Review: Chief Of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization

Chief Of Staff: The Strategic Partner Who Will Revolutionize Your Organization by Tyler Parris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Early in my so-called career, I was introduced to the executive floor of the company I worked for, in the top 15 of the Fortune 500. They had an opening for what I’d consider an IT gopher for the executives. I was also introduced to a older man who was a Chief of Staff of one of the company executives. His job sounded like a higher class version of the IT job, and something I thought I might be good at. I later worked with this individual on a major project, where he further explained how the Chief of Staff role worked in his case. I picked up this book for more detail on the position, and to help me determine if I should consider looking for this kind of job. This book did a good job of explaining the role in its different variations. While it was focused on helping executives determine if they could use a Chief of Staff, it also explained the different talents and roles the job entailed. Given the descriptions, I think I will opt out of considering this job for future endeavors – political fluency is not something I enjoy. Overall, I found the book met my needs learning about the various versions of Chiefs of Staff, and I believe it would work well for executives or HR professionals hoping to learn what the job can bring to a company and how it can be described. Short and useful.

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Review: Selected Shorts: Baseball

Selected Shorts: Baseball by Symphony Space
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m used to reading books about baseball. As an audio-only release of their “Selected Shorts” series, NPR has chosen a few shorter pieces on baseball. I found these mostly hits, in terms of content. The readers mostly were reporter types, and perhaps didn’t have the experience of fiction or poetry reading. Not that they were bad, just not polished. And this was a live recording in front of an audience, so no redo’s. Entertaining was the live banter with Bart Giamatti and Roger Angel, they were enjoying themselves and you could tell. My favorite stories were the two longer bits – both of which I had already read. I have John Updike’s article on Ted Williams in its Library of America hardcover. You really get the feel of the times. The other excellent short story was W.P. Kinsella’s “The Thrill of the Grass”, which I read a few decades ago. I’m glad I ran across this again as an older baseball fan, as the story revolves around how older fans feel about the game. Highly recommended here or in Kinsella’s short story collection of the same name.

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Review: Metadata Essentials: Proven Techniques for Book Marketing and Discovery

Metadata Essentials: Proven Techniques for Book Marketing and Discovery by Jake Handy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My career for many years focused on the use of document metadata, so I thought this book on “Metadata Essentials” might speak to me. It did, but more so from the way publishers and retailers tag books. I found this quite interesting (and if I didn’t find it interesting, I suspect no one would find it interesting) in the descriptions of the competing taxonomies used by different sources of books, especially internet retailers Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The book described the expected data for each metadata field required by retailers (as of when the book was written), followed by analysis of the different requirements between retailers and schemes. For those who search for a living, this provides insight into which book retailer might have more searchable and more useful details for searching, most often related to requirements or lack of requirements for topical information. A well put together book on the subject.

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Review: Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia

Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia by Adam Lerner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been a Devo fan since I ran across their first album back in the late 70s and their videos on “Night Flight” on cable. But I wasn’t really a fanboy enough to learn much about the band. I learned quite a bit about Mothersbaugh from this volume. Two things surprised me. One is that Mothersbaugh is older than I expected. He was at Kent State during the troubles during the Vietnam War, making him about ten years older than I expected. Second, he’s an artist in a large variety of media. This book is about his art, in many varieties of media. And there is a lot of it - dozens, or hundreds of pieces. For a glimpse into his art, this was a very good book. There were multiple writeups, I believe by different authors roughly covering different times and topics. But you will notice quite a bit of overlap. Some details are mentioned many times. Nevertheless, for a good retrospective of a prolific artist of the last 4 decades or so with street/punk cred, this was quite interesting.

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Review: Pulse

Pulse by Felix Francis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Dick and son Felix Francis write horse industry related mysteries where the protagonists generally are smart, capable men who find themselves in some kind of pickle which they figure out through brains, a little brawn, and a dogged determination to get to the bottom of whatever mystery they are entangled in. I’ve found all his heroes to be likable characters. This was different in that the protagonist is a woman doctor with mental issues that really wasn’t that likeable. I’m more than halfway through reading the combined output of these authors, and so far this was the one I liked least. The doctor felt too much like a stereotype character from a TV series. I was surprised that this was a more recent book by Felix and not one of his first ones, since I tend to like the newer ones so far.

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Review: What's Your Future Worth?: Using Present Value to Make Better Decisions

What's Your Future Worth?: Using Present Value to Make Better Decisions by Peter Neuwirth
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Throughout my career I used net present value for various projects when analyzing project economics and while creating sales cases as a technical seller of software. I also have used present value calculations in reviewing my personal finances. I am familiar with the concept through use. I naturally think that way. I’d say this is a good book for those who are not familiar with the concept of present value and the time-value of money. The author introduces the concept, but mostly steers clear of the difficult math aspects. Much of the use here is describing some aspects of two alternatives and talking through which seems on a casual analysis to have the best value for a person. From my experience, this way to look at alternatives isn’t obvious to many people, so I do applaud the attempt this book makes in opening up this logical world to others. But for those familiar with the usage of such tools and ways of thinking, the book is not as interesting. Mainly, as the author described some examples of using present value analysis, I kept finding aspects the author ignored to simplify the story but that really gnawed on me as I read. If you already approach life with the tools of financial evaluation in mind and have that kind of latent obsessiveness that I sometimes exhibit, you could avoid this book. But if this is a new concept, this book is an interesting introduction, with the bonus of learning what an actuary does. There are plenty of anecdotes and personal reflections along the way, so it reads easy. But I didn’t find all the examples to best illustrate the points the author was trying to make.

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Review: Novels and Essays: Vandover and the Brute / McTeague / The Octopus / Essays

Novels and Essays: Vandover and the Brute / McTeague / The Octopus / Essays by Frank Norris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An author cannot live on dreary, depressing novels alone. I listened to the audiobook versions of Frank Norris’ three novels in this Library of America collection over the last six years (reviewed separately), and found every story to be well written but depressing at its core, mostly dealing with greed, stupidity, and downright foolishness leading to a downfall. The Library of America included a number of magazine articles written by Norris, and I read those recently. With the articles you get an entirely different view of the author. Norris wrote literary criticism that had an edgy feel. His writing was modern. The topics seemed chosen to cause readers to be provocative to the literary crowd. I got the feeling that he was writing to reach a word count in most of these articles, as parts seemed there just to fill space. It was interesting to see this different perspective on the author, but unless you are a Norris scholar, these articles aren’t necessary. Overall, I am very glad I read Norris’ novels in this collection, and will likely read his other popular novel, “The Pit”, after I build up some positive reserves to counter the likely depressing story.

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