What'cha Reading?

[Kas]

Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Do you like it? I heard it's very good and I love Dostoyewsky, but I couldn't find it in libraries nor book stores .

 

[Abendrot]

Do you like it? I heard it's very good and I love Dostoyewsky, but I couldn't find it in libraries nor book stores .

It's a lot of ennui and insufferable existential whining, and it reminds me a lot of Sartre's Nausea. To be fair, I doubt that it was meant to be enjoyable to read, being existentialist and all, but if I was going to read something promoting existentialism, I would much prefer to read Nietzsche. Maybe I'll change my mind by the time I finish it.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

 

[Tellenbach]

Probably the most important book I've read this year; if the ideas from this book are implemented, they'd literally save hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed:

It turns out that many of the errors committed in hospitals (and in other areas of life) have particular trajectories, subtle but predictable patterns: what accident investigators call 'signatures'. With open reporting and honest evaluation, these errors could be spotted and reforms put in place to stop them from happening again, as happens in aviation. But all too often, they aren't.

Everything we know in aviation, every rule in the rule book, every procedure we have, we know because someone somewhere died... We have purchased at great cost, lessons literally bought with blood that we have to preserve as institutional knowledge and pass on to succeeding generations. We cannot have the moral failure of forgetting these lessons and have to relearn them. Captain Chesley Sullenberger

Basically, doctors make tons of mistakes (killing many millions of people) and don't learn from them because they aren't given feedback. Hospitals don't investigate for fear of liability and nurses don't point out mistakes for fear of ruining the reputation of doctors. It's like playing golf in the dark; you can practice all you want, but you won't improve because there is no feedback.

 

[cosmic royal]

The Awakening

 

[Flâneuse]

Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain". I really like this author's style of prose - it's stark, almost matter-of-fact (not even a hint of wordiness or floweriness), but still highly descriptive and definitely one of those stories that draws the scene such a way that you feel like you're there. IMO this author is also a master of the "show, don't tell" method and is great at creating subtle layers in both themes and characters. To be honest, though, it's also kind of an emotionally exhausting read - it's just bleak as fuck, with pretty much no silver lining at all.

 

[Lark]

Probably the most important book I've read this year; if the ideas from this book are implemented, they'd literally save hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed:





Basically, doctors make tons of mistakes (killing many millions of people) and don't learn from them because they aren't given feedback. Hospitals don't investigate for fear of liability and nurses don't point out mistakes for fear of ruining the reputation of doctors. It's like playing golf in the dark; you can practice all you want, but you won't improve because there is no feedback.

I have that book and I like what I've read of it so far too, however, I dont feel its as simple as you make out and I'm not sure that the book is saying that, although I have not read it in its entirety.

For instance in the UK there have been a number of attempts to move to very seriously evidence based practices in health and social services, each time that it appears to be getting some place it is scuppered, for a whole host of reasons, some of them political, a lot of them are to do with individuals and management culture too, if it appears that the evidence requires greater resource allocation when that is perceived as a failure or those resources are not available and managers do not want to ask for them, that's only one instance.

I've seen how a lot of popular but poorly researched myths are recruited to support existing bad practice or managerial outlooks, like the ideas that you can only expect 8 years of good practice from anyone working in a particular role, which is very like the ideas about a "7yr itch" in relationships, meaning that after that time, a period roughly judged the required time allocation to bring a child into the world and for their to reach an age they may survive on their own, members of a monogamous couple will choose to stray or cheat on one another, the 8 year rule comes from about the same place evidence wise.

There are a lot of variables besides the much vaunted "burn out" factor, such as the mounting frustrations of single individual with resource decisions, especially if this requires of them physically and psychologically taxing work practices which are not sustainable for a system let alone a single individual, and especially as you age or develop age and occupational illnesses.

It results, when believed, in a high turn over of staff, either between departments or within the organisation itself, which results in the loss of learning and precious experience in the second paragraph you site but it can be an easy why for some managerial staff and senior managerial staff to deal with over taxed management, with grievances or the perception (which is often as important and much harder to shake) of grievances between staff and managers or simply that people are "tired of one another" or a manager is "tired" of a particular staff member, as ridiculous as that may sound I've witnessed the same being highly significant or become highly significant, especially when you ramp up the tension with other factors such as resource issues, staffing crisis or shortages.

Also with a high turn over of staff, while you may lose the experienced or veteran staff who can problem solve in the reality of day to day operational and organisational shortcomings, you gain inexperienced staff who while they may not know how to cope as well will be unwilling to challenge problems as problems and comply with whatever they are told, sometimes working in the same unsustainable patterns which put the heads of the previous operational staff away and gave management a headache working with them.

It doesnt fix the problem but it does make it appear to go away, for a time, while there's no reporting of it and when it does arise once more sufficient time will have elapse for a change in management, retirement and promotion opportunities come around and there are reshufflings of senior staff and the process repeats itself, possible a little worse each time and the entropy eventually threatens to cause the entire organisation to seize up.

So the mendacity is possibly nothing to do with the power or prestige of Drs relative to other operational staff but resource allocative inefficiency, the airlines is an interesting case in point too because a lot of change in that air was only effected following litigation, some of it labour orientated some of it insurance orientated, which uncovered the over taxing of pilots and their insufficiency in rest periods and sleep deprivation. A similar issue existed there in which it was not seen as a resources but individual resourcefulness, no systemic failing so much as an individual one (often its a combination of the two), so individuals should have been dispensed with as spent, the human resources as akin to any other resources, such as batteries, pattern of thinking.

Even if you remove all ethical questions of the human impact of operating such business models altogether, which I'm not a fan of particularly but I appreciate some of the "find fault with business last" camp will be a fan of, practically their sustainability is highly, highly dubious and they involve gross externalities too, producers, ie human resources, are also end produce consumers, harm them in one respect and you harm them in other too.

Anyway, should've made that a blog post probably.

 

[Lark]

Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain". I really like this author's style of prose - it's stark, almost matter-of-fact (not even a hint of wordiness or floweriness), but still highly descriptive and definitely one of those stories that draws the scene such a way that you feel like you're there. IMO this author is also a master of the "show, don't tell" method and is great at creating subtle layers in both themes and characters. To be honest, though, it's also kind of an emotionally exhausting read - it's just bleak as fuck, with pretty much no silver lining at all.

That sounds a little like Steinback, I've heard that some authors affect that style who are attempting to write in the fashion of "the great American novel", I've been thinking about it lately reading another book called American Pastoral by Philip Roth, I think that Orwell was trying to achieve something like it when he talked about plain prose novel writing but I'm not exactly sure as I read but I'm not a student of literary studies or anything like that.

 

[Lord Lavender]

Basically, doctors make tons of mistakes (killing many millions of people) and don't learn from them because they aren't given feedback. Hospitals don't investigate for fear of liability and nurses don't point out mistakes for fear of ruining the reputation of doctors. It's like playing golf in the dark; you can practice all you want, but you won't improve because there is no feedback.

That is shocking. The book you are reading is possibly one of the biggest lifesavers in the world if it is true.

By the way I am currently reading the Discworld series and Stephen King books.

 

[Mal12345]

Shock Wave by Walt & Leigh Richmond.

Thanks to a helpful Facebook forum member I was able to find out the name of the book and download it. I read it in one day, thanks to this being a sick day for me.

Shock Wave is one half of an Ace Double that I read when I was maybe 12 years old. The other Ace Double stories I read at the time were kind of crappy. But this one stood out in my mind as being well beyond the par.

I found the book here Publication Series: Ace Double

The first time I read this book I really didn't understand it. I would call it a college level read. Some of the terminology (such as "dry circuit") requires knowledge of electronics. Since I don't know any electronics jargon I had to Google "dry circuit." But when I was 12 I would have had to visit a resource library. But that was too much trouble, and there was a lot that I didn't understand in the book.

But it's not just a technical read, there's an interesting story and even a moral. So it has a little bit of everything. And it's really very complicated for an Ace Double. The other half of the book, called "Voyage to the Dog Star," was kind of dumb and forgettable.

With many decades of experience and learning under my belt, I finally understand the book.

 

[ilikeitlikethat]

This Barnes & Noble release;

Seven Novels by Jules Verne

I've first read Around the World in Eighty Days, then I read Journey to the Center of the Earth; and I've just started Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea;

The Professor from the Museum of Paris and his servant Conseil had just left New York to a crowd of 500, 000 people no less waving goodbye to the Abraham Lincoln, the steamer which was carrying them from Brooklyn Harbour to the Pacific Northwest, more people came out at Long Island and the ship skirted along New Jersey and the East River and was cheered on by more, not as much as 500, 000 people, but, still support; reason?; America and thanks to the Professor Aronnax, France were searching for this troublesome gigantic narwhal that was attacking ships.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

Frankenstein

 

[magpie]

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the best books ever written.

 

[Lord Lavender]

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the best books ever written.

I have also read that book and it perfectly reflects how easily anti-intellectualism can come into place. A world where books are banned and burnt is my nightmare.

 

[magpie]

I have also read that book and it perfectly reflects how easily anti-intellectualism can come into place. A world where books are banned and burnt is my nightmare.

That's the surface interpretation. It's about loss of humanity and going against everything to gain your soul back.

 

[Lord Lavender]

That's the surface interpretation. It's about loss of humanity and going against everything to gain your soul back.

I could also see it as the general degradation of humanity from enlightened creatures to degenerates. There seems to be no soul in that society just "existence" of meanless activity which is what seperates humans from animals. Humans have a higher purpose to advance while animals just "exist". I like your interpretation and it seems we agree.

 

[magpie]

I could also see it as the general degradation of humanity from enlightened creatures to degenerates. There seems to be no soul in that society just "existence" of meanless activity which is what seperates humans from animals. Humans have a higher purpose to advance while animals just "exist". I like your interpretation and it seems we agree.

I think the danger though is using the book to support a specific kind of intellectual elitism. Not that I'm saying that's what you're doing though.

 

[Lark]

Frankenstein

Its all about capitalism

 

[anticlimatic]

The Lost Estate by Alain Fournier, translated to English.

Reminds me a bit of A Separate Peace.

 

[Rebeka]

Wuthering heights (because I must, i'm in english phylology....) but what I love reading is divulgative science articles and that stuff