Lesson: Never read a book after watching the movie.

Fight Club movie is one of the best movies ever made. It’s one of the movies that I watched by accident and kept on watching, completely caught my attention after 5 minutes into the movie.

I decided to read the book, to get the feeling of the other way around, reading after watching the movie. I’ve always read the book, then watched the movie and sometimes I refused to watch the movie because the book was that good!

The movie kept running in my head while reading the book, so my imagination was limited by the movie watching experience! And I came to realise that maybe the movie was good because it stayed close to the book. The book added very little to the movie, of course some details and a bit of storylines were emitted from the movie.

If you haven’t watched the movie. First read the book. If you don’t want to read the book. Watch the movie, you have to watch the movie.

Maybe I should try and read a book of a bad movie … to see how that turns out … but isn’t that the same as reading a good book and then watching the movie and saying it was bad and the book was way much better ?!

We tend to think that as we get older our capabilities lessen! We mop around continuing to use and practice what we know and believe whatever new skills that we might acquire is a waste of effort because our time is around the corner!

The ages 35 to 55 are the peak of creativity in most fields, people in their 60s and 70s, though they work at slower speeds, are as productive as they were in their 20s

One should continue to practice new skills every now and then to make progress therefore benefiting from and pushing the use-it-or-lose-it brain attitude!

Book: The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

As we get older we become less and less active, that is, we tend to practice what we already know and stop learning new things.

We’re more likely to have a solid sense of who we are and be skilled at a career

We tend to replay mastered skills, speaking our own language, doing the same job, practicing the same sport, reading the newspaper, etc.

By the time we hit our seventies, we may not have systematically engaged the systems in the brain that regulates plasticity for fifth years

Therefore learning a new language in an old age, for example, is good because it requires sharp focus, attention and engages the brain in new activities that trigger plasticity that rebuild brain functions.

Everything that you can see happen in a young brain can happen in an older brain

Book: The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed-people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable

This is a fascinating book recommended by my friend nemo about how amazing our brain is, more specifically brain plasticity. And it’s just a small part of it, it tries to negate that our brains are rigid and is segmented in a way that each part is responsible for a certain task and if it so happens that a specific part of the brain is not developed properly or is damaged, then we loose the function that part controls! Also, our brain doesn’t stop developing as long as we challenge it.

I’m going to post some of the things that fascinated me, bits and pieces here and there, but I do recommend you read the book, Especially if you are like me and haven’t come across a topic like neuroplasticity.

Chapter 3: Redesigning the Brain

Our bad habits are hard to break or as the book puts it difficult to unlearn. This is due to competitive plasticity. After learning a bad habit and repeating it over and over again, it claims space in your brain and becomes stronger and takes more control of the space it’s assigned to! It occupies the space so stubbornly that whatever new good habit you are trying to learn can’t take its place, because bad habit won’t budge Therefore, unlearn comes to the picture and yes you guessed it unlearning something you are already familiar with and practice is harder than learning something new. So you have to unlearn the bad habit to free up the space and then learn the new good habit instead.

Early childhood education is so important, it is best to get it right early, before the “bad habit” gets a competitive advantage

Book: The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

PS: The Kindle edition is more expensive than the paperback!

• Many book stores available, I go in and loose myself
• Amazon UK, my basket always has items in them. It is hard to resist the click to order and have your items delivered within one week.
• Again my life style, when waiting for the bus, I can be waiting for upto 30 minutes and so I sit or lean against the wall and read. Since I’m not driving and I’m the passenger, I read while in the bus or train until I get dizzy
• Everyone around you is reading, it really helps and is an open source for book recommendations and a good conversation starter. “ohhh, I read this book, it is very interesting and a good read”.

I’ve read a lot of light books lately, when I’ve got so much going on, I need to ease and relax my mind a bit or it’ll explode. The three books were:

• His other lover by Lucy Dawson.”A crazy woman fighting for her sorry excuse of a man“. This novel proves that women are crazy when it comes to their man! They do not acknowledge common sense and they loose grip of reality.
• Getting rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon. I liked “Foursome” more, it was so much funnier.
• My best friend’s girl by Dorothy Koomson. I enjoyed this book very much, it was light and entertaining. I didn’t know how it’ll end till I finished reading the book.

And the last book was “Precious” by Sapphire, I just felt really appreciative of my life and the circumstances I live in. You’ll feel so blessed while reading this book.

On my to read list.

I picked this Stieg Larsson because of all the hype about the brilliance of his novels and I chose his first one. The second book by Kathryn Stockett, I just stumbled upon while Amazon-ing

It’s Jake birthday. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past. Jake has Alzheimer’s.

This is one of my May’s book. I took a while to finish this book. It was a bit boring and strangely it was talking about Alzheimer’s and I was having this feeling when reading the book! A character appears in the storyline and I’m confused, was it there before? Then chapters later the character is introduced. You go back and forth in Jake’s memories leaving you unsure which part of his life you are in until further down. Some characters didn’t make sense leaving you with unanswered questions, like his daughter.

Alzheimer is a scary disease, I really hope they find a cure for it and not just medications to delay its effect. You really feel the sense of lost and confusion the character is going through and not only their own frustration and anger but of those surrounding them.

Link: Amazon

Rebecca, Daniel, Alex and Isabel have been best friends since university. Rebecca married Daniel, Alex married Isabel and, for twenty years, they have been inseparable. But all that is about to change… When Alex walks out on Isabel, Rebecca thinks things can’t get any worse. But then she finds out the reason why and she’s left harbouring a secret she’d rather forget… And there’s more upheaval to come in Rebecca’s life as her emaciated, neurotic, self-obsessed colleague, Lorna – her arch nemesis at work – suddenly becomes a regular feature in her social life. Rebecca’s once-happy foursome is now a distant memory and with hearts broken and friendships fractured, it seems that change is never a good thing. Or is it?

I kept seeing ads for this book all over London, so when I went into Waterstone’s I just picked it as part of 3 for 2 deal and was I glad I did.

It is a light funny novel that you can’t help but relate to some of the events that occur especially in the work place! I laughed and I couldn’t put the book down, it was filled with action all the way through. It even reminded me of how we make fun of our work day and I started reminiscing about my friend telling me about her day and I about mine, and the serious comedy approach we use, our eyes would tear up from laughter. And the nicknames we give out

The author has written two others, but I stopped myself from going in the book store today, because I’ve already got a couple of novels stacked unread. I realise I’m reading a bit more these days, just to give myself a break from studying and working on my assessments

Link: Amazon

A group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, “Never Let Me Go” hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.

A fresh book to read. As you read along, the plot unfolds and you come to grasp what the novel is about. At the beginning I was not quite sure what was happening, page by page it becomes more clear, that was a refreshing way. I don’t want to spoil the experience by writing what the novel is about, because the discovery and uncertainty was a huge part of me enjoying reading this novel.

The way the book is written as if someone is sitting in front of you over a cup of coffee telling you their story. I sometimes felt I should read this book out loud because this is the sense the book gave me. A life story being told.

My March book. I really enjoyed this book tremendously. It does not just tell you the story of Michael Oher who now is playing in the National Football League (NFL) but also analyses the game and its history as well.

I’m not that aware of the game and rules, just know some of the facts, the super bowl, the quarterback, tough game many player get seriously injured.

Michael Lewis drafted the book in a way you kept on reading and understanding the statistics of his analysis while providing snippets of Michael Oher life story, the transition was so smooth and clever, I was so caught up in reading it. I really liked it and decided not to go watch the movie because reading the book was good and I don’t want to spoil it by watching the movie, maybe watch it much later on.

Link: Amazon

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon (“like the fish”) is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer–the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.

This is one of my February books. I started reading it on a train and that was a mistake! I got so emotional as I was reading the murder scene, I got chocked up and my eyes filled up!

It was a lovely beautiful novel, that follows the lives of the family and friends of Susie after she is brutally murdered and how they cope and move on. You have to keep an open mind about how heaven and the after life is portrayed in this novel.

I highly recommend reading the novel and it is not at all how you expect it to be, it is refreshing.