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Books 2008

Books 2007

  • Marcus Buckingham: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
    I want this book and a time machine. That's all. Just this book and a time machine. (****)
  • Haruki Murakami: After Dark
    There is no end to Murakami's genius. What is interesting here is that this book takes a theme from Banana Yoshimoto's Asleep and seems to mash it with explorations of beauty in Natsuo Kirino's Grotesque. This is a short, fast book that I read in one day. I felt an instant affinity for the main character, who has built up a shell of defense that causes her to ignore what she really needs. Strangers help her break that away in natural and welcome ways. (*****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Dr. Futurity: A Novel
    Review coming (***)
  • Daniel J. Levitin: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
    An excellent examination of the ways our brains process just about everything and why music is so deep and so special. Music seems to calm and startle us at the same time ... (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
    A conceptually thick and tough book to get through, if only for the angst. Yes, it's still PDK-style short form angst, but I still found this one a slog. Best part was an autistic man arguing with a bishop about the existence of God. Two sides with zero conceptual common ground. Very nice. (***)
  • Richard K. Morgan: Thirteen
    Morgan is back. I loved the Kovacs series, but totally hated Market Forces. This book was wonderful, violent, gratuitous, and probing. Challenges the reader. Not for the timid. (****)
  • Mark Fainaru-Wada: Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
    Excellently researched and written. An examination of the intersection of attitude and competitiveness. Daylighting the spiral of assumptions. Loved it. (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Galactic Pot-healer
    Apparently the new version of this is already out of print, so lucky I picked it up when I did. The hero in this story wishes to escape the dreary life of a prole in a planned economy. He accepts a position healing pots in an attempt to raise an ancient temple. The keepers of the temple aren't so happy. PKD is still finding his voice here, but it's starting to peek out. (***)
  • Douglas Coupland: JPod
    A fast, fun, psychotic read. Was perfect for the plane and perfect to brighten my mood. (****)
  • Dov Seidman: How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life)
    Currently Reading
  • Robert S. Kaplan: The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action
    One of the most important and most singularly boring books I've read in a long time. The balanced scorecard validated some of our existing approaches and will help us to refine others. It will also help us in the creation of a few new products. But damn! Is it ever a dull dull book. (****)
  • William Gibson: Spook Country
    An excellent next step in the Gibson world. At the beginning of the book I was seriously getting annoyed at the design-conscious writing, but that seemed to get out of his system at some point - or it ceased to bother me. The book almost entirely takes place on streets I've been to in New York, Los Angeles and Vancouver which is kind of amusing. It's rare that one has such a vivid backdrop for reading. There are lots of contemporary references that will certainly date this book quickly. Unlike some of his earlier books, this one will read very differently even a few years from now. (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: The Divine Invasion
    The earth is being invaded, but by Yahweh and Satan who are ready to have their cosmic battle. The trajectory of the battle is wonderfully unexpected however. Dick manages to place a great deal of gnostic theory into an entertaining and compelling work. How he avoided being bombastic in this book I'll never know, but always admire. (****)
  • Neil Gaiman: The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1
    Wow. (*****)
  • Sanjiv Augustine: Managing Agile Projects (Robert C. Martin Series)
    I read this a while back, but never added it. An excellent step by step source into managing agile projects from a project management and not a coding perspective. (****)
  • Seth Godin: The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
    Read this on the plane the other day. Short - about 100 pages. Seth says my company just got out of a dip. note the graph on the cover. We did pretty much what he advocates. We quit doing things we weren't the absolute best at, focused on what we are the best at, and have had a great time since. (****)
  • Mark Buchanan: The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You
    An excellent book that I would never ever be able to squish a synopsis into a sidebar. (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Solar Lottery: A Novel
    This was an early PKD which I really enjoyed. I enjoy seeing the birth-books for major PKD themes. This one has the mega corporations, the paranoia, the loss of control. A great and fast read. (****)
  • Neil Gaiman: Eternals
    Okay, when I was much younger I had tons of comic books - but I haven't ever read a graphic novel. Add to this that I really like Neil Gaiman and that I was flat out told to read these things by my Canadian math-whiz friend Andrew Buhr and the fact that Amazon randomly sent me an e-mail with the eternals and voila! I read a graphic novel while waiting for Vivian to leave the office. The Eternals is rather true to its comic book roots: confusion of the origin of man, the eternal protectors, identity, and randomly occurring humor. Give it a read, but at US$30 you really have to want to read this beautifully drawn, expertly written graphic novel. (****)
  • Chip Heath: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
    Currently Reading
  • Philip K. Dick: Deus Irae: A Novel
    I'd actually go 3.5 on this one, three isn't quite enough but it's not really a 4. The premise here is that after a massive war, people come to worship the equivalent of the US Secretary of Defense, due to his part in making WMDs that were truly massive. People conclude that if such things are possible, and god willed such things, that this man, by his very awesome nature surely must be the true embodiment of god. Good premise. Nicely told in usual PKD rapid fashion (182 pages). Roger Zalazny co-wrote this. (***)
  • Natsuo Kirino: Grotesque
    An incredible ride. Kirino is deep and dark. She deals with the petty, the dangerous, the self-destructive side of our souls. She deals in motivation, coercion, and self-deception. Grotesque is a sensational title, and therefore easy to avoid. But don't avoid this book. It's incredible. The book is told through the unfolding of the lives of several women and a few men who were systematically drained of their free will in wildly dissimilar ways. Each had what the others thought would save them. Each was fatalistic. Each was precious. (*****)
  • Ori Brafman: The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
    Excellent book, will review soon (****)
  • Christopher Noxon: Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up
    Check out my review of this by looking in the "Non-Fiction" category in the right column of this blog. (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: The Penultimate Truth: A Novel
    Currently Reading - This will make one year of PKD!
  • Daniel Gilbert: Stumbling on Happiness
    A powerful book detailing how memory, perception, psychology and social pressures all directly impact how we experience happiness. Where we fool ourselves, where the embellish, where we cope. All of these added together create a complex set of events that guide the elusive concept: happiness. This is an excellent and highly recommended book. (****)
  • Miyuki Miyabe: Shadow Family
    Miyabe's Shadow Family is about a man who, when faced with a family he cannot control, seeks to find one that he can. His surrogate fantasy family is not without its own troubles. Soon he has been murdered. But by who? For some reason, I'm drawn to Miyabe's books even though they aren't the most compelling and I don't like mysteries. Her next book is already in my wish-list. (***)
  • Etienne Wenger: Cultivating Communities of Practice
    Excellent overview of the steps to create and cultivate communities of practice. Lots of good real world anecdotes. (***)
  • Philip K. Dick: Vulcan's Hammer: A Novel
    In a future where the hard questions are turned over to computers, logic dictates survival. Paranoia and suspicion are the last true human desires. The good are confused. This early PDK work is number 11 on my quest for 36. Which means next month is one full year of PKD. (***)
  • Marshall Goldsmith: What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
    currently reviewing (****)
  • Lisa Lutz: The Spellman Files: A Novel
    Currently Reviewing (****)
  • Steve Kaplan: Be the Elephant: Build a Bigger, Better Business
    See book reviews under the nonfiction category (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Now Wait for Last Year
    10 of 36 - almost to one year - As the name suggests, this deals with time travel, sort of. PDK leaves it up in the air as to whether time travel is truly possible by suggesting that perhaps other time streams would be other parallel universes. Toss into this a bit of Xenophobia, marital strife and the drive of personal responsibility and you have a lot going on in 230 pages. It seems, after 10 books, that PKD has an adjustment period. In the first few books I read he annoyed me. Now I'm into a groove. One note, it's interesting to see the concepts in this book played out in the longer and different works by other writers like Orson Scott Card. (****)
  • John Seely Brown: The Social Life of Information
    I think personally, for me, I realized this was a pretty important book when I became rather bored with it in the middle. "I know all this," I was thinking to myself. While reading it, my mind kept wandering to the social media book I'm trying to write. I kept coming up with new things to write in the book. Soon, The Social Life of Information was coated with scribbles related to my book. And then I had to laugh at myself when I realized this was a large part of JSB's & PD's point. I had all the information to come to these little epiphanies, but it was only through the social interaction of reading their book did many of these concepts gel. (See the long review in Non-Fiction) (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: The Cosmic Puppets: A Novel
    I am going to search around for the level to which the 1950s were Twilight Zone domain. This could well have been a TZ script. Very nicely done, very much a "lifting the veil of perception" type of book. (***)
  • Ray Immelman: Great Boss Dead Boss
    Recommended Look under the Book Reviews Category on this blog for long review. My psychological training (sorry tom cruise) has also given me great insights into what motivates and what demotivates people. But those mechanistic models of action and reaction were always searching for a unifying construct. Ray's construct is tribal behavior and balancing our need to feel good about ourselves and the groups to which we belong. In essence, people tend to gravitate toward groups that reinforce their self-worth. Traditional business structures tend to rigidly group people and, by doing so, people identify with smaller groups of their own design rather than their larger corporate or office group. The results are seldom good. (****)
  • Jenifer Tidwell: Designing Interfaces
    A fantastic how-to and reference for interface design. Well stocked with images and illustrations. Wonderful layout. Easy to read. I've already recommended it to four people who've already purchased it and a few more are on the way. Very highly recommended. (****)
  • Cory Doctorow: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
    The protagonist of this book has no idea what he is, his parents are a mountain and a washing machine, his brothers include a psychic, an undead malcontent and symbiotic stacking dolls. He keeps trying to live a normal life, but his family won't let him. Despite his bizarreness, he can at least walk down the street without too much trouble. This is different from a woman he befriends whose bizarreness is so noticeable that she needs to saw off parts of her body on a regular basis. Cory is an easy read. The book flows nicely. Characters are interesting, plot twists are well executed. Even though I've only given this 3 stars, I likely be reading more Cory Doctorow in the future. (***)
  • George Lakoff: Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea
    If you read Moral Politics, which I thought was better, you've already read half this book. This is an essay on Freedom attached to the material already covered in Moral Politics. Whose yer stong daddy now?! (**)
  • Erik Davis: TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information (Five Star Fiction)
    I just could not get into this book. Perhaps it was the layout, but it just went on and on and on and finally I was like, "there's good stuff here, but it just keeps talking." I believe this could have been much more concise. (*)
  • Philip K. Dick: The Zap Gun
    8 of 36. The Zap Gun is a book about the illusion of democracy and how leaders fabricate danger to calm the citizens. In Zap Gun, weapons designers are basically concept engines for alleged weapons that quickly become major mass market goods. This is definitely cold war which seems quaint now, but I'm sure we'll work ourselves into another situation like that soon. (***)
  • Jennifer Finney Boylan: She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
    What an excellent way to start the year! This is the autobiographical story of the gender change for Jennifer Finney Boylan. Boylan, already a celebrated novelist, puts her skills to work telling her story with the sometimes dark, sometimes light humor that such a socially rare event like this engenders. (heh). This is a phenomenal book. (****)

Books 2006

  • Emma Larkin: Finding George Orwell in Burma
    Wow. I have a hard time actually writing about this. Larking (a pen name to protect the innocent) goes to Burma to find out more about George Orwell and ends up seeing his vision in action. Orwell was stationed as a police officer in his youth and much of what he saw in the treatment of the people there by the Brits formed the basis for his later writing. However, perhaps independently, Burma has developed into a bizarre and frightening mix of Animal Farm and 1984. Larkin experienced this first hand as she made her was through the authoritarian regime talking to people and conducting research. Amazing. (*****)
  • Steve Wozniak: iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
    I liked Gary Numan's book "Praying to the Aliens." My friend Simon said it was a book where Numan sat around and dictated stories to his co-writer and said 'and then I ... and then I .. and then I.' Despite that, I still very much liked the book. Numan has lived a remarkable life thus far and he had stories to tell. The same is true for iWoz. On Amazon there are a lot of five star reviews. I'm not giving it five stars, but it's not because the book was fun or a good read or even a nice telling of life. It's because Woz skips over opportunities for insight. I was bummed when he said "Oh, this happened and I was bummed." and then didn't elaborate. But he is excellent at telling funny stories and one gets a good sense of Woz's personal sense of wonder at the world and what can be created. And that's refreshing. (***)
  • Philip K. Dick: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
    7 of 36. Yes, I am now 7 months into my three year PDK reading. This month's book was okay. People seem to really get into this particular book and it was highly recommended. I found it a bit trying after a while. PKD likes to draw parallels with biblical themes and obviously a book with "stigmata" in it is going to be rife with them. The usual spate of pre-cogs, drugs, and people coming back from other planets with a thing are present here. Not so much a totalitarian society - more of a rampant and confused bureaucracy runs earth and its colonies here. Reasonably good PKD here, but by no means my favorite. (***)
  • Orson Scott Card: Xenocide (Ender, Book 3)
    Read in Hong Kong when I had no time alone ... This is a 600 page book I read in a week with no time to read. Card is magic, this book is dense and filled with ethical and spiritual quandries, yet his prose flows like water. I'd sit down for ten minutes, go through about 20 pages and stare at the book dumbfounded. How did this happen? (****)
  • Kevin Kelly: Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World
    Interesting to go back and read a book written right on the cusp of .com boom. Kelly describes emergent systems - a concept now well established. At the time, however, very new. Very interesting to read the then-current state of things like Biosphere 2 and compare them to what came out in the end. (***)
  • Mitch Albom: For One More Day
    Currently Reviewing (***)
  • Peter Morville: Ambient Findability
    Read en-route to Hong Kong. Read my posts around the 17th of November for how this inspired me. This is a must read for anyone interested in the structures of information and how people communicate. It is very accessible, so don't be daunted by the word information. (*****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Our Friends from Frolix 8
    Read in Seattle - The name of this book would stop most from buying it, but it's actually a really good tale. I was hesitant to read it just because I knew the title would appear on my blog. Our Friends is about a man who lives (like in most PKD) in a totalitarian state ruled by really smart people and really telepathic people. They don't treat everyone else very well, so this guy gets in a space ship to look for help. He finds help and brings it back. On a deeper level, this book is about defining your social roles and how most people have no social definition. Their main desire in life is to eat dinner and see their kids grow up. This is a good message for today's vilification happy world. This is the 6th book in my three year Phil Dick odyssey. (***)
  • Dalai Lama : The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings
    Will write a longer review later, but did want to say that, as always, the Dalai Lama is inspiring and wise. This book, however, was poorly edited. If you don't have at least a general understanding of Buddhism before reading this book, you will get lost. Many terms go undefined but are used throughout the book. The editor took a variety of speeches by the Dalai Lama and pasted them together for this book. It's an excellent read, but you'd need the Internet to Google terms. The Dalai Lama's words are best read far from a computer - so that's a bit counter productive. (***)
  • Haruki Murakami: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
    Currently Reviewing (***)
  • Robert Buderi: Guanxi (The Art of Relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead
    Microsoft's PR Department couldn't have written thicker, more syrupy, praise for Microsoft. Guanxi is the chinese word for mutually beneficial relationships, it's a complex concept that involves respect, reciprocality, and a certain deference to the person with more authority. It is not covered in this book. Rather, this is a book that paints a super happy face on a long process and smooths out or ignores the rough edges. I recommend doing a search on Guanxi and reading some of the other books on business in China, like the China Dream, if you want a clearer picture of Guanxi. If you want the Disneyfied version of Microsoft's research lab, this is the book for you. (*)
  • Philip K. Dick: Radio Free Albemuth (Vintage)
    Book five of my 39 book PKD odyssey. Radio Free Albemuth is Dick's last book. So far it's my favorite of the lot. Radio Free Albemuth has two main characters, one of which is Philip K. Dick - who watches his friend receive information from mysterious extra-planetary sources. The other is that friend. Taking place is a typically PDK police state in the US and amusingly self-referential (if you're the main character how can you not be), Nicholas receives incomprehensible information that slowly forms into a coherent message. (****)
  • Ursula K. Le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1)
    I took a weekend trip to Ocean Shores, Washington and, when I arrived I realized that I had not brought any books. Then I ran to the only bookstore in Ocean Shores only to find it had disappeared. I ended up in a convenience store that had boxes of used books from a library sale. There were shelves of books I had no intention of reading. But there was a little group of Ursula Le Guin books. So I grabbed them all. Now my Ocean Shores house has a stack of emergency books - all by Le Guin. So I started the Earthsea saga. Thin books, easy to get through in a weekend. The first chronicles the birth and education - the coming of age basically - of Ged, the wizard who is a hero of the series. I should have read these when I was a teenager - they are told so quickly as to be fairly overwhelming. The other Le Guin books I've read have been less frenetically told. Nonetheless, this is an excellent day-home-sick kind of book. Well told, nicely crafted, and very short. (***)
  • Dee W. Hock: Birth of the Chaordic Age
    What happens when you mix Robert Persig with Bucky Fuller and toss in some Chemical X? You get Dee Hock. You get this book. Dee Hock has wonderful clarity of purpose in this book which explains how VISA - the world's largest organization - came to be and why it worked. It worked because Hock and others designed it to be egalitarian, open and accepting. Hock tells us that innovation happens on that thin layer between chaos and order. A chaordic layer that feeds the imagination much like the phytoplankton layer feeds the world. This book shows us all that life has its own inertia and if we open ourselves to possibility wonderful things will happen. Whether we "want" them to or not. Clearly one of the most important books I have ever read. (*****)
  • Charles Yu: Third Class Superhero
    Third Class Superhero is a fantastic book. I hate short stories, and I think this is a fantastic book. It's amazing to me that during this year I've read about 40 books and my two favorites were short works of fiction. Charles Yu nails so many emotional turns of phrase in this smartly designed 173 page book, it's astounding. An excellent discourse in ennui and lost self - Third Class Superhero was a wonderful accidental find. Charles Yu is totally my hero of the week. (*****)
  • Robert Greene: The 48 Laws of Power
    See Book Review filed under "Non-Fiction" (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
    Number Four of 39. For August 2006's PDK readathon. As most people know, this is the book that birthed Bladerunner. Thus far this was the best of the bunch. Seeing how it was or was not like Bladerunner. (***)
  • Daniel Goleman: Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence
    Primal Leadership is about having the emotional wherewithall to know when and how to cooperate. Whether the best cooperation is to provide gentle guidance, firm direction, fanstatic visions, democratic conversation, or foster ground-up creativity. You need to understand who you are and what your goals are - then apply them to the groups you are associated with. Some people like carrots, some people like sticks, some may even like to be hit by carrots. Primal Leadership helps you develop your awareness of which works best. (***)
  • Chris Moriarty: Spin State
    It took me 13 days to read this book, I had a really hard time getting into it. I picked it up because people like David Brin commented on the strong integration of quantum physics into the book. But when it said it was "Hard Science Fiction" I expected more of the physics and less of the gritty cyberpunk. A quick shoot through my last five years of reading will show I like gritty cyberpunk - but parts of this felt like a re-run or an overuse of a genre. Moriarty tells an excellent tale and will certainly be a writer to watch however, which is why the three stars. I think this is the first in a line of increasingly interesting books. (***)
  • Paul Babiak: Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work
    Currently Reviewing - Good overview of what makes a psychopath and what to do if you work with one. Also how to spot a jerk who is not a psychopath but just acts like oe. (***)
  • Philip K. Dick: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (Vintage)
    Third month. Three down, 33 to go. In Flow My Tears, an entertainer who lives on his fame is suddenly confronted by a world where he has none. A fairly well put together police state book with an ending that was unexpected, at least for someone at book 3 of all the PDK books. Jason, the main character, starts to book with everything and suddenly is in a situation where he has nothing at all. He has ceased to exist. And only one person on earth knows why. (***)
  • The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
    Kunstler will tell you how everything that sucks is related to everything else that sucks and what will result from this is a massive sucky event that eclipses all that was previously naively called sucky. Kunstler's major point here is that current civilization has been around a long time (when thought of in terms of our own lifetimes) but in the terms of overall history it's really a short event - one in which we've managed to use up the seemingly large amounts of oil and become highly dependent on it. This goes beyond our cars to everything we currently use. To put it in a nutshell - no plastic either in an oilless society. Soon, no food, no travel, no society. And that sucks. (***)
  • Steven Raichlen: The Barbecue! Bible
    The text of this was a quick read, but the recipies will be with me for a long time. At the end of 2005 I bought a Dacor gas grill to accompany my sturdy charcoal grill. I felt like a traitor to the wood grill cause, but when it's December, raining, and I want ribs -- I love my gas grill. This book was on sale at the cook shop up the street (where we spend way too much time and my wife may soon be teaching chocolate courses) and I picked it up. It's an excellent collection of recipes from around the world - it includes American ribs, burgers and steaks, to be sure. But it also has recipes I can't wait to try and expand on. Like Cuban Palomilla, Philipino Kare Kare, and Korean Kalbi (everything). I already make Kalbi - but this recipe is a little different, as is his for Chinese Char Siu which I make all the time. The book also goes into a variety of salads, deserts and all things in between that can be made on the grill. Each recipe includes different instructions for gas or wood grilling. The background and techniques in the book are unsurpassed. Highly recommended to anyone who would rather cook on the grill. (*****)
  • Jonathan Safran Foer: Everything Is Illuminated
    Currently Reviewing
  • Lisa L. Haneberg: Focus Like a Laser Beam : 10 Ways to Do What Matters Most
    In Focus, Lisa (who has my blog in her blogroll!) gives a rapid overview of how leaders obtain, maintain and spread focus. Focus is a working peak experience wherein we get a lot done, understand our goals, and feel fulfilled during the work and upon completion. It's a short book and a stunning price tag *$25*. Lisa quickly summarizes her own and other methodologies to get you and your team on track. (***)
  • Orson Scott Card: Ender's Shadow (Ender, Book 5) (Ender's Shadow)
    Ender's Shadow follows the character Bean who was a background (shadow) character in Ender's Game. Bean starts out a homeless street kid who survives by quickly figuring out how to survive. Through some luck and his own cunning he ends up in a military training school that is unknowingly preparing for a major battle. Ender's Game follows Ender Wiggin, the boy responsible for controlling the ultimate battle, but Ender's Shadow follows Bean who supports Ender in ways Ender never fully realizes. An excellent book of deception, self discovery, and growth. (****)
  • John Battelle: The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
    Like most bloggers, I've had more than one occasion to read John's blog. It is often an inisghtful and worthwhile read. But Search was miraculous. It's an effortless book to read that touches on why search is culturally moving. Search sat in the "to-be-read" pile for over a month while I worked through other things. But it was patient and didn't cajole me. I am stunned at how easy a read, how informative, and dispassionate it was -- in a bizarrely passionate way. Somehow, John Battelle could tell people every awful thing you've ever done, and you'd feel like he did you a favor. Read search, if only for the eerily glowing white cover. (****)
  • Zora Neale Hurston: Jonah's Gourd Vine
    Jonah's is Zora's first book. After reading Dust Tracks on a Road, it's apparent that there's a lot of her father in John, the book's antihero. This is a book about not really understanding your potential or where redemption lies. It's a book about human weakness. Told in a conversational and somewhat chaotic way, with alarming time lurches, Jonah's is a book that covers a lifetime in 200 pages of large type. Important to read now 70 years after its printing - strange how technology advances but human beings stay just about the same. (***)
  • Andres Duany: Suburban Nation : The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
    While the DPZ team sometimes lets their frustrations show through, Suburban Nation is a fairly methodical narrative of how we ended up with sprawl, why few actually like it and why people flock to it. The social, legislative, fiscal and other reasons for the development of sprawl and the undervaluing of community are lengthy. But there are a few distinct things to mention. One is self governance - healthy neighborhoods form natural groups who wish to improve life (security, beautification, traffic calming, etc.). Another is options - healthy neighborhoods allow people to walk to things, drive to things, bike to things, take transit to things ... as appropriate. If you had to boil down the benefits they would be these and they both boil down to freedom and convenience. Having worked on Portland's Region 2040 Plan a decade ago, I am very familiar with the text here, they even cite some of my work in the book. Their experiences far outweigh mine, of course. If you are interested in a primer for building a good community, changing zoning to support human interaction, and learning the inadvertant history of what has so severely damaged American culture, I'd say pick this one up. (***)
  • Philip K. Dick: A Scanner Darkly (Vintage)
    Month 2, book 2 of the 39 month PDK a month odyssey. A Scanner Darkly is most people's favorite. PDK loves the mobius strip approach to a plot and this is no different. A Scanner Darkly (now a motion picture) is about drug culture, the industry that supports it, and the law enforcement techniques to fight it. The book examines the inherent conflicts of interest of undercover work. Sort of Bill Burroughs meets Ken Kesey with a shaker of Kurt Vonnegut. (****)
  • David Rakoff: Don't Get Too Comfortable : The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems
    David Rakoff writes and I hear my friend Tony Gervais speak. There are a lot of great sardonic quips in this book. The first half of Don't Get Too Comfotrable reads really fast and you are flying. Then you sort of get mired in pieces that seem to have been selected to fill out the book. At the end, however, the piece on plastic surgery is a real treat. (***)
  • Neil Gaiman: Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
    This is Gaiman's short story collection. I generally don't like short stories and that generally holds true here as well. There are, however, a few gems. The best of the book is a great story of a writer stuck in Los Angeles while clueless studio executives give him the run around. Way outside the usual Gaiman fare - but a perfectly written piece. Read this to round out your Gaiman collection - but if you are just starting out, stick with American Gods or Anansi Boys. (***)
  • Mitch Albom: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
    Right now, my wife is reading this book on the couch. I've marvelled before at how books call to you. I went to the University Book Store in Bellevue, Washington, the other day while my business partner was getting a haircut. The only reason I ever go to Bellevue is to get my hair cut. I walked in an this book was on the front table, then it was on a recommended shelf, then someone had put it in the wrong place, then I saw it facing forward in the fiction section. It was everywhere. It insisted I read it. I found it awe inspiring. Albom manages to take us through the entire life and death of one man - one ordinary man who saw himself a failure - and show how he was anything but. But the point wasn't to show us, it was to show him. That heaven's first and only gift to people is to give them context. Painful, beautiful, simplistic, rich, deep, tender and ruthless. I feel like buying this book for everyone I've ever met. It has made me come up with the new "Highly Recommended" tag for my book reviews. It was that good. (*****)
  • Steven Johnson: Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
    Wouldn't you know, the confluence of context, on the day I write a review of Emergence I also quote Johnson in a blog entry. I bought the hardbound copy of this because I thought the cover of the softbound was ugly. Apparently my vanity extends to the books I buy. Emergence provides background of the study of emergent properties in large populations. Slime molds, ants, cities, etc. It seems that whenever you get a great number of things together, they start to do other things. Like form a human being or create a society or help a tree decay. It was interesting reading this 4 years after its publication. One can get a sense of Emergence just looking at the differences in software and the internet since the examples that are used in this book. Longer review in the blog under Non-Fiction. (****)
  • Philip K. Dick: Ubik (Vintage)
    It's been a long time since I read PKD, maybe 20 years. I realized that the books I read, I had almost entirely forgotten. I read most of them in my friend John's game room in between music sessions or role playing games. Everything of Dick's was pretty much lost in a maze of other images. So I've decided to read one of his books a month until I work my way through all 39 of them. Ubik is a tail-chasing book where the reader is never sure whether the main character or the ancillary characters are trapped and where. Ubik explores our reality and how determined we might be to hold onto it both when livng and after death. It's a fast read, excellent for a plane ride or a idle day. (***)
  • John Hagel III: The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization
    John has always talked about his book in terms of outsourcing or talent building. The primary premise of the book is that in order to grow smart, businesses need not expand - but need to harness the power of outside companies that can bring in top-notch talent when it is needed. What interested me most about the book is that, for me, it really wasn't about outsourcing or talent building. The book was about agile management. The Only Sustainable Edge is a book where the promoted business model - to have mission-critical elements of your organization exist outside your organization - can only be successful in an agile environment. See Book Reviews | Non Fiction for a longer review. (***)
  • Terry Pratchett: Thud!: A Novel of Discworld (Discworld Novels)
    Pratchett has a strong command of his situations and characters. Pratchett has been recommended to me in conversation a lot over the last few years. Did I start with the wrong book? Thud! deals wiith the efforts of a Chief of Police to stop a regularly scheduled war from ripping apart civilization. Many silly things then ensue that involve story reading to children, fine art by deranged men, and unlikely friendships between eventually naked and muddy women. Pratchett is usually recommended to me in the same breath as comes praise for Neil Gaiman. In Thud! I did not find Gaiman's uncommon depth of feeling or patience. Please, someone, tell me I read the wrong Pratchett novel. See Category Book Reviews | Fiction for a longer review. (***)
  • Jane Jacobs: Cities and the Wealth of Nations (Vintage)
    Read long ago, excellent intersection of capitalism and urbanism. A must read. Raising here due to the passing of Ms. Jacobs. (*****)
  • Dalai Lama XIV: The Universe in a Single Atom : The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
    Excellent book - especially regarding learning through conversation. This book contrasts the third person investigation of the scientific process with the first person introspective processes of Buddhism. It's an excellent contrast. Highly recommended. (****)
  • Barry Boehm: Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed
    A good contrast exercise for agile and waterfall programming and management styles. Experts from both sides of the fence come together to show that most projects will never tolerate a pure agile or waterfall approach due to the external constraints. These constraints conspire to weaken both approaches. "Balancing" brings these two war-like factions together and hammers out a peace agreement in a fairly elegant way. (***)
  • Barack Obama: Dreams from My Father : A Story of Race and Inheritance
    Excellent autobiography of growing up in unique circumstances. The nicest thing about this book is the sense that Barack is searching for something, but he doesn't know quite what it is. I have met so many people, myself included, who have been searching for years .. and then are surprised when they find something. An open, honest and refreshing book. (****)
  • Peter Coad: Java Modeling In Color With UML: Enterprise Components and Process
    Modeling without color is like rollerskating without wheels. Coad, Lefebvre, and DeLuca show in a remarkably glib style how to, why to, and when to (always) model in color. I had this book sitting on the wayside and didn't think much of it until the other day David Anderson popped by - we did a quick exercise in modeling to flesh out a concept and it was like watching the bionic modeler. So I thought, "I gotta do that!" He said, "Read the book!" Now I say to you, "Read the book". If you don't, your things will never be green. Can you live with that? (****)
  • Daniel L. Schacter: The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers
    This book was fascinating! I'll do a proper reivew in the blog soon (check for it under nonfiction). Professor Schacter outlines the seven sins of memory with an amazing concise, yet complete, style. Very clear depictions of how the brains work, why they might do that, ways to mitigate some issues, but also reasons why being somewhat forgetful isn't all bad. Also, describes the impacts of memory on mood and vice versa. Tremendous book which was instantly useful to me. In our office, we have had a hard time getting people to do their timesheets correctly. We had instituted a daily meeting where we talk about what we did yesterday and what's happening today. After adding an element where we list off our billable hours and someone records them, our accuracy has shot through the roof and staff anxiety over timecards has disappeared. As it turns out, this is a perfectly normal issue with memory, people can remember pretty well what they did yesterday - but have a really hard time with anything more than that. I thought we were being draconian, but as it turns out - from a memory perspective - this is exactly what everyone should do! (****)
  • Robert Scoble: Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
    Business is evolving from a paternalistic relationship where customers get what they are given by companies that make decisions for them to a cooperative relationship where customers and companies collaborate on products and services. Scoble and Israel present several vignettes of companies that have blogged or allowed blogging with varying levels of success. They analyze these experiences, pointing out the dos and don'ts in the rapidly developing world of business blogging. (***)
  • Banana Yoshimoto: Hardboiled and Hard Luck
    Another brilliant work of melancholy from Japan's favorite maven of morose. This small book has two novellas. The first is about a young woman dealing with the guilt she feels over her lover's death. The second is about the slow road to acceptance after losing a loved one. In the review for Amrita, I dissed her translator. This book was translated by Michael Emmrich who did a much better job. Rush out now and get depressed with Banana.... (***)
  • Charles Seife: Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes
    You were upset about being reduced to a number? Well Seife is gonna reduce you to a probability! In Decoding the Universe cryptography, physics, astronomy, biology and a cat supercollide and the resulting reaction describes how the universe works, how you think, and how everything is going to implode after an inexorable march toward oblivion - which we are about half way done with. (****)
  • Lewis Mumford: THE LEWIS MUMFORD READER
    This is a long time resident of my bookshelve I First read it in 1991. Lewis Mumford is likely the most famous of US urban planners - his quotes surface everywhere from cookbooks to philosophy texts. This is a collection of his works, some reminiscences, some urban planning, others cultural criticism. A child of the city and a witness of its changes beween 1895 to 1990 - Mumford saw a great deal of change. His writing is always elegant, inspiring and telling. (****)
  • China Mieville: Looking for Jake : Stories
    Always fun to read Mieville. These are short stories, the high point of which is a story at the end about our mirror selves asserting themselves. Short stories never have the cohesion of a novel for me, but these were very good. (***)
  • Richard K. Morgan: Market Forces
    I have read and greatly enjoyed the other three Richard Morgan books (the Takeshi series). This book has a four star rating on Amazon. I have to admit, I hated this book. I really really hated it. It felt from start to finish as if Morgan had an axe to grind ... or perhaps a closet full of axes to grind. In Market Forces, no one is happy - ever. Even when they are happy, they are unhappy. Good people are bad. Bad people are bad. People are bad. Bad bad unhappy unhappy death death. (**)
  • Steven D. Strauss: The Small Business Bible : Everything You Need To Know To Succeed In Your Small Business
    There is a massive collection of small business launch books on the market. I wanted to get something that would be a good reference. This is a fair reference and a great primer. It's not as funny as other books on the market, but it is very utilitarian. It is useful even if you've owned your own business for several years, to pick up books like this and make sure you aren't forgetting someting. (***)
  • Orhan Pamuk: Snow
    Dostoyevsky lives. This book felt like Crime and Punishment to me. As someone who minored in Russian Literature in college ... I was hoping to not come across anything like it ever again! Snow is expertly written, flows smoothly, and has characters that are tangible and real. The book is real, wry and depressing. If that's what you're in the market for - you'll love this. The characters and the setting are complex and developed. Not .. a pickmeup. (***)
  • John von Seggern: Laptop Music Power!: The Comprehensive Guide
    Excellent source of information for wanna be laptop music performers. Covers hardware and software from an international expert in digital music. See me in little tiny letters on the screen shot on page 191 and see the author wearing my Our Founder t-shirt at Wembly arena. That's worth the price of the book right there, eh? (****)
  • Richard Paul Russo: Carlucci
    The story lines of these three books were fairly nice. Russo's gritty grit within the gritty context of gritty San Francisco patroled by gritty Carlucci and his gritty police department colleagues was just a bit to gritty at times. (***)
  • Paul Hawken: Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
    Excellent backgrounder on pairing captialism with green thinking. Written a few years back - before the price of oil shot up. Interesting to see how things have evolved in the near-term (***)

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24 January 2006

Spying v. Collaborating

Tello, a new venture with some strong names from the boom behind it, purports to be able to network your network - digital or analog.  They will tell you if people are on the phone, on IM, on the ball, etc.  They also, to some as yet unknown degree, facilitate collaboration.

I'm wondering, though, do I really need to know what my network is doing at all times?

I'm going to give this a shot and see what I think.  It doesn't seem to have the meat of what I'm looking for in an app that would extend my network, though.

I also join TechCrunch in wondering if a company that is based on creating better communication - yet has no blog - really "gets it".

15:27 |

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