Review: Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys

Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys by Billy Crystal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting book, one that I found in terms fascinating and redundant. I listened to this on audio, with Crystal doing the narrating. In the case of this book, I should call it performing, though. The book begins with Crystal recorded performing in front of a live audience, and he’s not telling stories of his life, he’s doing standup about being old. And to my taste, not very good standup – I didn’t get any chuckles out of his live performances. But the book takes a turn toward the more interesting as Crystal changes to telling the story of his life and his career. That part was good, interesting anecdotes and funny bits. He ends the book with more kvetching about aging which I could have done without. The anecdote I find most memorable (and I find this very strange on reflection) is his story about coming up with a one-liner while hosting the Oscars and cutting off Hollywood old-timer Hal Roach who was speaking from his seat so no one heard him clearly “Well, it’s only fitting. He got his start in silent films.” Crystal does his impersonations along the way, and you hear his Ali and Mickey Mantle a lot. The Mickey stories are truly poignant. The saving grace is that Crystal seems shocked that he was as lucky in life as he’s been, and he sounds so appreciative throughout. I found this one hard to rank -- one star for the bad standup combined with four stars for the life story, but I’ll round up to 3 because his stories are so memorable.

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Review: Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old STATS That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think about Baseball

Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old STATS That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think about Baseball by Keith Law
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I seemed to have latched on to many of the raft of books about modern baseball statistics. In this, like many of the others out there, the author drills into the details of why old-school baseball stats are not good now, and in some cases were never good measurements or predictors. And, like most other books of its kind, it’s written in a snarky manner, which I forthwith dub “Snarklish”. This book goes in depth on the historic stats, like a pitcher’s won-loss record, defensive ratios, batting average, and the like. He dissects the backs of baseball cards and suggests better stats. As baseball statistical study is really hitting a golden age, with additional computing power, additional measurements being made and published, and new focus by the teams, this is a reasonable book to explain the state of affairs for those that aren’t well read on the sabermetric state of statistics. For those that religiously read Bill James, this will mostly seem very familiar, even the level of snark.

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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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Review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are expecting to learn how to create Powerpoints using Steve Jobs' methods for presentation, you're probably going to not be happy. Jobs' wasn't known for his Powerpoints, and many of his best speeches used very few slides with no bullet points. Instead, Jobs used images, usually pictures, or simple text, like a word or number, to represent the topic. This book is about the presentations he gave, but also about the process behind his presentations, the efforts to create messages that started early in a product's life cycle, the constant practice, the checking of the venue before the presentation, the props, the pacing, and more. You do learn a lot about how Jobs did presentations. But you also learn that his methods consumed a lot of time that a normal employee might not be allowed to spend, and it required control over the marketing message, the venue, other presenters, etc. that only a CEO could pull off. You learn that most of Jobs' method is not replicable by normal employees. Sure, there are useful hints here and there, but overall, this is more of an appreciation of Jobs than a how-to book. Strangely for this kind of book, there are also sections that are purely motivational. It is as if the author determined that his readers would predominately be amateur presenters that would never approach the major league skills exhibited by Jobs, so he resorted to a motivational message. No matter, I found the detailed review of some of Jobs' big presentations, breaking down the messages, dissecting the length of different parts, and other insight into Jobs' process to be very interesting. I'll never be known as a presenter, but I can appreciate Job's level of expertise and professionalism in his work.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book. While you might think that a book on presentations would benefit with a lot of pictures of slides, speakers, and venues, this is not one of those kinds of books. The descriptions are so well done that you don't need to see pictures, and you don't miss them. An unexpected very good job on audio.

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Review: Completeness

Completeness by Itamar Moses
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I find myself in the middle of a streak of books about algorithms, but this was the first play and first love story in that streak. Interesting in being about grad students in science, and their interactions revolving around how the computer science guy and bio girl could learn something about their work from the other's studies. Cute, and makes me wish I had continued in college for the chances at discovery, on many levels. On audio, the recording included a lengthy discussion of the play by a scientist who explained some of the more technical topics that were part of the plot. I found the descriptions and discussion very interesting.

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Review: The Red Car

The Red Car by Marcy Dermansky
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Red Car" feels kind of whimsical, very much like a Murakami novel. Helping me make that comparison is the multiple mentions of Murakami by the characters in this novel, and a character that reminds the reader of Murakami near the end of the book. By the time I got to that point, I had the feeling that the author was trying too hard -- the twists got too odd and were followed for too long. I found this interesting, and fun in a way, but I think I prefer the Murakami.

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Review: The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture

The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture by Joshua Kendall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You learn a lot of detail of Webster’s life in this biography. Much of what you learn isn’t flattering to the dictionary scion. He comes across as a fellow who thinks he should always be the center of attention, and acts increasingly bizarrely when he feels he isn’t getting his due. He is obsessed with a series of things in his life, from his books, magazines, and newspapers, initially aimed at literature-loving colonists, later becoming news and political organs. Webster seems like the kind of person that you occasionally run into at parties, introduced by someone who quickly disappears, leaving you to figure out what you have. Personality-wise, he was kind of a loner post-revolutionary (war) Steve Jobs-type, who great thing was, in the end, language, specifically American English. He doesn’t appear to be the kind of person I personally would want as a friend.

You do learn a lot in this book about Webster’s times. The story of his Speller was quite interesting, involving burgeoning copyright laws and national publishing contracts which show that Webster could be a suave businessman on occasion. It just didn’t happen regularly, as he squanders his law career to be a publisher. With a large family, his need for money drove him, but not to the safest and most lucrative path. He was a culture warrior, 200 years ago. Interesting book of an interesting time with a not-so-likeable character.


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Review: Dick Francis's Bloodline

Dick Francis's Bloodline by Felix Francis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoy the way Dick Francis would include some details of the horse life, perhaps how a jockey spends his off day, or how an artist making horse trophies blows glass. He always mixed two or three of these kinds of deep dives together to build a plot. In this Felix Francis extension of the Francis franchise, we get detail on television race commentators. A lot of detail. I figured out how the crime would be solved based on the first scene, even before there was a crime. So this wasn’t one of the better ones in the series. Much of the book dragged with repetition. I will say that beyond the stretching of the story through repetition and the occasional plot oddity, this showed some signs of good storytelling. Some of that was seeing plot points familiar from early books in the series, but some was interesting writing. I look forward to reading more by Felix as he learns his new craft.

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Review: Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing

Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing by Martin Erwig
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A couple of years ago I read a similar book, Christian’s “Algorithms To Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions”. It overlapped with this book by about 40% in terms of what was covered – search algorithms being a major common topic. The difference is that Christian’s book was focused on applying algorithms to personal decisions and Erwig’s book was focused on teaching computer science terminology. Both used stories to do this – Christian uses anecdotes, where Erwig uses comparisons to movies and books. I found Christian’s book entertaining and memorable. I didn’t enjoy Erwig’s as much. The examples he used were mostly not uniquely appropriate. For instance, he uses Sherlock Holmes to explain some search algorithms, but this seemed not the best example to me. Then with recursion he uses the movie “Groundhogs Day”. This seems quite obvious. (I will say that I appreciated his listings of different movies/books that had repeating days and the different “rules of science” those replays had – I have noticed that and have written about that as well.) The book starts with an example from Hansel and Gretel of using shiny stones to find their way back home, and drilled down to how Hansel made each individual decision on how to proceed. I was surprised that the author had so few different examples illustrating the computer science and math concepts. I’d say about half of the book was very basic computer science lecture without comparison to a particular story, and half was using one of those three stories to help illustrate a concept. Personally, as someone who has taken many computer science classes, the concepts were not new to me, and the book didn’t seem that helpful for learning new concepts. The terminology was still difficult covered as completely as the author has done here. I expect this book was aimed at the textbook market for the Computer Science version of the “Physics for Poets” classes at university. It would be interesting to test its effectiveness compared to more traditional textbooks.

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Review: 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation

40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation by James Carville
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This one has some age on it, and the years haven’t treated this book well. I was greatly disappointed. I was expecting, given the title and description, that this would be a cogent book about changes in politics driven by statistical analysis. Kind of like Zogby’s “The Way We’ll Be” with better stories. Something that hints at a major, long lived review of trends that would have implications for decades. And given the author, I expected some good stories, but knew to expect some tilt to the left. This ends up being primarily a diatribe against the Bush White House. Mixed in to the ranting are some statistical forecasts based on, primarily, two data points. Kinda hard to predict with two data points – so this is no science. And most of the diatribe revolves around name calling. The author leads with name calling, and it precedes any attempt at forecast. It became obvious that this is a textbook case of “preaching to the choir”.

I did finish the book. Carville ends the book with his story of surviving the hurricane in New Orleans and his temporary move to Dallas in its aftermath. This last chapter was well reported and with a little less of the bluster of the bulk of the book. That chapter was informative, mostly as an example of the post-Katrina living conditions of displaced New Orleans residents. Overall, though, the book is not something I’d recommend.


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Review: The Dark Wind

The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve bounced around reading this series, and now that I’m back to an earlier book, I find that it has more of what I like. Hillerman uses Indian religion and ways, and the unique locations in reservation territory to add some mystery to this mystery. I’ve noticed in later books that he don’t seem to include as much content related to the peoples or the location. I enjoyed this earlier story, where I found the different ways of life had to be explained and understood in their context. Reading this earlier book I feel I learned something, while Hillerman’s later books were more just entertaining.

I listened to this on abridged audio. I avoid abridgments normally, but ended up with this one. Unlike many abridgments, this one seemed to flow pretty well. Good job.

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Review: Retirement Fail: The 9 Reasons People Flunk Post-Work Life and How to Ace Your Own

Retirement Fail: The 9 Reasons People Flunk Post-Work Life and How to Ace Your Own by Greg Sullivan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are many books on retirement released every year. There are many that are substantially identical, covering the basics of planning or describing issues. This is one that focuses on some of the issues that you don’t hear about as often in these books, at least not in the dozens that I’ve read. This covers things that people don’t always think about, like overspending on second houses, dealing with divorce, and getting the correct insurance, trusts, legal coverage, and advisors. The author has a confident and at times humorous voice, and I enjoyed reading this. Given I am well read on the topic, I didn’t find anything entirely new to me, but I did appreciate hearing a different advisor, with different anecdotes, pointing out possible pitfalls. This will help me avoid those problems in the future.

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Review: Work Optional: The Non-Penny-Pinching Guide to Retiring Early

Work Optional: The Non-Penny-Pinching Guide to Retiring Early by Tanja Hester
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Early retirement has become a meme, passed through exposure to any of a number of blogs and Reddit forums focused on the concept. There are a lot of these, grown over the past five years or so. The author is one of those blog authors, following her and her spouse through their investigation of early retirement, their efforts to get there, and their life after reaching, well, the promised land, of a sort. I have occasionally read articles from their blog as well as other blogs and many, many books on the subject. “Work Optional” covers the bases, discussing the concept of early retirement, the financial know-how required to be able to do it, and the ways your life can change after retiring younger than the average worker. Much of the book is how-to, with some sections of the author’s own experience. Anecdotes from the author and other early retirees are mixed in throughout the book.

I found the author on the whole covered what I expected, but added some unique suggestions. The best of these was near the beginning of the book when the author walks through a series of questions to document personal goals. I found this very similar to personal mission/vision/values training I’ve been through in my job, and going through this looks beneficial. The author does not prescribe a detailed financial plan, instead describing many options and some basic plans discussed widely in those online sources. The key here is that the advice offered is basic. I’ve found that individual situations are often nuanced so that basic advice is really just a place to start, and I’ve found no book that covers all bases. This one does a reasonable job with the basics, and replicates the financial discussions of many blogs and online groups. One of the biggest issues for early retirees is acquiring medical insurance. The book describes the options as they currently exist, but does not forecast any changes that could impact early retirees. I’ve always found ongoing availability of medical insurance is a great leap of faith when retiring earlier than the Medicare eligible age, and this book didn’t allay my concerns, although it does provide the author’s own story – successful so far. The shortest section is the author’s description of what it is like to be retired early, but that’s not surprising since her retirement has only lasted about a year when this book was written. This book includes some useful web links at the end, and has detailed end notes that many books do not share. Most of the writing of people in the author’s age group that have retired early is in short blog entries across dozens of blogs. Having a personal story at book length is appreciated. The author’s story of planning and attaining her early retirement is a welcome addition to the early retirement literature.

I received a pre-release copy of this ebook from NetGalley.


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Review: Say This, Not That: A Foolproof Guide to Effective Interpersonal Communication

Say This, Not That: A Foolproof Guide to Effective Interpersonal Communication by Carl Alasko
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was surprised that so many of the scenarios that the author describes here relate to dating. Then by the end of the book he is covering talking to your children. The intent must have been to ensure the book would be useful for decades for the purchaser. I found the scenarios of conversations were often over-simple, but Alasko usually provided commentary that I found valuable. The value to me was in repeating the oft heard wisdom of the ages – ends up Alasko agrees with a lot of the old saws, like “treat others as you would like to be treated”, and “don’t speak in anger”, and his scenarios illustrate these over and over. The book was short enough, and compartmentalized enough, that it went by quite fast. Enjoyable, as an example of a how-to conversation book.

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Review: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World: Library Edition

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World: Library Edition by Cal Newport
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another in the large number of recent books bemoaning the loss of the ability to concentrate that seems to be plaguing the peoples of earth, particularly those with smart phones. Like the others, “Deep Work” includes a homage to the granddaddy of books on the powers of focus called, well, “Focus”. The author describes the issue and provides background and evidence, both academic and anecdotal. In the last half of the book, the author suggests some ways to bring focus back and to eliminate distraction. This is the same story I’ve already read quite a few times recently, but this seemed to me to be better told. I enjoyed the voice of the author, and his choices of anecdotes. This is really the first of these books to convince me that I am also suffering from this battle with distraction, and while I don’t think the author’s solutions will work for me, I will likely make some effort to pry back my attention from the little device in my pocket. Whoops, new news story. Be right back.

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Review: Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It

Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It by Richard V. Reeves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I come across a book that purports to tell me that how well-to-do people act, I look to see whether I myself act this way. Reeves defines upper middle class to be those households with income over $120,000 per year. He then goes on to say that those “rich people” do things to ensure their kids continue to be rich people. Things like saving for college. Reading to them when they are young. Working to get them good internships. Ensuring they have good schools and teachers. This is the suburban way, if not the American way, to get your kids ahead. I now realize that I should have spent more time getting my daughters the best possible internship in college. I didn’t realize that was part of the game I was being forced to play by society. I’m also now worried that my daughters chose careers where they thought they could do a good job making the world a better place instead of focusing on getting a wage that kept them lofty in society.

The problem the author exposes is that everybody likes their offspring to be “better”, and no one wants them to be “worse”. In other words, intergenerational progress. But the author is focused on one scale, that of income. The author identifies this issue, and in the end concludes with some policy suggestions that may help to combat it. Interesting. And not very likely. Good read for the description of the issue, to cause thought around the impact this issue has on society, and to identify those areas where you should help your kids, and maybe other kids, more.


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Review: The Good House

The Good House by Ann Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable listen, the story of an alcoholic small town realtor had a great voice. The subplot of a secret affair wasn’t so interesting, but the descriptions of Hildy’s normal days in a waning career, her increasingly alcohol-fueled blackouts, and her memories and attempts at romance were. Most interesting to me was the belief Hildy had that she was descended from Salem witches and had an ability to read people. (view spoiler)[ As her alcoholism worsens, she believes more and more in her “gift”. You could really sense this story becoming a crutch for the character by the end of the book, and that really felt well written. (hide spoiler)] Mary Beth Hurt's narration fit the character to a T. I would read more by Leary, especially on small town life.

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