Review: Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by David L. Van Rooy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to Trajectory and found the book felt very familiar. To the good, the advice I had heard before and I already believed it to be true. To the not-so-good, because of the familiar advice and the examples the author used, this felt like a decades-old career self-help book. I listened to the audiobook, so I was not always “in the moment” as the book played, but early on I noticed examples and stories that I would consider typical “guy” themes – professional men’s sports analogies, examples of the military, and the like. I tried to notice the topics of examples and analogies point forward, and the ones I did recall were about men’s careers. I certainly could have missed a number of other examples while I was driving, but from what I recall I was left with a belief that the book catered to men and men’s careers. By itself this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I see women reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon didn’t call this out. But this is what made the book feel like something out of the 70s or 80s to me. For career advice, certainly not bad, and I thought well organized and sized right for the topics and advice given. But not very unique.

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Review: If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating by Alan Alda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In this book on science communications, Alan Alda tells a story of how he noticed that he was becoming more empathetic with people when he first tried to name their emotional state to himself, silently, while interacting with them. He mentions this to a researcher, who runs with the idea and creates a study. Alda tells of the study, his participation in it, and the results, which were positive, but were also extended by the researcher beyond Alda’s original intent. Then Alda does a funny thing, he relates how others have recommended “his way” of becoming more empathetic. To me, Alda is being a bit self-centered. But you can get away with that if you are entertaining. And in this book, Alda is. Taking a cue from his research, he keeps the topics covered to a small number. At first, he relates communication with improv acting, and his stories about this, including relating interviews with scientists, discussing research, and dropping personal stories, many related to his hosting of the Scientific America TV series, that entertain while building Alda’s science-cred. (Or at least his pop-sci-cred.) A major enabler of improved communications with improv is empathy with your audience, so Alda spends most of the rest of the book talking about how to increase your empathy. The last third hit on a number of topics, including the basics of storytelling. It doesn’t feel like a self-help book, but in the end it is, with plenty of interesting digressions. And if you liked Alda in Scientific American Frontiers, you’ll like this book. He uses the same kind of story introduction and flow that he used in the TV show. It reads very familiarly. Alda does the audiobook version, and that lends even more to the TV show vibe. Although this was a book limited in what it wants to accomplish, it accomplished its mission with aplomb. I feel I learned a few things I’ll be trying for bettering my communications. This would be a great book for a new teacher, with plenty of examples and anecdotes about education for all ages.

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Review: How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story

How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story by Billy Gallagher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another book on a tech high-flyer written by an author that doesn’t have access to key sources within the company he’s profiling. Gallagher was frat-related to the founders and early employees of Snapchat, but lost his access when he began writing for Silicon Valley media. The story felt a lot like “The Accidental Billionaires”, heavy on frat mores and stories in the beginning, and putting the founder on a pedestal at the end. The remaining founder, Evan Spiegel, comes off by the end of the book as a frat version of Steve Jobs.

I liked what Gallagher covers, up to a point. Snapchat is an interesting story. But without access to key personnel, the story at times sounds like mildly jazzed up financial press releases. I believe the “completeness” of the story could have been trimmed out, making this more readable. I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by the author. The author has a way of speaking and pronunciation that I found challenging to follow at times. In this case, listening at a faster playback rate helped, but I still missed occasional words. Overall, I found the stories of this tech unicorn -- Snapchat -- to be quite entertaining as business history anecdotes, but despite some great reporting of Snapchat becoming a media competitor, I didn’t get other levels of perspective and analysis that I feel are part of the story.


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Review: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful little stories, mostly about normal folks, or better – abnormal folks that average out to normal – just living life. Many have issues, and many of those are alcohol related. But the thoughts expressed seems odd yet normal. I found the cadence and the topics of conversations to evoke feelings of a small town in the nostalgic 60s. It seemed very familiar. I’d like to read more.

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Review: The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting explanation of the world of pitcher arm injuries in professional and amateur baseball around the world. You might think this is a “thin” topic that couldn’t carry a book, and while there is some repetition, and in depth description of surgery, there is also a variety of perspectives on the issue. The author follows two major leaguers through differing results from surgery, but also covers a wide variety of topics, such as how arm surgery on teens in Japan and the US differs, how Tommy John surgery has improved over time, and the details in writing a contract with an injured pitcher. There are a lot of people mentioned, many baseball players, many baseball executive, and many surgeons. I found the sheer number of people a bit hard to follow. But the stories themselves kept my interest.

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Review: Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better

Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better by Clive Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author describes how technology can work with humans to provide progress over a pure human or pure technology decision process. His examples include Jeopardy-playing Watson as well as chess, both places where technology by itself is good, but combined with a human operator using technology to better their decision-making they are better. Another area the author focuses on is the use of wearable recorders and other methods of recording one’s life. The examples really cut across current technology and social trends, like online gaming, blogging and online comment writing, search methods, and more. I found the varied examples to be very interesting, including many topics I’ve had interest in but hadn’t seen a review in this manner. The writing style was breezy, magazine-like. I found this enjoyable to read, and found the concepts fun to ponder. This is an overview of the topics and not a how-to guide, though I can see how that could be a follow-on.

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Review: Lift

Lift by Kelly Corrigan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A rambling narrative on what it means to be a mother, from Corrigan’s perspective, and heavy on Corrigan’s personal anecdotes. It’s a personal book, with just a few attempts to provide some deeper meaning or shared way to talk about this part of life. I found the stories were touching. I listened to this audiobook on the drive to visit my oldest daughter at college, one of the last times we’ll be doing this before she graduates. These stories, about Corrigan’s young daughters, good times and bad, really hit me. Even though I’m a Dad. We all share like stories, and while the circumstances are never exactly the same, the feelings are. There’s the bad, the feeling of lack of control or inadequacy, and the good, the funny things you remember forever, the acknowledgement of lost time, and the wonder of it all. Corrigan shares these with the reader and, in my case, made connections to my own experiences. Nicely done.

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