Rob Thompson

A fun adventure; despite the racism and sexism
Presented as the discovery of the supposedly historical Flashman Papers, this book chronicles the subsequent career of the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's School Days.

The book begins with a fictional note explaining that the Flashman Papers were discovered in 1965 during a sale of household furniture in Ashby, Leicestershire. The papers are attributed to Harry Paget Flashman, the bully featured in Thomas Hughes' novel, who becomes a well-known Victorian military hero (in Fraser's fictional England). The papers were supposedly written between 1900 and 1905. The subsequent publishing of these papers, of which Flashman is the first instalment, contrasts the public image of a (fictional) hero with his own more scandalous account of his life as an amoral and cowardly bully.

Flashman begins with the eponymous hero's own account of his expulsion from Rugby and ends with his fame as “the Hector of Afghanistan”. It details his life from 1839 to 1842 and his travels to Scotland, India, and Afghanistan. It also contains a number of notes by the author, in the guise of a fictional editor, providing additional historical glosses on the events described. The history in these books is largely accurate; most of the prominent figures Flashman meets were real people.

The main strength of the books is Flashman himself. He's such a terrible but wonderful character. Despite the racism, misogyny and sexism. Recommended for the armchair adventurer or amateur historian.

Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-old Computer and the Century Long Search to Discover Its Secrets by Jo Marchant is an exploration of the history and significance of the Antikythera Mechanism (/ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə/ an-ti-ki-theer-ə), an ancient mechanical calculator (also described as the first known mechanical computer) designed to calculate astronomical positions. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until a thousand years later.

Marchant approaches the mystery of the mechanism in a narrative that begins with the discovery of the Antikythera wreck in 1901 and includes a primer on the development of scuba gear in the 19th century. Throughout the book, Marchant weaves ancient history with the lives and travails of the handful of contemporary scientists who bucked conventional wisdom with their belief that the mechanism embodied technological and mathematical expertise thought to be impossible for its time. It is believed to have been built about 150–100 BC and yet the delicate bronze clockwork it embodies would not be known to Europe until the Middle Ages.

A work of caution. The story involves complicated descriptions of astronomical theory. Large amounts of detail on mechanical parts. And digressions on analytical instruments. These are all impossible to understand without drawings. I listened to the audio book. As such huge amounts of technical detail were lost. It plods along at a glacial pace. Personally, I got more out watching a documentary on the mechanism.

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all.

This fourth chronicle deals with the Crimea, Balaclava and Russian expansion into the East. As usual our anti-hero Flashman is right at the heart of events. Very politically incorrect, his desire for self-preservation, along with his usual amusing insights, make the book a pleasure to read. Definitely one of the stronger entries in the series.

The Three Hostages is the fourth of five Richard Hannay novels by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published in 1924 by Hodder & Stoughton, London.

Hannay had previously appeared in The Thirty Nine Steps (1915), his most famous adventure, in which he battles German spies across the United Kingdom, and in two books about his activities during the First World War, Greenmantle (1916) and Mr Standfast (1919).

Some years after his 39 Steps mission, Richard Hannay encounters a global criminal gang. Battling international kidnappers, agent Richard Hannay takes on a sinister adversary.

Wonderful escapist entertainment.

About the book: Work Rules! takes us through the inner workings of Google, one of the most powerful and successful companies in the world. Bock tells us precisely how Google pulls off this feat while consistently being ranked as the best employer in the world.

About the author: Laszlo Bock is the senior vice president of People Operations at Google. He is responsible for attracting, developing and retaining more than 50,000 “Googlers” based around the world. During his time there, Google has been recognized as an outstanding employer over 100 times, holding a number one spot in rankings in the United States and 16 other countries.

My highlights:
The secret to Google's culture is its mission, transparency and voice. Google's mission is simple and powerful: “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”It's a profound mission because firstly, it gives moral, rather than commercial meaning to employees' work.
Second, the mission has no ceiling.
Another key tenet of Google's successful culture is its transparency.
Hire the best people by looking beyond their degrees and focusing on the right kind of training. There are two ways to have an exceptional employee: hire the best or train the average. As you may already have guessed, Google does the former.
Let your people – with the help of data – run the show. If you really want employees to own their jobs, do as Google does, liquidate status symbols and reduce bureaucratic hierarchy.Google's most senior executives receive the same support, like resources and funding, as new employees and there are only four levels in the hierarchy: individual contributor, manager, director and vice president.
Both your best and worst employees represent opportunities for your company – seize them! If you've worked in an office before, you're probably familiar with the classic pattern of employee performance: a small number of top performers are responsible for most of the successes, and everyone else trails behind them with gradually decreasing performance.The best and worst performers make up the two tails of the performance curve. Both are the minority, while most employees are average performers, sitting in the middle of the curve.Most companies fire poor performers, then hire new employees who require extra training and can't guarantee excellent performance. Even worse, companies also tend not to utilize their top performers.So how does Google use these two tails to its advantage? They place outstanding performers under the microscope and help out those who need to make improvements.Most companies also don't think to study their best performers. This a missed opportunity, as these are the people most familiar with best practices.How, then, do you study the best performers? Harvard professor Boris Groysberg's research shows high performance is dependent on context. That means studying other companies' best practices won't help; you must study your own.
Stop wasting resources on bad training, and use the best teachers within your own company. the best way to master a skill is to split the work into smaller tasks and aim for a specific improvement in one of these small tasks through repetition, feedback and correction.
Training should deliver specific information that people will retain.
First, the basic principles are taught, then consultants roleplay a scenario, and observe and discuss a video of their training. This process is repeated until the desired consultant behavior is achieved.
When Google needs a trainer for sales representatives, it seeks out the best sales manager with the maximum amount of total sales and asks them to instruct lower performing sales representatives.When employees train other employees, not only does it save money, but it also creates a more close-knit community.
Sometimes Google rewards failure and pays people unfairly. Why? Google also learned there are often more effective ways to retain employees: offer experience rather than money.
Their mistake was rewarding with money instead of experiences, like a dinner for two or a team trip to Hawaii. It turned out these special occasions created more memories and brought teams together far better than cash could.