Category: Literature & Books

Time-Traveler's Wife is a good little book

Posted on
Cover of "The Time Traveler's Wife (SIGNE...

The book The Time-Traveler’s Wife is a great little book. I found it very easy to read and quite touching. While it contains a guy who time travels it’s not a science-fiction story but rather a love story between him and his wife.

I find that books that take a very extreme or unusual position do a great job of exposing everyday emotions. For example, Nelson Mandela‘s book Long Walk to Freedom talks about Mandela’s resolute quest for equality, and his long imprisonment inspired me to keep persevering in the things i care about. Similarly, this story about a time-traveler’s wife who grew up knowing a man bumbling through time and how they structured their life around each other makes me look at personal relationships and see how trivial my challenges are compared to theirs.

A great book and a quick read. I definitely recommend it.

There’s a movie coming out with the same title that stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana in Feb 2010. There are some photos of that here:

I also saw that the author Audrey Niffenegger just sold her second book, called “Her Fearful Symmetry” for $5 million buck.  Unlike most authors who sell rights to their next novel off of a summary or description, she had finished the entire manuscript.  The NY Times article about this states:

Ms. Niffenegger had completed a full manuscript. “She really has defied custom and written a spectacular second novel, which is one of the hardest things to do in this universe,” Ms. Graham (Editor of Scribner) said. “She’s not selling it essentially on the success of her first book.”

I’d be willing to give this next book a shot.  It comes out in September.  Anyone heard anything more about it?

Related articles
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Hot, Flat & Crowded

Posted on
U.S.

I just finished Tom Friedman‘s Hot, Flat, and Crowded.  It’s a good book that talks about 2 things: climate change and America’s decline.   The first items is due to a number of trends: nations becoming more developed (flat) and pulling people out of poverty (crowded) which in turn requires more energy and increases production (hot).  The second issue is that America also faces a crisis.  A emotional, physical and international crisis.  One quote in the book mentions:

It’s like jumping off an 80-story building.  For 97 stories you feel as if you’re flying.  That’s where the world is now.

America is losing its entrepreneurial drive and its status as the premier innovator in the world. Friendman then goes on to describe that America should solve it’s crisis by getting entrepreneurial about green living and green technology and if America solves its problem, this will in turn solve the world’s problems too.

The book also discusses global warming and oil and their interdependence.  Global warming is here due to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and while people dispute some of the implications of this, it is a fact that we’re putting more and more carbon into the atmosphere.  There’s also an interesting chapter about the oil industry and how the oil-rich countries become increasingly more anti-american and anti-democratic as the price of oil increases.  It also discusses the impact of supplying ultra-conservative Muslim nations with amazing amounts of cash.

It’s worth a read.  Anyone else read it?  If so, what are your thoughts?

Related articles:
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Kindle and eBook Formats

Posted on
NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 09: Amazon.com founder an...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I must admid it, i want a Kindle 2.  I like the thought of having all my books in one nice little electronic device.  I like the thought of downloading and saving and storing all the things i want to read.  I’m intrigued.

This is why i was interested in this article in Forbes from Tim O’Reilly about formats.  He talks about the importance of supporting an open format in the success of a product.  For instance, the iTunes/iPod ecosystem is a popular platform and even though it has it’s own proprietary AAC format, it also supports the mp3 – an format that anyone can encode into.  Supporting both allows the iPod to take advantage of both customers and the web at large.

O’Reilly argues that Amazon should do the same with the Kindle.  The fact that it supports only it’s own eBook format will lead to its demise in the same way that Microsoft and AOL’s support for their own formats led to theirs.  The O’Reilly camp is only supporting the open e-book platform and they have seen it have success:

But we can already see the momentum on the open e-book platform. Stanza, the epub-based e-book reader for the iPhone and other Web-capable phones. Lexcycle, the creator of Stanza, announced recently that its software has been downloaded more than 1.3 million times, and that more than 5 million e-books have been downloaded.

While The Kindle is the slickest of eReaders and the most popular with 500,000 – 700,000 sold, the game is far from over.  The Sony Reader which also uses e-Ink has sold around 300,000.  Should Amazon remain closed, it could very well miss out on a huge opportunity, or as O’Reilly says: “Open allows experimentation. Open encourages competition. Open wins. Amazon needs to get with the program”

Of course, another way to look at this is:  AOL was about to build a $150 billion company by making it easy for people to get web information and only after the web matured did they fall.  Perhaps The Kindle will be the first out of the gate and will take the early lead because of the streamlined format and operation of it’s service.  Personlly, while i understand the need to be open, i’m still willing to check out The Kindle.

Related articles:
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

The Week is the best Aggregator and Filterer

Posted on

I’ve mentioned in my previous posts that the newspaper model is dead. Reporting and publishing every day and having a dedicated staff to do both just isn’t a business model anymore. Not to mention that can get better content by aggregating the content that exists elsewhere. Several web companies do this well and i like to call them “A & F” companies – which stands for “Aggregating and Filtering” This is what The Huffington Post does and Celebuzz and others. One of my favorite A&F companies isn’t a web company but a print magazine called The Week. What The Week does is take articles, books, and news that’s been distributed over the week and filters it into one condensed version of the best news and articles. It’s more condensed than a typical magazine and often better because it picks the best from lots of media.

One interesting quote i heard today is that The Week is one of the few print titles that’s growing. I read this today:

While newsweeklies such as Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report struggle, one magazine in the category is succeeding. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The Week saw its paid and verified circulation grow 7.5 percent in 2008. The publication increased its circ from 480,084 to 515,936, as well growing 60 percent on the newsstand. “The Week’s continued growth at a premium subscription price is a testament to the connection our sophisticated readers have with our editorial product,” Steven Kotok, the mag’s general manager, said in a statement. “Our readers are The Week’s greatest evangelists. In 2008 over fifty percent of new subscribers to The Week came through direct recommendations from current subscribers.”

If you’ve never read The Week, you should check it out. Anyone else seen anything similar?

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Leaders and Followers

Posted on

There’s a new book by Seth Godin called “Tribes” which talks about the startup culture and out-of-the-box thinkers.  Two interesting parts of the book are the parts about followers and the parts about Leaders.

A good question exists talking about the difference between employees and followers.  Employees show up each day and do their tasks whereas a follower is someone who is following a calling. Followers work because they believe not because they are told to do so.   Great companies illustrate this.  You can see people flocking to Facebook and Apple because those companies inspire.  They don’t recruit but spread gospel.  It’s interesting.

This relates directly to the talk about Leaders.  The following characteristics were thrown out in the book:

  • Leaders challenge the status quo.
  • Leaders create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture.
  • Leaders have an extraordinary amount of curiosity about the world they’re trying to change.
  • Leaders use charisma (in a variety of forms) to attract and motivate followers.
  • Leaders communicate their vision of the future.
  • Leaders commit to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment.
  • Leaders connect their followers to one another.

Makes me think about how i interact with my coworkers and how i behave at work.  Some people are better than others at finding a vision and staying focused on it.  What do you think?  Is this hard for you to do? Do you know some people who are particularly good at it?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Agassi’s Autobiography is Really Good

Posted on


I just finished Andre Agassi’s new autobiography Open
and found it to be a great read – i’d give it 4.5 out of 5. Sure it’s not a deep and heavy work of literature but I found it really interesting to hear about his life and emotional path.   Agassi was such a talented player who was thought of as a choke artist for such a long time until he got his mind straight.  I like that he really goes into each match and tourney and discusses why he tanked or what he was thinking.  It’s clear from reading this that so many of his failures occurred due to his emotional state. And you can hear in his voice and in his match results how much a stable home life changed him.
Some highlights for me are:
  • Talking about his overbearing father and how that shaped his childhood.  His “Dragon” ball machine that his dad raised up so when it shot balls, it shot them down so Andre had to take each ball on the rise or he’d miss it
  • His journey to find friends and peers that he could relate to and that helped him
  • Talking about his hair and how much time and energy he spent finding and wearing a hairpiece to play in.
  • Talking about Steffi and how much of an impact she had on him.  It’s clear that once he established a solid home life his career peaked.  Without that, he’d without a doubt have much fewer wins
  • Comparing himself to Pete Sampras and how their two paths differed.  Also hearing the story of Pete tipping his valet $1
  • The anecdote of when his dad met Steffi’s dad.  Both were great former athletes who pushed their kids to greatness and when they meet two egos clash like i’ve never heard of before.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes tennis or Agassi.

Changing it up every 3 years

Posted on

A good post today by Chris Anderson about completely changing jobs every 3 years.  He writes:

When I was at The Economist, there was a policy to rotate everyone every three years. The idea was that fresh eyes were more important than experience. “Foreign everywhere” was the mantra, and around your second year in Cairo, you could expect to get a call from the editor asking you to consider Mumbai or Sao Paolo–ideally two places you’d never been to and knew nothing about.

I’ve changed jobs every 2 years and do find that if you don’t continue to challenge yourself and learn new things, you can get complacent and bored.

Another interesting point about the post is the connection with Macolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, which talks about how people achieve success.  Anderson writes:

I was thinking about the three-year rule while reading about Malcolm Gladwell‘s observation that it takes 10,000 hours to become truly expert at something. If you really throw yourself into a job, you’ll spend 60 hours a week working. That’s 3,000 hours a year (allowing for vacation), which means you’ll hit the 10,000 hour mark a few months after your third year.

What do you think – how often do you try something new?

Related articles:
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

A life of Children's Books

Posted on

I thought this was an inspirational article about Anne Moore’s life in New York who, as The New Yorker states:

In the first half of the twentieth century, no one wielded more power in the field of children’s literature than Moore, a librarian in a city of publishers.

She devised many of the conventions that live on today.  It’s always interesting to read about people who had much a severe impact on our lives.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Chinese Democracy exists and i'm happy about it

Posted on
Guns n Roses album Chinese Democracy is released
Guns n' Roses album Chinese Democracy is finally released

I had this conversation in the office today with a colleague (let call him M-Bone) that went like this:

  • M-Bone: The new Chinese Democracy album totally sucks
  • Me: Really?!
  • M-Bone: Yeah – it’s totally horrible
  • Me: hmm
  • Me: Hey – did you like Use Your Illusion?
  • M-Bone: No – i hated that album too

And there you have it.  I keep hearing from lots of people who didn’t like Guns ‘N Roses to begin with that the new album Chinese Democracy is garbage.  Of course it is – you don’t like the Guns N’ Roses‘ music.   Me, on the other hand, happen to really like GnR and think that the new ablum is really interesting.  Of course the music isn’t as good as Appetite for Destruction – nothing will ever be.  But it is good.  And even more than that – it is nice just to have it exist. It’s a moment, an event, something worth listening to.

The Phantom Menace

I would argue the same for Star Wars Episode I or Rocky II.  Are they good as the originals? No, definitely not.  Am i happy they exist? Absolutely.  Whether you love them or hate them – it just makes the world a better place.

I don’t think i’ll know how good the music is until all the hoopla dies down.  Probably sometime in mid 2009 i’ll have a sense for how good the songs are.  Right now i really like them and really enjoy just experience more GnR.

There is also a good review by Chuck Kloseterman about the new album.  As a fellow fan and probably the most qualified man in America to review the album, he also appreciates the album but brings up some good questions that it raises.  I’ll leave you to the article. It’s here in the AV Section of the Onion: Chuck Klosterman’s review of Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy

Related articles
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Michael Lewis and the financial crisis

Posted on

Michael Lewis who wrote Liar’s Poker revisits in an article his time on Wall Street and does some digging into what happened and interviews some people who actually predicted the crisis. In fact, reading this article you (a) wonder why more people didn’t see the financial collapse coming and (b) feel a sense of happiness that the firms got what they deserved.

It’s a good read – here it is

As a side note – on my path through Wikipedia: did you know that Michael Lewis is married to Tabatha Soren the old MTV veejay?  And did you know that Tabatha was in the music video “You’ve got to fight for your right to party” by The Beastie Boys? Interesting

Related articles:
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]