Book-Review

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

A while back I purchased a number of Audible titles, thinking I’d listen to them as I traveled around. I grabbed a number of ones related to presentation and I thought I’d also check out some general self-improvement titles.

What I didn’t realize, is although they had different titles, I’d basically bought a number of copies of essentially the same book, but with different titles. This was one of them.

2019-05-31

One of the things that I love about digital books and audio books is how quickly I can go from a friend talking about one, to actually having it. This book is one of those. I can’t actually remember who recommended this one but I recall looking it up immediately and purchasing it. It’s The Little Book of Luck by Richard Wiseman.

Wiseman is a professor for public understanding of psychology in the UK. He states his interests as “unusual areas including deception, luck, humour, and the paranormal”.

2019-05-21

One of my Kiwi buddies who specializes in Power BI is Reza Rad. I was pleased to see he had a set of eBooks now on Power BI but was especially happy to see he had a book called Pro Power BI Architecture.

There are lots of books around to discuss how to use Power BI but there’s been a real lack of books on architecting solutions using Power BI. So if you want to learn to develop dashboards or reports, this isn’t the book for you. Reza has other books for that.

2019-05-10

Over the years, I’ve been really interested in what makes people happy in life. I’m always fascinated by people who think that wealth, products, properties, the latest handbag or car, new partner, etc. will make them happy. I’m sure the media has tried to tell them that, but it’s never been true.

I’ve had friends all colleagues all across the wealth spectrum, and I can say without any doubt in my mind, that some of the richest people I know are also some of the most unhappy. Worse, I’ve seen money destroy families so many times.

2019-04-30

Weight has been an area of interest for me for a very long time, given my struggles with it. All throughout the 1980s, I wish I’d known what I do know now. Gary Taube’s book Why we get fat and what to do about it was a seminal work in this area, helping to remove the nonsense that’s been peddled as “science” and “medicine” for decades.

I was already pretty much across most of Gary’s work before I listened to this as an audiobook, but it helped me to see where much of his thinking had come from.

2019-04-26

I like serious investigative journalism that’s released as podcasts. I enjoyed Serial with their story about Adnan Syed, and in a similar vein there’s now The Drop Out from ABC Radio.

I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard about Elizabeth Holmes or Theranos, or at least that if I had heard about them, I hadn’t taken much notice of them. After listening to The Drop Out, I’m stunned that it hadn’t been something I already knew all about.

2019-04-05

You probably already know that I’ve been learning Mandarin for about 8 years now, and have a fascination with Chinese business and technology. Learning the language has made this more approachable for me.  The story of Jack Ma and Alibaba is one of the really interesting aspects of Chinese business today, so I was intrigued to read this book:

Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built by Duncan Hall

I ended up listening to the book via Audible rather than reading it.

2019-03-22

Leigh Sales is a well-respected local journalist. I feel some affinity for her, as she’s grown up in Queensland and often comments on things from her childhood that I clearly remember, even though Leigh is younger than me. I was fascinated to read her book Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life.

I decided to read her book before I knew anything about it at all. I knew it was “Any Ordinary Day”. I hadn’t realized it was “Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life”, so it was quite an unexpected story for me.

2019-03-15