Summary: In Pursuit of Elegance: Review and Analysis of Ways Book

These, Vichy was happy to see deported "to the east". Berr was born in Paris on March 27 , the fourth child and fourth daughter of Raymond and Antoinette Berr, resident in France for so many generations that such religious Judaism as they professed was minimal: Raymond Berr was a prominent industrialist and scientist, and a decorated French soldier of the first world war. The Berr home was a notable centre of hospitality, a salon almost, centred on what the society devoted to the memory of Raymond Berr describes as a family life "dedicated to the worship of beautiful things".

Four weeks later, on May 5, Reinhard Heydrich arrived in Paris to issue instructions as to the exact number of Jews who were to be sent from France to the Nazi death camps. The figure the Nazis had allotted to France was , Jews. There were only about , Jews in France. This led to a ferocious battle between the Vichy government and the Nazi occupiers over the dispatch of Jewish immigrants and the old French Jews Vichy wished to protect. It was in the pursuit of the correct numbers for each cattle truck that so many French children — 11, — were sent by the French to Auschwitz.

Because she was the daughter of such an old French Jewish family, Berr survived until three months before the liberation of Paris. This makes her Journal even more important. She saw so much. Arrested with her parents on March 8 , she was deported on her 23rd birthday, survived nearly eight months of Auschwitz and five months of Bergen-Belsen before, struck down by typhus, she was beaten to death five days before the British liberated the camp in April Her mother was gassed in Auschwitz a month after her arrest, her father murdered there five months later.

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This describes Berr's fate, but it is not the story, which she tells, most beautifully, in the pages of her Journal. The early pages of the diary reveal all the fluttering sensibilities of a young woman with everything to hope for. A dreamy girl one day, she is sharp as a tack on another. She goes to lectures, plays and listens to Bach and Chopin, drowns herself in Keats and Shakespeare, Shelley and Winnie the Pooh, takes enraptured breaks in the family country home, flirts, guiltily, with this one or that, and is subject to fits of crying and greed: As he takes readers from Jackson Pollock paintings to Dutch intersections to the secret menu at In-N-Out Burger, Matt May reveals the hidden elements beneath genuine innovation.

This book is surprising, compelling, and, yes, extremely elegant. Nov 29, Justin Douglas rated it it was amazing Shelves: For those who already knew that less is more, but couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Anecdotes on a variety of topics from traffic to video rentals show how Daoist principles such as "wu-wei" doing by non-doing can be applied or non-applied to modern life. Jul 31, Tian Liang rated it it was amazing. Sometimes less is really more. May made me realise the principles of elegance in our daily lives when leaving out particular bits of information entices the intended audience even more.

His four golden rules of symmetry, seduction by nothing; the element of mystery and one's own participation to complete the picture , subtraction and sustainability are truly sublime. Mar 13, Melanie Hubbard rated it it was amazing. Nov 09, David Parker rated it it was ok Shelves: I found it interesting at first but it began to drag half way through the book. It did not offer me something new to chew on. Nov 06, Mike Thelen rated it really liked it. Matthew May, always driving leaders to the elegantly simply solution. Mar 29, Alex Kenjeev rated it liked it.

A book about elegance - mostly in a business context. Matthew May begins by giving lots of examples of elegant ideas, that is, ideas that are simple, symmetric and powerful - and that in most cases reduce complexity rather than increasing it. Factories in the US, Europe and Japan that went from money-losing to money-making by cutting out bureaucracy and radically reducing the number of job titles. Apple's relentless removal of 'indispensable' features, like keypads on the iPhone, and its surprisi A book about elegance - mostly in a business context.

Apple's relentless removal of 'indispensable' features, like keypads on the iPhone, and its surprisingly minimalist marketing campaigns. A Nobel-prize winning way to keep vegetables fresh in the African desert with nothing but two clay pots and a towel. Jackson Pollock's paintings, which, when analyzed, reveal mathematically perfect and astonishingly simple fractal patterns. It turns out that curiosity is one key to elegance. You usually need to leave something to the imagination - otherwise people lose interest, lose focus and won't engage with your product or initiative.

May says that out that our brains' instinctive "gap filling" and "bias for action" prevent us from finding elegant answers. We fail to think about the assumptions or causes which underlie our problems.

How can we find elegant answers more often? Studies show that, paradoxically, we come up with elegant ideas in 'aha! The key is to try and be in an 'in the zone'-type state of mind, like that of a pro athlete: Jun 12, Jeff rated it it was ok. A key theme in the book is that often elegance comes from what you take out rather than keep adding on. What's a free way that an old VHS video store could guarantee that all tapes are rewound? Imagine letters are made up of sticks.

What's the fewest number of sticks you need to move to make this Roman numeral equation true: The author claimed that there wasn't conclusive evidence that traffic lights improved safety and cited examples where accidents dropped during power outages. Aug 13, Uwe Hook rated it really liked it. This is not a step by step book to creating elegant solutions or products. Rather, it presents a compelling argument on why subtraction can lead to elegance. Why doing nothing is so difficult for humans and organizations but is many times the right thing "to do". Why in-action or restraining your brain from wanting to add can lead to breakthroughs in elegant design.

The author works hard to give examples from a wide range of disciplines.

Because of this broad stroke of the brush, the only complai This is not a step by step book to creating elegant solutions or products. Because of this broad stroke of the brush, the only complaint would be that he does not delve deep enough into some of these examples. But by leaving some space, it made me want to dig deeper into some of the examples.

• See a Problem?.
• Racing Archive - JRA Yokohama (Japanese Edition).
• Hunters Hollow.

Engaging a readers curiosity to seek more is exactly what elegance is all about. And I think the author balanced this perfectly. Jun 01, Michelle rated it really liked it Shelves: This was wide-ranging and very interesting, although I think it's possible that May has given some odd significance to events. For example, his use of the example of what happens at busy intersections if traffic signals and signs are eliminated, to me shows not "symmetry" but libertarianism.

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Fun and interesting view This was wide-ranging and very interesting, although I think it's possible that May has given some odd significance to events. Fun and interesting view, just too bad that the author apparently intends the book to be primarily used in business settings. A nice I suppose you could say elegant little book about why less often is more. Anecdotal, well-written, with at least some examples I found very interesting the "shared space", rule-free concept of traffic regulation exemplified in the Laweiplein crossing - see it on Youtube - for example, as well as the Nigerian clay pot vegetable coolers, some I found rather repetitious the iPhone's elegant simplicity and others done better elsewhere Christopher Alexander's pattern language approach t A nice I suppose you could say elegant little book about why less often is more.

Anecdotal, well-written, with at least some examples I found very interesting the "shared space", rule-free concept of traffic regulation exemplified in the Laweiplein crossing - see it on Youtube - for example, as well as the Nigerian clay pot vegetable coolers, some I found rather repetitious the iPhone's elegant simplicity and others done better elsewhere Christopher Alexander's pattern language approach to architecture.

Much to like, some to admire, and the book is summed up in the four elements of elegance: Symmetry, seduction, subtraction and sustainability. A nice little read, recommended. Aug 30, Blair Conrad rated it liked it Shelves: Not a bad read, and many of the anecdotes were interesting, but that's as far as it goes. I didn't find that there was a unifying theme threading between the stories - many of the ideas didn't seem to have obvious elegance or even anything missing. For example, the factory without an HR department - I guess it's missing an HR department, but it's not missing the HR role - they just moved it around.

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It's perhaps not a bad idea, but I think the story glossed over was was pr A little disappointing. It's perhaps not a bad idea, but I think the story glossed over was was probably a complicated transition in the interest of presenting an "elegant, simple solution". Apr 02, Jan Brooks rated it really liked it.

Wow-- From the book, Prologue: Something I Wow-- From the book, Prologue: Something I want more of in my life!

• La dernière utopie : Menaces sur luniversalisme (essai français) (French Edition).
• In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing.
• Lösbarkeit von Gleichungen höheren Grades: Geschichte - Historische Verfahren - Neue Verfahren (German Edition)?

Sep 12, Ninakix rated it really liked it Shelves: I found the beginning of this book a little painful to read, even though the stories and examples told were interesting. That's because the author talks about the "three S's" of elegance: This felt to me like a forced attempt to work what he'd seen into an easy to remember, packable concept. Once you move on from this forced concept, the book becomes more interesting. He begins to discuss how you think to get toward an "elegant" concept.

And while not super in-d I found the beginning of this book a little painful to read, even though the stories and examples told were interesting. And while not super in-depth or unexpected, the chapters are still interesting. Jan 31, xdroot rated it really liked it Shelves: Nov 16, Steve Bradshaw rated it it was ok. Loved the central idea of the book but struggled to get past the author.

I would still recommend it though as it lead me to think a lot about elegant design and getting rid of complexity when creating anything new. The Psychology of Selling. Find Your Success Code. Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. Robert B Cialdini PhD. My Philosophy for Successful Living. The Death of Money. The Power of Habit. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. The Girl on the Train. Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Summary.

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