In this book Josh Kaufman claims that you only need 20 hours to learn a new skill. Kaufman also claims that it is the quality, and not the quantity of the time spent that is needed to learn a new skill. Josh Kaufman learned how to do yoga, program, touch type, play "Go," play ukulele, and windsurf. Kaufman introduced the 10 principles of rapid skill acquisition. The steps are: 1. Choose a loveable project. 2. Focus your energy on one skill at a time. 3. Define your target performance level. 4. Deconstruct the skill into subskills. 5. Obtain critical tools. 6. Eliminate barriers to practice. 7. Make dedicated time for practice. 8. Create fast feedback loops. 9. Practice by the clock in short bursts and 10. Emphasize quality and speed. Kaufman also introduces the 10 principles of effective learning. Which are: 1. Research the skill and related topics. 2. Jump in over your head. Identify mental models and mental hooks. 4. Imagine the opposite of what you want. 5. Talk to practitioners to set expectations. 6. Eliminate distractions in your environment. 7. Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization. 8. Create scaffolds and checklists. 9. Make and test predictions. and 10. Honor your biology. To practice yoga Kaufman decided to learn a handful of positions, quality over quantity. To program Kaufman spent his free time learning how to program and update his website. To touch type Kaufman started from the beginning and switched from QWERTY to COLEMAK. To learn how show more to play "Go" Kaufman got rid of his distraction which was "World of Warcraft." To learn how to play ukulele Kaufman learned the subskills first. And to learn how to windsurf Kaufman took precautions and bought necessary equipment before he hurt himself.

I found this book to be quite inspiring. The steps are useful and make sense! The principles are so easy to understand I don't know why I haven't followed them earlier! (Perhaps because I'm too lazy to make tie and get rid of all distractions.) It was also helpful because of the examples. If he had only wrote the principles I would've been better off but not at full potential. Kaufman didn't master those skills, but he got good enough to the point where if people would ask him to do it he would actually know how to do it. My favorite part was when Kaufman rewired his brain completely when trying to learn how to touch type. Overall this was a good book and if you are looking to learn a new skill you should read this book. You might not need anything but it will still be handy! show less

N. : The story stars Johnny, Charlie, and Sheila. Johnny and Sheila were siblings, but Johnny, Charlie, and Johnny were best friends. They are now adults and Sheila tells Charlie of Johnny's suicide. Johnny was a psychiatrist, and he worked with a man who will be known as "N" throughout the story. N is an accountant and tells of how he enjoys photography, so one day he goes to the top of a hill in "Ackerman's Fields." There is a KEEP OUT sign however N goes in anyway. He finds eight stones in a circular pattern, however he looks again and sees 7 stones and inside the circle were beasts and human-like creatures. N looked through with the camera and the eighth stone returned. That was when N started to gain OCD. He touched, he counted, and placed almost everything he came across. N goes back several times and concludes that there is an evil being named Cthun who is trying to get out of the stones. N found that by touching every other stone he could contain Cthun. N became weary and tired then commited suicide, hoping that no one would look at the stones again causing what he went through. Johnny goes up to Ackerman's Fields to convince himself that the placed N talked of was imaginary and the same thing happens to him. Johnny started counting, touching, and instead balancing. Soon Johnny began to realize that N was right and that Cthun was coming. The only way to make sure the eighth stone stayed was to make sure that human eyes would never look at the stones directly. show more Sheila was instructed to burn the records of N's and Johnny's meetings, she instead read the stories and later committed suicide the same way Johnny did. (By jumping off a bridge near Ackerman's Field.) In the end Charlie finishes the story and decides himself to see why his friends would commit suicide.

I find to really enjoy these short stories. They are dark so I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who has a heart of gold. All of the stories are unique and one of a kind. But I would like to see some sequels! Some of the stories I wish I could've seen what happened next after it said The End. But just because the stories are dark doesn't mean they all have dark endings, though most of them do. Each of these stories have an element of surprise! The stories aren't just made of horror either, they can be placed in several different categories. So overall, great collection of stories, and these stories should have sequels! show less

Word Processor of the Gods: This story stars Richard Hagstrom, he has a wife and a son. Richard also has a nephew and a brother. Richard's brother is named Roger, Roger's wife is named Belinda, and Roger's son is named Jonathan. Mr. Nordhoff (who used to live next to Roger) helped Richard bring in a word processor that Jonathan had made for Richard's birthday. Johnathan (in the book's words) was "damn near an electrical genius," and "was a fine boy." However, one day Roger was drinking and driving and crashed the car with himself, Belinda, and Jonathan inside. Now Jonathan built a word processor from scratch for Richard's birthday, because Richard was a teacher who wrote short stories and said that owning a word processor would make writing those short stories much easier. Richard had found that when you typed in a sentence, it became reality. So Richard replaced his wife with Belinda and replaced his son with Jonathan, before the word processor stalled and broke down.

Gramma: This story stars George. He has a brother named Buddy, George's mother, and George's grandmother. Buddy had broke his leg so George had to stay home while his mother went to the hospital and checked on Buddy. This left George home with Gramma. Gramma was blind so Gramma needed helped eating, using the bathroom, and such. When George was younger, his Gramma asked him for a hug but George was scared to and cried. So George was left alone and was almost begging for Gramma not to wake up. George then show more recalled when he was younger how George's mother, aunts, and uncles would talk about Gramma's spells and books. Which led George to the conclusion that Gramma was a witch. But then Gramma stopped breathing. He used at least 3 different ways to tell if Gramma was alive or not but every time he got the same result and concluded that she was dead. But Gramma came back to life and embraced George with a hug. Gramma died and never awoke this time, however George started to speak an unknown language in his sleep and was really looking forward to being bullied by Buddy again.

I really enjoyed this book. The stories really grabbed your attention and made you want to read till the end. And if you got tired of a story you could move onto the next. There are 21 stories in this book and each I enjoyed. I really wish some had a sequel, especially "The Mist." It has plenty of genres as well. Some are funny, scary, sad, dark, or a mixture of that. Some stories I read and just went "Wait, what?" Overall I like this book but I wish there were prequels or sequels. show less

This book stars Leib Lejzon, who is now known as Leon Leyson. He was born in Narewka, a village in northeastern Poland. Leon had one older sister and three older brothers. After Leon's parents married, Leon's father served as an apprentice machinist. Leon's father moved up the ranks and eventually the glass factory his father worked at expanded to a city southwest of Leon's town, called Krakow. Leons father worked so that eventually his wife and children would be able to live with him again in Krakow. Leon's eldest brother, Hershel, went to work with his father. After 5 years Leon and his family were able to move to Krakow, they moved into an apartment building at Przemyslowa Street 13. Sept. 1st, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and 2 members of the Gestapo beat up Leon's father. In Mar. 1941 Leon and his family were forced to move to a ghetto. Everyone in Leon's family worked inside the ghetto. Leon and his family were sent to a camp called Plaszow. Leon's father asked his boss, Schindler, if his family could work with him in the factory making armaments, and Schindler immediately said yes. Leon was too short to reach the table where he was making casings, so he had to stand on a wooden box, which is the name of this book. Schindler made many efforts to try and keep the Jews as safe as possible, he treated them with respect and remorse. And in the end he saved the lives of nearly 1,200 Jews. The Russians were coming so the Nazis fled, Schindler did to in fear of being show more mercilessly killed by the Russians. The camp was liberated by Russians on May 8th, 1945.

I think this was a really good book, one of the best I've read so far in fact. I mean there has to be a reason as to why this book has more 5 star ratings than any other ratings. (And only one 2 star rating.) This book shows that not everyone shunned the Jews. Schindler gave Leon and his family a place to work and stay. Schindler protected his workers, not as if they were machines. But as if they were something more, he called the Jewish workers "experts, highly trained, and irreplaceable," even when some weren't experts or were really just bad at the job. Not to mention that when the women were sent to Auschwitz he saved them, and whenever someone was threatened with death or punishment Schindler saved them. ( Immediately too, not a moment's hesitation.) I don't think anyone who cared about the Jews were able to take Jews back from Auschwitz, yet somehow Schindler accomplished this amazing feat. show less

The book first tells us of the land of Dhrall, Mother Sea, Father Earth, and the gods that watched over the land of Dhrall. The gods don't sleep very often but when they do, they alternate between the young and old gods and sleep for eons. There is a legend where 4 "Dreamers" will take down That-Called-The-Vlagh. These Dreamers that see the future and control Earth with their dreams will take down an ancient being that controls and creates monstrous warriors. The Vlagh wants to take all of Dhrall and eventually the world. At the moment the 4 youngest gods take care of the 4 dreamers that are at the time babies. A decade later one of the dreamers dream of war. Zelana, one of the gods, decides to hire an army of Maags mountains of gold to help fight the war. Veltan, Zelana's brother and also a god, pays a Trogite army to help fight the war. The 2 armies use poison from the Vlagh's warriors to kill the Vlagh's own warriors. Eventually by outsmarting the enemies, using poisoned weapons, and melting the enemies with a volcano one of the dreamers caused to explode, the gods win the first war. And yet, there are three more wars to be fought in the dream of one of the dreamers.

To mean this was an above average book, but not great. To me there were too much names. I had to think to remember who one of the character's were. I think that some parts of the book were funny so that is a plus. I thought this was going to be an epic war story. Man v.s. monster, instead one of the show more supernatural dreamers used a volcano to just kill all the evil warriors. So it turned out to be a pretty short war. I like how the inside of the book had a map so you could visualize the landscape.I like the attitudes and personalities of the people, some may seem the same but the ones that are diverse make the book an interesting tale. (For future references the Trogites are a group of soldiers from the south that rule a vast empire. And the Maags are a group of barbarians/pirates/vikings that live to the west where there aren't a lot of rules or regulations.) show less

The main character of this story is called Scott Carey, and Scott went to see his friend who was a retired doctor. The retired doctor's name was Bob Ellis and everyone called him Doctor Bob even though he hated it. Scott showed Bob a phenomenon. Scott weighed the same amount with 14 pounds of extra weight and he still weighed the same without the 10 extra pounds. Scott was also losing weight every day. Then Scott was losing weight at a faster rate of change almost everyday. His neighbors Deirdre McComb and Missy Donaldson were both married and the head of the same restaurant. The neighbors' restaurant was going out of business once customers found out that the owners were gay. At the town's 45th annual turkey trot Deirdre and Scott made a bet on who would win the race. If Scott won Deirdre and Missy would come to his house for dinner and hopefully become good friends. If Deirdre won, Scott would let Deirdre's dogs take a dump on his lawn and he would pick it up. Scott let Deirdre win after helping her get up. It got to the point where Scott weighed 0 pounds, he didn't want to live strapped to a chair for the rest of his life. So he asked Deirdre to set him free so he could die at peace in the sky instead of being studied.

To me this was a very good book. Like, this should be a movie. It has a good view on gay men and women. This was also the first book by Stephen King I happened to read that wasn't a horror novel. I didn't know Stephen King wrote books other than horror show more novels so to read this novel and really enjoy it makes me want to read more of his books. I also liked how this wasn't one of those "escape from a lab" themed stories. It was nice to read a mind-gripping book that had a peaceful setting and ending that wasn't jam packed with action, adventure, and sorrow. It was a nice change compared to the books I normally read. Overall, I think this book was one of the best books I've read recently and I think it should have a higher rating than 3 and a half stars. show less

The story firsts starts with a "flash forward," through Charlie's eyes. Then the story continues and we find that Charlie and her friends from ten years ago are going to a memorial service. Charlie was friends with whom the memorial person was supposed to be for. His name was William and he disappeared 10 years ago. Her and a couple of her past friends went to the place where William was last seen. The place was called Freddy Fazbear's Family diner, and there was a mall built around it. Charlie and her friends snuck into Freddy's diner 3 times. They found that the robots their could move on their own after the second visit. A friend named Carlton was kidnapped by the same man that kidnapped William 10 years ago. So they fought the robots and the kidnapper, then left.

What I really like about Five Nights at Freddy's Silver Eyes is that it is a complete mystery. When you start to read the first book you have no idea what is happening. But as you go along the mystery unfolds. And even after you finish the book, there is still a mystery and you want to learn more. (Which I think is probably a reason why it is so popular with games, TV, books, and jokes.) I also like the ideas of the robots. Possessed robots is something that isn't too common. I also like the scare factor. With every sequel for a book or game the surprises, mysteries, and scares jump to another level.

This book first explains the Buddha. Such as how he was raised, to later being enlightened. (He wasn't named with the name Buddha but named with the name Siddhartha.) His parents were told that Siddhartha was either gonna be a spiritual leader or a great ruler and the parents wanted him to be a great ruler. The book then teaches you what Buddhism truly is and how it can help. The book then teaches you how you can use Buddhism with home life, school issues, your body, and more. The book then teaches you the simple truths, the 5 vows, etc. It later teaches you about meditation and, if you want to, it teaches ways to become even more connected to Buddhism.

What I like about this book is it has a lot of every category. From history to meditation. It also had a lot of facts from Buddha's life story that I didn't know about, like how his parents kept him in a life of luxury away from disease and old age. What I like even further in this book is it states that Buddhism is the least religious. There is no god, it really just teaches you morality. The closest you can get to calling part of it religious is when the book tells of ways to practice exercises. (Such as when you're praising Buddha.) The final thing that I like about this book is it tells you how to deal with bullies or jerks. (The book states that most bullies don't want to fight, but they just want to make you feel weak.)

This book stars Rafe Katchadorian. The setting begins with Rafe starting his day at Hills Village Middle School. Soon Rafe ends up sitting in the assembly room with his peers while the Principal reads the rules out loud. After the assembly he comes up with operation Rafe. In operation Rafe, Rafe has to try and break all the rules, while doing this he gets bonus points if people laugh, the girl he likes sees, or etc. Later on he failed 6 subjects, so he ended up getting tutored by the girl he likes. Rafe had three lives, if he hurt someone physically or emotionally he would lose a life, well in the end he had 0 lives. His imaginary friend and brother (Rafe and his brother Leo were best friends but Leo died from cancer) convinced Rafe to break the rules even though he had no lives left.
I think this was a pretty good book. It was pretty funny and the illustrations were pretty well drawn. One thing I didn’t like was how the book gave off a bad influence. For example, he tried to break every rule in the book. He got punished but he didn't care. I also didn't like how the "Bear" shoved Rafe's mom to the ground. Kind of a bit bad for a children's book if you asked me. On the bright side they got rid of that jerk after he went into the police car.

The book first started when David Goggins was still a young boy. No one knew that David, his brother, and his mother were beaten constantly by their own father or husband. Soon after David's mom, David, and David's brother escaped, stole their father's car and drove far away, David's brother went back to the father and David saw him only once after that. David Goggins tried to join the SEALS years later, but then he had to drop out because he couldn't swim to the demands. David became a SEAL two tries later, on the second try he was injured severely, and on the third he was still injured but he duck-tapped his legs together and ran with broken legs. Years after that he ran in dozens of running competitions. He ran until he pissed blood and pooped his own pants. After all this, he set the new world record for pull ups after three tries.

This story was extremely inspiring! At the very beginning David Goggins wasn't fit, he was self-conscious, and he was poor. But now he is scary fit, has pride in himself, and extremely wealthy. This guy is my new role model! What kind of epic beast joins the SEALS with broken legs and duck tapes them?! When he failed the first try in the SEALS he worked on the weakest exercise that he was at, and that was swimming. And to think that from the very beginning from when his father treated him so terribly, he has become one of the most inspiring people alive to date. And we can't forget to mention the pull up world record! Everyone told him that show more he couldn't do it. Everyone said he was to heavy and had to be lighter to do some many pull-ups. But he never stopped trying and on his third try he set the new world record for the most amount of pull ups in a day! show less

This is the fourth book of Daniel X, after killing most wanted on earth number 6, 5, and 4. In this book Daniel is trying to fight most wanted 7 and 8. 7 and 8 had a son which Daniel got close to and became friends with. Daniel is an alien hunter that is trying to exterminate the earth's most wanted aliens. Daniel's power includes transformation, time travel, super strength, super speed, the ability to create anything that he knows the structure of, and more. 7 and 8 are an endangered species that ate the rest of their kind to gain power, they also like to eat the remains of the last remaining kind of other alien species. Daniel met an intellectual alien that was last of it's kind, the alien gave it's abilities to Daniel such as invisibility and so on. 7 and 8 then devoured their son after finding out that the son was helping Daniel X. Insane with rage, Daniel defeated 7 and 8 by dissolving both 7 and 8's particles. In the end saving the world once again, expect this time it was from aliens who tried to brainwash kids with video games to kill everyone in sight.

Overall I liked this book. The main character of this story has basically every kind of super power I would like to have. It was cool for him to finally have a friend that he didn't have to create with his mind. It was pretty depressing for that intellectual alien, and 7 and 8's son to die. Especially since he created his entire family and friends based on his own mind from mid-air! I think it is kind of strange show more though, so far Daniel X is the only alien hunting down the most wanted. By the forth book I think someone would recognize several of the top ten criminals were dead. And their may be hundreds of bad aliens on Earth, but there should be at least a couple other alien hunters out there. Thank you for reading my summary on Daniel X. show less

The book first started out with Maddie getting in trouble with her parents for hunting at night when she wasn't supposed to. Because of this her parents sent Maddie to her godfather to be humbled. Maddie thought that this was going to be all fun and games. But as an Apprentice Ranger she had to go through a lot of hard training until it was time for Will and Maddie to go on a mission. They had to investigate the scene of a dead Ranger named Liam. While there they found out that the reason why Liam was killed was because he found out that someone was kidnapping children and trying to sell them as slaves. The leader of this gang killed Will's wife and his name was Ruhl. Ruhl accidentally killed himself while trying to kill Will. And Maddie got hurt in the process. In the end Maddie got her Bronze Oak Leaf ( a status among Rangers) 3 months earlier than expected.

I think that this was a very good book. The main character started as a spoiled brat at first and later on turned into a caring girl at the end of the book. It also has a good view on different genders. Maddie was the first ever Apprentice Ranger but she proved to be just as good as other Ranger apprentices. It was kind of confusing at the beginning of the book though. Especially since I thought this was the first of a series, and I never thought that this would be the twelfth book. Speaking of that, to have at least 12 books in any series is pretty impressive. Overall this was an outstanding book. Thank you for show more reading my summary! show less