Book 2 Post 1

The book I choose for the second semester is called A Whole New Mind written by Daniel Pink. Initially, I was skeptical about this book because it wasn't my first choice and I wasn't too sure what it was going to be about, but as I dove into the book, I feel like I made the right choice after all.

Pink starts off the novel simply by breaking down the brain. He explains the differences between the right and left side of the brain and helps the reader differentiate between the two. The left side of the brain is focused more on details while the right side of the brain works to see the bigger picture. The left handles logic, sequence, literalness, and analysis. The right takes care of synthesis, emotional expression, and the big context.

I think Pink’s breakdown of the brain assures that all of his readers have the same base knowledge about the brain that you need before reading this book. I think this was a good way to start the book, especially when covering such an intellectually deep topic like the way the brain works.

After breaking down the two sides of the brain, Pink continues on to discuss abundance and how the world’s obsession with abundance has changed society. Pink talks about how abundance is the defining feature of social, economic and cultural life in much of the world. In turn, this has made Left-directed thinking much less significant. People are more focused on the broader context of their lives rather than the day-to-day text. I didn’t finish the reading on abundance during this post, but I’ll have more on it in my next post.