Review: The Moral Basis of Democracy

The Moral Basis of Democracy by Eleanor Roosevelt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to this short book instead of reading a copy, right before starting an engaging mystery. I found little here that stood out. What I do recall is that Roosevelt decides to use the first third to half of the book to review colonial American policies to lend credence to the ethical and moral basis of democracy. This was a bit excessive and felt like filler added to beef this slim volume up. The other memorable thing was the belief in a Christian version of morality, especially in treating others with care and respect. The only other surprise was that a first lady would take on this topic. It was certainly a sign of the times, as well as an indication of the type of person Roosevelt was. Does the story resonate today, in 2020, in the era of outrage? Yes, I can see where she is coming from and I can buy that story, but I suspect there are more and more people that don’t buy into the base of this argument, that you should treat others with respect and care. I’m glad I read it, but found no big surprises.

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Review: Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World

Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn’t read the reviews before I read this. If I had, I would have known that the book contains some amazing looking sketches, lots of them, and that some of the content appears entwined in said sketches. I had the audiobook experience. I believe I missed out on much of the book’s charm.

Gaiman can write and can narrate his work well. It was a short, enjoyable listen.

But, I really dislike books where the title is misleading. You read (listen to) a book called “Art Matters” and you expect to hear about, well, art, mattering. Instead, roughly 80% of this book is about reading and librarians. I guess the marketers thought calling it “Libraries Matter” would limit sales, but that title much better describes the book and is something I whole-heartedly agree with. -1 for letting the marketing department chose your title.


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Review: A Horse Walks Into a Bar

A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have you ever been asked to attend a performance by an acquaintance to support them? I’ve attended piano student concerts and Second City graduations, among other things. But what if the performance isn’t anything like you and the rest of the audience expected. That’s what you get here. The audience, including our narrator, are expecting a stand up comedy routine. What they get is closer to a performance art bit tied to a personal monologue, with some jokes thrown in in an attempt to keep the crowd calm and happy. You start thinking it’s stand up, but the comedian slowly interweaves his personal story into the comedy. You can feel for the audience as they trickle out of the performance, because the life story is harsh, and the comedy is often not so funny. But by the end, you feel for the comedian, describing some of the most difficult times of his life, and you feel for the few invited acquaintances who remain in the audience, and who were allowed to share in the grief and pain and to understand why they were invited. I like this more on reflection. Makes me wish I could walk on my hands.

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Review: Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess

Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I figured that this would be similar to other organizational books that I seem to read every couple months. I maintain this somewhat regular diet of such books in the hopes that 1) I get some new ideas, 2) I get some reminders of what I already know, and 3) I get some motivation to clean and organize and reduce my clutter. This was different in that instead of focusing on organizing clutter, it was more focused on relationships and the impact of others on where and how one lives. There are also some other sections about habit forming, cleaning, and digital life, really a hit or miss mix of topics. I wasn’t expecting the focus on relationships, and I didn’t get much out of this topic. The other topics were covered in short chapters, and I didn’t get much out of these either. There were some specific recommendations here, for instance how to organize papers in your desk, there were lots missing. This tended to the higher level, and much more aimed to the mental aspects. While not finding any useful new ideas, I did appreciate the different topics discussed in relation to “rules for living”, and I’m feeling a bit of motivation – so for that aspect it worked.

This is another of the many recent books that contain 4-letter words in the title, and that are written with a regular sprinkling of cussing throughout. While cussing in print was novel and lent an edgy feel a few years back, this practice seems very tired now. In particular, this book felt like the author had to exert effort to find places to put cussing into the text, and it results in feeling like a book by a marketer (or even a committee of marketers) meant to manipulate the reader into feeling that this was current and young. Instead it feels more shallow, and given that this is a short book to start with, that’s a very bad thing. (I’m sounding like my parents now.) At least they didn’t try to add Zombies.

I listened to the audio version of this book. This was fine for my purposes of hoping to glean some new ideas and to build some motivation. But as I check the "Look Inside" at Amazon for this book, it seems like there are more details than I remembered from listening. It looks like you may get a different take on the book if reading it given the topics seem to be better organized in print. (In other words, there are lists and subheaders and checklists that don't work as well in audio.)


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Review: The Choice

The Choice by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book has dozens of glowing, 5 star reviews on Goodreads. This isn’t one of them. When I finished the audiobook version, I wondered if that was all there was. I was expecting another “The Goal”, with a fictional story explaining some concepts. You get a bit more personal take on that here – the story is told from Goldratt’s daughter’s perspective, having a kind of Socratic give and take on aspects of the theory of constraints and optimization, aspects relating to how each player frames the problem they are having and how providing a new frame can change the group’s “goal” from impossible to easy. In the examples, this is what Goldratt does. But the way it’s told was quite different than his previous books. At times, the audiobook reminded me of when I listened to “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” in how the conversations went. This was less deep than “Zen…” but had that feel, and I suspect the target audience would be those who enjoyed “Zen…” and were into business problem solving and manufacturing (actually, more distribution) problem solving. I’ve read many books about framing recently. Compared to these recent books, this seemed a bit dated and theoretical, given the apparently fictional examples. But it does provide some definition of the issue and walks through some examples of possible solutions and ways to think about those solutions that may provide the right kick for your own thinking.

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Review: The Seas

The Seas by Samantha Hunt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's a strange, little story. I found the writing to be interesting, the story quirky. It was fun trying to map the story being told with what could actually be happening. I appreciated the brevity, since it paid to think about the story as you went along. A week after reading, I'm still feeling the creepy mood that this book brought on. I don't read much horror, but it felt Gaiman-like, lighter than Lovecraft.

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Review: Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech

Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Given the title of this book, I assumed it would focus exclusively on the problems of bias in software and machine learning. This has been in the news for quite a while, and on top of the news recently. While most of the book provides stories about bias as I expected, a large part of the book was about various other behaviors, sexist, racist, illegal, and just bad. (Think hiring at Uber.) If you have kept up with these kinds of issues in Wired/Fast Company magazines and their ilk, you get many more examples here, but not much by way of solutions. Despite that mild disappointment, I found the writing kept my interest, at least up until the end, when it felt like the authors were reaching for things to write about. Good for helping an ITer, data scientist, or a tech company exec to think through how these issues may touch on your own company, products and practices.

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