Sarah Schumacher
Very slow and dry, packing in a lot of detail to lay the foundation for why Trump is a culmination of evangelical priorities, not an outlier. It reads like a standard history book. I think what bothered me about this book is that it felt so clinical in describing issues that have such an incredible, daily impact on people's daily lives. It felt like a 1000 ft view, mostly due to the writing style. Still an enlightening read, but purely informational.
Redundant, often repetitive. In one section the exact same sentence was repeated twice within the same couple paragraphs. The entire book felt like it was repeating the same points, and I got bored halfway through and couldn't pick it up again.
However, this could be the case because I recently read an entire book about monopolies, and none of this was new information. With as many books as there are available about the problems of capitalism, I'll be looking elsewhere and updating this review when I read one.
It's a crude definition (books > movies), but this felt like the National Treasure for bibliophile computer nerds. As both of these things (I picked this up partly because the protagonist was described as a web designer), it was delightful. There's a mysterious ancient bookstore set in the Silicon Valley startup scene, a cast of genius coders and designers, references to both a fictional fantasy series and game, a dash of wry humor, a secret society, lots of code, espionage, and a hacker thrown in for good measure.
The protagonist is a privileged millennial assumed to be navigating an economic crash. All the characters are likeable. It feels a bit like the “least successful” friend in an extremely successful group writing with awe about how brilliant everyone else is and feeling inadequate.
Starts off a tad slow but not for long.
So many good nuggets in this book. I don't remember loving Essentialism - I thought it was a great book, but it didn't cover a lot of new ground for me. But I'm also a natural minimalist and I read a lot of this kind of thing, so purely a personal opinion, and still a book worth reading.
Effortless, I'd like to own. He begins by discussing this myth that everything good must be hard/take effort, and references the fact that it might be due in part to Puritanism. Yes, but also overwork and the productivity cult are a product of Capitalism that could be an entire book in and of itself (and probably is). Stopping to think about that fact alone is worth the price of admission, but there are many practical tips that are incredibly valuable. The one that most stood out to me was to set an upper limit on tasks/habits. I have a set schedule for business development projects: minimum 30 minutes. I tend to go way over. The simple idea of setting a limit (no more than 1 hour per session) is kind of brilliant, and it's the kind of gem you'll find in Effortless.
You will not find any deep dive into habit development here, which I appreciate. For that we have Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, and James Clear's inestimable Atomic Habits.
More interesting than I expected, as it felt like the autobiography of a business. It was helpful that he presented the challenges when they restructured and the results/different things attempted. Good example of a non-hierarchical approach to business structure, with a few practical tools in the back.
Also, because this was published in 1993, it was funny to see all his references to faxing things. Mentally substitute “email” for “fax” and it's all still relevant.
4.5 stars.
NVC approach to parenting in digestible, practical chapters with clear bullet points/summaries. Section of activity suggestions to discuss with children. Recommended if you've read Nonviolent Communication and are looking for a related book on parenting (not necessary to read that book to benefit from this one).
I'm surprised by the low rating on GoodReads, as I think the plan/strategy is solid. My guess is it's because of the self-helpiness of the whole thing. When you read mostly in the productivity space, you've heard all the meta stuff before.
I would have preferred purely a how-to guide that was half the length and skipped the motivational stuff. There isn't much to the plan itself, but it is about the execution. Time will tell as to how it works for me, but I recognize the value in it because I generally do vision/system stuff at the beginning of the year, but the full year is too long. For that reason alone I'm going to try 12 week cycles because it makes more sense. Not revolutionary, and you don't need the book to do that, but if you've never done similar vision, goal setting activities this would be a good place to start.
This is the book I expected when I read Company of One, so it's hard to review without comparing the two. This book is an affirmation of the idea that's it's fine to stay small; decide what “success” looks like for you personally. There are a lot of stories and practical advice, and several sections of questions in the Appendix to bring these ideas home.
Quick easy read. I don't feel like I got a ton out of it; the concept of a million dollar business is highly dependent on the industry you're in (suggestions are made), but overall it has good advice for entrepreneurs at any stage.
I would recommend her newer book, Tiny Business, Big Money, over this one.
The more history I read, the more apparent it is that it truly does repeat itself. The opposition of mainstream American Christianity to the current iteration of the civil rights movement is no different than its opposition in the 60's.
This book is a great overview, and the final chapter outlines what the church can do to show up this time around. A respectful, honest, accessible read, recommended for everyone.
He does a great job of highlighting the importance of understanding the average Christian assumptions of racism as a personal/relational issue, which is why they often completely misread how modern day discussions of anti-racism are about systemic issues and existing power structures.
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“If the 21st-century is to be different than the previous four centuries, then the American church must exercise even more creativity and effort to break down racial barriers then it took to erect them in the first place.”
I felt like I'd already read all the stories and scientists and bits of advice in their respective books, so it felt like a compilation of a lot of the best research around... decision making? At the end of the day, I'm a bit lost on how the theme of originality pulls through all the seemingly unrelated stories. It felt more like a book about ‘unconventional wisdom based on the latest research.' But only unconventional if you don't read a massive quantity of books in this category.
All that being said, I took notes and could have taken more, so I definitely learned quite a few practical strategies. While I enjoyed reading this, I was constantly tempted to start a different unread book from the 15 waiting on my bookshelf.
Made it 1/3 of the way in. Analysis of a bunch of random women's daily schedules was just not interesting to me. I only picked this up from the library because it was referenced by a writer I follow, so I knew nothing about it. I feel like the gist was that if you manage your time well you do have time for everything? Whatever the thesis was must not have been stated clearly enough/made interesting enough for me to feel like this was worth reading. I have too many other good books I'm reading/on my Want To Read list to bother with this one.
Hilarious parody of dumb fairytales with a feminist twist. This is the kind of silly story I would have written with my brother when we were kids, and it's refreshing for my extremely anti-princess sensibilities. The illustrations are perfect, adding comic style to the story in all the right places.
Probably better for 8yo+ age range - some of the humor goes over my 6yo's head, although he thoroughly enjoys these regardless. Absolutely read these to your boys. They're fun books and princess stereotypes do nothing for them either.
