Review: Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream by Nicholas Lemann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I tend to enjoy these kinds of books. I found this to be the same kind of book as Alvin Toffler’s “The Third Wave”. Toffler divides human history into 3 “waves”, or defining eras. Here, the author divides the post WW1 times into 3 “eras” related to economics. Interesting, and with some similar thoughts as following reading Toffler. The author focuses on a few individuals for each era, making this a reasonably readable book. Interesting framing, but I will need to think through the consequences of looking through this lens, if any. My doubt is because the progression the author describes, from organizational man to transactional man to network man, is how I pictured the world prior to reading the book. Here you get the author’s naming, as well as history and back stories.

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Review: Agent of Influence: How to Use Spy Skills to Persuade Anyone, Sell Anything, and Build a Successful Business

Agent of Influence: How to Use Spy Skills to Persuade Anyone, Sell Anything, and Build a Successful Business by Jason Hanson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This felt like many other sales persuasion books I’ve read, with the hook that the underlying capabilities of a good influencer are the same as good spies. That was an excellent way to get me to read this book – as kids we didn’t play soldier or fireman or cowboy, we played spies. I found the content pretty similar to other sales persuasion books, with a focus on planning and stick-to-it-iveness. The author does mix in some stories to set the stage for each chapter, and provides some simple breakdowns of different aspects of the spycraft he is discussing. The author also tells how he got on TV (spoiler: it involves persistence and planning). All together, a fun read, though not earth shattering. Also note – I listened to the audiobook version. I see (using Amazon’s “look inside” feature) that the book has a large number of bulleted lists. While listening, I found the content sometimes confusing and as a result forgettable. I think a big part of the problem is that bulleted lists, especially ones that contain multiple sentences, are very difficult to make understood on an audio production. What looks nice and organized on a printed page runs together in audio and sounds disorganized. For that reason, I think I would suggest the written version of this book over the audio.

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Review: Guilty Not Guilty

Guilty Not Guilty by Felix Francis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Our typical Francis hero, a smart fellow in a dangerous situation that he has to survive by wits. But in this one, the smart fellow spends more time recovering. Very similar to Felix's father Dick's stories where the protagonist barely survives. This type of story is oft repeated in the Francis oeuvre, and it works as the plot, with plentiful attempts to harm a hero you can identify with, causes this reader to cringe and worry and want to see what happens next.

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Review: A Lost Lady

A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sad story of the slow decline of a small town’s leading lady to a more squalid end. I found the writing itself was well done, mostly from the lady’s younger lawyer’s perspective. The book maintained my interest better than I would have expected given the author. The is the first Cather book I’ve finished. I hope the others are as interesting and well written as I plan to read more.

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Review: DEAD WATER The Klindt Affair

DEAD WATER The Klindt Affair by Pat Gipple
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t normally read true crime. I’m not a fan. But this book covered a murder near my hometown, a small town on the Mississippi. This murder and the trial took place mostly while I was attending college away from home, so I wasn’t entirely overloaded with news coverage of the events, like the locals were. My small hometown was also related directly with the crime, as the murderer dropped the dismembered victim’s body into the river upstream, and she was found downstream. So some of the events took place alongside my home town. There were so many jokes that people came up with about this murder, in particular from radio show hosts and kids, that I had to learn what it was all about. As I read through the book, I also learned that a high school classmate was a trial witness, so that came as a surprise to me. The book tells the story. It mostly follows the police investigation and the prosecuting attorney’s work to convict the chiropractor of murdering his wife. You also are given stories from the victim’s family and friends. This was very focused on the victim. After finishing the book, I felt I learned much more about the victim than the murderer. I won’t be going out of my way to read more true crime books, but this was what I was looking for in this case.

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Review: Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days

Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days by Chris Guillebeau


I began reading this book believing it would focus on examples of side hustles making money. Smartly, the author just included a few examples, and even repeated some examples within the text where it made sense. Instead of being a catalog, he made this much more a how-to for coming up with the idea, kicking off a side hustle project, and operating it. Topics include A-B testing, creating an origin story, and how to set pricing. I found many excellent, basic ideas for creating and operating side hustles that were useful. I have listened to more than 500 episodes of Guillebeau’s podcast “Side Hustle School”. He’s taken many of the lessons described in this series and put them in an order here that makes some sense. I liked the way that he organized his side hustle project methodology in a way that it could be presented as a calendar, although I found some of the days’ worth of work should often take much longer. Good book for the topic, at a practical, rule of thumb level.

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Review: My First Summer in the Sierra

My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Muir describes his tagging along with a group of sheep herds taking a flock of sheep up the mountains for a season to graze them on high grass. Muir tends to describe everything natural that he sees as beautiful, from flickers to squirrels to fir trees to black ants. He splits his time describing about everything he sees in equal measure, and includes some little stories if he can. The book is written in diary format, following the trip up, then back in the end. While mostly about nature, Muir also describes his travel companions, with the most ink given to his St. Bernard. He also describes the natives he runs across with as much detail as the nature he sees. By far the strangest anecdote was when Muir was seized with the thought that a former teacher was nearby. He hikes to the nearest city to find that in fact this professor was touring in the area, and he meets up with him. Muir believes it a telepathic connection, which seems out of place in this ode to nature.

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