Review: Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail

Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail by Melanie Radzicki McManus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book about the Ice Age Trail through Wisconsin. I had previously enjoyed books about these kinds of travels, although some, like “Wild”, ended up being as much inner psychology as travelogue. There was some cross-mixing of those two focuses here, but this was more a mix of the history of the trail, some character studies of some of the hikers the author met, and the diary of the trek. I hadn’t heard of this trail, which I have likely crossed multiple times as it is near to home. The existence of this book piqued my interest in the trail, and reading the book made me even more interested. I’ve reached a certain age where I have more “freedom” to complete a grand adventure (while beginning to lose the “freedom” of movement of my joints), and this stoked that desire. Nicely done.

I most enjoyed the author’s stories of her crew, a set of family, friends, and acquaintances that helped her to set a speed hiking record for this trail. Despite plenty of planning, I don’t recall any of her helpers being perfect at meetups, drop offs, or prepping, but they all had their own kind of magic on the trail. Ending with her parents as her crew was quite an interesting gamble.


View all my reviews

Review: Eastern Standard Tribe

Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lots of interesting ideas, like tribalism based on home time zone, a kind of wardriving for music, industrial sabotage, and gonzo product development gets mixed together. Kinda like PK Dick in voice. Kinda confused story. I get a neutral feeling about this one. I am not shooed away from reading stories by Doctorow because of this book – it has interesting ideas -- but it doesn’t make me want to run out and add more of his books to my TBR list.

View all my reviews

Review: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This starts off with some promise – suggesting your mental attitude toward money was set at an early age based on your parents/care givers. The author suggests that thinking about your relationship with money through this lens will allow you to see any harm being done and to modify your thoughts. (Shades of “Rich Dad Poor Dad”) And then he goes into affirmation mode – suggesting at the end of every chapter to repeat some money mantra and to “touch your head with your index finger”. All I can picture is a finger gun, so that isn’t going to work for me. The author uses the book to repeatedly sell his seminars, while also talking up multi-level marketing schemes. All the while adding new affirmations. While I like the idea of considering how your upbringing may have set your perspective on money and wealth, I believe there are plenty of other books that include that topic with additional topics of value that don’t have the commercial content that this one has.

View all my reviews

Review: Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow?

Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow? by Joel L. Fleishman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this an interesting topic, although I have no background in “organized” philanthropy. The author uses this book to describe philanthropic entities of two kinds, perpetual and time-limited. He describes many earlier philanthropies as being perpetual, but in some cases no longer meeting the suspected needs of the originators, or their designees, or perhaps the reason for the existence of the philanthropy has changed (think the Buggy Whip Manufacturers Association). Given these issues, many philanthropic entities more recently have been created with designed end dates. His argument here is that the case against perpetual philanthropies is overblown, and possibly misguided, and that both kinds of charities have value in the world. It was enjoyable reading such a thorough analysis of a seemingly simple topic that has some buried complexities. Also making this interesting is the foundation name-dropping – many of the largest foundations are dissected here, and you learn a lot about the “industry” and its various goals, and you learn quite a bit about the founders of these entities (Rockefeller, Gates, Carnegie, and the like) and how they thought about their fortunes.

View all my reviews

Review: The Course of Human Events

The Course of Human Events by David McCullough
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are on the fence about going back to school to get your Master’s degree in History, listening to this short speech by David McCullough might cost you $50,000. It is worth it to know history, and it is worth it to be able to weave stories based on history the way McCullough does. He starts by describing John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But the scene represented never occurred. The painting is a story illustrating the founders of the country as symbols, not as a replication of facts. An interesting way to start a speech about the value of history. He goes on, describing his own influences, especially books. I could go on, but the subject speech is short -- read it, or listen to it as I did. Be prepared for homework.

View all my reviews

Review: Heart of the Machine: Our Future in a World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence

Heart of the Machine: Our Future in a World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence by Richard Yonck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While recently attending my daughter’s college graduation, I was impressed by the sheer number of students announced as receiving Psychology degrees as their second bachelor’s degree. I was told it was one of the top degrees in the school. I really didn’t see the obvious value, outside of sales and as a step to a grad degree, but “Heart of the Machine” makes the case for the study of psychology, or in particular emotion. What this book makes obvious is that technology is providing ways to “read” people that were not available previously. Through video recording of movements imperceptible to humans, responses that give away inner thought, emotional response to stimulus can be captured, cataloged, and used to optimize, say, buying behavior or knowledge acquisition. And can these capabilities be given to robots, so they can respond to the world with emotional signals, and can read our own signals and react appropriately? Or could you make devices that work as part of a human, allowing the human to repair a possible lack in recognizing the state of others? The book goes through many such scenarios, bringing to light the state of the art in design, and conjecturing where these capabilities can lead us.

I really enjoyed the way this was written, describing issues, the state of the art, and the possible futures of the technology and its usage. I also appreciated the author’s use of recent sci-fi films with “awoke”, or awakening, robots. I consider myself well read, to the point where I’ve-seen-it-before is my usual response to a book. It’s a rare book that can open my mind to something new and exciting. This was one of those books. If I could have asked for more, it would have been for investment advice. BTW, audiobook was well narrated by Robertson Dean.


View all my reviews

Review: Voice of the Violin

Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm reading these in order, and I find this one similar to the others, but with the benefit of knowing the characters and some of the character's immediate past. Camilleri continues some of the plot and builds on (and builds up) the characters in the story. I can see this is becoming more familiar as I read through the series, and that's a good thing so far. There is humor, yes, but I most appreciated the variety of emotions portrayed. I'm not sure why, but I find Montalbano best written when he's pissed off. Likely due to being preoccupied while listening to this audiobook, I found the first half to be somewhat confusing, and I couldn't tell you much of anything that happened relating to the case. But I do remember well the second half. Was it me or the writing? Who can tell... I will continue on in this series.

View all my reviews