[Madam Corvax]

Yeah, it's very much "in" these days, the emotional psychology, but judging from my example it is utter crap. There is this thing about children, how to tell when a child has an emotional intelligence and is likely to do better in life. You give the child a candy and tell him/her that is he doesn't eat it without five minutes he'll get a second candy and leave him/her alone. If she he does not eat it, it means high emotional intelligence.

Now I remember distinctly when I was little I was always saving my share of sweets and my brother always ate his first. Then he tricked me into giving him the rest of mine by telling me "I will die if you won't give me your chocolate", and I always fell for it.

Now tell me which of the two siblings did better in life? No-brainer, huh?

[DragonLord]

Well really, it's not all about testing children using simple games and see how well they will do later on in life, but the book explains how people interact thoughts and feelings, how they work together and how they in some cases work against eachother. You don't find it interesting?

Madame do you really think the whole theory about Emotional Intelligence is "utter crap" because of one simple personal counterexample?

[Madam Corvax]

Of course it isn't I was just being sarcastic. For example, I do believe that life SHOULD be governed by emotional intelligence, that we should start fair exchange of favours and so on. It is just that my experience from the last five or so years tells me otherwise, that it is those who use other people UNFAIRLY are the real winners.

In short, the longer I live the more I agree with Jane Austen that I prefer when peopel are not nice because it spares me the trouble of being nice to them. That is also in this book. I might get the quotation wrong, because I got the book in translation and had to translate it back into English.

[DragonLord]

First of all, I don't think life should be governed by emotional intelligence alone. Some people make purely rational decisions when they instead should listen to their heart, whereas some people make purely emotional decisions which are not logical at all and just plain stupid. It is the balance between them that is hard to reach and that is one of the things I find interesting.

Secondly, yes I've always had this rather cynical view that the people who manipulate, lie, cheat etc etc are the ones that are "the real winners". Either you hurt, or get hurt. Too bad I can't become meaner...

Anyway I just thought the book was interesting, lets not make this a thread about Emotional Intelligence

[Marky]

I just finished Geek Love and now I'm reading Crash.

[rock_dash]

Stephen King's 'Hearts in Atlantis'. I dunno why I put reading this off for so long, because now that I've started, I love it. I think maybe it was because the blurb on the book was very undescriptive. I fear the movie and will probably avoid it though. After Dreamcatcher, I will NOT watch anymore movies basted off SK novels/

[Vwing]

I just read Slaughterhouse Five, which was great. Not sure what's next for me. Before I started Slaughterhouse Five I was about 100 pages into Timothy Zahn's latest book, The Green and the Gray, so I'll probably finish it. It was entertaining, if a bit simplistic for Zahn. And I also have this Star Wars book Dark Rendezvous about Yoda and Count Dooku that I should probably read, especially since the Clone War books are so much better than the prequels.

And though this is not a book, I also did read A Dame to Kill For, one of the Sin City graphic novels, and it was fabulous. I can't wait to see it done in the sequel, and I'll probably pick up a couple more Miller books.

[floppydisk]

Re-reading Lord of the Rings. Such a great book.

[jariten]

nearly finished The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.

[Rhubarb]

I'm currently flipping back and forth between reading, uh.... the Narnia series, Joy Luck Club, The Book of Merlyn, Jingo, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, and Angela's Ashes. I've read them all before, but I'm starved as hell for reading material at the moment.

New stuff I've read recently is I Robot, Amphigorey, The DaVinci Code, and Orlando.

I'm also partway through Nineteen Eighty-Four (at Mullet's goading), and Hellblazer. I've lost both my copy of the former, and my source for the latter, so I can't read them no more.

[J m HofMarN]

I'm now reading Hemingways posthumous novel The Garden of Eden. Sparse and kind of boring but it has its good points.

[Zerahsedai]

I just finished re-reading the His Dark Materials trilogy. Excellent books, by the way. I also read Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

I'm currently perusing Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors again. Short stories often hold me over while I decide which new book to read next.

[Marky]

I haven't finished Crash, because of my schoolwork. Which means I'm reading the most boring texts ever, Gerbner, Bauer, Stappers, Lewin, etc. etc. *sighs*

[Jane Sherwood]

I'm reading Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (if that isn't two completely different sides of the spectrum, I just don't know what is), and also rereading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Chefelf]

Ugh... I am about 70 pages into The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein. It's so profoundly dull that I think it's going to be the first book in a LONG time that I just give up on.