I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Creativity is an elusive but essential component of innovation and success in competitive, changing markets. The old way of thinking had it that creativity was a kind of mystical property possessed only by certain innately talented people. If an organisation wasn’t innovative enough, its leaders simply needed to find and hire those rare creative people. The past few decades of constant disruption by newcomers has roundly proven this theory false, even if organisational leaders don’t recognise it yet. Years of trying to recruit and retain creative workforce’s just hasn’t helped the established players keep up.

If hiring creativity isn’t helping, it means that organisations have all the creativity they need but aren’t harnessing it properly. What’s going wrong? Some people point to the pressure to keep shareholders happy and to other external pressures, claiming that market forces prevent them from giving creativity the space to develop. But the supersonic rise of companies like Netflix and Amazon show that market forces aren’t stopping the people who really know how to innovate. In Unlocking Creativity Michael A. Roberto draws on years of investigation to reveal the true nature of the problem: enterprise-wide mindsets that stifle creativity on a daily basis.

Every organisation is full of creative minds just waiting for an opportunity to shine. Unfortunately, deeply entrenched organisational cultures and ways of thinking frustrate people when they try to present original ideas. Without knowing it, we may be falling victim to one of the six mindsets that prevent talented people from experimenting, discovering, innovating and helping the organisation flourish.

Unlocking Creativity presents the six mindsets that block creativity, bringing them to life through colourful examples and abundant research evidence, to help leaders recognise the habits that might be preventing creativity from taking flight. With illustrations taken from far and wide - academic research, corporate case studies, hit TV shows, and rock and roll legends all make eye-opening appearances in the pages of this book - Michael Roberto clears the fog around creativity and equips leaders with the insight they need to shift to supportive mindsets and cultures where creativity can thrive.

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The Verdict:

Michael A. Roberto is Director of the Center for Program Innovation at Bryant University. In this thought-provoking book that will appeal to anyone who has worked at a large organisation, he sets out the 6 organisational mindsets that can block creativity within the workplace and offers ways of countering them, drawing on numerous business, technological and creative case studies and social psychology experiments to help make his case.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

This book looks at how science investigates the natural world around us. It is an examination of the scientific method, the foundation of science and basis on which our scientific knowledge is built. Written in a clear, concise, and colloquial style, the book addresses all concepts pertaining to the scientific method. It includes discussions on objective reality, hypotheses and theory, and the fundamental and inalienable role of experimental evidence in scientific knowledge.

This collection of personal reflections on the scientific methodology shows the observations and daily uses of an experienced practitioner. Massimiliano Di Ventra also examines the limits of science and the errors we make when abusing its method in non scientific contexts. By reflecting on the general method, the reader can critically sort through other types of scientific claims, and judge their ability to apply it in study and in practice.

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The Verdict:

Massimiliano Di Ventra is Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. In this book (illustrated by Matteo Di Ventra) he aims to provide readers with an understanding of scientific methodology and its limitations so that readers can evaluate scientific claims. However, while it’s intended as an easy read, you need some scientific knowledge to follow everything and while I got the overall gist, at times I was left confused.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

There is no blurb on the back and no quotes.

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The Verdict:

Jonathan Portes is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King’s College London and in this book he looks at the economics of immigration, from its causes and impact to how the economic facts could influence policy in a post-Brexit world. Unfortunately, the Brexit section is the weakest - mainly because events have moved since it was written - but it’s a must-read for the economic facts if you’re looking to inform yourself on this subject.

WHAT DO WE KNOW AND WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT IMMIGRATION was released in the United Kingdom on 1st July 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

There is no blurb on the back, but there are the following quotes:

”A compelling history of the 1986 disaster and its aftermath ... plunges the reader into the sweaty, nervous tension of the Chernobyl control room on that fateful night when human frailty and design flaws combined to such devastating effect.”
Daniel Beer, Guardian.

“Extraordinary, vividly written, powerful storytelling ... the first full-scale history of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, one of the defining moments in the Cold War, told minute by minute.”
Victor Sebastian, Sunday Times

“An insightful and important book, that often reads like a good thriller, and that exposes the danger of mixing powerful technology with irresponsible politics”
Yoval Noah Harari

“Haunting ... near-Tolstoyan. His voice is humane and inflected with nostalgia”
Roland Elliott Brown, Spectator

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The Verdict:

Serhii Plokhy is Professor of History at Harvard University and a specialist in Eastern Europe. In this by turns horrifying, moving and meticulously researched book (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize in 2018 for non-fiction), he depicts the events surrounding the explosion of the No 4 reactor at Chernobyl on 26 April 1986 and the cover up and clear up that followed and explains how it contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Blurb On The Back:

Then

One night, my little sister went missing. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, she came back. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say what had happened. But she wasn’t the same afterwards. She wasn’t my Annie. Sometimes my own little sister scared me to death.

Now

The email arrives in my inbox:

I know what happened to your sister. It’s happening again ...

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The Verdict:

C. J. Tudor’s second novel is a tightly plotted horror tale that gives more than a nod to Stephen King’s PET SEMETARY but which nevertheless has a distinctly British feel. The amoral and desperate Joe makes for an interesting protagonist and I liked Tudor’s depiction of a broken pit village while the supernatural elements are generally creepy. All in all, this is a great Halloween chiller and I will definitely check out THE CHALK MAN.

The Blurb On The Back:

Our land is sinking. It’s disappearing into the water. And no one knows how to save it

Twelve-year-old Eliza and her younger sister Avery have lived their entire lives in a small fishing village on the coast of Louisiana, growing up alongside turtles, pelicans and porpoises. But now, with sea levels rising, their home is at risk of being swept away.

Determined to save the land, Eliza and Avery secretly go searching in the swamp for the dangerous, wolf-life loup-garou. If they can prove this legendary creature exists, they’re sure that the government will have to protect its habitat - and their community.

But there’s one problem: the loup-garou has never been seen before. And with a tropical storm approaching and the sisters deep, deep in the swampland, soon it’s not just their home at risk, but their lives as well ...

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The Verdict:

Jess Butterworth’s contemporary ecological thriller for children aged 9+ does a great job of evoking the strange beauty of the Louisiana bayou and how it’s at risk from climate change while Eliza and Avery’s relationship captures the frustrations and rivalry of having a sibling. However the plot relies on a series of foolish decisions that I didn’t believe of two swamp kids while I thought the corporate skulduggery plot was resolved too neatly.

SWIMMING AGAINST THE STORM was released in the United Kingdom on 4th April 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

From the harrowing situation of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean in rubber dinghies to the crisis on the US-Mexico border, mass migration is one of the most urgent issues facing our societies today. At the same time, viable solutions seem ever more remote, with the increasing polarisation of public attitudes and political positions.

In this book, Stephen Smith focuses on ‘young Africa’ - 40 per cent of its population are under fifteen - and a dramatic demographic shift. Today, 510 million people live inside EU borders, and 1.25 billion in Africa. In 2050, 450 million Europeans will face 2.5 billion Africans - five times their number. The demographics are implacable. The scramble for Europe will become as inexorable as the ‘scramble for Africa’ was at the end of the nineteenth century, when 275 million people lived north and only 100 million lived south of the Mediterranean. Then it was all about raw materials and national pride, now it is about young Africans seeking a better life on the Old Continent, the island of prosperity within their reach. If Africa’s migratory patterns follow the historic precedents set by other less developed parts of the world, in thirty years a quarter of Europe’s population will be Afro-Europeans. Addressing the question of how Europe can cope with an influx of this magnitude, Smith argues for a path between the two extremes of today’s debate. He advocates migratory policies of ‘good neighbourhood’ equidistant from guilt-Rudder self-denial and nativist egotism.

This sobering analysis of the migration challenges we now face will be essential reading for anyone concerns with the great social and political questions of our time.

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The Verdict:

Stephen Smith is Professor of African Studies at Duke University and spent 30 years as a journalist in Africa. His book is strong on the human geography of Africa, particularly the problems of its youthful population, the tensions with gerocentric political structures and the levers encouraging migration to Europe and America but is weak on how to address this and at times he offers up literary tangents that give colour but no facts.

THE SCRAMBLE FOR EUROPE was released in the United Kingdom on 26th April 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Isadora Moon is special because she is different

Her mum is a fairy and her dad is a vampire and she is a bit of both.

It’s almost time for the vampire ball, and Isadora can’t wait! There’s just one problem: she’s got to compete in a talent show with the other vampire children.

Will Isadora be brave enough to perform …?

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The Verdict:

The 10th in Harriet Muncaster’s self-illustrated fantasy series for children aged 6+ is another charming and thoughtful affair that focuses on self-confidence and how to deal with situations that make you nervous. It’s another very girly book but I especially liked how Muncaster sets up the expectations of her dad, who is slightly too worried about what the vampires will like rather than what Isadora will enjoy, which adds to her nerves.

ISADORA MOON PUTS ON A SHOW will be released in the United Kingdom on 5th September 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

The battle is on - duck for cover!

Adventure Duck’s arch nemesis, Power Pug, is back with a sickly-sweet plan for world domination. With an armadillo army under his command, the evil pug is digging up the rainforest to build a giant chocolate factory! Can a new llama sidekick help Adventure Duck win the war? Because defeat means only one thing ...

Death by chocolate!

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The Verdict:

The second in Steve Cole and Aleksei Bitskoff’s humorous illustrated series for children aged 6+ is another zany and silly tale filled with bad puns, some funny toilet jokes and a megalomaniac pug intent on world domination. I liked the switch in focus to Ziggy and AD’s friendship and Bitskoff’s illustrations add energy to the text but the story here is remarkably similar to the first book, so it did feel a little repetitive.

ADVENTURE DUCK VS THE ARMADILLO ARMY was released in the United Kingdom on 8th August 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Slay your fear! Get out of your comfort zone and express yourself.

Find the lesson! Bounce back from the dumps, failures and other bummers.

Lift as you climb. Support your squad.

Speak truth: know your rights and take action

Don’t fit in? Pave new ground

Learn how to step into your power with the help of friendly big-sister figure Jamie Wilson.

How do you achieve your dreams? And what are your rights? Find out in this friendly guide, with mentoring moments by Jamia Wilson and Andrea Pippins. This book gives young girls the tools to unlock their power, be themselves, and maybe just change the world.

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The Verdict:

Jamia Wilson is a writer and feminist activist and Andrea Pippins is a writer and illustrator. In this thought-provoking, empathic and inspirational book aimed at girls aged 9+ (although there’s a lot here that boys would benefit from too) they set out 23 lessons for children to feel more powerful, from learning self-care techniques to standing up for themselves and facing down their fears, which a lot of adults would benefit from learning too.

STEP INTO YOUR POWER: 23 LESSONS ON HOW TO LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE was released in the United Kingdom on 7th March 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.