Book Reviews

This book discusses techniques for networking in the business world. I expected it to be filled with sweeping generalizations and business platitudes, and while there was a bit of that, I found it to be quite tactical. It discusses things like staying in touch, connecting people to each other, and being a source for good content. Nearly all the material is brought from personal experiences of the author, which made it read almost like a autobiography.

In this book, Seth Godin looks at how the current education system has failed to keep up with the transformational changes in our world. In the modern economy, any piece of information can be accessed in two clicks. Outsourcing is an easy and effective way of getting work done. Large, loosely organized networks of people are doing better work for free than armies of highly paid employees of structured businesses. With this in mind, Seth writes a series of insights and suggestions on how our education should be adapted to better prepare the youth of America for a very different job market than the one their grandparents went into.

This is an excellent, data-driven book on what small things separate the great companies (consistent, high-growth, market leaders) from their mediocre competitors. Many of the concepts -- getting the right people on the bus, pushing the flywheel, level 5 leaders, etc. -- easily translate towards success in any team effort, whether it be in business or not. A lot of the winning formulas fly in the face of transitional management behavior, but at the same time, they simply make sense. With the conclusions clearly backed by evidence and concepts that are easy to grasp, the result is a solid and enjoyable book.

Everybody has something to say but saying it does nothing if your audience doesn't remember it. Made to Stick revolves around what makes an idea "sticky," or unforgettable. In this book, the authors spend time looking at the the stickiest messages: urban legends, radio jingles, unforgettable advertisements and more. Their question is, what separates the glut of forgettable messages with those that you can't get out of your head? Through their research, they find a set of principles that can make your message stick with the audience, whether you are a marketer, educator, manager, or parent. This book is stellar and using its principles to make my own messages sticky has been invaluable in my life.

Drive is an excellent book about how we can motivate ourselves and others. Through a series of examples and studies, Pink finds three high-level factors that are exceptionally motivational: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Is money a motivator? Yes, but not in the way you might think. Much like Malcolm Gladwell's books, this book uses interesting stories to explain key concepts. It also has a great workbook at the end which shows businessmen, teachers, and parents how to apply the principles in their lives. Watch this for a sample of the content.

This is a short, casual book that questions the assumptions of the majority of people pursuing a career. It uses a fictional story to make an argument for going against the conventional money-earning process and building your own career as an entrepreneur. I thought it was decent. You can download it legally for free here (though I'd recommned using a disposible email address if you don't want spam).

This book is a basically a parable -- a fictional story that teaches a message about the many ways that dysfunctional teams fail to succeed. The excellent thing about this book is that it hits the nail directly on the head. Everybody has been on a dysfunctional team before, so as you read, you clearly recognize the issues as they come up. The book adds value because as an observer, the reader can step outside of the situation and see how the issues can be corrected. It's the best book on teamwork I've ever read.

This book is pure sillyness, printed and bound. The author discusses how our brains get stuck in a rut, and how the only way to get out is to break free of the norms of thought. The book teaches the principle by explaining the concept, then sharing puzzles, ideas, exercies, jokes, and the most fantastic, shamelessly nonsensical illustrations you've ever seen. It really is a fun read. For a sneak preview of the content, check out this post I wrote a while back.

This book is the ultimate classic and if you read it, you'll instantly know why. The advice makes a whole lot of sense. There are no shortcuts to building strong relationships. It boils down to having a good attitude, seeing the good in people, smiling, remembering others, learning names, actually listening, and in general, looking outside yourself. The tactical way that these concepts are taught makes this book THE go to reference for just being a better person. Highly recommended.

A short and famous book on entrepreneurship. The value in this book is that it effectively cuts to the heart of some subtle challenges in entrepreneurship: the myth of entrepreneurial grandeur, balancing of roles in a business, optimizing your workflows, and measuring what matters. While there are some gold nuggets of wisdom in the book, I found the narrative hopelessly cheesy, with more than a couple awkward moments. Still worth a read but not the "bible" of entrepreneurship I was expecting.

This book takes a deep dive into the world of engineers who use nature as their inspiration for groundbreaking design. Even today, most manmade designs and materials are inferior to things that commonly occur in nature: spiders silk, chloroplasts, beetles wings, lotus leaves, and many others. The ability to replicate these natural designs could solve the world's energy problems, build optical computers, grow organs, create materials that heal themselves or surfaces that never get dirty, and launch satellites at a fraction of the current cost.  The author goes straight to the scientists taking on these challenges, resulting in an substantial book that is both fascinating and rich in detail.

Dave Ramsey is the king of no-nonsense tough-love financial advice and in this book he zeros in on people who are in debt. The book charts a definitive course on getting out of debt… if you are man enough to take on the challenge. If this were a book on losing weight, it would be about eating less and exercising more and it would actually work. This ought to be required reading for anybody who takes out a loan of any sort.

If you are the kind of person who finds math interesting and likes the experience of having your mind expanded and warped (I suspect there aren't too many of us out there), then you'll love this book. It's a short, playful, story of a world where the inhabitants are all shapes living on a two dimensional plane. Throughout the story, the 3D reader begins to effectively understand the perspective of a 2D shape. The experience of hopping through worlds of various dimensions actually teaches mathmatic principles leading up to extrapolating out concepts of higher dimensional planes. It's incredible that such concepts can be taught in such a short and simple book. Brilliant. By the way, the book is not a romance in the modern sense and it is in the public domain. Read it online here or download it for free here.