Adam

A memoir of mother going through a breakup and talking to a therapist about it? Yeah, like I'll enjoy that. But... it was a great story! It kept me entertained, drawn to the characters and wanting to learn more. Lori writes about her past and future through the lens of person in therapy, while also exploring different timelines with different patients. This allows the story to jump around - at one time talking about death, another addiction, another grief and another loss. I don't have much experience with therapy, but this look into that world was both informative and made me want to learn more about therapy in general.

Walking around B&N I noticed this book and thought I'd check it out from the library and give it a read. The “12 Rules” have a much different tone than books I usually read which got me interested. Things like “Don't bother kids when they're skateboarding” and “pet a cat when you encounter one”. What I didn't realize was just how religious it was! In every chapter somehow the story is turned back to The Bible. It was during this book that I realized that using Libby I could skip chapters. That worked great for this book where skipping would just fast forward to the next rule.

After watching Browns Ted talks and hearing a number of recommendations, I knew I had to check out her books. Browns openness sets a tone for the reader, staying vulnerable and staying curious on how she can adapt. The core concept of the book - that embracing vulnerability is a path towards many things is best conveyed by one line from the book:

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

Presenting has always been something I've struggled with. If I'm well prepared and know my stuff, then I'm not at all scared - but when I don't invest the time it shows. Talk like Ted dives deeper into the core of the presentation - focusing on adding pathos, logos and ethos to your talks. I like the idea of sharing memorable experiences and novel statistics as a way to stand out as well.

It's fun listening to stories told in unique ways. The Illuninae files (this being the 2nd in the series) fits that sweet spot for me. This one is told through a series of audio recordings surrounding a trial of something that happened in the first book. The narrator changes as the audio files change - sometimes reading instant messages, AI thought processes, overhearing conversations written letters and even video analysis reports. I enjoyed the direction of this one and am looking forward to the 3rd in the series next.

I've never considered myself to have a good memory. I'll remember places, directions and programming concepts, but can't remember a phone number of the name of someone I just met. This look into the competitive memory circuit around the world helped me put an image in my head of not just what's possible, but how people actually go about remembering 10,000 digits of pi. While I don't plan to exercise this muscle to the extent of people in this book, I do want to try using some of these concepts to put a few names to faces.

This short story packs a bunch of original ideas into a familiar narrative - girl going off to school. The school, however, is on another planet and consists of diverse beings, and the route there is interrupted in ways I didn't see coming. I love the idea that this short story sets up a longer series - one I plan to check out.

In NPR's top 100 Sci-fi/Fantasy list this was one I'd been wanting to read for a while. The ideas presented in it were inventive and elaborate, but my difficulty in following them kept me from fully enjoying the story. After reading the wiki synopsis of the book upon completion, I realized how many small things I'd missed. Vinge doesn't talk down to his readers – he lets them discover things for themselves – but unfortunately I didn't read between the lines on a number of concepts, leaving me confused for far too long. I have a feeling I would enjoy this one a lot more on a second reading.

With the TV series for this book coming out later this year, and this being one of Marilyns favorites, I knew I had to read it before that. Although the characters were intresting, for a story about someone who lived through World War II, and time travels 200 years back to Scotland, this was surprisingly boring. The story is interesting, but I wanted more sci-fi/fantasy/time travel and less romance and political intrigue.

After the ambiguous ending to the TV show for The Walking Dead, I couldn't help but want to see what would happen next. Sure, the TV show is different from the comic, I get that, but still there's so many similarities that I immediately started reading through the comic to see what might happen.

The Compendium #1 covers the first 48 issues of the comic - up until after the prison arc. Everything happens so fast compared to the show, that it took some getting used to. This was the first comic I've read, but I can say it was addictive from the start. Even re-reading parts I'd watched in the show and determining the small differences between the comic was a lot of fun.

I enjoy reading takes on minimalism from different countries. This Swedish take is one of the closest to my own personal style than any that I've seen (even more than Konmari). It's not as catchy, but the concept is clear: life a life with an amount of stuff that you won't burden those who come after you with the weight of your stuff.

Having gone through my moms things when she passed (and she went through her moms things when she passed), this concept is quite prominent for me. For those who have never had the misfortunate of sorting through a loved ones life, it's a heavy burden to bear. Finding time to slim down pays dividends now for the living, and later for those still alive.

How do you validate your product and business ideas? If it's by making them, then you'll probably not going to be able to get much feedback. This book focuses on that question, tackling it with a variety of suggestions. From MVPs to user interviews, this was a great reminder of how to inspire innovation and track it in companies that have learned how to reproduce an entrepreneurial spirit.

Compendium 2 covers issues 49-96 of the comic. This is almost all Alexandia time. Issue #100 of the comic is where Season 6 of the comic ends, leaving this as the events leading up Neegan. Of the story arcs and compendiums, I think the TV show did this era a bit more justice with a number of side stories that weren't in the comics but were even more interesting. Still a page turner that kept me up at night saying “just one more issue”.

When I grew up, my parents would occasionally go to Gurdjieff group meetings. We weren't a religious family, so that was the closest we came. Although I was hanging out with the kids rather than participating, I always wondered what was going on and meant to read about the concept somewhere down the line. I decided to finally check it out, and this seemed like an approachable guide.

To put the entire idea into a few sentences it would be something like this: We have control over our emotions and being. The Wikipedia article says it more abstractly: ‘Gurdjieff claimed that people cannot perceive reality in their current states because they do not possess consciousness but rather live in a state of a hypnotic “waking sleep.”'. It reminded me a lot of the This is Water essay which focuses on a similar idea. This very introductory guide surely only touches on the basics, but many of the principles I could see influencing my parents, and my development growing up as well.

Although the book is a good introduction to The Work, it only touches skin deep.

All creators want to see their finished products get broad attention. This book investigates that illusive point where things fall in line, momentum begins to build and success is inevitable. Like with other Gladwell books, The Tipping Point is peppered with stories that seem unrelated at first, but are always brought back to the central theme (something I wish I was as good at). It's an entertaining book, and an informative book, but I felt it was missing a way to FIND a tipping point.

This is the finale in the Illuminae series. I enjoyed the series, with the audiobook being more like a full movie with different voice actors playing different parts. The format of this series stands out as memorable too - composed of “files” that are each a piece of evidence in a trial. This allows for jumping around between topics while still following a central thread.

What I liked about this series is that it's sci fi in space, but it still focuses on the people throughout. It never feels sci-fi first at the cost of the humans (and AI) inhabiting the world(s).

“Head on” is the 2nd book in Scalzi's Lock In series. The series features a world where about 1% of the population have Hadens syndrome, a disease which “locks people in” to their body, although their minds still work. People with Haydens have a oasis/mmorpg-style world to interest with others virtually, or can take control of a robot, called threeps, where they can interact in the real world.

This second book in the series builds on the world in a fun way. Similar to the first book, it plays more like a detective novel in a science fiction world. I mentioned it reminds me of Asimov's “Caves of Steel”, which is true for this one as well.

The story follows the investigation into a death during a football-like game played by threeps (the robots). I'd put Head on fully in the “fun” category of books. It was immensely entertaining, great at world building and overall just a great ride. As a bonus, the audiobook is read by Wil Wheaton!

Probably my favorite science fiction book (and series) I've ever read. Hyperion is written in a style similar to The Canterbury Tales, in which a series of stories are told by the main characters. Each story is a gem in itself, but alude to the larger storyline. The scope of the story is ambitious - spanning time, planets religion and love.

Switching into the PM role myself lately, I was looking for some guidance on what that involves. The most useful parts of this were the early descriptions elaborating on the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager, as well as some of the descriptions of what PMs do at various tech companies. After that though, I found less value in this one. Going into how to write cover letters and resumes wasn't as useful.

After the amazingness of books 1-2 it was going to be hard to match up. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and did gasp at many times at what was going on. At first I wanted more of certain characters, then I started to realize Sanderson was concentrating on the characters with the most areas of growth - which made for a more interesting story.

Early on, Ronson mentions “If you worry you might be a psychopath then you aren't one” to help keep us focused. The exploration into the world of psychopaths and mental health institutes takes an interesting path – going through Scientology and the other fields to find memorable takeaways on the current state of phycology and our still limited understanding of the mind.

After winning this years Arthur C. Clarke Award, and constantly seeing it on Goodreads, I knew I wanted to give this one a shot. I appreciate the storytelling and literary side of this book more than the characters and the story. The narrative jumps time, focusing on a world before a pandemic, then again years into the future. The focus of the story is around a traveling symphony making their way around the Great Lakes. I liked the characters and the post apocalyptic world, and especially how the characters were connected, but was distracted by the Station Eleven storyline – a comic book created by one of the characters – which didn't add much to the story for me beyond it's symbolism.

If you ever listened to the Radiolab episode about high frequency trading, you should give this a listen. Lewis goes into much more detail on the same subject, including the concept of “dark pools” which I was unaware of. It's crazy how differeny things are from when I learned about the stock market in high school, but this one does an entertaining job of explaining why.