I am continuing to read books before I see the movie. This one features gymnastics, which so rarely happens that I felt reading the book would be a good move.

I didn’t get at all what I expected. This is a story about a man’s disillusionment, freeing his mind, and discovering what happiness truly is. A mix of martial arts, meditation and pushing himself past the limit. His mentor Soc, has strange powers to induce visions and jump onto rooftops.

This book offers a strange mix of humiliation and compassion that will take some time to digest, but it well worth the time to do so.

Why more (options) is less (satisfying). This fellow did a great job at researching the effects of choice and the supposed freedoms associated with it. He outlines how the excess of alternatives, such as 250 types of cookies in a grocery isle, actually inhibits your decision making process and will probably leave you less satisfied than if you only had to pick between 4 kinds of cookies. He offers many scenarios to illustrate how people choose their partners (and thus how they are satisfied with them) as well as many other anecdotes from personal or research experience. Now while all that’s well and good, after the great research Mr. Schwartz performed, he didn’t really delve in to any one topic. In fact, he skipped over a lot of ideas and didn’t examine the psychology or history very much at all. He repeats himself throughout the book. He repeats himself throughout the book a lot. But, he also uses conjunctions at the beginning of sentences a lot too. Still, it’s a good read and very informative – you might just learn something about yourself.