Review: The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America

The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America by Don Lattin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The seminal figures in early popularization of acid are all here. Author Lattin describes the social network, as it existed, that connected all of these people together. Plenty of interesting stories, but on reflection not many heartwarming or even, strangely, enlightening ones. The players struck me, in the end, as mostly sad, which is not what I expected. I figured they would be represented as learning and growing, but they seem to be regressing throughout the book. The worst of the bunch seemed to be Andrew Weil, but most all were “conniving” in some way. Nice book to see the connections of trippers and their start in the ivy halls of Harvard.

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Review: How Smart Machines Think

How Smart Machines Think by Sean Gerrish
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found “How Smart Machines Think” to cover the same ground as many articles in magazines such as Wired and Fast Business, but with more in-depth examples. In fact, after I finished the book I started reading an article by Clive Thompson in Wired (12/18) who also used some of the same examples to make some of the same points. I liked “How Smart Machines Think” for its overview of the state of affairs of AI and machine learning, and its readable style. You don’t need to be a scientist or developer to enjoy this.

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Review: ChiWalking: A Fitness Walking Program for Lifelong Health and Energy

ChiWalking: A Fitness Walking Program for Lifelong Health and Energy by Danny Dreyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having recently become a more active walker, I thought I would see if I could improve on the mechanics, with the hope of staying away from knee and ankle issues. This book purports to do that by teaching a slightly different method of walking. The motion changes to a more rapid but supposedly more efficient gait. I listened to the audio of this book, which is captured as the audio of a lecture that doesn’t follow the text of the book very closely, from what I could discern. In fact, the third CD of the set contains sections of just a metronome pulsing, intended to give the listener an idea of proper pacing. The author comes across as a friendly teacher. I found the descriptions interesting and I tried to follow along, but there are key steps regarding placement of pelvis and bend points that would be better represented by a photo or video or a live instructor. I got the idea of what the author wanted to promote, but I don’t think I replicated the motions. Or maybe I did. I may try this again in the DVD or book format to see the pictures, as based on this “introduction” using the audiobook, I believe this thought behind walking mechanics may be beneficial.

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Review: Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations

Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations by Dan Roam
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you've read Roam's early books on presentation drawing skills, you'll see in this one that he is becoming less strict in his advice on only using drawings. He repeats a lot of the earlier work here, although in a greatly shortened format - everything on drawing is covered on a few pages. And he also is becoming more open to using words and numbers, and even mentions using photos in presentations here, saying photos are worse than graphics or drawings, but they do have a place. He even provides some basic rules in using all these graphical presentation types. I really didn't learn anything major new here, although I have read Roam's earlier books so I know what he's offering. There were a few suggestions that I liked that I hadn't noticed him mentioning before. One involves drawing illustrations for your presentation and taking pictures to use in your software. Another is to use hand drawings that are around 75% completed and finishing them live during your presentation. He notes that the audience usually remembers that you've done the whole drawing live. Overall, a very simple book on the basics of presentation tied to presentation software and/or flip charts, specifically focused on the types of stories all presentations follow and how to construct these stories.

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Review: City of Illusions

City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I've read the first in the Hainish Cycle, "Rocannon's World", and I figured this would be a step up being written by a more experienced Le Guin. However, this one didn't catch my fancy as much as the first. This starts off more of a DnD type quest story, ending up more a sci-fi Traveller type story. The early part of the story seemed very familiar, the ending was different and, although repetitive, promising.

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Review: You Are the Message

You Are the Message by Roger Ailes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've had Roger Ailes book on communication on my to-read list for decades. I recall putting it on the list because I wanted to understand how Ailes worked so successfully with Ronald Reagan during his campaigns and presidency. In the abridged audiobook version of Ailes book, which I am reviewing here, there was little to no discussion of his Reagan years. Instead, you get plenty of Ailes' anecdotes about his "formative" years in mass communication and public speaking, much of that earned while producing "The Mike Douglas Show". Strangely, this was one of my favorite shows when I was in elementary school and I still have memories of watching it with my Mom when home sick or during breaks. I remember some of his old-school talk show guests, and, again strangely given Ailes work with politicians and subsequent work with Fox News, the examples he uses are those guests, including Pearle Bailey for prepping for an appearance and Jack Benny for playing a role when in the public eye. Ailes also uses himself for examples, including one about interviewing Charles Manson illustrating taking charge of a situation. There is the expected public speaking advice, but I appreciated his showbiz examples.

The abridged audio was less than an hour. I am usually disheartened by abridgments, as cuts in abridging really can destroy plots. In this book of public speaking anecdotes and advice, you can't really tell what is missing, so this is a good book to abridge. Also, this abridgment was done with the concepts of the book in mind, especially to put your best face forward when speaking to the public. Here, this is accomplished through professional narration, multiple speakers including a number of interviewees, and strong production values that made this sound like a heavily funded radio program. You might also say this sounds like it was the soundtrack of a TV production, aimed at being concise yet friendly. For the time investment, I found this quite interesting.

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Review: Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn from All I Observe

Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn from All I Observe by Chad Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Given the title, I expected stories about leadership that could be replicated in my own business. That title, though, is misleading. Instead of repeatable lessons, this is more a history of the author's time as a leader of the Cherokee Nation. Much of the book consists of magazine or newspaper articles penned by the author, mostly about nation politics or stories about interesting nation members. To me, they read like Paul Harvey stories, homespun by design. The author's leadership stories revolve around his attempt at rebuilding Cherokee character by eliminating an entitlement mentality and dealing with politics, which he does with these stories. The final section was a series of annual "state of the nation" speeches given by the author. I found very little of this book useful for leadership in my life, but I could see some might find this useful.

I was also disappointed that many of the stories are repeated. The author used magazine articles written over more than a decade for much of this book, and many articles repeated stories about people the author met, his parents, and his history. You read about a Cherokee high school student that died of cancer four times, give or take, throughout the book. While repeating basic stories might be the way to get elected or to sway beliefs, it doesn't make for compelling reading.

As a leadership book, I found this underwhelming. But this works as a history of the Cherokee Nation under Chad Smith, albeit with the repetition issues I described above. Smith covers the range of happenings in the nation, from the petty battles of tribal politics to the reflection on lost heros to the impact of the nation running businesses.

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