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Early on, Ronson mentions “If you worry you might be a psychopath then you aren't one” to help keep us focused. The exploration into the world of psychopaths and mental health institutes takes an interesting path – going through Scientology and the other fields to find memorable takeaways on the current state of phycology and our still limited understanding of the mind.
This book brought up some interesting feelings for me. I haven't been publicly shamed, but a number of the incidents documented here I was aware of when they happened – and took a sense of schadenfreude in the incidents. It's hard to understand just how out of proportion some of the responses from the media and public were though, which this book did a good job of highlighting – and following up on those shamed.
I was looking forward to this one for a long time. From the end of Firefight when more background on Calamity was revealed, I was aching to know more backstory. The evolution of the world, and the new salt city stood out. Even the new epics had time to shine in this relatively short book. To say much more is a spoiler, but if you've already read the first two, you'll probably enjoy the finale. Maybe not love and rave about it, but it's a worthy ending to a fun series.
The 3rd book in Browns Red Rising series doubles down on some of the grit that makes it different than other scifi books around while putting strategy in the forefront. The deceit and planning kept me on my toes – even when guessing I knew what was going to happen I was constantly second guessing myself. A great ending to one of the best series I've read since The Hunger Games.
With the new SyFy Magicians series airing, and a number of people recommending this series, I decided to give it a shot. While expecting a more campy Harry Potter adaptation, what I got was a present day magical tale – a combination of HP, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Apocalypse Now. In a book that could've gone very campy, it managed to stay serious. I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.
While in a different time, and with a different goal from the original Mistborn trilogy, this one expanded on the world in unexpected ways. I'm always impressed how Sanderson can bring back an idea from books ago that was ambiguous and expand on it. This book gave me a Final Fantasy vibe –a combination from the time period, magic system, characters and a few familiar plot devices that somehow seem right at home in the world of Mistborn.
While reading Elon Musk's biography, he touches quite a bit on his time at Paypal, including working with Peter Thiel. When I realized Thiel also had a biography out, I knew it would be next.
This book leads with a question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”. When I heard this, I had to pause the audiobook and think this one through. Before I knew it, I'd been stewing on this question for over an hour!
The next biggest takeaway was the idea that the next “big thing” won't be a tweak on existing piece of software, but a completely new market. Bill Gates won the operating system money. Google the Search Engine market. Facebook the social network. It's better to dive into a new category than try to copy an existing one.
In modern times, Telsa is thrown using terms like “conspiracy” and “magic”. His legacy has been revived in recent years, with theories about “the government” holding back various inventions of his. Even The Oatmeal (web comic) has jumped on board crediting Tesla as the inventor of just about everything electrical and wireless in the last 150 years.
This book puts these in perspective and helps separate the truth from the myth. The truth is, he was a very smart inventor at a time when a lot of major technical inventions were coming into being. Tesla made his money (which would be 10s of millions in todays dollars) by patenting his work and leasing it out to other companies. This goes against some of the Tesla conspiracy theories that circulate today.
What was interesting to me was that Tesla seemed myopic in pursuit of wireless power transfer, which eventually would bankrupt him. During this time he neglected radio transmission (which let Marcone take credit) and he overlooked X-rays in his experiments, only realizing them after someone else made the discovery.
Tesla seemed like a nerd who loved thinking of world changing electronics, but not always with a plan on how to roll them out to the world who would use them. This, coupled with a love for living the high life, meant that he was dreaming big and living big, but was not able to continually raise more funds needed to make wireless power a reality.
It's weird to read so much science fiction, then read a biography that sounds like it would work there as well. Somehow Elon Musk has stayed off my radar – I don't how. His past and present have intersected with many interests of mine, from Paypal, SpaceX, Solar City and Tesla, yet I've never looked into the man himself.
Reading this was like reading the backstory of Tony Stark (Iron Man) – even to the point where Robert Downey Jr met with Musk to help flush out the character. His rise with Paypal, his management style and lack of personal empathy over action show how he's put productivity and his goals ahead of any kind of personal relationships. With the recent successes of Tesla and SpaceX, I'm looking forward to see what he does next.
It's difficult to write a book on character without taking a strong opinion on what it takes to “have character”, but I felt like this one did. This left me without as much of a takeaway as I would have hoped. The main focus is on biographies of various people, looking into how they lived. The leading thread throughout these was relatively simple: develop your own beliefs, stick to them through the hard times, don't showboat and base your life on the journey rather than the outcome.
I'm kind of interested in estimation and forecasting. This book focuses on how people make broad guesses based on information - with a focus on improving and refining forecasts as new information comes in. This book focuses on the traits that make great forecasters. The top most is an open, growth mindset - being open to change and looking towards what's next. The other major focus is adapting when new data comes in. These traits and more are explored through a number of forecasters – some professional and some amateur.
As a standalone book, I don't know why anyone would want to read this. Now, I love Tolkien's world – I've read LOR multiple times, same with the hobbit. Seen the movies more times than I can count, including midnight releases for each of them. But even armed with this background, and other information gleaned from videos, Tolkien encyclopedias and other sources I couldn't get into this. It's amazing in what it is – a reference about the world – but it is not a compelling story. I think of this more as a glossary that goes at the end of LOR to help give background to the world.
On the Goodreads Best Books of 2015, one book stood out amongst all others as being the overwhelming winner in their category – The Girl on the Train. Mystery isn't a genre I generally approach, but the storytelling and characters in this one drew me in from the start. The story is told from the first-person from three women in the story. All of these women have their own quirks and flaws that make them interesting and keep the storyline from being predictable.
This is one of the best programming books I've ever read at a conceptual and functional level. It guides the learner through basic D3 all the way up to where you feel powerful with the framework. King does a great job of introducing concepts as needed in an intentional way – something I appreciate greatly when trying to learn a complicated new topic. If you're going to read one book on D3, this should be it.
Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything
Minecraft had one of the fastest rises in popularity of any game in history. The meteoric rise, as well as the team behind the phenomenon was always a mystery to me. The marketing strategy used for propagating Minecraft was one of the most interesting parts of this – as that was how I learned about it initially as well. Rather than hiring a PR company, people would upload videos of their creations to Youtube, acting as both a way to learn about the game and as avenue for players to show off and build reputation.
If you watched Aziz Ansari's recent Netflix show, Master of None, then the content of this book might sound appealing. Unfortunately it is more of a clinical depiction of some of the great comedy from the series. The book itself focuses on the different ways people connect today, and how that's different than it was 50 years ago. What was the most interesting to me was how people connect around the world – in France, Japan and South America.
If you saw the movie Fallen, the premise of touch may be familiar – a special being that can transfer to another body and effectively “take control” of it. Where this story differs from the thriller, is that it focuses on many people with this ability and how they cope and adapt. I loved how this story went into the real world implications of this concept. How could you grow old in someone elses body, denying them life? If you have no conscience that's one thing, but for good people this ability sounds more like a curse.
Where it fell short for me was a connection with the characters. With Claire Norths other book,The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, I was constantly worrying about what would happen, and feeling for the characters. In this one I didn't have the same connection. An interesting topic, and well explored but the connection with the characters left me feeling like something was missing.
In NPR's top 100 Sci-fi/Fantasy list this was one I'd been wanting to read for a while. The ideas presented in it were inventive and elaborate, but my difficulty in following them kept me from fully enjoying the story. After reading the wiki synopsis of the book upon completion, I realized how many small things I'd missed. Vinge doesn't talk down to his readers – he lets them discover things for themselves – but unfortunately I didn't read between the lines on a number of concepts, leaving me confused for far too long. I have a feeling I would enjoy this one a lot more on a second reading.
100 years before the events in A Song of Ice and Fire, Egon Targarian was only a small kid. If you're curious about how he became the most well adjusted of his family, this one is worth checking out. Although an engaging number of stories that add a bit of backstory, they only shed a small amount of new light on overall setting and family dynamics of the era.
If you're curious about the idea of picking up and just traveling around without much planning, or even a return ticket, you might enjoy this book. Not planning is something I've had trouble doing when it comes to travel, but I'd still like to go with the flow more. Although there were a few chapters about this concept, a lot of the book was devoted to preparing your lifestyle.
At the beginning of this one, I really wasn't into it. I think that was the point. Perfect State takes a look at what would happen if you started with a somewhat boring character and shape them into a hero – but in a non-traditional short story. This could be described (and this isn't spoiling anything, as it's explained early on) as the first version of the Matrix, the one where people got everything they wanted, but where each person is in their own isolated universe. When people who have only talked to AIs decide to talk to other actual humans, things get interesting.
This short story by Sanderson describes a night in the life of an unexpected bounty hunter. As you would expect given the author, the unusual parts of the world are given the attention you would expect in a full novel. Ghosts that attack at the sight of blood could have been a cliche topic, but in this case it was flushed out enough with the economy, protection and past events to keep things interesting.
With this being the 5th book in the Mistborn universe, and 2nd in the Wax and Wayne series, I wasn't expecting too much. Alloy of Law didn't hook me in anywhere near as much as Sandersons other works. Although it set the stage in a new time, it didn't evolve the world as much as I'd hoped. Shadows of Self, on the other hand, conjured some new ideas into the world and brought more light to the condra who I always was interested in hearing more from.