Book-Review

I know that many people found Christopher Hitchens a divisive character. Mostly that’s because he very openly, directly questioned, and at times ridiculed, long-held beliefs about religion and about inappropriately revered people. He did not (as the old saying goes) suffer fools gladly. I read Mortality quite a while ago and wanted to wait a while after his death to see how I still felt about it.

Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010 while on a book tour for Hitch-22. Hitchens died in December 2011.

2020-03-20

I mentioned recently that I haven’t been doing as much driving in my car lately, so that’s limited the time I’ve had for listening to audio books. But another one that I did complete on Audible recently was Stories I’d Tell in Bars by Jen Lancaster.

I’ve seen comments about the printed version of this book, that say it’s riddled with typos and grammar/spelling errors but fortunately that wasn’t an issue for me as I listened to the audiobook. The narration of that was fine.

2020-03-06

I haven’t been doing as much driving in my car lately, so that’s limited the time I’ve had for listening to audio books. But one that I did complete recently was AI Super Powers by Kai-Fu Lee. The subtitle is China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.

This is an area that I’ve been really passionate about for the last few years.  I can see AI changing so much of our current world, and much sooner than I think most people will realise.

2020-02-07

I do a lot of speaking at conferences, user groups, online, and other sorts of events. It’s important to constantly improve, so I take notice of any books released on the topic. I recently listened (via Audible) to TED Talks - The Official Ted Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson.

I’ve been a fan of TED and their conference talks for a long time. The overall quality of the talks is very high, and some (like Ken Robinson’s talk on schools killing creativity) set a really high bar.

2020-01-07

I’ve mentioned before that Orin Thomas tends to give me many good book recommendations. The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier is another of Orin’s recommendations. I notice from the cover that it’s also highly recommended by Bill Gates. So it had to be worth a look.

I ended up listening to this via an Audible audio book. It’s quite a long book at around 9 hours 26 minutes.

Overall, I loved this book. I’d have to say though, that it took me quite a while to get into it. I just didn’t find the first chapters all that compelling. But strangely, I then really did get into it.

2019-11-19

Over the last few months, one of my Kiwi buddies (and fellow member of both the MVP and Microsoft Regional Director programs) Reza Rad has been organizing a bunch of us to write a book that’s a collection of ideas from a number of MVPs. It’s the Power BI MVP Book.

There are a whole lot of authors from a whole lot of different countries: Reza Rad, Anil Maharjan, Indira Bandari, Liam Bastick, Ken Puls, Jesus Gil, Thomas LeBlanc, Ike Ellis, Matt Allington, Leila Etaati, Markus Ehrenmüller, Ashraf Ghonaim, Eduardo Castro, Manohar Punna, Treb Gatte, Gilbert Quevauvilliers, Michael Johnson, Shree Khanal, Asgeir Gunnarsson, Greg Low, Gogula Aryalingam.

2019-08-16

I’ve got a number of friends who’ve been writing books over the last few years. Sadly, there seems to be no relationship between when I buy a book and when I actually read it.

And that’s the case with Blood Rush by Bob Simms.

Bob is an old SQL Server trainer friend/colleague and I bought this book back when Bob first mentioned that he’d written it. I only got to actually read it last week.

2019-08-02

One of the depressing things about watching TV is that producers (and in particular Hollywood-based producers) seem to have a very skewed concept of what happiness comes from.

Here’s a bit hint: it’s not from wealth or fame.

I’ve made enough trips around the Sun to know that anyone who believes what that TV is telling them, is being conned, big time.

Now I’m not saying that being poor is fun either. It’s not. In particular, anyone who’s deeply in debt would understand that they have very little control of their own lives.

2019-07-26

About a year ago, I attended a conference called DevOps Days in Newcastle, Australia. I wish I’d liked the conference more. But one of the memorable things from the conference was a keynote by David McRaney.

All the people around me seemed to find David’s keynote interesting. Ironically though, I also heard many of them wondering what on earth it had to do with the conference topics. David provided example after example of how we all suffer from confirmation bias. I enjoyed his keynote.

2019-07-19

I’ve mentioned previously that I’ve come across Graeme Simsion previously in his role as a well-known data modeller, based in Melbourne here in Australia. I’ve recorded a podcast with him many years ago, on my SDU Podcast series. So perhaps I have a slight bias towards him as an author.

I was so excited to see the endless well-deserved congratulations he’s received for his initial Rosie Project book. I thoroughly enjoyed that book.

2019-07-12