Books and Beyond

Title: The Wal-Mart Effect - How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works and How It’s Transforming the American Economy
Author:  Charles Fishman

This book tries to show us the effects given by the giant company Wal-Mart to the US economy (and to the world to some extent). The company is so big that the average american is within 10-25 miles of range to its stores. It is one of the biggest employer (if not the biggest) in the US (and also maybe Mexico), consistently delivers its famous promise ‘everyday low price’, so hard for its competitors to beat. It is so powerful that many companies are trying hard to be its suppliers, maybe only to find that they suffer being its suppliers because of its demand to push low price over time to suppliers (or otherwise the shelves in the stores will be offerred to other companies).

Wal-Mart changes the way people shop, the way its suppliers deliver their products, the way its suppliers produce their products. Wal-Mart maybe has the most efficient logistics and delivery management. It is never clear on the magnitude, but Wal-Mart is believed to play a big role in keeping US inflation low.

On the negative side, there are allegations that Wal-Mart squeezes its suppliers that they don’t have enough profits to keep them innovative. Wal-Mart may even have killed many businesses for its demand to keep low prices. Wal-Mart also is criticized for being the driver of massive imports of cheap products from China and other countries (good news to China and other exporting countries); those cheap products may be produced on factories where working conditions are very very bad.

I don’t think the book reveals many things on Wal-Mart, not as much as I expected, not as much as the author promised. That’s what I think. Wal-Mart keeps its secret well, and its suppliers are so loyal not to reveal those secrets too. But the book is easy to read, the author did a very good job on that.

My next book is (well, I have read half of it before reading this Wal-Mart book, but somehow it left behind) The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. Hope I can finish it soon ‘cos I can wait for another good book. But it is busy time now. Now to September

The book explains things about Starbucks (price targeting, who get the most from Starbucks’ premium price, etc), supermarkets, used car markets, insurance companies, property price (and rental rates), environmental issues related to free trade, how poor countries stay poor, how China grows and so on, using economic theories (scarcity, externalities), game theory, marketing principles, etc. Entertaining, fun, and easy to read, yet, personally, makes me think.

Tim Harford argues that free trade and free movement of capital are the best for all. For developing countries, regarding the foreign direct investments (which are good things to help the developing countries), there are issues related to environmental abuses, poor working conditions for labors (cheap labors being used inhumanely), but he defends that foreign domestic investments doesn’t cause environmental damages (local corrupt governments are more likely to be the sinners) and that working in poor working conditions is better for the labors since other choices are worse or simply unavailable.

Reading about Cameroon in this book makes me feel that I should be grateful to be Indonesian, despite the many many bad things we have here. But imagining our country to be growing like China now (or India), I feel hopeless. We are so left behind. My generation here now is doomed by the greeds and selfishness of many of our fathers (but not my own beloved father), the generation after me will still suffer (I believe education is one of the cures, but most of the poors will be filtered out by high price of education), and may God help the generations after.

Saw this novel first time in Aksara Bookstore at Plaza Indonesia about 2 months ago, but I didn’t buy it since it’s in hardcover. I already forgot about it when I found the paperback version at the same place.

It’s a story of 4 persons trying to kill themselves jumping down the street from a tower block in London in New Year’s Eve. First was Martin, a tv presenter just out of prison for the crime of sleeping with a 15 year old girl. Then came Maureen, a 40 something mother with a disabled son. And then Jess, a young girl with a complicated cynical mind, who happened to be the one so close to jump if not stopped by Martin and Maureen. And the last was JJ, an american, a musician ended up a pizza deliverer, broken heart for the splitting of his band and left by his girlfriend.

Somehow they decide not to jump at that night, they made plan to meet, to gather for themselves, any one may jump after 6 weeks. They met and even spent a holiday and extent the "due date" to 31 March. They got interesting journey through those days, like how they sold a fake story to the media saying they decided not to jump because they saw an angel who looked like Matt Damon telling them not to.

It’s a funny story on a serious subject, suicide. A good one, only the ending is not so good.

Blink
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell

I saw this book months ago at Kinokuniya and other major bookstores in Jakarta after seeing it in the bestseller list of Amazon.com, but somehow didn’t happenned to buy it. The one I just finished reading now belongs to my boss, it’s in our office library…

The book tells about the ability of some people that are highly skilled in their fields to make snap judgements. They know things (e.g. quality of things) only by looking or hearing or sensing in a very short duration of time (seconds or even fractions of a second). The explanation is that the process of thinking in such cases is done in subconscious level. Art experts can sense instantly and accurately (although mostly they cannot provide good explanations on their opinions) that art objects they see are fake ones. Vic Braden, the famous tennis player/coach, can know almost perfectly (almost right all the time in his guesses) that a tennis player is about to make a double fault when doing the first service, although desperately fails to explain why he can sense that.

The author gives an entertaining story of such cases, to show us how our minds work. He also write about studies in psychology which show that we have prejudices/assumptions/associations on unconscious level that can reflect in our actions when the actions are done unconsciously; those actions may be the opposites of the ones we would choose consciously. So snap judgements are not always good.

The book doesn’t teach us on how to think without thinking (making accurate snap judgements). For me it is an obvious fact that experienced persons will have those kind of abilities, and some exceptional individuals have the best abilities.

But then again, it is an entertaining book to read. Another title from the author is "Tipping Point", haven’t read it, a reviewer in Amazon doesn’t like it saying "Freakonomics" is better. So I didn’t buy Tipping Point, hoping I can find it in our office library (unfortunately not, just checked it).

oy… agak sibuk nih belakangan ini, kegiatan browsing jadi terganggu hehehe apalagi mau ngupdate blog…

ada beberapa buku yg menarik yg gua baca a.l:
- Freakonomics: interesting book, gives a new perspective on how economics/economists can explain things which are not like the ordinary monetary/inflation/market/interest rate/etc. One of the author is a young economist who is so talented using his expertise in explaining things like how crimes fell dramatically in the 90s in the US, how the sumo wrestlers in Japan and teachers in the US are or were cheating, etc. By clever algorithms, many things can be explained by using the correct data/info (and asking the right questions).

- How to be good by Nick Hornby (gua udah tulis ttg ini blm ya?)

- Life of Bees: a good story about a girl’s search for her mom.

- other nonfictions (lupa apa aja)

- buku-buku agama (sejarah Nabi Muhammad SAW, sejarah para sahabat nabi, Asmaul Husna, etc)

The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini

This is a story about a man (a Pashtun, majority tribe in Afghanistan) revisited his homeland after receiving a letter from an old friend of his family, a letter with a photograph in it, of a man who used to be his childhood friend, son of his father’s servant (a Hazara, minority, lower social class).

The man brought us to flashbacks of his childhood years, history of Afghanistan (before Russia invasion, during the invasion, after Russia defeated and, when he revisited, the Taliban was taking control), and the turning point of his relationship with his loyal and loving Hazara friend after a kite festival (”for you, a thousand times over”, that was the last words of the Hazara boy).

His cowardice, unloyalty brought regrets and eventually brought him back to his homeland because, as the letter he received said, there’s something could be repaired. For you a thousand times over…

He found many things there, about his Hazara brother, his father, his homeland, an old enemy, and he found his courage.

This is a great novel, very touching. About love, hate, pride, sorrows, regrets, forgiveness, Afghans, and Afghanistan.

Shop Girl
By Steve Martin

It’s about a girl, twenty something, artist by heart but took a job as a waiter in gloves store (which was a boring place). Met a boyfriend, about the same age, but the relationship ended so soon; he was such a boring boy. Then suddenly a man, fifty something, a man who commuted between two cities, came to her life. This man is kind to her, very generous, helping her financial problems, but there was a lack: he was a type of man who could not commit to a relationship, and he admitted this to her. Although she said it was OK with a condition that he should tell her when he slept with other girl, apparently she was hurt he told her he just did.

Bored of her job and her relationship, she moved to other city working in an art gallery (secretary or receptionist). Relationship with The Man reduced to (or is it increased to) nice friendship, and amazingly the previous boy, having found new wisdoms, became The New Man.

Well the story is not as dull as my summary above, it is a good novel.

A curious incident of the dog in the night-time
By: Mark Haddon

This is a great novel starts with a death of a dog belonged to a neighbor that Christopher, an autistic 15 year old, dedided to investigate to find who the murderer was. This led to revelations which are surprising and sad.

I think the title of this novel comes from a phrase in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of Bakersville (Christopher reviewed some facts of this Sherlock Holmes’ murder investigation). Christopher likes Sherlock Holmes because he was so logical but doesn’t like the author Sir Arthur who believed in the supernatural.

Christopher loves dogs, has a pet rat Toby, wants to be an austronaut, has a videographic memory, is brilliant in math (knows prime numbers up to a very big number) and science, always honest (because he cannot make up stories to lie).

He hates yellow and brown, loves red, doesn’t like crowds (and strangers) and always has big problem recognizing human emotions and sentences with metaphors (similes are ok).

It is an easy reading with plain English, and Christopher loves to explain things so we can understand.

Judul: Sugih Tanpa Banda (Mangan Ora Mangan Ngumpul 2)

Pengarang: Umar Kayam

Buku ini adalah kumpulan tulisan Umar Kayam di koran Kedaulatan Rakyat dari tahun 1991 sampai 1994 (tapi isinya masih cukup relevan), merupakan sekuel dari buku Mangan Ora Mangan Ngumpul. Enak dibaca, ringan tapi sekaligus sangat berisi.

Berisikan kejadian sehari-hari dalam rumah tangga tokoh Ageng dengan dialog-dialog dan kejadian-kejadian yang lucu, kadang ironis, yang menyinggung dan kadang mengkritik masalah-masalah kesenian, sosial, politik, kadang juga keagamaan. Umar Kayam benar-benar seorang pengamat dan pengkritik yang luar biasa hebat.

Banyak berisi ungkapan Jawa, seringkali diikuti dengan artinya, tapi kadang tidak juga, jadi untuk pembaca yang kurang mengerti ungkapan atau jargon Jawa harus rajin nanya ke teman-teman yang mengerti.

I wonder what happens now to the little kids in the book, Tolo-Tolo Si Anjing Laut and his bro Beni Prakosa.

Halo temen2…

Pengen punya blog ttg buku-buku yg udah gua baca, iya bisa juga ngga tentang buku sih, bisa tentang apa aja lah, tapi keknya kalo bikin resensi buku mungkin bisa lebih bermanfaat…

Ini baru gua baca minggu lalu, bagus deh…

—

Anyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic from our Kitchen Table
(Authors: Sahar and Bobby Hashemi)

This book is about an actual experience of a sister and brother building a business of coffee specialty outlets from just an idea into a real big business.

It started with an idea: One night in 1994 Sahar (the sister) said to her brother Bobby that she missed the experience of drinking coffee in the US, the taste, etc. At that time, to get coffee in London, you have to go to places selling sandwiches; coffees were merely additionals with poor taste, presentation (plastic cups and lids made from cheap materials). England was (and is) a tea drinking nation.

So Bobby thought building american style coffee outlet in London was a very brilliant idea.

With that idea in minds, they quit jobs. Sahar, formerly a lawyer, lost interest in the job, and Bobby, formerly an investment banker in the US, felt it’s better for him to stay close with family in London (Sahar and his mother). They started the search and research for knowledge of coffee, the market, demand and supply, technology, potential places for outlets, financing alternatives, etc. This book gives so much valuable lessons in starting a business from zero.

About a year since idea (in 1995), they opened an initial outlet, the first Coffee Republic outlet. Bobby almost gave up since it did not do well in several first months but eventually people spread the words of the great experience drinking coffee at Coffee Republic.

Coffee Republic expanded into 20 outlets a year after and became giant in 5 years and eventually publicly listed.

Sahar and Bobby did a great job, I admire their bro and sis relationships, their hardwork, dedication, courage, how they’re so organized, and so smart as well. I enjoy reading the book.