Review: My Years with General Motors

My Years with General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read “My Years at General Motors” when I was in college, roughly 32 years ago. My interest at the time was in reading a piece of business history, and I find I still recall a number of topics covered in the book. I can’t say that for many books I read so many decades back. I think that what struck me was that Sloan and his managers really changed how things worked, and organized the automotive industry in a way I see many companies trying to organize their industries today. As I think about it, I realize that what made this book resonate with me all those years ago was that I recognized so many of the business and technical innovations that Sloan described, innovations that really created the world I lived in by being embedded in every organization I interacted with, from schools and colleges to Kmart to the Boy Scouts. I learned of customer segmentation from Sloan’s division of cars by class of the customer they aimed at, Chevy for the masses and Caddy for the upper class, with Olds, Buick, etc. falling in the middle, and with defined target customers. That business move lasted decades and drove changes, usually replication, across the industry. I also remember learning about technical innovation – the good and the bad. Sloan described some of the innovations that GM came up with, including, if I recall correctly, leaded gasoline. Some innovation is right for the times but wrong for other times. Other innovations included allowing car buyers to buy on credit, and building a massive organizational structure with staff departments and hierarchy and span of control optimized to the company’s needs. I also learned of Detroit, and of Dayton, GM hotbed of research. This book made me think highly of Dayton, and when I visited there for a job interview soon after I read Sloan’s book I felt I understood the city a bit better.

I’ve read other reviews that point out that Sloan’s book could be quite dry, with long company memos recorded. Thankfully, the years have allowed me to forget those kinds of difficulties in reading. While I do remember this was a challenge to read through, my interest was kept high by reading of the growth of modern big business from an early master. Impactful.


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Review: The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, Vol 3

The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, Vol 3 by H.P. Lovecraft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another collection of 4 Lovecraft horror tales. All creepy. Much of the credit goes to the narrator, who at times struck me as a fellow with a chest wound having a hard time putting much air into his deep and croaking voice, drawing you closer and closer…. The longest story, “Herbert West: Re-Animator”, must have been written for serialization. It consists of 5 short chapters, and each chapter begins with some repeating of earlier bits. The subject of this one is reanimating corpses. The other, shorter stories cover different topics, gruesomely described, but not as gruesome as the previous books in this series. Some racial “insensitivity” in evidence here. Lovecraft would not have won any PC awards.

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Review: Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done

Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done by Al Pittampalli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short manifesto deriding many types of meetings, and providing rules to apply to limit meetings to just the good kind. What is the good kind? Ones were decisions were already arrived at, where documentation has been passed along beforehand and studied beforehand, where there’s an agenda and a belief that the meeting will keep to the agenda, and where there are no extras or what I would call “professional meeting attendees without portfolio.” The author distinguishes types of meetings, and he focuses on ones that end with assigned action plans. There is also some discussion of informational meeting, social meetings, and brainstorming sessions, as well as conversations about meeting topics. Fortunately, in my current work I’ve been involved in very few of the meetings the author describes here, so I won’t be able to enact the advice given, but it’ll remind myself if I get back to those kinds of meetings. The best of the book is that it is short and high energy. Or at least high opinion. I’ve heard the concepts before, but they are put together in an entertaining way here. You can gather the author’s basic concepts by reading some of the more detailed book reviews.

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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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Review: Development: A Very Short Introduction

Development: A Very Short Introduction by Ian Goldin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As advertised, this is a short introduction to the concept of development. There is a lot of history and definition, as you’d expect. Focuses include accelerating development, aid, sustainability, and global development. I most appreciated the section on futures of development, which include UN Millennium Development Goals and discussion.

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Review: Fear Itself (Fearless Jones Novels

Fear Itself (Fearless Jones Novels by Walter Mosley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This worked for me as a mystery in post-war LA. Paris and Fearless were interesting, although I was surprised Fearless didn’t become a larger part of the plot. The story did get a bit repetitive. I listened to this on audio, and whenever my attention flagged and came back to the story, our heroes were knocking on a door. There’s a lot of door knocking in this one, and I’ll be reading the next Fearless book counting those doors. The audiobook was narrated by Don Cheadle. That was perfect casting, as I pictured Paris Minton as someone like Don Cheadle. Looking forward to the next one in the series, warily, but glad it’s a short series.

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Review: Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others

Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others by David Kord Murray
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A nice book describing the creative process as an enlightened copying process. The book struck me as very real. The author wrote this in a very conversational way, which I found in turns engaging and off-putting. There are quite a few good examples included, though many are familiar to people that have read popular business books and magazines. There were times when the facts as presented didn’t quite seem true. Good for putting the reader in the mindset of being creative and using a creative process that includes starting from existing material from others.

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Review: Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living

Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Distinctly not a how-to book on financial independence and early retirement (aka FIRE), Thames uses this book to tell her life story. After beginning by explaining how she has been the recipient of white/class privilege (a topic she returns to time and again throughout the book), Thames describes her life from college through her early career years, including her marriage. The couple determine that an early retirement is a good goal early in the second half of the book, and their story of saving and scrimping, while also determining what they really want from life, conclude the book. They do end up downshifting and focusing on activities they enjoy, including hiking. Retiring? Not so much. The husband appears to still be working, and the wife has become a blog writer, author, and speaker. The author includes some description of how they were able to accomplish this ruralizing, but while some generalized financial advice is provided, you can tell the author’s heart is not in it. She’s here to provide herself as a case study in FIRE. If you’ve read some of the popular FIRE blogs, or other FIRE books, this doesn’t provide much new to think about, but there aren’t a lot of book-length descriptions of a couple working toward FIRE. I found the limited financial and retirement planning advice to be repetitive to what I’ve read before on various blogs, including the authors. I found the story interesting in parts, and valuable in the level of detail the author is able to provide not limited by blog length writing. I liked the description of the author’s work in fundraising, which provided an interesting dichotomy to her retirement goals. This could have been the base of some deep and interesting analysis in comparison, but the author mostly just told her story. I found the author’s voice to be questioning of the impacts of privilege, but not much willing to do anything much about it beyond taking advantage. Overall, this felt like a suburban, upper class woman trying to come off like she’s the next Amy Dacyczyn writing an updated “Tightwad Gazette”, but not having the right kind of experience to pull it off. Another decade of living frugally would probably do it. 2.5 stars. I expected more.

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Review: Fearless Jones

Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Fearless Jones” is more, in this first episode of Mosley’s series, the “Paris Minton” show. Here, Mosley divides his normal heroic non-detective detective into two people, one, Minton, representing brains, and the other, Jones, representing brawn. Minton, a meek bookseller with occasional brushes with danger and intrigue, teams with friend Jones, former Army hero and muscle-bound female attractor, to deal with an odd story of artwork stolen by Nazis morphed into a bearer bond that touches more hands than a retail politician at a chicken dinner. The plot is extremely convoluted, and the body count is quite high for a mystery. And much of the action occurs offstage, with our hero, Minton, being advised of the plot twists in a long monologue at the end of the book. Despite those weaknesses and excessive splashes of blood, the characters are interesting, as is Mosley’s sense of time and place, and I’m likely to continue reading the series as I already have acquired the two follow-on books on audio. Given the naming convention of the series, focusing on the Fearless Jones character, I would expect to see Jones become more of a lead in these upcoming episodes. Otherwise, I am kind of lukewarm to this.

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Review: Trajectory

Trajectory by Richard Russo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book of four short stories are exactly what I love about Richard Russo. These don’t have the poor, blue collar folks in upstate New York populating the stories from his earlier novels, but have characters more like his later novels, professors and realtors and screenwriters. The writing is pitch perfect. Russo always writes his characters thoughts a level or two deeper than other writers, so you feel you intimately know them. And those thoughts often feel like thoughts I’ve had myself. His humor is humor of reflection and of exercising his knowledge. When his characters are funny, it’s like they are trying to make themselves laugh, and it’s catching. An illustrative passage, while not deep, made me think and reflect on my experiences, and laugh:

Ray had limited experience of Texans, but he’d never met a man from there he liked. The women, on the other hand, were invariably entertaining, having apparently concluded that only a well-lubricated sense of humor was likely to make life with such assholes bearable.


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Review: Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World

Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World by Stanley McChrystal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading a book about organization from a General who had to modify his army’s organization to better fight militants in Iraq, you expect to get a lot of military stories. You do here, but not quite the ones I would have expected. I would have thought the stories shared would be mostly combat-related, but there are an interesting variety here. While there are combat stories, most of the “military” stories are about military intelligence. This appears to be where McChrystal feels he had the biggest impact through his “team of teams” approach. There are also plenty of examples from outside of the military, including topics like pilot error and cost/benefit analysis and information sharing in car design. The variety of deeply dissected anecdotes really made this interesting and easy to read. The stories about the war against terrorism provided a bit deeper level of information than I previously understood, so I appreciated that commentary and analysis as well.

If you are looking for a approach to copy, the author admits that you might not find it here. He positions this book as a description of what the US military was able to accomplish, while admitting that you might not be able to duplicate these impacts within your organization. His non-military examples do give hope, though, that his approach could be used.

And what is that approach? There are no checklists of things to do, but it boils down to ensuring that groups get so familiar with each other that they will work together without “friction” slowing things down. He gives examples, for instance having the best of one group taking temporary assignments working within other groups. McChrystal goes through the reasoning behind these actions in detail, which was enjoyable in its organization.

As a book about organizations, I really enjoyed this. As a "how we did this" recent military history book, I also enjoyed this. The voice of the author came through well. The chapters included a wrap-up that summarized the topics covered. On audio, the summaries were narrated by the author, with the bulk of the book read by a professional narrator. The book was well organized. I greatly appreciated the introductory section. Here, McChrystal identified the topics of each chapter, and included a short description of the key anecdotes he would use to illustrate his points. This level of organization was appreciated, and helped me to understand the rough flow of the book right from the beginning.


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Review: The Magic Question

The Magic Question by David Cottrell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I found this similar to many other basic leadership books I've read. Nothing jumped out as novel. On reflection, not much was memorable. This was a good reminder of things to think about as a leader, but I'd consider it a short, casual read.

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Review: The Bob Watson

The Bob Watson by Greg Bardsley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

“The Bob Watson” started very strong. Disappearing from corporate meetings, formalized with best practices…that could be a real thing. A fiction book you could learn from. But then, after the story starts with a very familiar setting of an IT planning meeting, the story gets extremely bizarre, and stays there for the rest of the book. Left behind is much of the promising initial premise, although it makes some minimal appearances in the plot. It took about 2/3 of the book to get somewhat comfortable with the characters and the odd plot that tries too hard to be wacky, but by the last bit I was interested enough to see how it ended. There were some times I chuckled, or even guffawed, while reading this. I won’t be rushing out to buy any other books by this author, but I’d consider well reviewed ones.

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Review: Spitfire Pilot: A Personal Account of the Battle of Britain

Spitfire Pilot: A Personal Account of the Battle of Britain by David M. Crook
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book consists of diary entries of a young man who becomes a pilot at the beginning of the Battle of Britain. He describes the life of a young pilot, including drinking at the pub and building a family, but also including the many air battles he participated in and surviving enemy bombings. The author covers the losses of fellow pilots, often in detail. He tells of the boring times, too, flying when they don’t see or can’t catch enemies, as well as the weather delays. I found the descriptions revealing and interesting. The author is taken with the war effort, repeating those sayings you often hear. Good for portrayals of air warfare from the Spitfire pilot’s seat, lots of action, easy to read. Ends early in the war as the pilot moves on to a different position. Noted two uses of the n-word describing difficult work.

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Review: Plato and the Nerd: The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology

Plato and the Nerd: The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology by Edward Ashford Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found myself somewhat ill-prepared to take on this detailed look at the state of computer engineering, though I have a(n aged) degree in it. Half of the book was very high level, explaining, for instance, the behavior of logic circuits. These basic descriptions were often followed by detailed college level math to tie the practical back to the theory. Note to self – avoid audiobooks with college level math formulas, these need to be seen to be understood. I got a few things out of this long book. In particular, the main point of the author, based on my occasional flashes of recognition, was that the digital world was not a perfect replicator of the physical world, because the digital word was discrete, with measurements taken at intervals, whereas the physical world was continuous, with changes that could occur between those digital measurements. Given this obvious weakness, the digital world can’t be counted on to perfectly model the real, physical world. BTW, I understood this before I picked this book up. The book references other books, including “Goedel, Escher, Bach” by Hofstadter, which I believe informed its style as well as some of the content. This might be one of those books that, if you want to listen to the audiobook, you have to follow along in a physical book in order to see formulas and highlight.

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Review: John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs

John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs by Jack London
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

London starts and ends this book with a diatribe for prohibition, but the large middle of the book contains his braggadocio and humorous accounts of getting and being drunk. For someone who seemed to relish the drunken life, London’s exhortations for prohibition feel like lip service. Well written, and makes me surprised that London lived as long as he did. This made me consider my own anecdotes of “epic-to-me” drunken nights, and I am but a piker compared to London. Quite a life.

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Review: Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool: A True Love Story

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool: A True Love Story by Peter Turner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A sad story, sadly told. The book is purportedly about Peter, who is taking care of a former lover through her decline with cancer. You would think you would feel sorry for Peter, or sad, but he doesn’t come across as very aware of what is going on, or very capable of handling the situation. Peter comes across as young and self-centered, but basically a good bloke. If anyone, you feel for Peter’s mom, who seems to handle the stress and do most of the work involved here. Interesting to read for the story of Gloria Grahame’s career, and for the culture clash of Hollywood acting elite and a blue collar Liverpool family, with a hometown actor, of “transient sexuality” I believe he said, that is the link between both. The personalities come together as you would expect – what an interesting mixture - and the book captures the strains.

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Review: The Snack Thief

The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I seem to be attracted to mysteries with grumpy detectives and a lot of descriptions of food. I've read the Swedish Wallander books, and that had a grumpy detective but with humorously lousy food. Burnt coffee and rusk, anyone? Here, Montalbano checks off on grumpy, but the food is described lovingly, respectfully, and tantalizingly. There's a mystery here that you have to pay attention to in order to follow the threads - Montalbano is covering multiple cases and a messy private life all simultaneously, so there's plenty to maintain interest. I am looking forward to continuing this series.

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Review: Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success: Connect With Customers and Get Results

Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success: Connect With Customers and Get Results by Colleen Stanley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the short topics, and the “action tips” for self improvement in these areas. What you find here are about what you expect if you’ve read sales books and EQ books (and books on introverts, not so strangely). I found the organization and the writing very good for this type of book, and would recommend it as a good review of process steps, attitudes, etc.

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Review: Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete

Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete by Patrick Leigh Fermor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fermor’s account of his kidnapping of a Nazi general from Crete, while entertaining in its action, provides the most value in describing the rugged landscape of the island, the people of Crete, and the impact of the war on the citizens. After Fermor tells his story, the book includes a number of his dispatches from Crete, where he was a spy. When reading these dispatches, you understand that Fermor was a young man, without the benefit of experience, but with a young man’s attempts to “do something” for the war effort. He describes various ideas that at times seem harebrained, often involving bombs. He also describes accidentally shooting a comrade. You see how the idea of kidnapping the commanding general and dragging him through the mountains makes a kind of sense. I enjoyed the story and the things I learned about Crete. I found the writing interesting, but more challenging than most of the popular books I read.

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Review: The Little Book of Alternative Investments: Reaping Rewards by Daring to Be Different

The Little Book of Alternative Investments: Reaping Rewards by Daring to Be Different by Ben Stein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Stein and DeMuth start this volume with the understanding that the reader is willing to invest in non-traditional assets. By non-traditional, we aren’t talking stocks and bonds and cash interest-bearing investments. We are talking commodities, collectibles, gold, real estate, and other investments that have lower correlations to the market, the thought being that investing in multiple asset classes that have low return correlation is a way to have a higher return for a given level of risk. Most of the book takes these assets and combines them using hedge funds as examples of investments to handle this complexity. The authors include a large list of hedge funds and other investments, with short descriptions and short bits of financial advice. I believe that the kind of advice you would get often changes over time, as investment funds change styles, rules, ownership, expenses, and returns. This advice was probably good when written, but aging rapidly. Is it worth it to read the book given the age of the advice? I think the beginning, which describes the benefits and issues with different investment asset classes, is still good, but the second half could be skimmed unless you want to hear lists of various types of “styles”. I found the second half interesting, but overwhelming on audio. If you want to think through these investments, I’d recommend the paper book over the audio. If you want a lay of the land, listening to the audio of the first half would cover your needs.

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Review: Let It Go: Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life

Let It Go: Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life by Peter Walsh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Do you have a friend or relative that has passed away? Are you responsible for their estate? And did the decedent not follow the “Swedish Death Cleaning” method of taking care of their things before they died, so as not to be a burden on their loved ones? Then this book is for you. Predominately, this is about cleaning up other’s stuff. I didn’t know that when I started reading this, but I can see the value. Good for how to do the clean up, and good for motivating you to do your own cleanup before your relatives need to do it for you.

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Review: Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You

Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You by Bill Burnett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I remember when I was listening to this audiobook that there were a number of good ideas here on thinking of your life as a design problem, and using tools that designers would use to create new designs. I really like that analogy. On writing this, a week later, I find that not much stuck. A major reason for this is that this book described the way I know I should think about life plans, or more career plans. I didn’t get a lot of new content from the book, but I appreciated the review of concepts and tools that designers bring to the table, like prototyping and building teams of advisers or experts for validation. Note that this was not focused on “life” planning, but more career planning. While many of the concepts have applicability to those looking for other life guidance, like retirement plans or spiritual plans, mostly the advice is aimed at people looking for work alternatives.

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Review: Lifeskills for Adult Children

Lifeskills for Adult Children by Janet Geringer Woititz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a short book that describes methods for a person to keep things together when faced with issues relating to others. Some of the ideas expressed include ending bad relationships with others, starting and maintaining conversations, and the like - basic life skills that may require an extra level of explanation for some. I found it a bit difficult to decide who this was written for. The book repeats that it is for “adult children” many, many times, but I feel this could be taken as a term of belittlement by some of the target audience. Because of this, I think the intended audience is not “adult children” but is the caregivers and friends of people who might be described as adult children. But the advice is more universal -- anyone who sometimes feels some difficulties in common social interaction and relationships would find the suggestions useful.

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Review: The Valkyries

The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Coelho’s hero here is his stand-in, a follower of magic and spirituality that seems quite overwhelming to the story, a big personality. This character’s wife is more of a normal person. The book is about how they both relate to the spiritual quest of the hero, with the wife dragged along and by the end appearing to learn more. This one just didn’t grab me. I found the story similar to other hero quest stories, but this seemed too familiar, reminding me of late night B movies about witches and demons and such. Not the best of Coelho’s stories.

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