Nibbled to death by...cats...

#86 A-Z reading challenge - authors

Godin, Seth "All marketers are liars: the power of telling authentic stories in a low-trust world"
"Successful marketers don't talk about features or eve benefits. Instead they tell a story, a story we want to believe." (from blurb)

What did I think?
I got a bit lost in a couple places where what I think the author was trying to prove didn't actually match up with what I thought he was saying. Most interesting bit was where he talked about worldview and how individuals will interpret events, situations, stories according to how much it matches their worldview. If it doesn't match then they dismiss it. Previously to this I was thinking how much this matched a couple of other books I've read c.f. after that I thought that it wasn't surprising that it serendipitously fell into the same category as I probably got all the titles from the same place which reinforces my worldview. (Because, yes, I think stories are incredibly important, both ficition and non-fiction, because of the way they help or encourage us to interpret events and represent ourselves.) It reminded me of the story about how the Aborigines of Australia ignored the first sailing ships that cruised along the coast becuase they didn't fit into their worldview and therefore didn't actually exist. (Is this a story or actually true? Who knows? It's a good one.)


Higson, Charlie "Double or die"
A young Bond book about a young James Bond. This is the third title in the series and in this one Bond gets his first taste of codes and ciphers.

What did I think?
That I need a lie down after reading that book. Wow! Mr Higson certainly packs a lot into a book. He is very clever and should be commended for these additions to the Bond canon. Young Bond differs from Alex Rider (I recommend the audio version) in that he doesn't do these things alone. There are usually other young people (even girls) helping him out. He does have to rely on himself and grit his teeth to manfully soldier on etc etc and he really is alone in terms of family but he does have a good circle of friends to call on. Excellent, rollercoaster, edge-of-the-seat read. Bring on the next one.