Category: Book Review

I get a lot of book recommendations from friends. One that I'd heard about a number of times was Mark Manson's book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life so I thought I'd check it out.

I don't overly love the title. I think having expletives in book titles is a bad omen. For me, they are in the same category as, and are reminiscent of, childhood fart jokes. And the book is full of endless repetition of the same expletives. I can only imagine Manson thought they made for good shock value. For me, they don't.

The premise of the book is pretty straightforward. Manson argues that many aspects of life are pretty messed up and for so many of these aspects, there's nothing you can do about them.

This is not a "think positive" book. The analogy from the publishers is that instead of telling you how to turn lemons into lemonade, he's telling you that you need to learn to stomach lemons. At least then you have a chance to be happy.

Clearly, having bad things happen to you can sometimes produce good lessons, but obviously, too many bad things can't be borne.

What is an interesting discussion in this book, is about how you define happiness. I agree with him that there's little point worrying about things that you can't change. I'm a little more positive than him though, on how many things you can actually change.

Many people seem to go through life with the "if only" syndrome. If only I could get a better job, I'd be happy. If only I could pass this exam, I'd be happy. Often these same people have a very unhappy life in the meantime. A different frame of mind might help there.

The Verdict

I liked a lot of the messaging in this book, once you ignore the expletives designed to slap you in the face.  6 out of 10 for me.

I love short stories, so I was really excited when one of the Audible Originals a while back was a set of eight short stories. The Other Animals is a compilation of short stories by a variety of authors (Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Ken Liu, R. Eric Thomas, Lulu Miller, Shruti Swamy, Max McClure, Kaeli Swift, and Kelly Weinersmith).

I really didn't know what to expect with this book. The ratings from other listeners are high. Audible describe it as being "written by a crew of scientists, literary writers, and comics, and informed by animal behavioral science – explores what animal perspectives can show humans about the world we all share."

All the stories are tales told from the perspective of animals.

I have to admit that I did find some of it cute, but I really struggled to persevere with it. There's a story where a vulture contemplates his role in killing; a story where a worm breaks up with a snail; another story where a whale falls in love with a song.

Some listeners really, really liked it. For the life of me, I couldn't find it "gripping" as others did.

Even though I like a lot of "off the wall" things, I'm clearly not the target audience for this book. I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Life is too short.

The Verdict

There are obviously people that love this book but clearly I'm not the target audience. 3 out of 10 for me.

I have a lot of people who recommend books to me. I order many of them. If the book has impressed one of my friends, I'm keen to see what they liked about it. That's how I came to read Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life you Want by Seth Godin.

The title is making a pretty big claim, but the content? It's ok.

There are a great number of books that suggest you need to do some basic things:

• Decide where you are
• Decide where you want to be
• Fill in the gaps

So from that point, there's nothing Earth-shattering there. I did like the way though that Godin provided a pretty specific methodology for achieving the outcomes you want. It's based around being both deliberate and proactive.

The friends that liked this book, particularly mentioned that it helped them break out of a cycle of procrastination. We all can suffer from that, but some suffer more than most, and this could be the prompt they need.

Godin also, of course, keeps concepts of a balanced life in mind, but he talks about just how easy it can be to simply drift through life.

The Verdict?

I'd give this one 6 out of 10. I didn't find anything very new, but I did like the structure it provided. I know I have a number of friends who could benefit from the thinking.

A few weeks back, I finished reading The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries.

There have been a lot of books on Lean methodology over the years, so I didn't know what to expect with this one. But it was published back in 2001 (i.e. the turn of the century) and that's when the Lean methodology was still fairly new in entrepreneur circles.

I've seen others comment that this was the "single most informative book on the iterative entrepreneural process".

Ries looks a using the approach to consider how companies are created and evolve, and how their new products are launched into the market. He focusses on how to create a startup that's a long lasting startup. So many businesses crash and burn each year, mostly within their early stages. Ries looks closely at how you can create something new, but right in amongst very uncertain times.

It's a fascinating book. I just wish it was a little more lively. It does plod along a bit, but the content is excellent.

The Verdict

An excellent book. 8 out of 10. The excellent content could have been delivered a bit more lively though.

Over the years, I've had a number of friends tell me that they really enjoyed Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, and illustrated by Jason Kelly. Many regard it as one of the best and most useful fitness books ever written. So I had to read it, even though some of its strongest supporters (pun intended) revered it, almost to some sort of cult status.

What an interesting book.

As I age, I realise the importance of mobility and core strength. I just wish I'd put more importance on it during my life.

If you look at the quality of life of older people, mobility is the primary thing that determines much of how they get on. The thing that often immobilises them are falls and accidents, many of which might have been avoided with greater core body strength. Rippetoe makes it clear that resistance training is the key to that.

Rippetoe's writing style is very opinionated and forceful. There are many critics of his style though. His diet advice, in particular, seems misguided, and he doesn't talk about how this type of training might go wrong. In fact, just the opposite. He points out that injuries are likely to happen.

If you do read this book, I'd strongly suggest the real book, not the Kindle version, so you can see the illustrations. They are well presented.

The Verdict?

I liked it, albeit with some reservations. 7 out of 10.

I tend to read a large number of entrepreneur-related books. Some are better than others. I almost didn't get a copy of  Passive Income: How to Make Money from Home, Skyrocket your Income at Lightning Speed as the title pretty much put me off as it sounded so cheesy, but for some reason I did listen to the audiobook.

I also don't normally write reviews for books that I really don't like. I didn't like this book.

It's interesting that the top review from US Amazon is titled "Worthless nonsense" and commented that there's nothing to learn in this book. It's all been written elsewhere, and better.

But I had a feeling that this book might split the potential audiences. And right on cue, there are many reviews saying how great it is, and how it was almost life-changing for some.

If you really, really haven't got any ideas on how to earn a passive income from home (and I have people I know in this category), this book might work for you. But for anyone else, it's a solid pass. I found it endlessly overstated what seemed to be just patently obvious.

The Verdict?

For me, 1 out of 10. For someone just starting to think about how they might make an income from home, and haven't yet done any real reading, perhaps 4 out of 10.