Book-Review

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.

2019-03-15

I recently read The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz. I was interested to read it because Ben is a well-known and experienced entrepreneur, based in the Silicon Valley area south of San Francisco. He offers advice on how to really run startups. I loved the way that Horowitz addressed failure. Instead of taking the business school approach of telling you how things should be done, and assuming that you’ll do everything correctly, he spends time telling you what to do after you’ve already screwed up.

2019-03-08

The title of this book caught my eye. I’m sure it’s intended to be a play on the title of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and it’s all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things From Taking Over Your Life by Richard Carlson. I reviewed that book here. So this one is The Little Things: Why You Really Should Sweat the Small Stuff by Andy Andrews. Andrews tends to write small (and short) books that get pretty much to the point.

2019-03-01

I mentioned in a previous post about how one of my colleagues Orin Thomas is a prolific reader and every time I talk to him, he suggests more books that I should read. Another one in that category was No Ordinary Disruption One by Richard Dobbs, James Manyika, and Jonathan Woetzel. The sub-title is The four forces breaking all the trends. The authors claim that our intuition on how the world works could be very wrong.

2019-01-11

I’ve also tackled a number of non-technical and non-scientific books recently. On that I’d heard good things about was Shrill (Notes from a loud woman) by Lindy West. First note about this book is that it’s full of NSFW (not suitable for work) words, so be warned if that would offend you. As well as being loud, Lindy has spent her life being big. I’d say that’s shaped her world view as much as anything else.

2019-01-04

Another classic book that I’ve gone through again lately is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I listened to the 40th Anniversary Edition on Audible as he was narrating it himself, and I particularly wanted to listen to the 40th Anniversary Edition to see how his own thoughts had changed over time. Dawkins can be a polarizing figure. I’m mindful of how his work would have been received at the time it was written.

2018-12-28

One of my colleagues Orin Thomas is a prolific writer. I’ve lost count of how many detailed books he’s written, and I’ve no doubt he’s lost count as well. If you’ve worked in Microsoft-related IT for any length of time, I’m sure you’ll have read one of his books, particularly if you’ve been involved in certification. You can see a partial list of his books here. But the other thing that amazes me about Orin is that he’s also a prolific reader.

2018-12-14

I’m a fan of Pat Flynn. If you haven’t listened to his Smart Passive Income podcast, and you have any interest in being self-sufficient without “working for the man”, Pat’s podcast would be a good start. Pat has people ask him about ideas though and he’s put his ideas on how to work out if an idea is worth pursuing in his book: Will It Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money.

2018-12-07