Review: Olga Dies Dreaming

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This wasn’t my typical read, but having won an advanced listening copy, I gave it a shot. I enjoyed the author’s style in writing. The plot didn’t make many surprising moves, beyond (view spoiler)[ bounding into anti-government political intrigue in Puerto Rico (hide spoiler)]. The characters struck me as standard ethnic and sexual minority characters you find on most current television shows. The rich customers of Olga's wedding planning service were always white and always ridiculous. The plot was a bit more convoluted and urban-edgy than a Halmark movie, but similar in plot. The only really odd part was the time in Puerto Rico, which seemed out of place for this kind of story. What I will remember is that Olga ridiculed her rich customers but really wanted to be exactly like them, down to doing odd things for show (as with her showing up her cousin by providing stolen expensive napkins for her wedding) and using illegal ways to make money. There is growth by the end of the story, but it goes on a bit long.

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Review: China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know by Arthur R. Kroeber
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve read a number of books and magazine articles about the Chinese economy and the future, as well as listening to many podcasts and news stories over the past few years. These sources tended to extremes when forecasting the future, and often offered wildly differing forecasts. Either China becomes the ruler of global finances, spreading its influence through Asia, Africa, and the world and replacing the US and the EU. Or it fails through some weakness. There are many weaknesses reported in various sources, including corruption, a rapidly aging population, lack of inventiveness, pollution, uneven wealth distribution, and more. These opposite forecasts make me wonder which is correct. I read this book hoping to understand this better.

“China’s Economy” does a good job of describing the many winds in favor of China, while also covering those winds that blow ill. In the final reconning, I would say that those opposite forecasts were both wrong to some extent, but also both correct. China’s economy will continue to grow, through occasional setbacks. But the many setbacks would appear to be enough to keep China from taking a strong lead in becoming the main global economy and will restrict the country to be one of a handful of global financial superpowers, at best.

This book was written in a non-academic style, but did a great job of explaining the issues, providing background, and describing the scenarios for the future. I appreciated the summation in the final chapters laying out the interplay of issues and their impact on the future. Note this was released before the Trump foreign policy era began, so you can tell that some of the options listed were no longer likely given the beginning of tighter scrutiny from the US. I would give this another 3 or 4 years before needing a major update. That’s not bad for this type of book.


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Review: The Anthropocene Reviewed

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I listened to this audiobook driving to visit my daughter on a kind of serious and concerning mission. My state of mind was dark and meditative. To listen to Green discuss, and discuss deeply, stuff – and by stuff I mean anything – hot dog eating contests, COVID, the movie “Harvey”, the yips, anything. He talks about this stuff and rates it on a 5 point scale, which given the diversity of subjects is kind of nonsensical, but it feels so much like the friendly riffing a group of friends does that I found it, yes, charming. And insightful at times. Green looks at the humanity of this stuff, or he relates it to his own life, warts and all. It ends up engrossing. I had only read one John Green book previously, but I’ve got to read more now. And I need to visit that ball of paint to add my own layer. The book made the trip a breeze. It was just what I needed then.

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Review: The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop

The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flagg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I believe I’ve read all of Fannie Flagg’s books. I have enjoyed the Southern charm and the reflections on lives that she writes about. The return to Whistle Stop didn’t strike me as much as previous books. Perhaps it’s the charm that wasn’t up to snuff. By charm, I mean nostalgic charm. This book spent a lot of time in the now-a-days, with nursing homes and real estate development and modern conveniences. While there was still plenty of nostalgia, like all her books, I don’t find her writing about modern times as interesting, or charming. Still, Flagg’s books can still bring on that feeling like you are recalling visiting a Southern relatives house when younger, and I’ll keep reading for those kinds of feelings.

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Review: Game Plan: Winning Strategies for the Second Half of Your Life

Game Plan: Winning Strategies for the Second Half of Your Life by Bob Buford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Buford provides some guidance on planning for what you should do with your life after a mid-life crisis. His focus is on successful business-people who, in rethinking their lives, want to consider becoming significant, generally in a spiritual way. He repeats this many times, trading a life of success for a life of significance. He aims this book at successful business-people generally in their mid forties. Even though I am more than a decade past this target, and even though I don't consider myself successful in business, I still found plenty to think about in this book. Having said that, it wasn't so different from other life planning books, especially those with a Christian bent.

I listened to this on audio. Interestingly, at one point the narrator relates that in the paper book at one point it includes a worksheet, or survey, and that it doesn't translate to audio very well. Instead, the narrator suggests contacting the original author of the survey, not the author of this book, and even spells out his email address. I appreciate the effort for the listeners. This seems like a key part of the book, so if you want the entire experience, you may want to avoid the audio version. At least this is a brief audiobook, so your investment isn't high, and the background and descriptions outside of the workbook activities are interesting, although if you want audio you might be satisfied with Buford's other book "Half Time", which covers the same territory without as much "how to".

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Review: Play Nice But Win: A Ceo's Journey from Founder to Leader

Play Nice But Win: A Ceo's Journey from Founder to Leader by Michael Dell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the beginning of my career, I was charged with helping to decide which PCs my company would buy. I worked for a top oil company, so we bought a lot of PCs, and we chose PCs Limited. This was the early name of Dell Computers. Dell was a couple years younger than I was, so I always wanted to know how he started and grew his company. This book tells that story. He starts his story earlier, regaling the reader with his money making prowess in high school before selling computers. His early business stories are often about risks his company faced, like growing need for warehouse and factory space, personnel issues, money issues, and the like. Quite interesting to this buyer, and had I known some of these things were happening with the company, I wouldn’t have been so positive on the company early on.

I was intrigued by Dell stock early on. I remember having bought some shares in the early 90s, then asking a wiser co-worker what to do when they went up 30% in a couple of weeks. His suggestion – don’t be a pig, sell. I did. About 5 years later, at that co-worker’s retirement party, I told the story that I followed his advice and earned enough to buy a small desktop PC. But had I kept the shares for 5 years, I could have bought my house. Dell touches on the stock’s rise by mentioning his employees creating and wearing t-shirts that said “Dellionaires”. I toured Dell’s laptop factory and saw line workers wearing said shirts in the mid 90s.

I especially enjoyed learning the behind-the-scenes anecdotes about Dell’s various governance and financial engineering passes, taking the company private and buying EMC. I owned the tracking stock and read the various financial statements, and wondered at the time how Dell could engineer more money for his shareholders with each change. And it seems he did. This fills in some of the details missing from those financial statements. It’s not a riveting story, but I found it of interest.

I have read other reviewers who point out that there isn’t much reflection or growth described here. That is true. This is more like listening to Dell tell stories, mostly bragging. If you are in the mood for this, it’s pretty interesting.


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Review: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Godin makes the case that traditional advertising no longer has the impact that it once had, and that the way to get noticed is to do something unique and memorable, hence, a purple cow. I liked that he took the typical Geoffrey Moore product lifecycle and suggested that you really need to focus on the first group of early innovators, selling to those that are vocal about their likes. Godin calls them “sneezers”. This makes some sense. His examples seem appropriate to the argument. Nice, quick read.

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