Good to Great - Jim Collins

 

This is a must-read for most business schools and business associates. The classic how-to manual on how to create a great organization. Written more as a walk-through of findings at the tail end of a five year study, unlike other business briefs, I was too late in reading this one.

This book essentially the results of a backward looking study that does an in depth analysis of a very select group of 11 companies that meet a very tough criteria, such as beating the market three times over for over a period of 15 years. The author and his research team break down all the characteristics of how these cross-industry companies differ from their counterparts within their industries that were merely 'good'. 

This book is a must read and a defacto read for many business leaders and business schools. Even if you don't agree with all the findings, there are several good topics of discussion that generate food for thought for any field you may be in.

The Big Short - Michael Lewis

 The Big short is another story based on how we hit the period during the great recession in 2008-2009 and the system failures that caused that effort. Michael Lewis is well known financial industry turned outsider and author that exposes the gaps on wall street.

I went into this book thinking I would be able to predict whats going on happen, given that I actually lived during this time as a business student and I've also already seen the movie, but I was wrong. The story starts somewhere before the turn of the century right before the tech bubble got formed and how certain systemic cracks in the financial system were starting to take shape. I enjoyed the fact the author did not take the route of humanizing the story from one persons perspective and focus on just the emotional aspect of the credit crisis. Instead he establishes three consecutive, seemingly disconnected, stories of teams originating from completely different industries but the one thing they had in common was that they saw the crisis coming almost half a decade before it actually happened. 

The rest of the story goes into a lot of facts and details of how the financial system is structured for trading and insuring Bonds, also how predisposed we are as a market to be optimistic and neglect all the signs of a catastrophic failure. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking to get a good glimpse of what actually happened during the great recession, the reasons that caused it and also get a few laughs from the peculiar subjects he chooses to tell the story with.

 

Deaths end - Cixin Liu

  

The final chapter of the Remembrance of earth's past trilogy, which started with the Three Body problem is finally closed in this book. Ratings and reviews aside, I had to pick it up to get closure on the story line.

This book is a direct continuation of the The Dark Forest, which was an excellent follow up to the Three Body problem. There was certainly something satisfying in picking up the story where the last one left off but there are even some overlaps with the previous story to build up to the ending. The author builds up the new characters in this story line as well, very well I might add and the story starts to get a little, I want to say, confusing? towards the end. Granted this is a science fiction novel but lets just say that a lot more liberty's were taken in the writing of this one than the previous two.

Overall I wouldn't rate this as high as the first two books in the series, and primarily due to the sheer length and unsatisfying ending but very interesting read that explores new concepts in science fiction that, even after reading the previous two books, I did not see coming.

Delivering Happiness - Tony Hsieh

 

I had this book lying on the bookshelf for quite some time and for some reason had not picked it up to get started. This is the story of Zappos but it goes further back than Zappos. The author and CEO of Zappos wrote this as a business biography of Zappos but starts off much sooner speaking about his roots and his previous endeavors.  

The whole book is written in first person and is written by the author himself, without the use of a Ghostwriter. Its almost like reading a really long email from a tech CEO and the trials of being an entrepreneur in silicon valley starting in the late nineties. Its probably his own personality coming out but he takes a hilarious approach to telling the story but also offers some very valuable guidance in how to develop a company and root the core values in something that he is passionate about.

This is a very quick read, once I picked it up I was able to finish this off in a day and walked away very satisfied. I'd recommend this to anyone looking to get a view into the mind of a tech mogul while learning some valuable lessons about finding happiness. 

Asimov is a legendary writer and nothing more iconic than the foundation series to hold down the fort with all the classic science fiction novels. Foundation has inspired several science fiction movies and books that followed.


Asimov has an uncanny talent of stitching. He can create a story direct more direct than other authors and create enough (almost) short stories to stitch them together. Where other authors paint the picture piece by piece and the story develops into a larger piece, Asimov is more direct in painting the larger picture first and then slowly filling in the narrative pieces. Foundation is a great example of that kind of writing. The story starts off with a arc that you know is going to last a thousand years with a premise anchored in believable science fiction.

Foundation is a great story of human beings inhabiting other parts of the galaxy where we have conquered the stars but somehow still kept our humanity. This book helps paint the picture of what political boundaries may look like in the future if that future is ever realized. This is a must read for any sciences fiction fan.

Inside the Tornado- Jefferey Moore

Jeff Moore is a classic when pit comes to marketing and marketing strategies in the technology sector. His book ‘Crossings the Chasm’ has been established as one the best marketing books of all time so I got this book as an extension to that.

The book is focused again on marketing strategies and again on the technological sector but particular on a layer stage of the technology adoptions life cycle. The author walks us through all the stages as a refresher and then the main focus area is on the stage when a company has successful crossed the chasm and is going through a phase of hyper growth or “Tornado”. The book helps to provide a framework for all hyper grown companies and allows you to identify which part of that you may fit in.

I walked away from this book with clear strategies (given the right parameters) and better grasp on what I want to achieve. The areas on marketing positioning, partner strategies and competitiveness analysis are participating helpful. Unfortunately all the examples are riddled with extremely dated corps and activities, all from the 80s and 90s. While it’s interested to hear about real life examples from a historically context, it’s not very helpful to go through all the tales of microprocessors and Mainframes when you have to keep converting them yourself to fit the modern frame.

Educated - Tara Westover

This book has been on top of several charts and many celebrity reading lists (ones that I respect) including my wife who highly recommended it, so I picked it up for some light reading. And what an engaging read.



The story is written in the first person by the author as a biographical depiction of her super conservative upbringing in a Mormon family in Idaho. Right from the start the book kind of makes you think ahead of whats going to happen and its never easy to guess. This is not a coming of age story but a study of growth and commitment that on has towards their family. The author does a great job of writing in the first person to the point where it almost feels like you're reading her journal (to herself)

The value of education is taken for granted my times but this book helped me draw a stark contrast between getting an education in lieu of not. I highly recommend this book to any avid reader and then encourage them to go out and discuss this even more.

Rama II - Arthur C Clark and Gentry Lee

Arthur C Clarke is a renowned sciences fiction writers and I absolutely loved reading the first book, Rendezvous with Rama which dives into the idea of First contact with the human race. This was the next logical choice for a good sequel and even though the reviews weren't great , I picked this one up for an entertaining read. One thing to note though, and the book kicks off with this, is that the Author decided to bring one a co-author of this book Gentry Lee which I'm sure seemed like a good idea at the time.


The story picks up about 70 years after the first Rama event and mankind has since developed some marginal new technologies and experience from the first event. The second sighting and excavation is what the this book dives into but fails miserably at exciting the reader about the physics and the science, like the first one. This book infact has completely decided to skip everything good about the last book and take all of it under assumption that the reader has read the previous book and should know all of it already. Install this book is completely focused on the human social element and drama.

This book decided to dive into each characters backgrounds and build up to a story that could be equated to a soap opera episode in space. I don't recommend this book to anyone and especially recommend it against any Arthur C Clarke fans.

Murder of Roger ackroyd -Agatha Christie

After several hundred recommendations from my wife, I found this book lying on my night stand and suddenly found myself in the mood of diving back into a good Poirot story. I went into it expecting exactly what I would from a good Agatha Christie story. Some murder, a shady cast of characters, a couple of interesting twists and of course the master of ceremonies himself, Hercule Poirot.


The story takes place in the later stage of Poirot's life when he finds himself retired in a small english town and he's a new comer to the neighborhood of lots of curious cats. There is most certainly a murder a fairly large cast of characters, an interesting twist in the murder and detailed backgrounds for each. Since his holmsian partner, Hastings, has long moved on the narration is carried on by a similar personality from the new town. The book is a quick read with a lot of expected interviews and personality conflicts but what blew me away was the ending. No matter how much i tried to analyze this one, I couldn't guess the end. Yes this is one of those stories that will make you want to go back and read it all over again for it to make sense.

I found this book to be a quick and easy read with a really satisfying ending and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good classic murder mystery, because Poirot does not disappoint. 

First man - James R Hansen

At the fifty year anniversary of the moon landing, this movie and book was part of a wave of pop culture that was collectively diving back in time to analyze the why, how and who of the US Apollo space program. I picked up this book to engage in that memorabilia, with no expectations or reviews.


The books reads like in chronological order, like any other biography with plenty of facts, article citations, quotes and interviews. The writing style is nothing out of the ordinary but what is extraordinary is the life of Neil Armstrong. We all know how it ends but somehow the book is still very engaging from the early stages of young adulthood until his death. Clearly the most engaging and descriptive parts of the book are centered on the moon landing, and it really makes you feel like you are there.

As far as biographies go, this is one of the most grounded ones, and is very engaging to anyone who enjoys the fanfare of the moon landing anyone who enjoys a good rags-to-glory story.

Rest of the Robots - Isaac Asimov

A collection of Asimov stories with narrator previews is why I picked up this book. Asimov hand picks a very wide variety of stories from different publications to put together in this book.



The short stories in this book are all quick reads and related to the iRobot series of novels. The only common thread is that they all involve the US Robotics organization and enforce the 3 laws of robotics but the commonality stops there. The stories are fun quick reads and delve into a subjects such as interplanetary exploration, human psyche vs robot psyche and even robotics Law.

This a fun quick read with several short stories that don't fail to deliver a different perspective on the Dystopian future presented by Asimov.

The Forgotten Man - Amity Shales

The Great depression. Always been an interesting subject and the title of this book was very appealing to me. The whole idea of connecting Wall Street to Main Street and clearing the blurred lines between Macro and Micro is why I picked up this book as a read.


This book delivers what it says but not unfortunately not what I thought it would. This isn't a rosy narrative or a thorny narrative or any narrative at all. There's a basic outline that chronological but the characters are factual and the timeline stringent. I found it very hard to keep up with the story as the characters don't connect and the author drops of historical characters every other paragraph and just expects you to know who the person was in the 1920s.

There is an attempt to try and make this a simpler read but I warn anyone against the giant attention span and time to read this. You would need to be able to keep a notepad aside and spend large chunks of time trying to get through this and undoubtedly come out an expert on the other side but you'll be doin a lot of the analysis yourself, similar to reading a History book.

Churchill's ministry of ungentlemanly warfare - Giles Milton

The title of this book and the synopsis caught my eye and it doesn't disappoint. Based on the WW2 era this book dives into the background and execution of the idea that England's weakness in time's of war is that they engaged in 'Gentlemanly' warfare and never hit 'below the belt'.




Winston Churchill is not the center of this book but he certainly an important peripheral character that is the shadow enforcer for the entire premise of this book. That if England has any chance against nazi Germany, they would have to resort to ungentlemanly tactics. The answer was a scrappy team of mathematicians, engineers and scientists who changed the direction of the war. After the initial setup the book dives deeply into a few sabotage missions that this team performed which proved to be a real thorn in Hitlers side.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about the underdog, world war 2 or Churchill. This book is written with several comedic undertones with all the true to life characters and many times makes you feel like you were there. 

The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu

This is the second book in the trilogy of Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem and a must read if you've read the first one and really pointless to pick up if you haven't.



This book picks up where the first one leaves off with a certain overlap in characters but that's not the anchor for the story. Whereas the first story just touches on the topic, this book has a much larger focus on the existential crisis of humans where we there's a inevitable and looming threat to our existence. There's a lot of great scientific breakthroughs and evolutionary concepts that this book gets into that is very different and fun to get into but then the book also touches on some very dark subjects that do get very disturbing.

I recommend this book to anybody who decides to get into the trilogy as this book is a great 2nd part and even though it starts off slowly it gets into some very interesting mix of futuristic action scenes and disturbing evolution of humanity in a crowded universe.

Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu

A Hugo award winner and a great sciences fiction book by a Chinese author. Enough of a tagline to pick up this book and then i saw this book recommended by Barack  Obama so I picked it up for a good read and very glad I did. Its very hard to describe what this book is about but I'll try anyway.


This was a very refreshing type of science fiction novel that deals with a not-so-distant future where we may make some scientific breakthroughs that may lead to first contact. I was sure that's what this book may be about but it very quickly evolves into a very realistic human element of how we would adopt ourselves to react to such a breakthrough. This also involves technological leaps that we make as a race with a new form of space race while still being, well Human.

Another different perspective was that it was written with the assumption that China is one of the leading superpowers and doesn't put USA in the middle of the story. I would highly recommend this book for sciences fiction fans and even to some who aren't since it deals with the existentialist crisis and a lot of philosophical questions that we may need to deal with as a race.

Armada - Ernest Cline

Written by the same author as 'Ready Player One' this seemed like a very interesting story. Even though the initial reviews were mediocre, I still decided to give it a chance.




Once the plot and main characters have been established you start to see a some similarities in the writing style between this book and 'Ready Player one', but this book does not compare. It's like a high-school dramedy that is extremely predictable and instead of interesting plot twists, the story only gets worse. The characters in the book also get progressively cheeky and the dialogue worse.

I believe the mediocre reviews for this one, and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone really. One might say its a good read if you want to just pass the time but I wouldn't even say that.

Artemis - Andy Weir

A lunar story from the author of the Martian, great premise and a great read. This author goes to great lengths to get the science and physics as accurate as possible and thats what I loved about the Martian, so I heard about this new book I just had to pick it up.





Artemis is a great Heist story based on the first Lunar colony on the moon. That by itself is interesting enough but the story is narrated by a young delinquent female with a sassy attitude that gives the readers a great lowdown of what it would be like to live on the moon. For eg: due to the low gravity, their staircases have steps that are one meter high but they still use the regular type steps for the tourist zones to provide some kind of comfort. And lots of factual tidbids that would actually make sense if we were to colonize the moon.

This was a page turner for me and i'd highly recommend this to someone who's looking for a really fun read and open to understanding the social, political and physical realities of colonizing the moon in about 200 years.

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C Clark

I picked up this book on a Sc-Fi recommendation and with the success of 2001 Space Odyssey, it seemed like a good bet. The author touches on the topic of First contact with the human race, which isn't a new concept but the writing style is where this one takes the cake.



 I expected this to be a predictable first contact story with some twists and turns but its not. Theres a great amount of detail around a cylindrical object thats approaching the solar system thats soon determined to be artificial. Then the author takes you on a ride through the investigation in great detail and true laws of physics in place that make you rethink your own world and assumptions.

I loved reading this book and it does tend to get slow at times due to the exorbitant amount of details but still a fun read.

Unleashing the Innovators - Jim Stengel

I picked up this book because I saw some parallels with my professional life and I thought it might help and it does. The author dives into the topic of high large corporations can get in their own way by adding red tape and still be able to move at the pace of a small startup.


Its no secret that large corporations have policies and bureaucracies to protect themselves and perform better but something gets lost in terms of innovation due to the time it takes to react. Conversely a 5 people startup company can pivot into a new market, process, product in a fraction of the time that a large corporation can.  This book dives into the concept of marrying the two. This isn't a new concept and a lot of corporations leverage innovation by forming innovation hubs and acquiring startups but mostly this book focuses on partnerships.

A lot of recommendations and pitfalls regarding forming good partnerships was helpful to me to understand, and its written in plain English with plenty of real world examples from tech companies that you might recognize, not to mention that also keeps it very interesting. I'd recommend this to anyone in the corporate world working in partnerships to get guidance on ideas and pitfalls, no matter the size of your org.

Go Like Hell - A.J.Baime

This is one of those pieces of non fiction that feels like a story, and it really is. The author has taken just the right amount of quotes and details from real events to stick together this story of the war between Ford and Ferrari.

The war between these auto giants stems from the wake of WW2 and roots that are planted well before WW1. True stories of how two completely different corporate cultures from two sides of the Atlantic, throw everything at their disposal into one race for the sake of glory.

This book also helps highlight how auto races equate into real dollars for manufacturers. The individual stories of the development of each Ford and Ferrari like they are real people also adds a lot of character. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the roots of auto racing and the larger-than-life moguls (Henry Ford II & Enzo Ferrari) that lit a spark to a flame that burned for generations.

Powerful - Patty McCord

This book is written by an ex COO of Netflix. That by itself was interesting enough to hear about the internal workings of one of the cornerstone Tech companies of my generation.

Once we get into the meat of it, Patty is a great story teller and gets her message across very clearly. No wonder she does so many speaking events. She also draws a lot of parallels to her experience at Netflix with real stories and that's also very interesting.

At the end of the day this is a management book with a focus on HR and I'd recommend this to anyone in a management position because you'll surely walk away with some real world ideas to explore in a really really quick read.

Atlas shrugged - Ayn Rand

This Book is told by many to be the best work of fiction in our generation and it starts off great. Ayn Rand is of Russian descent and writes about the benefits of capitalism in this highly sensationalized piece of fiction with amazing wordplay, metaphors and writing style. 

There's just enough suspense in the beginning to hold my interest but after that, it just gets into a spiral of long rants that are drilling in the same point again and again, with seemed like really bad transitions.

This book is unnecessarily long and could have been written in less than half the length, no joke, there's a speech that's 50 pages long. At the end this book seems more of a propaganda piece wrapped around with an over-the-top story that seems to put out the idea of a populist Apocalypse where capitalists are heroes.

Life of Tao - Wesley Chu

A new kind of extra terrestrial story, a Sci-Fi with humor and a twist. Not the normal alien visitor story. Even had the right amount of story development mixed in but not too much depth, which makes this a quick release read.

Seems like they've definitely left it open for the sequel as well. So I'm going to hold on to my recommendations on this one until I've gotten through the sequel but so far the story is entertaining.

Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

I've had several people tell me about this book and when I'm glad I finally picked it up.  This book makes you want to rethink life. It makes you rethink concepts, rethink perspectives and rethink context.

Like the occasional cosmic relevance you need to gain perspective, this book doesn't fail to deliver.  Centered around the story of a Shepard boy and yet able to relate with almost anyone in any walk of life. Highly recommend this philosophical read that isn't intimidating, only humiliating.

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows

The final book is exactly what you'd expect from the Rowling series and a classic ending that youd expect but the journey is great. This book is darkest of the series and has the most enticing plot of the series that keeps you engaged all the way to the end.

Highly recommend this to anyone especially if you've read the rest of the series, since this one ties a neat bow to the story of Harry Potter.

The circle - Dave Eggers

I like to think that this book is a commentary, even a satire, but I fear that will be giving it too much attention.

Due to the involved nature of the subject, social media and the extrapolated affects it may have on our society, this book touches on topics that could be considered by anyone today as a possible future. But the sensationalism so far stretched, that this piece of fiction isn't entertaining. The characters are developed but they're exactly what you'd expect and the the storyline goes places you wouldn't expect, I suspect to keep it interesting, and its completely disconnected.

I would not recommend this book to anyone really even though Tom Hanks was cast in the movie, and that's saying a lot.

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Ready Player one is one of the most interesting and fun SciFi novels I have read since Angels and Demons. This book is set in a fictional world where a larger version of the Matrix is an acceptable alternate reality for its citizens.

This book will keep you interested right from the beginning until the big bang ending, and you'll keep cheering for the underdog protagonasist to defeat the bad-guys in the fictional world and come out victorious as the greatest 'Game-player' in both the real and virtual worlds.


This is a great read for sci fi fans and people who enjoy treasure hunts, video games and 80's themes. Somehow the author has been able to successfully combine all those elements to make an awesome read. I wouldn't be surprised if this is made into a movie for the masses.

Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

This is a great work by Oscar Wilde, his artistic, angular yet witty writing will keep you interested just by itself. The story of Dorian gray and his painting is also very captivating, although it tends to drag on a little bit towards the middle, it picks up very well towards the end.

This book is funny, easy to read and very witty. Oscar Wilde, does an amazing job of keeping the readers chuckling throughout his greatest novel.

Echo Park - Michael Connelly

Like many Michael Connelly books this one is based on a murder mystery in LA. A popcorn suspense novel with a semi-interesting and semi-predictable plot. The protagonist Harry Bosh doesn't do anything special in this book.

This book is the literary equivalent to the third matrix movie. Nothing great but just interesting enough to keep you occupied for a little while, especially since it's a pretty fast read.

Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan

The black lab on the cover is what caught my attention. The story of a widow and this orphaned dog who find companionship with each other in the autumn of their lives. Mildly depressing as you'd expect but pretty realistic with the level of emotions involved.

The dissappointment with this book was the lack of focus on the dog and his stories. This is book is more inclined towards female readers, which is clearly apparent in some chapters where every alternate paragraph is an explanation of the "feelings" in the paragraph preceding it. Hence there's a lot of "feelings" about the dog and how he makes them feel but no crazy dog stories.

I will probably never read this again but would recommend this to women or somebody going through a hard time and might want a glimpse on how to cope.