Adam

The long awaited end of the Alcatraz series! After reading The Road, settling in for a children's book was the goal - but this one ended up being much more dark than I'd expected. Maybe dark is the wrong work – but certainly a downer.

I'm a sucker for dystopian stories. I had a feeling the movie version wasn't going to be as dark as the book, but this made me appreciate how true to the book it was.

When reading about modern stoicism, this one kept coming up as a book recommendation. The focus is on resiliency and growth mindset when it comes to opposition. This may seem like common advice, but it's sometimes most difficult to remember when in the worst positions.

One of my favorite Asimov stories so far! This one stretches the concept of time a step farther by creating eternals - effectively time police. Coupled with the idea that these eternals come different times of 10s of thousands of years, means that anyone in this role gives up their reality. But what happens when you fall in love with someone in time, when you know that time changes?

I've been a fan of Felicia Day for an embarrassingly long time. Buffy, The Guild, Geek & Sundry, Dollhouse, Eureka – and of course Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Her memoir increased my respect for her even more. She majored in math and violin? That's crazy dedication right there. Hearing her stories of meeting people from the online world mirrored some of my experiences at the time. The build up to starting The Guild was enlightening to hear about as well. It's easy to see something that's created and assume the path was easy. Knowing just how uphill and scrappy a battle it was is inspiring for me in my own creative endeavors.

Yet another cyberpunk book that I didn't love. It's funny how much I love this genre in movie form, but can't stand it in book form. It's easy to appreciate this one though. Seeing how much this one parallels The Matrix was crazy.

I love Amy Schumer's standup, and her show. We recently saw her live here in Orlando, and it was hilarious. Her book, however, is less comedic and more of a memoir of hard work coupled with sad life events.

Switching into the PM role myself lately, I was looking for some guidance on what that involves. The most useful parts of this were the early descriptions elaborating on the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager, as well as some of the descriptions of what PMs do at various tech companies. After that though, I found less value in this one. Going into how to write cover letters and resumes wasn't as useful.

If you told me I'd be on the edge of my seat for a 36 hour audiobook about Alexander Hamilton I'd likely give you a bit of side eye. As a huge Hamilton (The Musical) fan, this helped fill in the gaps to further understand the context for things in the show. It also astonished me just how accurate the musical is overall. After seeing Hamilton demonized in various other stories, it was refreshing to see a person who accomplished so much, and just didn't stop.

Having recently moved from a developer position to a product manager position this book gave some immediate suggestions on how to lead a team to create a new product or feature from scratch. Having been used on a number of products at Google including Gmail, it's great to know that it's working already.

What was most useful for me was seeing the breakdown of what was done each day of the 5 day product sprint – as well as what each person in the sprint would do. Some of the recommendations were key - like the need for a decision maker to be a part of the process to ensure that takeaways from the sprint are actionable. I look forward to trying out some of these concepts eventually!

I'll read anything Kathy Sierra writes. I actually ordered this book when I was out of town, having it delivered to a hotel because I was looking forward to it that much. What I got was a book that inspired me to think differently about how I plan features, UX, and everything else for users.

What stuck with me the most was the concept of putting users into different “buckets” of ability on your product – beginners, intermediate and advanced. If you aren't moving users up in their abilities on multiple features at once, then people will leave your product. Thinking about things in this perspective was incredibly helpful for me.

If there was a book about stereotypes for how the brain works this would be it. In most cases though, the stereotypes are true unless you're actively aware of the decisions you're making. This book elaborates on the decisions we make without knowing it. For most of them I was nodding along thinking “yeah, that's true, I knew that was a bias I held”, which left it mostly skin deep for me.

If you're interested in what you can do to lower your taxes by starting a business, this one is a good read. Real estate, side businesses, stocks, bonds and other investments are described in a dry, but useful detail. The most useful suggestions for me were some of the elaboration about real estate tax savings as well as differences between tax advisors, CPA and wealth advisors.

What makes great olive oil? What makes it poor? Although I'd love to answer those questions with an answer that I could bring to the store and use, I didn't end up with a satisfactory answer. The taste and smell notes that make a oil great are elaborated on, but are tricky to understand without being there. A more useful exploration into olive oil would be finding a local place to hear about olive oil from someone who can be a guide to understanding the difference between lamp oil (which is what is in many supermarkets) and real extra virgin olive oil.

What would happen if all men on the planet died – except one? With every other post-apocalyptic story involving the same struggles, exploring an entirely new take on the world offered a refreshing change. For the entire series, I was thinking “one more...”, and enjoyed the eventual payoffs.

The final installment of the Gameshouse series focuses around the big game - the game of chess between two skilled opponents where the goal is to hunt the other down. The board - the entire world. I very much enjoyed how the first two books led up to this one.

Expanding on the Gameshouse premise, the “game” for this installment focuses on “hide and go seek” – but where an entire country is the boundary and there is no time limit. The relationships made throughout the story, and hints at a larger picture.

The Gameshouse is more than a place for chess. It's a place where you can wager your skills and memories against others where the game takes place in life itself. What drew me into this story, besides the world and the main character, was the succinct conversation style. It felt as though every word was calculated and organized by the characters - which fits right into the games story.

The first Sherlock Holmes book, and the start of one of the most iconic characters of all time. Unlike movies and TV shows, a flashback to Utah plays an important role in the book. Although it came as a surprise, I did enjoy the payoff in the book moreso than in the video form. There was much more background to the murders that gave the villain more of a heart – and a real motive.

Mailchimp does some amazing things. This book has UX in the title, but uses it as a jumping off point for all parts of their process. A number of chapters towards the beginning talking about the discovery process were interesting, but when it got to code it went a bit specific for me to get too much from.

In “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy”, “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius was mentioned as a source material for Stoicism. If “Guide to the Good Life” was easy to read, Meditations was Stoicism on hard mode. Often I can give a book partial attention, I needed full concentration on this one to make it through. It features a number of one off lines that are inspiring and influential, but often hidden away in a few paragraphs that wander around a subject before jumping in.

An interesting take on the history of monogamy in humans, our ancestors and our relatives. The important thing to put aside when reading this one is any preconception of ethics or morality. This is a scientific and historical study of how societies have structured societies in different cultures.

I've always been a sucker for time travel. When the author highlights very specific rules for how it works in that universe and sticks to them it makes for even more interesting stories in my eyes. King does an amazing job in this one of setting up the structure needed to explore his main objective – what would happen if someone stopped Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK?

The Mistborn trilogy, and the following Wax & Wayne series, are one of the most elaborate and interesting magic worlds I've ever read about. As a hardcore fan of the world, Secret History shows an alternate take from the end of Book 1 up until the end of Book 3. I appreciate that Sanderson had a bit more in mind than we were able to see in those books, but I didn't feel like this added as much to the world as I was hoping for.

How do you validate your product and business ideas? If it's by making them, then you'll probably not going to be able to get much feedback. This book focuses on that question, tackling it with a variety of suggestions. From MVPs to user interviews, this was a great reminder of how to inspire innovation and track it in companies that have learned how to reproduce an entrepreneurial spirit.