Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: future

  • Again Again

    Again Again

    Again Again has been created around the storyline of a young girl falling in love and the aspects of her life which influence her thoughts over summer. Adelaide’s boyfriend has just broken up with her and she is left devastated. She is about to enter her senior year at a prestigious college, (her father is the English teacher there). Her brother has an opioid addiction and the destructive fall out on this happy family is evident.

    The reader will be drawn into Adelaide’s world by several marvellous, structures in writing which have been used by the author. Throughout the story the text is written in a free poetic style, which adds an intensity to the thoughts and feelings of the young woman. While very scared because yet again her young brother has been rushed to hospital, she thinks

    “What if he relapses? What if he dies? What am I doing on this porch, eating pizza?….”

    The words are pared back to focus on her single emotion of fear.

    Another structure used by the author is one that we can easily relate to, as in some conversations she slips into the “What if’s.”  When Adelaide meets a boy in the park, they have a conversation. Lockhart reruns their discussion in several different ways, each with different endings. This is something that many of us do, and here the author shows us the totally different paths our lives could have taken and how just the use of different words could affect the future so easily.

    This young adult novel is full of unusual and heartfelt prose. It is a love story that expands to love of family, love of dogs, and love of the possibilities that life holds. Human relationships are deeply ingrained in this family and their world. For Adelaide it is a time of understanding her conflicting emotions; of how her imaginative thinking and her creative understanding form her ideals.

    The story is thought provoking and jolts the reader out of complacent reading.

  • Forever Skills: The 12 Skills to Futureproof Yourself, Your Team and Your Kids

    Forever Skills: The 12 Skills to Futureproof Yourself, Your Team and Your Kids

    Forever Skills is a book about change, change that is positive, will last and also challenges the accepted norms of change being the only constant in life, and if this is so, being able to develop the skills to future proof in a constantly shifting paradigm.

    As society appears to live in an environment of fear, an environment which breeds nothing good, Flanagan and Gregory have set out to change the balance to one of calm, researching, presenting and coaching ideas that will offer fresh new perspectives, along with techniques to help accept ‘the inevitability of change’ with equanimity.

    They have selected twelve skills which are considered vital to this new world in which business is conducted, one that appears to unpredictable, beginning with the three spheres of change: what’s changing, what’s unchanging and what needs to change!

    Also addressing the fundamentals of fear, new opportunity and rethinking areas, they expound upon the Three Key Areas of Forever Skills, which is what this is all about – forever skills.

    Overall, there is nothing new in the book as far as the structure of the business environment goes, which is now one of a rapidly changing global forum. The new, refreshing information is how, in world that is presenting what appears to be new challenges daily, as business drives ever harder to succeed at all cost, how to adapt, how to come on top and how to develop the skills that will be forever skills, that will last; skills that have been entrenched since humans had to learn to survive in what, centuries ago, even then, was an ever changing world.

    Refreshing, forth right, and inspiring this is a book that will breath a breath of sanity and hope into the workplace of today’s world, as well as offer blocks on which to build a successful future; skills that are transportable, realistic, with the added bonus of also applying to everyday life.

    If you are lost in the maze of career confusion, wondering where the world and everyone in it are heading, Forever Skills can help make sense of the changing world by establishing some hard and fast rules that will become Forever Skills, skills to success in both your business and personal life, skills that have been lurking somewhere inside just waiting to be re-discovered and shown the light of day once again.

  • Dreams for a Better Tomorrow

    Dreams for a Better Tomorrow

    Alejandro Santoyo describes himself as a bit of dreamer, who through his music, hopes to encourage a better tomorrow in a world filled with distress and worry. He hopes through the gift of music, to generate a feeling of well-being and love, as well as the spirit of acceptance and kindness.

    In his latest massive body of work Dreams for a Better Tomorrow, the music reaches out with a delicious beauty that captivates, beginning with the all-encompassing soundscape Legends of Love, a rich orchestral piece which commences the dream, as it is based loosely on the romance of Romeo and Juliette, a Shakespearian play in which love does eventually triumph.

    As the work unfolds the tracks deliver an interesting and very enjoyable journey through the emotions, all the while maintaining a complex simplicity, which touches the emotions softly and gently. This is particularly noticeable in Nenita, a solo hymn in tribute to women everywhere.

    But, returning to the earlier tracks there is a delightful triplet of Amore, Hope and then Awaken which can all so very easily be translated into a life event. Amore, a gentle solo piano piece is all about falling in love. Hope is there that the love will grow, and is presented with a vigorous and joyful piece which then grows into Awakening, when the scope of love shows what can be achieved. A lovely element of electronic is introduced in this piece which expands into a catchy, up-tempo piece showcasing another element of Santoyo’s vast talent.

    The March of Time arrives with the beat of the drum, the sombre notes of the piano and then morphs into a fully-fledged, rich bodied string orchestra piece created to portray the ‘inescapability of time’. Deep, brooding and intriguing this is a piece that demands to be taken seriously and at only 3:56 long, does exactly that!

    Almost hesitance is Happenstance, a light, catchy and romantic piece followed by Just Us, which helps set the scene to the finale, which the final piece The Miracle of Love, most certainly is, with all the drama and excitement that announces the end of the entertainment.

    The Miracle of Love is a symphony with an evocative, haunting beauty that draws together all the elements of the previous tracks in a rich and glorious celebration of the power of life, love and music with which to create positive change in the world of today.

    A sumptuous, gloriously beautiful album of love, joy, healing and hope.

  • Daughter of Bad Times

    Daughter of Bad Times

    Looking at Australia in 2075, Rohan Wilson paints a picture in Daughter of Hard Times that portrays a future were all the very worst aspects of our society have flourished and rule the country. Big business’s with ideas only of profit are running many Government Departments, including prisons and Refugee Sanctuaries.

    The story opens with some refugees from the Maldives who survived a tsunami which wiped out all of their families. To stay in Australia, they are housed and work on a conveyor belt assembling small toys. They have a quota which is strictly monitored, and they have to pay for their accommodation, water, food and all the things that they consume. Yamaan, one of the refugees, has a bill of over $40,000 dollars. To repay this he will have to spend many years working at the camp.

    The owner of the huge Corporation which is in charge of prisons and refugee camps is a multi-millionaire. She constantly works to cut costs in the prisons and refugee camps, implementing many money saving strategies. Her daughter Rin has fallen in love with Yamaan but thought he had died in the tsunami. Now Rin discovers that he is alive and is one of the poor souls who works and sleeps in the Refugee Camp. Although Rin’s mother disapproves of the relationship, the girl secretly visits Yamaan at the Camp and tries to set him free.

    This is a bleak, though not altogether unrealistic view of how our society could evolve if profit and wealth become our sole aims. The story is a look at the darker side of our nature. It focusses on power, and the absence of any compassion once the notion of profit is deemed to be all important. People vaguely remember words like teamwork, trust, kindness and compassion. These virtues are no longer valued by many and despair seems to have filled the void left.

     

  • Dr Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the future

    Dr Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the future

    The Foreword of this book explains the perspective that the author has taken in describing the connection between Archaeology and space junk. All of the detritus that humans have sent into space and onto the moon, will one day become an issue for the future. It will tell of historic times and efforts to progress the knowledge and understanding of space. It will also hopefully stimulate another step to the moon and hopefully beyond.

    We are entering a new era, where access to space is becoming more viable for private operators. Wealthy entrepreneurs are beginning to develop commercial space flight systems. Conflict has been the driving force behind space exploration in the past, but now, in times of peace, we have had thirty years of space culture.

    After much consideration, the author decided that she would like to study space travel and its implications from an archaeological point of view, looking not only at the solar system, but the world politics and customs behind this exercise.

    She has looked at the space theorists, Peter Hayes and Charles D. Lutes, who suggested there were periods within the space age; the First Period was driven by the cold war, with the Second Space age from 1991 until today considers information gathering as its primary source. It is possible that the next phase of space activity will be possibly moving towards a “Multi planet species,” living on the Moon and Mars.

    This is an informed and intense look at the future and in particular, how it will involve humans in space. What will death be like? What will life spans and expectations be? Be prepared to have an open mind and to mull over the fascinating and compelling musings of our future from an expert in our past.

  • The Future of Everything: Big, Audacious Ideas for a Better World

    The Future of Everything: Big, Audacious Ideas for a Better World

    Tim Dunlop follows on from Why the Future of Workless, with another ground-breaking and very audacious look at the future, putting forward what many may consider as radical ideas and suggestions for a better and more realistic pathway towards a successful and sustainable future in The Future of Everything.

    Based on wide research the proposals set out in the sections, Premise and Practice, deal with a world that is rapidly changing, with the old moving away allowing a newer, more driven and ferocious future to appear, but with this progress so many of the basic tenets of society have been undermined, overlooked or simply ignored, in the rush headlong into the future.

    Governments are no longer in touch with the people, laws and decisions are being made with hast and often limited consultation with the basic fundamentals of Democracy being slowly whittled away.  Technology it would appear is the answer but is it, or is this just another slice of spin being fed to people worldwide.

    Dunlop presents a series of basic proposals, backed up with research based around the ‘principle of life in common’, or translated the more public ownership of public space, activity, equality, fairness and a real, independent marketplace; the basic fundamentals of a democratic society, one in which the various institutions reflect these values, one which will provide opportunity for everyone.

    Somewhere along the way, in the past twenty years or so the people have been hoodwinked into another less profitable and less fair pathway, which Dunlop sees as a serious downward spiral that needs to be corrected by the people, who in reality and totality do have the power to invoke change in a positive and beneficial manner.

    The Future of Everything, as do his other works, provides serious discussion points backed with considerable research that offers a way forward by exercising real political power, by reminding the politicians and law makers that people of a nation deserve far better than what they have been offered and told to accept, that the way forward is not through Capitalism, but Democracy.

    The Future of Everything is a rally cry to all who are beginning to challenge the status quo, are concerned about the way the political system is crumbling and the real possibility of a far better, more realistic, even and fair democratic future.

     

  • 2028 … and Australia has gone to hell in a handbasket

    2028 … and Australia has gone to hell in a handbasket

     The author has taken us into the near future with this novel. We examine Australia and other world countries in their move to prepare for the future. Some of the “Not very good ideas of today have become ten years worse.”  This is the first novel by Ken, and his humour and insightful ideas keep us laughing and nodding at the same time. So many things are an almost logical progression. For example, the “Parkies,” actual pokies but used to purchase a parking ticket with the added bonus of having a spin which could earn you some money!

    The Prime Minister of Australia had a policy of surrounding himself with “Lifers,” those politicians who know how to keep their head down and be seen just enough to stay in the job. He actually thought they were a bunch of dullards, but he had dispatched all of the fiery opposition and was now in a fine position to call a snap election. The Greens were in receivership because they had denounced a chemical, and had been sued by the American owners. Just when the PM decided to announce his Election date, the Luddites organized a nude demonstration. Someone has been leaking times and dates….

    An initiative looked at was the automating of some medical positions in Medicare. The Automated General Practitioners could be used by any Medicare card holder by using a computer or the latest phone. The patient would describe to the doctor what the symptoms were and answer questions that the doctor posed. A spotty child could be held up in front of a web cam in the early hours of the morning, and the doctor could say if it needed hospital or bedrest. A variety of doctors were available.

    Taxation has always been a tricky subject to discuss before an election. It is complicated and there always seems to be someone who misses out. However, a bright spark in the Government came up with the idea that for every $100 you pay in taxation the subscriber would earn a Tax Lotto ticket. Each week the Tax Office would draw one ticket and the winner would receive a million dollars. Hopefully this would discourage people from claiming all their tax concessions…….

    Political reform to eradicate cronyism, and the power held by the managerial class, mining magnates, casino owners and bureaucrats, had been addressed by a young Russian woman. She had outsmarted all the top political minds, and cleverly endeared herself to the public. Her party are tipped to win the election campaign and a new beginning for Australian Politics will begin!

    This is clever and an amusing look at the thoughts and progression of directions that is taken by politicians and their staff.

  • The Mind of a Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

    The Mind of a Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results

     

    Based on the art of mindfulness, selflessness and compassion, The Mind Of The Leader is a fresh, powerful viewpoint towards the future, moving away from the limited vison of business protocol prevalent for the past decade or more. While it may seem to be what many may consider as a soft option it is anything but; this forward looking strategy presents a seriously hard-nosed but effective solution ‘to every organisation’s engagement and execution problems’, which works and works very, very well, as those Leaders who have been honest enough and brave enough to accept radical change is vital to the ongoing future of the Corporate world, will attest.

    The world of global business has long been established in profitability at all cost mentality, a situation which induced the GFC in 2008 caused by deregulation within the financial industry. The effect from this fall-out is still playing a very active part in Financial and Banking corporations and global business in 2018.

    To this end the Corporations that have successfully progressed throughout this challenging time, have been companies that have recognised a new and far more comprehensive style of Leadership was required, reacted according and benefitted by the radical changes made within their Organisations.

    Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter have detailed these changes in The Mind Of The Leader, looking into what makes up a Corporation that will keep on being successful, far into what is rapidly becoming an uncertain business future.

    They consider the world is facing a global leadership crisis, ‘where seventy seven percent  of leaders consider they are doing a good job engaging their people, yet 88 percent of employees say their leaders ‘don’t engage enough’, a comment based on the interviewing of 35,000 leaders, 250 C-suite executives and many, many employees.

    Real life examples from the Marriott Group, Heineken International, the California based New Resource Bank and many more Corporations, take a precise look at what makes these groups, and their Leaders stand out in today’s market.

    Leading a successful Corporation is based on an ability to lead from a perspective based on placing people at the centre of their planning and strategy, not for what can be gained by quick fixes based on reward, but by long term respect and understanding of their staff and what they have to offer in the way of their talents, passion and commitment to the Corporation, Group, Company or Firm.

    This work is one which will have wide appeal to anyone who is in business, regardless of how large or small a group, as the principles set out for success are such that they will have a wide spread beneficial effect for all levels of business.

    Where the next generation will lead the world of Corporations and global business is yet to be discovered, but it has been concurred that the future will be considerably more challenging than ever before.

    In the words of Heineken CEO Jean-Francois van Boxmeer when asked about the importance of his legacy his answer was, ‘I am just a short chapter in a long book.  My role is merely to prepare the organisation for the next generation ’ which is an interesting perspective, as it is the basis that forms the very foundations of good leadership and thereby a successful Corporation.

    The Mind of the Leader presents an interesting concept for the future and one that is based in sound and well researched facts, which sets out a pathway for the future which can and should begin to build successful social cohesion to lead successfully into the future; a solution which begins in the minds of the Leaders and peoples of tomorrow, who will be able to respond to new and yet unseen, unknown challenges, in a confident, compassionate and mindful manner.

     

  • All the Galaxies

    All the Galaxies

    In the beginning, is a very good place to commence with this rather unusual novel, penned by Philip Miller in an attempt to entertain but sadly, falling a little short of the original intent.

    The two very distinct storylines of the novel are mean to intertwine and do so up to a point: dystopian Glasgow interlaced with the afterlife, a boys journey and a disillusioned journalist, who is the boy’s father, somehow don’t quite cut it.

    Both ideas, that of a dystopian Glasgow after the recently failed referendum attempt, which leads to anarchy, military rule, violence and conflict would almost make a stand alone theme for a completely different style of novel.

    The afterlife, a small boy being re-united with his beloved pet dog of his childhood, and his apparently long dead mother, which lead him into having to make choices far beyond his emotional, or aged understanding, takes it one step too far as a component of this conflicting story, but once again, could well be the basis of a very good novel.

    The concept is good in so far as futuristic storytelling is concerned, but in this incarnation, it is somewhat confusing trying to keep the various threads from becoming so tangled, they become untenable.

    For those who enjoy dark, traumatic reading, conflict and morality combined into one, it could well prove to be a read that is unforgettable and emotive, rating up there with much of the European ‘Noir’ style of contemporary literature.

    For those who enjoy a comfortable read with a continuity of storyline, this could prove to be challenging, although a number of the chapters stand alone as well-crafted cameos.

    Fragmented and yet somehow, in parts, enjoyable, this could well be classed as a challenging read.

  • Numerology and your Child

    Numerology and your Child

    That the children of today are the saviours and the basis of the future of our planet is not a new concept; they are and will be the leaders tomorrow, the leaders of the future, the new pioneers and inventors of things not yet conceived or even in many instances perceived.

    But who are these wunderkinder, why are they so different to the generations who have gone before and the generations who are their parents or parents to be? In the era of alternates there is a consideration that the children being born into today’s world are far more spiritually advanced than ever before; that their energy fields are considered to vibrate to a much higher frequency.

    A new kind or style of energy is being born with these children, an energy based on pure love which comes from the heart. Through this new vibration, mankind is being encouraged to seek a higher consciousness.

    But as the authors have stated, to be able to understand more fully the children of today there is a great need to understand their intelligence, in order to encourage the best results for the child as an individual and also as a member of a changing order in society.

    To this end they have created this wonderful book based firmly in the ancient art of Numerology in order to present a new perspective, a new understanding of human nature.

    Based on the science of mathematics with a dash of astrology and an understanding of philosophy, Numerology can be used as it was in ancient times, to gain some serious information about your child or children and along the way, a little bit more about you.

    Children are very new little people who are largely, as far as their characters and who they will eventually become, an unknown force yet to be discovered. So many children are at a young age, tech ‘savvy’, intuitive, innovative, and inspired and in some cases incredibly gifted in the arts.

    As a parent of this new generation, wondering about so many things, Numerology is an excellent place to start discovering and understanding their child’s or children’s behaviour patterns and by doing so understand how to work with, encourage and set family guidelines, so they will gain the required and appropriate skills to equip them for a future far different from today.

    Each of the steps has been explained in clear detail, the grid required a little later, set out in an easy to understand style, as are the explanations to the meaning of the number sequences involved with your child’s numbers.

    For parent’s to be, choosing a child’s name is in important. A chapter has been included to help those who wish to choose a name filled with spirituality and deeper meaning, which also provides a fascinating look at just what the letters of your name mean!

    Beautifully presented and well explained Numerology and your Child will prove to be as fascinating and informative as it will be helpful towards providing insights for tomorrow’s children as they forge a new pathway through their lives into the ever beckoning future.