Review: American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company

American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quite an extensive look at the state of the American auto industry during and immediately prior to the financial crisis of 2008, including the story of Ford avoiding bankruptcy. The book starts with Ford’s declining fortunes under Bill Ford, who steps aside as CEO to bring in Alan Mulally from Boeing. The book did an excellent job in setting the background for Mulally’s early tenure at Ford, including describing the board and Bill Ford’s management and style, Mulally’s experience at Boeing, and the detailed pursuit of Mulally for the CEO’s role. The second half of the book described Mulally’s management style and the company’s response to financial issues that ended with Ford’s American competitors in bankruptcy, but with Ford still operating without those protections. Mulally is often described here as having an engineer mindset, and his ability to manage the complexities of Ford through these financial issues is a good explanation of what that means. I found this to be a great story, and a great example of a business book that lets the reader take away ideas about how to approach problems, especially those managing many people with varied alliances within the company.

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Review: The Octopus: A Story of California

The Octopus: A Story of California by Frank Norris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

With more carnage and destruction than a typical Rambo movie, “The Octopus” shows the battle of the farmers against the railroad, but serves as a comparable stand in for the little guy against big business. As Norris writes it, there are winners and losers, but even the winners face a deserved bad ending. I found the story here more depressing than my normal fare, but it’s what I expect from Norris. In Norris’ “McTeague” the dentist main character tells others “don’t make small of me”. That same term comes up here, as a small farmer, specifically one who seems more lucky than smart, worries about others making small of him. Norris chronicles the growing pissing contest between the railroad and the farmers, with carnage, physical and familial, resulting. It seems the smartest guys in the book are the businessmen, so I wonder where Norris’ allegiance lay. I found the description of the farmer’s and the railroad owner’s parties to be quite interesting, and it surprised me that so much of this book’s action revolved around parties. He seemed to be comparing the farmers to the rich businessmen here, who acted in similar ways. One key lesson: stay away from the grain handling equipment.

I listened to the Librivox audio edition of this book. The narrator, Delmar H. Dolbier, used distinctive voices for the many characters in this book. His voices helped distinguish characters throughout the book, and helped with my enjoyment and recollection.

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Review: Daddy, Stop Talking! And Other Things My Kids Want But Won't Be Getting

Daddy, Stop Talking! And Other Things My Kids Want But Won't Be Getting by Adam Carolla
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In short, uncomfortably funny, to me. The overuse of profanity and the general trashing of his own parents are not what I’d consider highlights, but he has some funny bits here, some that seem very familiar to this Dad of two kids. I listened on audio, and this has to be the best way to experience this book. Carolla (apparently) goes off script a number of times, conversing with his producer and bringing his kids to the studio to have their say on how they were raised. Many years ago I enjoyed Carolla’s radio show online, and this was like a cable version of his old show, rants and all. I suspect this is an acquired taste, so ymmv.

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Review: The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II

The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II by Anne R. Keene
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After reading many books on baseball, and many on history, I’ve separated the two kinds of books. There’s a baseball book. In a baseball book, the author tends to focus on a perspective or two, from a player, coach, umpire, or someone else intimately involved in the playing of the game. Level or age doesn’t matter here, it could be kids or major leaguers, there is still a baseball-informed point of view. Or you see the fan’s perspective, or the front office guy perspective. These are similar in that they show thought about the game itself, but not necessarily from the on field perspective. “The Cloudbuster Nine” didn’t strike me as a baseball book, but as a history book about baseball, one step removed from those baseball books I described above.

The author tells a lot of different but related stories here. The story of how the US military used baseball and other sports to train pilots. The story of how baseball continued outside of the major leagues during the war. The story of how the university at Chapel Hill sold the military on creating a pilot training academy on campus. The storyline that was the source of the title is about one of those military teams, with a few major leaguers, some well known, but others not so. There is a story about the Cloudbusters taking on an all star major league team that was managed by Babe Ruth, and where Babe had his final at bat. Outside of that story, which gave some game details, most of the stories were more about travel, schooling, and the like. More of what I’d consider a history book. The author points out that not a lot is known about these teams by current fans, but she then describes how well covered their games were by a press that was looking for stories like this – major leaguers playing with high school kids, against all stars as well as college teams and industrial teams. The impetus of the book was her discovery after her father passes away of photos and mementos of his time with the Cloudbusters.

The author bookends the history with a personal story of her father, who was a Cloudbuster bat boy. She tells a very human story, interweaving anecdotes about her father. He played ball well but never made the majors, and it impacted him for the rest of his life. This was quite a poignant telling.

Interesting, and a good slice of history of military pilot training in WWII, and baseball and other organized sports as part of that training.


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Review: The Organized Home: Simple, Stylish Storage Ideas for All Over the House

The Organized Home: Simple, Stylish Storage Ideas for All Over the House by Julie Carlson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Many pretty pictures, but of parts of houses where there are few possessions. I liked the listing of storage containers and products at the end, although I'm not sure a bag of rubber bands, with artsy photo, was something I couldn't figure out on my own. (I've used rubber bands since way back. Call me a rebel.) There were a number of ideas here that were new to me, like decanting your liquid laundry detergent into a Pottery Barn-esque olive oil container. This was obviously written before the advent of Tide Pods and their not-so-obvious confusion as edibles. Another idea was to use trays, like a nice porcelain tray, on a countertop or dresser to demark where to put things with a commonality, like stuff from your pockets, or measuring devices. This also seemed to cause more work (more stuff to dust), and with doubtful practical benefit. But I agree, it did look pretty and minimalist, with little else on the counter. Interesting for that kind of view, and good if you are looking for a stylish product to store things. Or rubber bands.

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Review: The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“The Phoenix Project” gave me what I was expecting – a story of a couple of months in the life of an earnest low-level IT manager thrust into an IT disaster-in-the-making and solving his companies issues through low-emotion thinking, planning, and negotiating while learning at the feet of an optimization guru. Through the hero’s actions, no one is laid off or outsourced, and his boss looks like a hero to his board and investors. And the hero is rewarded by being promoted out of IT. An IT success story. I enjoyed the way the author wove into the story issues that illustrated the learning path of the hero. The story didn’t suffer too much with the extended descriptions of what the guru was teaching. This is one of those books that would be good to take a few notes on in order to remember the concepts, but there aren’t a lot, and the afterward to the book included many helpful sections for further information. This felt a lot like “The Goal”, but with an IT workflow perspective. Entertaining way to learn, or relearn, some workflow optimization.

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Review: I'll Be There for You: The One about Friends

I'll Be There for You: The One about Friends by Kelsey Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve not been a fan of Friends, but my wife is, and I’ve grown accustomed to hearing episodes drone by at night like an audio nightlight. Friends tends to get turned to after the local news, and it’s often on until we go to sleep, sometimes for minutes and sometimes for hours. I was a half generation past the Friends cadre (I was more of the Thirtysomething aspirational set), and wasn’t a city dweller, so it didn’t pique the interest. But in the years of living with Friends on in the background, I’ve become accustomed to the characters. I find the characters well written, at times, and well acted, at times. And I appreciated how the show was put together. This book tells of Friends in all aspects, including the genesis of the show, the building of the cast, the highlights over the years, and the negotiations that made entertainment news. I suspect this book contains more detail than a fan would have picked up reading People or entertainment news while the show was running, but not a lot more detail. There is some of what I would consider analysis of the characters, and I found that part quite interesting. For instance, I learned more about the Rachel character than I expected, and since reading this I’ve watched the reruns with a more observant eye for her spoiled rich kid personality. I really hadn’t noticed it before (it didn’t stand out in comparison to many local characters). Also interesting was the analysis of “fat” Monica. I was also surprised that the authors didn’t drill down into every episode for some content, but I’m glad they didn’t. Just the highlights are here. For those looking for a trip down memory lane, or looking to what went into a successful comedy, this is a nice telling.

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