Review: Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas

Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas by John Pollack
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ah, analogies. This is like a survey class on analogies. The author describes the various uses of analogies and provides some interesting anecdotes about how analogies have been used and misused in a variety of situations. This was not a how-to book. The author doesn’t suggest how to use analogies, or answer usage questions (I always wonder using analogies in sales how to, or even whether to, discuss where the analogy I’m presenting breaks down – it’s not covered here). I was disheartened to learn that analogies are no longer tested for in college prep tests, and agree with the author’s worry that not focusing on understanding the power of analogy can make for weaker thinkers. The anecdotes here were well written and entertaining, and made this a nice book to listen to.

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Review: Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions

Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions by Alberto Manguel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The author riffs about books, given an impending move requiring his large library to be packed. His ruminations cover the physical book, and also book’s meanings. He also delves into history and libraries and organizing. It’s like one of those late nights shooting the breeze in college with buddies, but with an intellectual with one thing on his mind….books. I found the audiobook pleasant as background, but it didn’t draw me in deeply. It had its moments.

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Review: The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener by John le Carré
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting in how this both, to use baseball terminology, hits home runs and strikes out. First, I must fall on my sword and admit that I listened to an abridged audio version of this book. I tend not to do that, as I find that often the abridgement hurts. It hurts the story, it hurts the flow. This was one of the problems here – the story was confused. At times, you couldn’t tell you had moved into what in a visually read book was a new chapter. Instead, you were often jarred into realizing you were reading about another characters perceptions, thinking you were continuing along with the previous character. This abridgement, unfortunately, has these problems. Sometimes, to the benefit of a book, an abridgement cuts out some storylines that aren’t necessary for the main story, and cuts out characters. Here, it seems like some plotlines were excised, and perhaps some introductory descriptions of new characters, but there were a large number of characters to keep track of here. The choices for this abridgement seemed a bit weak. This is surprising because the author seems to have been involved – he’s the narrator. As a narrator, le Carre was great. His pacing is methodical, his character voices are distinct, interesting, and funny when they were supposed to be. As for the story itself, I found myself intrigued by the way le Carre has moved beyond traditional spy stories while keeping his hand in. While a great example of an author/narrator’s art, the abridgement difficulties hurt this too much to whole-heartedly recommend.

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Review: Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve read more than a dozen books on telling stories for business, and I find that they take different tacts to tell their own stories. I find this StoryBrand book is a bit more basic than most I’ve seen recently, but to me the simplicity in its storytelling suggestions is a good thing. Instead of drilling down into story archetypes and theory, this book suggests looking at a handful of aspects of the story. Key takeaway is to put the customer in the role of the hero, and to put the company in the role of the guide – a Yoda to the customer’s Luke Skywalker. I liked that the author referred to dozens of classic movies to give examples of the story structures he’s explaining. This made things clear, although the author promotes the movie “Tommy Boy” as an example so many times you think there must be some other movie with that name that you somehow missed. But no. “Tommy Boy” is obviously the author’s guilty pleasure movie. For those familiar with the storyline comparing men’s movies and women’s movies in “Sleepless in Seattle”, most if not all the movies the author uses are “men’s” movies, with “Tommy Boy” as the poster child. No “An Affair to Remember” here. The author does pitch his classes an excessive number of times. I tend to dislike books-as-ads, especially if the book doesn’t stand by itself providing value. This one, I believe, does provide value. The suggestions offered are simpler than many other corporate storytelling books. The advice is better than some. I can see building stories for my demos at work using the structure described here, and I would expect better outcomes than using story techniques from the pure demo-creation books I’ve read. Nice work.

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Review: Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town

Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The mentality that lived on money gathered from cash-out home refinancing hits companies. Here, the story is of what appears to be a one-horse town when it comes to industry, that industry being glass and the town being Lancaster, Ohio. There are many such towns, beholden to a single company for the source of many, if not most well paying jobs and for donations that ensure the local economy worked. I’m from one such town. When a company, or in this case a plant, becomes the instrument of a series of investors intent on de-capitalizing for their own profit, the wreckage includes the plant, but also the workers and the community. The book focuses on two related topics. The main thread covers the series of owners of the plant and the steps they take to ultimately make money. There seems to be a lot of planning that never amounts to anything. The second thread is about the drug culture in town. I liked the first topic, it explains how money is made by private equity. The second topic was tangential, and could stand on its own. Depressing in many ways.

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Review: The Reign of the Kingfisher

The Reign of the Kingfisher by T.J. Martinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After finishing this modern superhero story, I found I appreciated it. While listening to it, though, I found it hit and miss. The hit part was that it was an interesting concept, and the writing was cinematic. There was a lot of miss to go with that though. First, the story takes place in Chicago and burbs, where I live, and I usually enjoy that home town feel in a story. But here, it felt like it could have been any city, and that the author just randomly put references in to neighborhoods or streets that in actuality would have worked as well in St. Paul or Dallas. The localness felt phony. Second, the writing, though feeling like a television show, felt at times like a not-so-great superhero tv show on a minor network. The characters ended scenes with a corker of an overwrought statement, just like before you go to a commercial on a tv show. If it reminded me of, say, a classic comic book, I would have liked that gimmick. But here it reminded me of a bad tv show, so this was no plus for me. Thirdly, the plot just seemed to have too many holes. I find that I tend to be very forgiving on plot holes when reading something avant guard, but this tries so hard to be like a normal fiction city story that I can't suspend belief, and frankly, the plot holes are quite ridiculous. I found myself constantly wondering why people weren't thinking.Perhaps it was the water in the city that could have been Chicago.

But as I mentioned up front, on reflection I enjoyed this more than I would have thought while reading it. The concept was winning, and the take on the missing superhero was interesting. Overall, to use a horrible baseball metaphor, this was a lot like a massive Dave Kingman swing for a home run, occasionally pretty to look at, but often not connecting.

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Review: Gene Smith's Sink: A Wide-Angle View

Gene Smith's Sink: A Wide-Angle View by Sam Stephenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I took a flyer on this book, based on its curious title. I had never heard of Gene Smith, but found that Smith was a prolific photographer and artist. He lived the stereotypical life of an artist, focused on the creation of art, at times oblivious of all else. The author approaches Smith like a private detective, tracking down acquaintances based on brief mentions in papers or on the audio tape that Smith liked to leave running and recording. You get a great taste of the life of an artist and his entourage in 50s Gotham. And a bonus here is that Smith lived among a number of jazz greats, and recorded them surreptitiously. So in addition to the life of a professional photographer/artist, you get a slice of life of a number of jazz artists. This really does a good job of putting you into the time and place. You can almost smell the reefer and feel oblivious about missing your rent payment.

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