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I recently realized I love real-life adventure tales. Memoirs of extraordinary journeys that are true tales. Into Thin Air is one such telling of a trip to climb Mt. Everest by a journalist writing about the commercialization of Himalayan adventures. Things go horribly wrong and the result is one of the worst years in history for climbers. I've never wanted to go to Everest (well, maybe base camp could be fun) but after reading this I feel cold just thinking about it.
I've never read anything by this author before, but after this introduction, I'm sure I'll be looking for more. This one is young adult through and through, but fun without getting too series. The world has gone downhill and heroes have risen to stabilize cities. They keep the renegades (evil people with powers) in check and maintain order - or at least that's the hope. The first book in this series follows a renegades journey into infiltrating the hero's in order to bring them down. With a tone similar to Sandersons Reckoners series, it's hard not to have fun with this one.
This is the spiritual successor to Malcolm Gladwells “The Tipping Point”. One concept touched on in that book was the idea of stickiness - the ability for an idea to be memorable.
While there were some parts of the book that stuck with me (give strong leads, people identify with people), many of the concepts I honestly forgot about. It left me thinking this book may have been more sticky if it were shorter and stuck to only the most impactful examples.
There's a lot to this one. Education is broken, and this book looks into one reason why. The premise? There is a “classic theory of learning” that we all grew up with and a historical theory.
We're all familiar with the classic theory. You go to class with others of your age, your teacher goes over a set curriculum, you take a test on the subjects and are left feeling great or like you failed. Repeat this process to “learn”.
This process hasn't been around that long. Look back 200 years ago and people learned completely differently. It seemed to work well, as it led to enlightened artists and ancient philosophers. This book looks into what led to this change in education, and what we can do to get back to the old ways.
Many of the concepts of the old ways connected with me. Leaning towards hands on learning, favoring fun and mentor ship over assessments, mixing up groups to include people of different skill levels and more. It left me wanting to figure out what a curriculum would look like and just how much fun it would be to learn with an excited group of learners in this way.
Hatching Twitter follows the rise of Twitter through the lives of its founders and initial employees. As someone how has followed twitter since the beginning, I thought I knew the story but wow was I wrong. It turns out that there was far more power jockeying and boardroom backstabbing than I ever thought.
The way this story is told is also rather impressive. Rather than just being a telling of facts, you feel like you're there with the characters in the rooms as ideas are brainstormed or things go right (or more often wrong).
Twitter has played an outsized role in my life. The first startup I worked at where I felt true ownership of my work was a platform to connect Twitter users with advertisers to make money (before promoted Tweets were a thing). I remember going to Twitters first (and only) conference, Chirp, right around when Twitter hit 140 employees. I remember sending out a sponsored tweet manually from a Rails console that someone paid $20k to send. I remember having lunch with coworkers and friends on the floor at a Twitter event while Will.i.am had discussions over us.
Twitter holds a number of great memories for me. While this book shed light on some of the darker sides of the company, it also left me feeling how important a part it was (is) for the founders - a feeling I could easily identify with.
This short story packs a bunch of original ideas into a familiar narrative - girl going off to school. The school, however, is on another planet and consists of diverse beings, and the route there is interrupted in ways I didn't see coming. I love the idea that this short story sets up a longer series - one I plan to check out.
Dan Lyons previous book “Disrupted” ranks as one of my all time favorites. It's a look into startup culture and it's oddities. Lab Rats picks up on that with an exploration into many other companies that are all imitating and following the “startup feel” - for better or for worse.
Nearly everything mentioned gave me a hint of stress hearing about, as many were part of workplaces I was a part of (and many things that I as a manager did). As a small example, this book mentions personality tests, open offices, ping pong tables, “we are a family” mentality, burn out culture and even a mention of Domo, a company just around the corner from me that is worth billions but operates at a loss.
One theme that stands out from this book is how all these “companies for millennials” aren't actually making millennials any happier. The key to workplace happiness and even productivity is safety, something that includes physical safety, wellbeing of the company, of your job and gives room to experiment and grow. I feel like the times I've been most productive in a role have been when I've felt safe in this way as well. Lyons includes some recommendations on how we can move more companies to grow this in their cultures.
This is the finale in the Illuminae series. I enjoyed the series, with the audiobook being more like a full movie with different voice actors playing different parts. The format of this series stands out as memorable too - composed of “files” that are each a piece of evidence in a trial. This allows for jumping around between topics while still following a central thread.
What I liked about this series is that it's sci fi in space, but it still focuses on the people throughout. It never feels sci-fi first at the cost of the humans (and AI) inhabiting the world(s).
It's been a while since I took a good look inward at my social media habits. This book forced me to do that - and I didn't like what I saw.
To list out what Cal mentions about social media addiction is basically just looking in the mirror for me and many people. We pick our phones to fill time, creating a loop of services that provide us with variable rewards that keep us coming back for more.
He's careful to say that social media (or any service that we mindlessly consume) isn't bad, but our relationship with it can be unhealthy.
One thing that stuck with me was the idea that all that time spent makes it feel like we're connected to people, but in reality we aren't. It's time away from building real friendships and growing real relationships.
After reading this I immediately decided to do my own 30-day digital declutter. 4 days in now and I've already stopped checking my phone constantly - although that's mostly because every app is organized and I've written Goodreads reviews for everything I've read. Looking forward to seeing where this goes next.
I absolutely loved Wool, the first book in this series. That left me with somewhat heightened expectations for Shift - which were unfortunately not met. The story itself is mostly a prequel - following Donald, one of the initial creators of the silos. I enjoyed how the reader is as lost as he is - trying to find out answers constantly.
After hearing Nir give a local talk at a user group, I knew I had to check out his book. It's been on my list to read for far too long. The concepts from the book a 10/10. They're a great dive into user behavior and what triggers change in people. I feel like I learned a lot, even if the book is rather short.
The downsides though - the audiobook narrator feels like he's reading a technical manual. It's just not a good listen. Looking at the Audible reviews it's non-stop 1 star reviews for performance. The other side is that this book requites a good deal of reflection time. That's not a good fit for the audio format. I felt like I learned more from hearing Nir talk live for an hour than from the book, but I still look forward to referencing it later in products I'm building.
I love the power of a personal vision, story or goal. Whether in a job or my personal life, I feel lost without one. Donald Miller comes at this idea from a perspective I've never seen before - by learning how to write a good story and applying that to his own life.
What could have been a dry, goal oriented book is actually a hilarious, fun, brilliantly written autobiography. I loved how Miller recognized and wrote about the littlest moments and somehow jumped around time without it seeming out of place.
His take on advertising was brought back to stories too:
Advertising and marketing try to sell us a story that by buying their products, OUR story will match their perfect one.
If you can live a better story, there is no reason to buy into someone else's. Find a story you want to live and live it.
It's fun listening to stories told in unique ways. The Illuninae files (this being the 2nd in the series) fits that sweet spot for me. This one is told through a series of audio recordings surrounding a trial of something that happened in the first book. The narrator changes as the audio files change - sometimes reading instant messages, AI thought processes, overhearing conversations written letters and even video analysis reports. I enjoyed the direction of this one and am looking forward to the 3rd in the series next.
I've always had a fascination with Alaska. It's always seemed like the most expansive wilderness that's still mostly untamed. That would be even more true back in 1974 where this book takes place. I'm that wild setting, The Great Alone ties together enough different storylines, all from the same household, that you feel connected to their lives, their fears and their dreams. This had similarities to Educated, but with more tears, less fundamentalism and equal amounts of fear that the government is out to get you.
I've always been fascinated by the battle of Troy. There are so many different ways to tell that story, yet this one is completely new to me. Rather than following Achilles, this one follows in the first-person from Patroclus point of view, digging into his complicated relationship with Achilles. While the movie Troy does a great job of telling many things, it portrays Achilles much differently than Homer does in The Illiad. “The Song of Achilles” leans closer to Homers telling, shedding light on the secret affairs, dark prophecies and battle of egos.
There's something nostalgic about Novik's writing. Both “Spinning Silver” and her previous book “Uprooted” feel like German fairy tales written a hundred years ago. They have a sense of danger you wouldn't see in a Disney fairy tale, while incorporating the fear and reality of an old-time tale. Spinning Silver jumps between first-person stories following a money changer and her growth into the role. The story takes a turn when a mystical character asks her, a regular person, to change silver into gold after hearing of her skills out of context. What follows is a tale through distant worlds that still feels familiar.
After seeing Vengeful win Goodreads best of list for 2018, and I wanted to check out V.E's latest series - and after a strong first book I continued to #2. I have mixed thoughts on this one though. I love the world, I love the two main characters and I love their rivalry. Unfortunately, those parts of the story were minor details in a larger battle between the cast. I could've used more exploration into the world as a whole.
I hadn't heard of Sharp Objects before the Golden Globe Awards this year. I was intrigued by the cast and decided to check it out - and I'm glad I did. The story follows a reporter on her journey back to her hometown to investigate missing girls. The story is a complete whirlwind that builds in ways I wasn't expecting, but upon reflection just made sense. I appreciate how well everything ties together.
There's a lot to this one. Side hustles, the math behind financial independence and life-strategies on how to fit money into your life. One side that stood out to me was the side hustle side - something I've historically been pretty awful at. I think some of the strategies here rank money over time - a rough balance to get right.
This isn't a finance book or a memoir. Having read Tanja's blog for the last few years, I couldn't wait to see what she'd focus on. The result? A guidebook for how to retire early by following your own path. This one challenges you with questions, activities and thought provoking questions that help determine what could be your idealistic future. Much of the financial side may be old-hat if you read blogs or books in the FIRE community, but it's sprinkled with facts and data to help highlight the pitfalls common to lifestyle change. As someone who recently left their job, much of the vision casting and future focused questions were useful for reflecting on what I really want to do next, while getting another persons take on their first year after working.
