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.