Review: You Are the Message

You Are the Message by Roger Ailes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've had Roger Ailes book on communication on my to-read list for decades. I recall putting it on the list because I wanted to understand how Ailes worked so successfully with Ronald Reagan during his campaigns and presidency. In the abridged audiobook version of Ailes book, which I am reviewing here, there was little to no discussion of his Reagan years. Instead, you get plenty of Ailes' anecdotes about his "formative" years in mass communication and public speaking, much of that earned while producing "The Mike Douglas Show". Strangely, this was one of my favorite shows when I was in elementary school and I still have memories of watching it with my Mom when home sick or during breaks. I remember some of his old-school talk show guests, and, again strangely given Ailes work with politicians and subsequent work with Fox News, the examples he uses are those guests, including Pearle Bailey for prepping for an appearance and Jack Benny for playing a role when in the public eye. Ailes also uses himself for examples, including one about interviewing Charles Manson illustrating taking charge of a situation. There is the expected public speaking advice, but I appreciated his showbiz examples.

The abridged audio was less than an hour. I am usually disheartened by abridgments, as cuts in abridging really can destroy plots. In this book of public speaking anecdotes and advice, you can't really tell what is missing, so this is a good book to abridge. Also, this abridgment was done with the concepts of the book in mind, especially to put your best face forward when speaking to the public. Here, this is accomplished through professional narration, multiple speakers including a number of interviewees, and strong production values that made this sound like a heavily funded radio program. You might also say this sounds like it was the soundtrack of a TV production, aimed at being concise yet friendly. For the time investment, I found this quite interesting.

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Review: Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn from All I Observe

Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn from All I Observe by Chad Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Given the title, I expected stories about leadership that could be replicated in my own business. That title, though, is misleading. Instead of repeatable lessons, this is more a history of the author's time as a leader of the Cherokee Nation. Much of the book consists of magazine or newspaper articles penned by the author, mostly about nation politics or stories about interesting nation members. To me, they read like Paul Harvey stories, homespun by design. The author's leadership stories revolve around his attempt at rebuilding Cherokee character by eliminating an entitlement mentality and dealing with politics, which he does with these stories. The final section was a series of annual "state of the nation" speeches given by the author. I found very little of this book useful for leadership in my life, but I could see some might find this useful.

I was also disappointed that many of the stories are repeated. The author used magazine articles written over more than a decade for much of this book, and many articles repeated stories about people the author met, his parents, and his history. You read about a Cherokee high school student that died of cancer four times, give or take, throughout the book. While repeating basic stories might be the way to get elected or to sway beliefs, it doesn't make for compelling reading.

As a leadership book, I found this underwhelming. But this works as a history of the Cherokee Nation under Chad Smith, albeit with the repetition issues I described above. Smith covers the range of happenings in the nation, from the petty battles of tribal politics to the reflection on lost heros to the impact of the nation running businesses.

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Review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are expecting to learn how to create Powerpoints using Steve Jobs' methods for presentation, you're probably going to not be happy. Jobs' wasn't known for his Powerpoints, and many of his best speeches used very few slides with no bullet points. Instead, Jobs used images, usually pictures, or simple text, like a word or number, to represent the topic. This book is about the presentations he gave, but also about the process behind his presentations, the efforts to create messages that started early in a product's life cycle, the constant practice, the checking of the venue before the presentation, the props, the pacing, and more. You do learn a lot about how Jobs did presentations. But you also learn that his methods consumed a lot of time that a normal employee might not be allowed to spend, and it required control over the marketing message, the venue, other presenters, etc. that only a CEO could pull off. You learn that most of Jobs' method is not replicable by normal employees. Sure, there are useful hints here and there, but overall, this is more of an appreciation of Jobs than a how-to book. Strangely for this kind of book, there are also sections that are purely motivational. It is as if the author determined that his readers would predominately be amateur presenters that would never approach the major league skills exhibited by Jobs, so he resorted to a motivational message. No matter, I found the detailed review of some of Jobs' big presentations, breaking down the messages, dissecting the length of different parts, and other insight into Jobs' process to be very interesting. I'll never be known as a presenter, but I can appreciate Job's level of expertise and professionalism in his work.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book. While you might think that a book on presentations would benefit with a lot of pictures of slides, speakers, and venues, this is not one of those kinds of books. The descriptions are so well done that you don't need to see pictures, and you don't miss them. An unexpected very good job on audio.

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Review: Completeness

Completeness by Itamar Moses
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I find myself in the middle of a streak of books about algorithms, but this was the first play and first love story in that streak. Interesting in being about grad students in science, and their interactions revolving around how the computer science guy and bio girl could learn something about their work from the other's studies. Cute, and makes me wish I had continued in college for the chances at discovery, on many levels. On audio, the recording included a lengthy discussion of the play by a scientist who explained some of the more technical topics that were part of the plot. I found the descriptions and discussion very interesting.

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Review: The Red Car

The Red Car by Marcy Dermansky
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Red Car" feels kind of whimsical, very much like a Murakami novel. Helping me make that comparison is the multiple mentions of Murakami by the characters in this novel, and a character that reminds the reader of Murakami near the end of the book. By the time I got to that point, I had the feeling that the author was trying too hard -- the twists got too odd and were followed for too long. I found this interesting, and fun in a way, but I think I prefer the Murakami.

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Review: The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture

The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture by Joshua Kendall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You learn a lot of detail of Webster’s life in this biography. Much of what you learn isn’t flattering to the dictionary scion. He comes across as a fellow who thinks he should always be the center of attention, and acts increasingly bizarrely when he feels he isn’t getting his due. He is obsessed with a series of things in his life, from his books, magazines, and newspapers, initially aimed at literature-loving colonists, later becoming news and political organs. Webster seems like the kind of person that you occasionally run into at parties, introduced by someone who quickly disappears, leaving you to figure out what you have. Personality-wise, he was kind of a loner post-revolutionary (war) Steve Jobs-type, who great thing was, in the end, language, specifically American English. He doesn’t appear to be the kind of person I personally would want as a friend.

You do learn a lot in this book about Webster’s times. The story of his Speller was quite interesting, involving burgeoning copyright laws and national publishing contracts which show that Webster could be a suave businessman on occasion. It just didn’t happen regularly, as he squanders his law career to be a publisher. With a large family, his need for money drove him, but not to the safest and most lucrative path. He was a culture warrior, 200 years ago. Interesting book of an interesting time with a not-so-likeable character.


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Review: Dick Francis's Bloodline

Dick Francis's Bloodline by Felix Francis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoy the way Dick Francis would include some details of the horse life, perhaps how a jockey spends his off day, or how an artist making horse trophies blows glass. He always mixed two or three of these kinds of deep dives together to build a plot. In this Felix Francis extension of the Francis franchise, we get detail on television race commentators. A lot of detail. I figured out how the crime would be solved based on the first scene, even before there was a crime. So this wasn’t one of the better ones in the series. Much of the book dragged with repetition. I will say that beyond the stretching of the story through repetition and the occasional plot oddity, this showed some signs of good storytelling. Some of that was seeing plot points familiar from early books in the series, but some was interesting writing. I look forward to reading more by Felix as he learns his new craft.

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