Monday, February 21, 2011

The Wisdom of Crowds : Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations

By James Surowiecki
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In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant–better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.
With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.
(Excerpt from randomhouse.com)

中國書法文化大觀

金開誠 , 王岳川 主編
online access from China reference works online
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《中國書法文化大觀》的寫作意向
中國書法,以線的飛動,墨的潤華,心手相合,抒情寫意,劃出了中國文化的深層精神軌跡。依這一軌跡而行,可窺其文化生命的幽妙之境。
在文化遭遇危機之時,編寫這樣一部二百餘萬字的大型書法文化理論著作,包括書法學理論、書法心理學、書法美學、書法創作欣賞和批評、書法美學史、書法文化比較、書法史、當代書法、篆刻美學等,已然表明了我們的文化價值取向……
就本書特色而言,這部書大多為吸收近年書壇學術新觀點,新思維所撰寫的高水平文稿,觀點上力求廣收博采而不強求一律,互相對立,彼此辯駁的文章歸匯一處而真理自彰;提倡平等對話,廣開思路而不人云亦云;理論上自成體系而又力求流動發展。為了真切反映中國近十年“書法熱”和書法界的當代學術走向,我們也精選了書刊上少量的具有代表性的論文,收入本書相關章節,這樣,名實相符,可謂中國書法之“文化大景觀”……
(摘錄自書中“跋:文化轉型中的書法審美價值”,一九九三)

Monday, February 14, 2011

A General Theory of Love

By Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon
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What is love, and why are some people unable to find it? What is loneliness, and why does it hurt? What are relationships, and how and why do they work the way they do?
Answering these questions, laying bare the heart's deepest secrets, is this book's aim. Since the dawn of our species, human beings in every time and place have contended with an unruly emotional core that behaves in unpredicted and confusing ways. Science has been unable to help them. The Western world's first physician, Hippocrates, proposed in 450 B.C. that emotions emanate from the brain. He was rightbut for the next twenty-five hundred years, medicine could offer nothing further about the details of emotional life. Matters of the heart were matters only for the artsliterature, song, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance. Until now …
(Excerpt from the Preface of the book)

生命中不能承受之輕 (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

米蘭・昆德拉(Milan Kundera)
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《生命中不能承受之輕》以『布拉格之春』蘇聯軍隊進佔、捷克知識分子大量逃亡歐洲海外為背景,一男兩女交纏的愛情故事帶出了對政治、文化、人類生命的省思與嘲諷。
比起昆德拉的其他小說,《生命中不能承受之輕》更像是一部愛情小說。特麗莎嫉妒著,她的嫉妒在白晝馴服,在夜裡甦醒,偽裝成夢境其實卻是死亡的詩篇。
漫漫長路上,這個年輕女子有她的丈夫托馬斯為伴。托馬斯一半是風流的唐璜,一半是深情的崔斯坦,對特麗莎的愛和壓抑不住的放蕩撕扯著他。
薩賓娜是托馬斯的情人,她的命運將小說的脈絡延伸至整個世界。她聰明,她厭惡多愁善感,她離開她的日內瓦情人弗蘭茨,追尋她的自由,從歐洲到美國,目的地卻只是『不能承受的生命之輕』。
究竟,什麼樣的特質最符合人類境況(condition humaine)?是『重』,還是『輕』?嚴肅要到何處才會讓位給輕浮?輕浮又要到何處才會讓位給嚴肅?昆德拉以悖論的手法透過小說提出了這些問題。
這部小說從幾個簡單的主題出發,但卻在結合了故事、夢境、反思、散文、詩歌、新近和古老歷史的變奏遊戲裡,不斷地以音樂的色調變化豐富著這部小說。在昆德拉的作品裡,沈重與輕盈或許從來不曾這樣結合過。死亡在這裡有個雙重面貌︰夢一般的甜美憂傷與殘酷的黑色鬧劇。
因為這部小說也是關於死亡的沈思—關於個人,也或許,關於古老的歐洲。
(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Monday, February 7, 2011

The Forest and the Trees : Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise

By Allan G. Johnson
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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Practicing sociology is a way to observe the world and to think about and make sense of it. It is also a way to be in the world and of the world, to play a meaningful role in the life of our species as it shapes and reshapes itself into the mystery of what’s going on and what it’s got to do with us …
This book is one practicing sociologist’s answer to the hypothetical, the core insight with the greatest potential and promise to transform how we see the world and ourselves in it. This book is about what that core view is and why it matters that we understand it, use it, live it, and pass it on.
(Excerpt from the “Introduction: Life, Practice, and Promise” of the book)

If sociology could teach everyone just one thing, what would it be? The Forest and the Trees is one sociologist's response to the hypothetical - the core insight with the greatest potential to change how people see the world and themselves in relation to it. This revised and updated edition features: a new chapter that brings together the various aspects of the sociological model described in previous chapters with a detailed application to the origins of racism; a discussion of how individuals can participate in social change by stepping off paths of least resistance; and, the addition of graphics to illustrate the sociological model of systems and individuals.
(Excerpt from amazon.com)

遇見未知的自己

張德芬 著
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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這是一本為你我而寫的生命故事,幫助我們看見自己的未知、發現心想事成的祕密,最終,成就一個全新而自信的自己
本書宛如現代版《為自己出征》、都會女性版《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》
吳淡如、莊淑芬、陳藹玲、李欣頻、王尚智 誠摯推薦

這是一本很有感染力的小說,也是現代人工作、婚姻和生活的一部心靈指南。──吳淡如
……若菱,自名校畢業,擁有令人羨慕的工作,但心中卻不時的自問:為什麼我不能擁有想要的生活?為什麼我不快樂?我該如何當自己生命的主人?
在一個下雨的冬夜,若菱巧遇一名智慧老者,在與智者數度交談的過程中,她漸漸填補不快樂、挫敗的心靈缺口,尋回最真實勇敢的自我……
透過本書主角的經歷與起伏,你不僅能從中獲得一些實用的生活指南,更可與實際生活問題產生連結,活出想要的人生,找回真實的自己!
(摘錄自博客來網路書店)