Books read in 2009

I sometimes read books, and then forget where I read something, so this is an attempt to at least record what books I've read in this year, 2009

"A view from Within" - Pauline Grogan, 2004
is a true story of James Lynch, who spend 44 years in hospital, and 70 years of his life paralyzed. It is said that when he was 14 years old, he was electrocuted while visiting on the Victoria ship back in 1931. It is not clear what happened, and there is no record of any incident on the ship, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. The orphan Maori child who lived with his grandma in Tauranga was faced with a life of helplessness where he could hardly talk, let alone do anything for himself. His motor skills just collapsed, never to recover again. But against these odds, James lived to the age of 84 years, and died in hospital in 2001, left behind many friends who loved him dearly, and who's lives he touched with encouragement and love. No matter how little you can do, your attitude determines what you mean to others, and your place in this world.

"Can you teach a goat to dance?" - Mike Handcock, 2006
I a lovely self-help guid to get the best out of your life an work. The most intereseting part was the catagories of personality types at work according to music types, dependent on your expressiveness and your dominance:
- High dominance, less expressive:Rock people like to get the task done, fast moving, action oriented, sometimes at cost of relationships.
- High dominance, more expressive: Pop people are intuition orientated, good for networking and love socializing
- Low dominance, less expressive: Classical people are thinking orientated, analytical, look at all the options on the table before making a decision, methodical
- Low dominance, more expressive: Swing people are more relationship oriented, strong sense of justice. (personally I'm a swing - can you believe it?)

"Multicultural Clients" - Sybil M Lassiter, 1995
American focused, but still interesting read on how different cultures react to health care and how they seek health care assistance. The likelyhood that each culture/race will talk about what is wrong, or even if they would seek help. Interesting to me was the connection between what people believe spiritually and religiously having such a great impact on how the perseave health care, medication, and hospitalization etc.

"Snakes and Ladders" - Peter R Roberts, 2003
Nice one! 'The pursuit of a safety culture in New Zealand Public Hospitals.' This book overall gave me the idea that each company has a board game called snakes and ladders. The snakes are the punishment for when you do something wrong, and it takes you back a couple of spaces and force you to start again, for instance, when you breached a policy, it will take the company some time for you to trust you again. On the other hand, there is ladders, who are rewards for when you do something right. A promotion, a bonus, anything positive that helps you motivate doing more than what is expected of you. Your normal work day and pay is just throwing the dice, and you move from one block to the next, sometimes one space, sometimes 6, but it still represent your normal working life. Now if you company has too many snakes to ensure people are constantly doing the right thing, people are going to become discourage. If there are too many ladders, your people will become spoiled, and reward will come to easy and they'll stop working for it. The trick is to strike a balance in between.

"Researching Online for dummies" - Reva Basch, Mary Ellen Bates, 2000
Didn't get to read everthing, but the point is to plan what you want to research. If you want to visit a friends house, you won't just drive in the suburb and hope to find the house you are looking for, you know the address, and you know how to find it on the map. Research is the same. Sometimes the problem these days is too much info, everything interest us, but we do not focus long enough on something to intrench it, and make it our own. Read less, but read focused. (huh?? this will take me a while to grasp)