Review: The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed On Your Own Terms

The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed On Your Own Terms by Vishen Lakhiani
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is another example of a book that is as much an advertisement for the author’s website and paid content as it is to provide some actionable ideas to live your life in a better way. Many, if not all of the suggestions I’ve read before in different books, and in fact the author quotes from some of these source books quite often. To the good, the author does interject personal experiences that are at times interesting. He also has an energy-filled writing style. To the bad, the author writes this in a way typical for stretching limited content, by repeatedly telling you what he will be covering in upcoming chapters. You end up hearing what’s coming up a few times before you actually get to it, and at times when you get to the meat of the ideas you are underwhelmed because it’s familiar. On the audio version of this book, the author narrates. You get his excitement, but the reading is unsteady, with some odd timing. I would consider reading more by this author, but would look to verify that it wasn’t advertising focused.

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Review: Clotel: Or, the President's Daughter

Clotel: Or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story was about as I expected but the writing was quite a bit different. Given the time period in which it was written I was expecting more flowery, Victorian prose. Instead, “Clotel” was written in a more straightforward style. And on audio, it came across sounding like a radio drama from the 40s. At times, the author started a new chapter with something like, “Recall that when we left Mary she was in disguise and travelling through territory dangerous to her.” I listened to the audio version of this book, and this kind of writing stood out. I found it comfortable listening, despite the content that had the expected level of tragedy and violence. The story itself was interesting in the situations depicted, although I found it a bit difficult to follow the character changes on audio. Reading might have helped in this regard.

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Review: Pantsdrunk: Kalsarikanni: The Finnish Path to Relaxation

Pantsdrunk: Kalsarikanni: The Finnish Path to Relaxation by Miska Rantanen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This moment’s “The Preppy Handbook”. A take off on Scandanavian living memes recently popular in books. This book was humorous in style but not in substance – I smiled at the title and at how the book was organized, but not so much at the actual content. (view spoiler)[ It is all about sitting in your underwear and drinking. All about it. And even more about it. (hide spoiler)] I listened on audio. Probably not the best choice for this book, given other reviews pointing out the positive aspects of the feel of the paper in the dead tree version.

Those Finns…


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Review: The Future

The Future by Nick Montfort
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Montfort tells a history of the future. Or, in other words, what “the future” meant to people over time. He does this in this short book by focusing on a few specific topics. One was the utopian writers from the last turn of the century. He covers how the future was portrayed in art, and in various World’s Fairs and other exhibits (like EPCOT). He describes the founding of hypertext and HTML and how that was an attempt to build a future. And he describes some future depictions in books of a more recent vintage, what I call “scenario planning fiction”. Given the shortness of the chapters, the author can only mention some specific examples and muse about their connection to society of the day and to the actual creation of the future, but if you are in the mood for these kinds of musings, you may find this of interest. I enjoy these kinds of books, and appreciated the smattering of examples and the comparisons and analysis. The book ends with a call to use the arts and media to create scenarios for the future. Makes sense. I suspect this would be even better with more length.

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Review: Down the River Unto the Sea

Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Many of Mosley’s books seem a little off kilter to me. I’m not positive why, but I’d say what drives that thought is that the main characters are quite manic in their internal thoughts, and the story lives in those thoughts. At times I wish there was more description of the environment, but that would change the feeling of the book, and given Mosley’s expertise in writing these kinds of novels, it would probably be detrimental. I guess I’ll leave the moody descriptions to James Lee Burke. Here, we live in Joe Oliver’s mind, a former cop who was framed and served time in prison, facing life changing violence and life changing reflection. And he continues that reflection here, always wondering if he’s become a violent person himself, always testing. That is the feel of this book. Like many of Mosley’s books, there’s a violently crazy sidekick that serves to keep our hero a step removed from the evil that pervades others within the book. And, also to formula, there is a daughter to protect, and a convoluted plot that doesn’t fully pull together. On reflection, this was about what I’d expect from Mosley, although perhaps somewhat darker. I enjoyed it in its familiarity.

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Review: Service Fanatics: How to Build Superior Patient Experience the Cleveland Clinic Way

Service Fanatics: How to Build Superior Patient Experience the Cleveland Clinic Way by James Merlino
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This doesn’t feel like a normal how-to book. Instead, it is mostly reflections of the author’s journey creating a customer satisfaction program at Cleveland Clinic and at other places where he has consulted. This seemed quite high level and anecdotal, without consistent recommendations coming out of them. One thing to keep in mind is that the author had strong upper management sponsorship of the satisfaction program. Without strong backing, I suspect the outcomes would have been drastically less interesting. Also note that, while the author has consulted at a number of organizations in different industries, a majority of this book is focused on the world of the hospital, with doctors and groups holding much of the political capital running the organization. Not every organization is comparable, and the suggestions may or may not apply. But overall, I am a sucker for good business anecdotes that illustrate common business processes in new ways. I found many of the anecdotes were good at illustrating the processes the author was promoting.

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Review: Exterminator: Thoroughbred Legends

Exterminator: Thoroughbred Legends by Eva Jolene Boyd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I believe Exterminator was the earliest subject of a book in the Thoroughbred Legends series. Because of that, this book is quite different than the others. The times were different, and horse racing was a different kind of game than it became a few years later. In addition, as a gelding, there wasn’t the progeny to write about, which tends to consume a large portion of most of these books. This book makes up for that lack in spades, though, as the horse had (was it) 10 trainers, and raced in 100 (or 99) races. The horse also had an interesting owner who made his money on Swamp Root patent medicine, and who had some interesting practices. His constant fighting with Exterminator’s trainers reminded me of George Steinbrenner. I was surprised after completing the book and reviewing the horse’s record that he had as many wins as he had. These books focus on wins generally, but in this one, the non-wins seemed more plentiful and well written. I guess when you win 50 races it gets to be kind of common. This book really had an interesting lead character with the owner, and I found it entertaining. I liked the author’s book on Native Dancer in the Thoroughbred Legends series, and I look forward to reading author Boyd’s other book in the series about Assault.

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