. Despite a comic note of trouble at the customs office of the Jeddah airport – even all the way back in 1964 -, his descriptions made me doubt my sense of appreciation of things we take for granted in this holy land. His amusement with everyone eating and drinking out of the same plates and cups, sitting on the same rug and sleeping in the same room, being of all colors and races in the context of America’s bold racism were like a page out of National Geographic as he wold describe. What he believed could not exist in America, existed in front of his bare eyes. He did not catch me more than when he articulated in one word that feeling I get when I first see the Ka’aba : Numbness. To this day, I haven’t read or heard a better description.
Finally, he caught my eye and my centers of logic with yet another wise quote, after seeing America’s race troubles, and sensing a sound solution in further study of true Islam, when he said: All Islam needs is a PR firm.
Malcom X was assasined in 1965 at the age of forty, which only carries you think about what he accomplished in a lifetime shorter than that given to most. One wonders what he could have done had God willed and lengthen his life. Truly, a man of the people.

Book Review: Eat Pray Love

I wish Elizabeth Gilbert called this book: Love Love Love… 

My first love goes out to her honesty. When she was at an ashram in India and did not understand the prayers, she admitted her struggles and shared her mid-meditation, rather humorous conversation between her and her mind. She was certainly not one to fake interest or make up rubbish about her being fond of something she did not understand – which would defeat the purpose of this whole trip. My first love goes to her honesty in admitting there is no such thing as pure pleasure, and that she always found a way back to spirituality, even when in the middle of one of the pleasure capitals of the world; Italy. My first love goes to her honesty in stating that her trip to Italy was not an escape from reality, rather, a quest to find what was real and forget the plotted world she lived in back home.

 

My second love goes to her -what I call- human language. She spoke not in words nor in sentences, but in inked segments of DNA that any human being on earth could relate to. Her metaphors were witty, humorous and explanatory, reminding us that life was a bracelet, on which we added our experiences; the charms. My second love goes to her being in touch with her human intangibles, to the point of describing the dark evil grin of her “depression”. My second love goes to her “Fitra”, her built-in respect for the divine and her funny but deep, naive conversations with God. This human language can be picked up in the human way she describes each and everyone of her friends.

And who in the world could NOT love her for traveling somewhere just for the food?!  Yes, my third love goes out to this writer for merely loving food like I do. But jokes aside, this woman appreciated many forms of beauty along her journey. From the fantastic home made food in Italy, to the hard-to-find beauty she found in Italian swear words all the way down to her transient romance with a young Italian fellow, her descriptions were sure to give me a quenching dose of sincerity as I read along. 

Elizabeth traveled to Italy, India and Indonesia in search of beauty, spirituality and balance, respectively. It was not hard to guess that she would find them. After her divorce in New York, it would have been hard to guess that things would turn out this way one year later. But she sure had her way of linking everything in her Elizabeth way. 

Except for a somewhat boring middle part, a predictable ending and possibly leaving out too many negative events -which had me curious like crazy as to when things would go wrong- this is one spiritual self discovery I smiled a lot while reading. Maybe it was her human language hitting it off with my heart. 

Book Review: The Tipping Point

Everyone in the world has heard of the term “Epidemic”. I for one always thought of it as a fast spreading disease. But it was not until I picked up this mind boggler by Malcom Gladwell that I had a more complete understanding of not just the meaning of the term, but all the pieces that make up this sometimes puzzle of a concept.

From viral diseases, once-lame kids’ shoes to the famous ride of Paul Revere, the author displays and explains how any common trend starts small, then undergoes factors that enable it to break out of its concise shell.

Gladwell, a well-known journalist, lends the reader his eyes, through which he dissects and analyzes what he views as the critical factors playing into the spread of any trend. “The Tipping Point“, a phrase he coined as to suggest that the accumulation of factors leading to the formation of an epidemic plays the role of the straw that broke the camel’s back. The image of a match on the cover says it all: Little things can make big things happen.

He starts by introducing the basic needs of an epidemic. The agent, the carrier and the environment.

By telling the stories of different breakouts, several trends, he asserts that there are rules and laws that govern these needs. “The Three rules of Epidemics” he calls them.

The first rule he coined “The Law of the Few”. Here he compares the quantity of the people or the “carriers” of an epidemic to the quality; obviously favoring the latter. Using the “word of mouth” model as a clear example, he states that the effectiveness with which a message is spread, a trend is started relies mostly on the certain types of people rather than a large number of ineffective ones. He uses the famous theory “6 degrees of separation“ to attract our attention the importance of a certain type of person he calls the “Connector”. Despite the cool name, it’s basically a person who knows a lot of other persons, to make it simple. He also mandates the presence of “The maven”, a person who knows A LOT. If there is a trend, a technology or a new product out there, the maven knows about it. These are people who help consumers make informed decisions, but not necessarily persuade or convince them. That –persuasion- is the role of “The salesman”. Together, these few are capable of moving any message, product, trend or disease closer to the Tipping Point.

Next, he talks about an important yet hard to define concept he calls “The Stickiness Factor”. The name says it all, but I was in complete admiration when he demonstrated successful experiments using this concept to reach children. He further increased my admiration with explaining that if you could just get the attention of children long enough, a tightly, neatly packaged message with the “stickiness factor” would be effective easily and immediately. Think of a certain tall yellow bird on a children’s tv show, and you’ll grasp what I’m getting at.

He concludes the book by mentioning case studies and examples in which he picked up these patterns, when applied to the “Context” of their respective environments. The book certainly adds a lot to the readers’ insight and broadens their fields of vision in a way that eases the path for the observant. A Must pick-up for marketers, businessmen and anyone with a message, a calling which he or she would like to infect the world with!. I found it to be a bit heavy for the common reader only because of the abundance of examples, numbers and case studies he presents. I recommend more of a scrolling style for the latter.