Reading on James Jarvis

📚 Year of books 2025

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Bit late this year as I’m only posting this in April, but here are the reviews I wrote for the (12) books I read in 2025. For each book I read, I try and write a short (often scrappy) review as a way of remembering what I learnt from each book. I’ve also started writing more notes on books while I’m reading them, but those are more private.

The following has been extracted from a short script I reused from last years post, to export all of my reviews made in 2025.

The Lean Startup

5/5 :star:

I “read” this book as an audiobook, but I feel this does not do it justice, and I would have benefit more with a physical copy for later reference. The book repeats itself a bit, but has some valid case studies of companies who have benefitted from some of the “lean startup” approaches. Principally, the methods of “innovation accounting” seem to be key for ensuring a project is actually capturing a market fit, without wasting too much effort on untested hypotheses.

Eric mentions some other concepts that interest me, namely the concept of keeping known “innovators” on innovative work, with the assumption that some are better suited for the implementation, scale up, or maintenance types of work/management. This could perhaps explain the rarity of founder/ceos lasting much beyond the initial starting phase.

Interestingly, in the epilogue Eric notes on the general unproductive nature of modern business enterprises. Focusing on the wrong metrics, spreading themselves too thin taking too long on too many projects that are ultimately doomed for failure lead to higher than required rates of failure.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

4/5 :star:

Fundamentally a brilliant book to reshape your perspective on gender issues, from a bottom up approach. I’m not convinced all case studies mentioned are as simple as stated, but the root problem is indeed a lack of gender disaggregated data.

Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

4/5 :star:

(not provided)

The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions

3/5 :star:

It took me 9 months to finish this book. Why? On one hand, almost every page is covered in a stream of factoids, which I’ve either read before elsewhere, or seen elsewhere in this book! On the other hand, this book is effectively a collation of small articles + accounts from climate activists from around the globe, with a connecting piece written by Greta in-between sections of the book. This format was interesting for about the first hundred pages, but after a while became a bit of a slog to read through, with the last 40 feeling like repeats of the first.

Whilst this isn’t the most flattering review, I want to make it clear that I agree with the majority of the book. Some suggestions are a bit delusional (yes, the richest nations must spearhead fossil fuel replacements through technological improvements, but pay reparations? That’s just not practical), but the overwhelming majority of the book is quite reasonable, if a little alarmist.

A Philosophy of Software Design

4/5 :star:

Overall a brilliant collection of strong opinions that I generally think are good to follow, or to at least consider and oppose meaningfully. A similar resource for this is grugbrain.dev, a personal bible for me.

It’s very much a theoretical book for those with the luxury of time though, as allocating time for a good design is inherently expensive, something that unfortunately must be traded off with implementation work. John coins a term “tactical tornadoes” for those who go around improving systems quickly, rather than holistically. I believe this is somewhat childish, as anyone can and must become this persona in times of need.

Overall I would recommend the talk John gives at Google instead of this book (find it on YouTube), as it provides much of the same core principles (deep interfaces, etc) in a more engaging and concise format.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

4/5 :star:

(not provided)

Taxtopia: How I Discovered the Injustices, Scams and Guilty Secrets of the Tax Evasion Game

5/5 :star:

(not provided)

The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies

3/5 :star:

(not provided)

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future

4/5 :star:

The “engineering state” vs the “lawyerly society”, an accurate portrayal of china and the US. Dan Wang’s analysis of these two superpowers cuts pretty deep, and isn’t very forgiving for either one. I agree in general with the principle diagnosis, but there isn’t a whole lot more detail other than that. I’m also not entirely sure I agree with the final remarks that china is unable to compete technologically with the USA, I fear that lead is being eroded quickly.

Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure: Top Gear, Grand Tour and Twenty Years of Magic and Mayhem

5/5 :star:

Obviously impossible to fault a deliberate nostalgia trip.

Appendix

I just reused and slightly modified the script from last year’s post - no point wasting good LLM tokens on something already done!

📚 Year of books 2024

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Building on my last year getting properly back into reading, this is a continuation of my reflections. For each book I read, I try and write a short (often poorly worded) review as a way of remembering what I learnt from each book.

In my last post on this topic here, I reflected on my 2024 New Years resolution:

For 2024, one of my primary goals is to write more, and to write more publicly (fail fast, thanks Levels).

Now I didn’t do too badly, writing 12 posts to this blog, but I’d like to see that go up in the next year, so consider this the continuation of that goal.

The following has been extracted from a short script I co-authored with the help of ChatGPT, to export all of my reviews made in 2024.

This year, I read and reviewed 20 books, a little down on last years 30, but I feel happy with it.

The Lean Startup

5/5 :star:

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

4/5 :star:

Don’t let the intriguing title fool you, this is a genuinely well researched and collated series of thoughts. Caveat here that I have not read deeply into this subject so this book is my first experience with reading on the economics of undervalued human labour.

The good: This is a subject that, from what I can tell, does not get the attention it deserves in popular economics. Graeber is clearly one of the most active thinker on this subject, and is able to highlight almost all questions regarding the phenomena at least that I could think of. Lots of interesting/humorous anecdotal case studies throughout the book, from people who have written to the author expressing their opinions of the social value of their own jobs. His theory on the inverse correlation between social value and monetary compensation for a job is a shared belief, but the reasoning appears to favour a belief that the subject is being rewarded by the virtue of producing social value in the job itself, rather than purely monetary value from the salary. It is full of classic case studies of middle-management and bureaucracy bloat, which if not particularly helpful, is somewhat cathartic to read.

The bad: Early on, the author makes a point regarding the rise of “services” jobs in both the UK and India. In the UK graph he notes on the increasing proportion of labour working in the service sector, whereas in the India graph he draws comparison on the increasing proportion of the services sector as part of India’s GDP. Whilst I don’t think the point is entirely lost here, the clearly handpicked statistics, each focused on different metrics of an economy, hurt his image as an unbiased commentator somewhat. As the author does foreshadow, the last chapter on Universal Basic Income and his opinions as an anarchist do also devalue the book somewhat. I need more information on UBI to consider whether any of the expressed opinions are valid or not.

The God Delusion

4/5 :star:

It’s hard to review this book as I’m just not the target audience for it. I’m already an atheist, so what were presumably controversial topics for religious folk, sailed right past me without much meaning. Thats not to say it hasn’t got merit, some chapters had interesting perspectives on various aspects of life. The ones I remember most being:

The analogy of “binker”
- And the suggestion that religion is a natural continuation of infantile support mechanisms (imaginary friends)
The perspective of death
- Mark Twain “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years.”
- William Shakespeare’s seven stages of man, suggesting a character dies multiple times throughout their life.
- The Theseus Paradox, at the atomic level.
The thin slice of the universe we are capable of perceiving
- With the imagery of a burkha, the notion that humans are only capable of experiencing and understanding a subset of all distances, colours, forces.

Although I did find that reading as an audiobook, the narrators had a “smarter than thou” tone, intentionally divisive for what purpose I can only assume, to anger some, and deepen a connection with others. I don’t think this is particularly constructive considering the objective nature of the book, so it could have done with a different style of writing/narrating.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

5/5 :star:

Learnt absolutely nothing and loved every page of it.

Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval

3/5 :star:

Pessimistic, alarmist, but most likely true. Vince argues that humanity is not on track to achieve our climate goals, and will end up with 4-5 degrees of global warming by the end of the century. The implication of this, is that:

all low lying areas will flood, including the likes of Bangladesh, Netherlands, London, New York and more.
forest fires will threaten drier locations with lots of vegetation
huge parts of the global south will become uninhabitable due to heat waves
all farmland will either become unviable, or will be forced to change their crops

Given this set of events, Vince warns us of an incoming mass migration event, from south to north. Large chunks of the book are dedicated to reminding us of the short lifespans of borders, and what is a nation anyway?

But I wonder if this is even realistic? Assuming continued population growth, and the loss of both farmland, and existing cities, can we even practically migrate almost 4 billion people into Siberia?

Not to mention the clear devastation this will bring to whatever remaining wildlife or wilderness in this new frontier, I fear we will only ever be delaying the inevitable. A side chapter on forcing meat free diets, cramming people into high rise buildings and seeding the atmosphere with sulphates appear to reveal the truly dystopian vision the author is subconsciously trending towards.

I think this is a good explanation of the problem we are likely to face, but draws the wrong conclusion about what a solution might be. A better solution for humanity as a whole, is to shift to sustainable living practises, and increase the efficiency of its use of resources, not to increase the population by any means necessary. For an explanation of some of these ideas, I would recommend the book “degrowth”

Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain’s Top Forensic Pathologist

5/5 :star:

Imagine finding a dead body. Imagine cutting said body up, folding back its tissues, pulling apart organs, re-assembling some part from bags, and imagining all possible ways this person could have died. Pretty horrific, right? Well, it would be for me, and as it turns out, roughly 23,000 postmortems later, it has turned out to be a bit traumatic for Dr Richard Shepherd as well.

A lifetime in public service, doing the necessary, difficult work most cannot imagine themselves attempting leaves us with this fascinating, very well written memoir.

Not for the squeamish, but a great read nonetheless as an exploration into one of those topics you’d never think about reading otherwise.

Personally my favourite tales are of the doctor’s passion for flying over Kent, something I can fail to accurately reflect the emotion of. In addition, his overall passion for humanity, be it a lonely elderly woman, or a boat full of party-goers. He seems to have truly cared about uncovering the truth for each one, but you can hear the weight of these experiences cumulating on his mind.

Surrounded by Idiots

3/5 :star:

One of those books that you naturally doubt, and requires a bit more practise to grasp the value of classifying people into one of four colours. The colours are certainly easy to remember, and have a hilarious, “inside-out”-esque character assigned to each one, but this only further accentuates how doubtable it is. If you are willing to take this information at face value, and be a bit crude in your own application of these classifications onto your fellow person, then I could see this being useful as a quick behavioural filter. However I wouldn’t consider this an idiot-proof guide and your mileage may vary vastly.

Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution

4/5 :star:

Not quite a historical account, not quite a modern day opinion piece, this book leaves the reader wanting to learn more about why such a country could do such things. Some scenes feel lifted straight from 1984, and the author does a good job with helping you to connect to each of the subjects, whose stories she portrays. If this were fiction, it would be interesting at best and yes, Orwellian. Given this is not fiction however, it fills you with sadness and a just a hint of fear for the future. As history is slowly erased during the course of the book, it ends noting that the Party and it’s leaders are going nowhere.

Brave New World

2/5 :star:

In my opinion, this book is not a must read science fiction novel. It has its merits, and the key themes of the book are laid out in plain terms roughly 3/4 of the way through the book in a narrative style, much like some other sci fi novels. However, the reason for the low review is that these themes are neither particularly challenging, nor investigated in an insightful manner.

You’ll find the first quarter, and subsequent snapshots of the book to revolve around the somewhat cheap and perverse obsession of communal sexual acts, chiefly amongst children. It serves well as a shock factor, but goes so far as to kind of bore you of the books main plot. The themes of automated and replicated human reproduction are interesting, but really don’t explain the necessity of “orgy porgy” to the plot. Similarly, the manufactured genetic class system, and free distribution of psychedelics are a great concept to explore, but explain nothing about how the “savages” are really so different, given their reliance on religion.

Overall whilst I’m sure this was groundbreaking for its time, it is one of those books that I might recommend once you have more or less exhausted the science fiction genre.

Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now

4/5 :star:

John Doerr puts forth the most digestible, compelling plan for combatting climate change in his book/call to arms: Speed and Scale.

Well structured and pragmatic, the first half of the book covers the “what” needs to be done to reduce CO2e emissions, partitioned by sector. The remainder of the book has a deep dive into the “how” we may hope to achieve this.

Well referenced with Objectives and Key Results acting as anchors to serve a trackable plan, the only concerning part is that since this book was published, the world is already falling behind on a number of these OKRs.

I greatly admire Doerr for his determination to have some form of impact against the threat of climate change. Whilst some of his investments (QuantumScape, Beyond Meat) are more of a joke than serious companies, the idea holds true. We must invest more and move quicker.

The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

5/5 :star:

I recommend this book to anyone even vaguely interested in managing and growing any organisation, though this may particularly apply to technical ones.

Fournier presents a well thought out breakdown of the challenges, her experience as well as snippets of wisdom from other leaders for various levels of management (mentorship, middle, senior leadership).

My key takeaway would be to focus on defining and following the values of your particular chunk of an organisation. I have been fortunate enough to see many of these recommendations play out to varying effects at the companies I have worked for, so I will consider this another slither of knowledge to compare my experience against.

That being said, I myself have not yet had the chance to truly live most of these experiences, so I would imagine your mileage may vary.

Rework

3/5 :star:

The introduction starts out by saying “a lot of people…call us a fluke” and then goes on to abashedly gloat about their apparently flukey success. The book is written in this quite abrasive style, but does make a lot of sense, particularly for smaller organisations optimising for low effort, high value output.

Some things stand out:

Make small, frequent decisions
Half of a product is better than a half arsed product
Avoid long todo lists
Avoid absolute terms where unnecessary (can’t, must, everyone, no one)
ASAP is inflationary
Focus on customer service
Don’t hire too fast
Teaching is the best method of marketing
Motivation has a short shelf life

Overall, I think it’s worth a read, and I’m appreciative that they kept the book so short (supposedly halving the length between first and last draft). However take it with a pinch of salt, I doubt this will work for all industries/sizes of companies.

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World

4/5 :star:

Some books you pick up, and wonder why you bother. The first paragraph passes you by without a second thought, and no value is apparent to you. This was not one of those books. I’m not completely blind to geopolitics, but this book presents a great way to reframe how you view a country. Its assets, liabilities and risks are made up of the natural landscape, resources and neighbouring interests.

Tim himself sounds like an interesting character, and I’m left hungry for more of his world takes!

The Price Of Money: How to prosper in a financial world that’s rigged against you

4/5 :star:

Great to read, but I forgot to take notes so now I’ll need to read again! I’m glad the book was kept short, as the value of this book is really just to reset your views on money, investments and the mentality of governments/central banks. It doesn’t need to be long to achieve that.

I miss studying Economics!

TL;DR: Money does not have any intrinsic value, it is simply a form of value exchange. Money’s value used to be tied to it’s scarcity, but since the 1970’s has been allowed to increase it’s own supply. QE and monetary policy are generally levers accessible to governments but have debatable impact. Limited monetary policy and inflation via QE are the likely strategy for the next 20 years, so the classic wisdom of owning assets still generally applies.

One of the best things from this book comes down to the fact that most people in charge of central banks simply don’t know for sure what effect anything they do will have. Economics only makes sense in hindsight, and normalcy bias will generally mean you do not take action on any signs you may think you see.

Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity

4/5 :star:

I started reading this based on the recommendation of one of my good friends whilst on a road trip around Washington State. I won’t say this has changed my life, but as we drove around partaking in the Standard American Diet, we couldn’t help but enjoy learning more about this subject. With my cynical hat on, I can tell that the author is probably just on the wrong side of obsessive over their health, but their final chapter around mental health proves they are at least aware of their condition.

If there is anything to take away from the book, it would have to be the general idea of “Training for the Centenarian Decathlon”. Pick 10 activities you would like to keep doing once you are 100 years old (carrying groceries a few streets, walking around a park, picking up a child etc), then multiply the efforts a few times and train at this level consistently. Sleep more, exercise more, avoid sugar, eat more protein, avoid alcohol. Lifespan != healthspan, and there is no point on living too 100 if you have no reasonable social activities to share your life with, so take all things in moderation, and live a little!

The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources

4/5 :star:

A genuinely gripping read for one not previously aware of this shadowy, essential, industry. The high level narrative is that these swashbuckling charismatic corporate figures have managed to corner effectively the entire worlds natural resources through sheer force of will. The detailed accounts of who and how are what keep you turning pages, whether it be tales of foreign policy individuals smoking cigars with Fidel Castro early in to the morning, or a savvy trader propping up entire failed states (or the rebellions overthrowing them).

This whole industry is a fascinating eye opener into how the world works, and the unimaginable riches that can be grabbed if the right information is known to the right people. The last chapter begins to map out the demise of the traditional giants as fiddly things like “ethics” start to get in the way (leaving space for some less regulated alternative traders from China to take the mantle).

Overall, a great read, and some intriguing insight on how traditional finance, plus speculative financial instruments can provide massive accelerants to what I assumed would have been fairly boring, perfectly competitive markets. Highly recommend for anyone interested in macroeconomics!

Conversations on Love

3/5 :star:

I doubt anyone who has spent time thinking about love will learn anything new, or discover anything about themselves.

The value of this book is in understanding that others have experienced the same situations, with some wonderfully personal stories. For that purpose, it offers a great casual read exploring the experiences of others, but I wouldn’t recommend if you are expecting insight. This isn’t one of those topics where you are likely to learn anything new.

Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

3/5 :star:

“Radical Candor” is a phrase I have heard several times over the course of my current career, by some of the most well respected engineers and managers I have yet encountered. So, I thought this would be worth a read.

Though this is not the first management / organisational book I have read, it deserves a space on the bookshelf. Scott recites her experiences from a whirlwind career starting on the streets of Moscow recruiting diamond cutters, to a pivotal time in the wholly radical early days of google, and scaling a sales team for Adsense, one of the most profitable products of the 21st century.

From these experiences, Scott believes she has found some key characteristics of business leadership that function particularly well. Note that this is less of a groundbreaking new theory, and more of a reminder of good practices that have worked well in the low context, collaborative and progressive western companies, such as google.

Some key points that can be translated elsewhere:

Most employees are either “rockstars” (steady performers) or “superstars” (high growth). It is important to have a mix of both, and to reward equally.
Nuances between “Radical Candor”, “ruinous empathy”, “obnoxious aggression” and “manipulative insincerity”, primarily with mistaking radical Candor for obnoxious aggression.

The rest, such as the need for immediate, direct feedback, and continually seeking constructive criticism, is echoed in many other books of this genre.

The Trading Game

5/5 :star:

What would you do, if you had one shot, one opportunity? The first half of this book reminds you of Eminem, a scrawny white kid attempting to rise against adversity in an industry he adored, whilst battling with the grips of poverty. Gary Stephenson is a unique economist and financial trader, with a compelling series of videos and articles outside of this book to his name, detailing his famous bets against economic recovery and the root cause: wealth inequality.

If you are interested in this side of the story, then the first 2/3rds of the book are for you. Having grown up also in east London, admiring the bankers herding their way through the city, I connected with this side of Gary’s story. The economic theory woven through this book is apparent, as he imperfectly competes over each rung in the ladder, towards achieving his first trading job.

Though his career was short, it was agonisingly intense. The equal but opposite side of his bell curve career at Citi offered a peek into the mind of a man descending into burnout induced insanity.

What would you do, for 4 million pounds?

For Gary, this appeared to mean a loss of all human connection, all humanity even.

Just ask yourself, what would you do? When would you escape?

Thoroughly recommend if you are interested in viewing a slightly different take on a career in trading in the financial markets.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

4/5 :star:

Typically when picking up these kinds of books, the reader has a particular motivation in mind. Negotiating a salary or a deal at work, practising their haggling at the local boot fair, or attempting to get the best price during a house purchase.

This book as far as I can tell, gives some fantastic tips for negotiation, as long as the following constraints apply:

The negotiation must be between 1:1 parties. These tactics rely on approaching a deadline, deliberately drawing out the negotiation, and engaging in conversation first to best know your adversary.
The negotiator must become comfortable with emotionally manipulating their adversary. These tactics again rely upon an ability to emotionally connect with your adversary, and then convince them they are sucking you dry.

Depending on the reader’s disposition, they may either extract some extremely valuable advice from this book, that they can immediately start to practice with. Or, they will likely feel incapable of applying some of these techniques in their own life.

Either way, this book does have some interesting perspectives on negotiation, with a few case studies from the author’s own career, that make for excellent filler material all can appreciate.

Appendix

Code for parsing Goodreads data export

📚 Year of books

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read

I personally think there is significant value in taking time to reflect upon your actions, and setting some intentions going forward.

For reflection, I have been recording a second of my entire adult life as a form of yearly reflection from June-June, and now have this blog to express my intents on a more frequent basis.

However, I also like to set my own New Years Resolutions, as a significant Temporal Milestone I can guide myself against for the year ahead. I still struggle with writing effective goals, but I typically manage to tick at least half of them off.

One of the goals I set myself for 2023 was to read 10 books. I used to love reading as a kid, and have fond memories of ignoring the calls to go to sleep from my parents when I was 8, churning through the Harry Potter and Alex Rider series. Since I left school, for some reason I had dropped out of the habit of reading, and I quite missed it. So, I set up a Goodreads account, signed up to Audible and tried to track my progress in some shoddily written reviews.

The following has been extracted from a short script I co-authored with the help of ChatGPT, to export all of my reviews made in 2023.

TL;DR?

Clearly I have some progress to make on my own writing…

These reviews are pretty slopping and fairly valueless, and even while writing them I found I hadn’t always absorbed the content of the book as well as I would like.

That being said, it is an amazing start! I am very proud of myself for making this much progress, and have become very fond of my kindle/audible unwind time, and may have even learned something along the way!

I’ve learned that reading lists, much like TODO lists have this funny habit of forever getting longer, the closer you get to the end, and that I am a bit of sucker for a certain style of front cover.

For 2024, one of my primary goals is to write more, and to write more publicly (fail fast, thanks Levels).

This is the start of my efforts to contribute to this goal, hello!

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

4/5 :star: find online

(not provided)

Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track

5/5 :star: find online

Very interesting read, and a sure addition to my bookshelf I’ll be referring to for years to come! Very well laid out references too

1984

5/5 :star: find online

(not provided)

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

4/5 :star: find online

Not quite as interesting as the more historical/informational Sapiens and Homo Deus, but still good to read. Contains more opinions than I’d probably say necessary but still insightful!

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

5/5 :star: find online

Whilst itself not containing anything groundbreaking, I would recommend reading this at least once (ideally repeat reading it every few years) to remind you to focus on your priorities and motivate you to not become a “fair weather person”.

Value(s): Building a Better World for All

4/5 :star: find online

I appreciate the reflective focus of this book. I recall lots of focus on the impacts of the global pandemic and the global financial crisis (of which his section on the unravelling of the crisis from his perspective as a trader was my favourite). However I am left with a feeling that perhaps I haven’t learnt much, if anything what I have come away with is a renewed appreciation of planning for adverse scenarios and aligning incentive structures/markets for a shared purpose. Perhaps this is one of those books that aim only to ignite questions.

What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (What If?, #2)

4/5 :star: find online

(not provided)

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers

5/5 :star: find online

Having read this recently after finishing the similar but less focused “This is how they tell me the world ends”, I’m left ironically with a greater sense of dread from this book. “Sandworm” does more to focus directly on the Russian links to various high profile hacks in the 2010’s, and notes the direct and indirect links these have had with the Russian/Ukraine conflicts of the 2010’s and 2020’s. For me, much of the contents of the book detailing NotPetya and WannaCry have been published elsewhere, but I find more curiosity in the US defence exercises conducted on the electricity grid. Highly recommended read, along with “this is how they tell me the world ends”, but beware that this book will play on (perhaps very accurate) fears of the Russian state, at every opportunity.

Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity

4/5 :star: find online

Interesting read. As with any leadership book it is generally an ego massage for the writer, however this one does bear some important messages. He describes the importance of having a product mindset for yourself (delivering value, building diverse but relevant experience), and of the difference between “drivers” and “passengers”.

I’m not sure what the key takeaway would be that I’ll implement in my own life, but it’s a good thing to read occasionally to remind yourself to stay on the track creating the most value

The Happiest Man on Earth

5/5 :star: find online

I’m not sure it’s possible to give this book a bad review. Eddie is clearly a very inspiring spirit, having lived through the hardest of times and still left with a kindness in his heart. Reading this you are jerked into reflection on your own position in life. The audible narration is also fantastic, and a great match with what you would imagine the author sounds like.

Becoming

5/5 :star: find online

An inspiring book from the coolest First Family of modern times. It is reassuringly honest from a political perspective, and is a recommended read for any young person scared of their own social mobility

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea

5/5 :star: find online

One of a limited set of exciting and insightful biographies of influential entrepreneurs. The story of Netflix is different from what I first imagined, but my main takeaway would have to be Randolph’s Rules!

How Not To Be a Boy

5/5 :star: find online

I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually watched any of Webb’s work. However I can’t recommend this book enough. His message is rarely told from such a first hand perspective, and it’s one that I feel will become more mainstream in the years to come. Personally I still don’t quite understand football, either.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

5/5 :star: find online

Believable if only in its disheartening representation of Silicon Valley. If you are just looking for a summary of the wrongdoings of Elizabeth Holmes, then this might be a bit overkill and a documentary will suffice. However the events portrayed in this book are an insightful mix of Lying, Cheating, and Sociopathic tendencies.

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

3/5 :star: find online

Having read Becoming quite recently (and being very pleased with it!), I’m not sure this book offers much more value or new insights. My main takeaway from this book would have to be Grandma Robinson’s tips on teaching independence.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

4/5 :star: find online

I’m ashamed to admit I started reading this book with an expectation of what I would get out of it. Much like the outcome of Sheryl’s journey, the whole purpose of reading this is about the journey of the unknown. Some parts I felt myself prematurely repelled against (cheating, lying, emotional manipulation, inability to face consequences, sexual promiscuity, assumptions for help, naivety, heroin addiction, swallowing her mother’s ashes). However, what did I expect? I had an assumption this would be another privileged person travelling for the fun of it. Rather, this was a genuinely troubled person attempting to reset by taking on the biggest challenge they could imagine, alone. Some parts did not resonate with me and that’s ok, the experience is nonetheless valid.

The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

4/5 :star: find online

Erin delivers a clear, concise set of personal anecdotes and a framework for rationalising the effects of culture on communication. The book is very focused on the context of business, but the lessons learnt can be applied to any cross cultural communication. I’d recommend this for anyone engaging in long term cooperation (business or otherwise) with people from multiple diverse countries.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

3/5 :star: find online

This book is perhaps a bit too long, and bounces around the topics of class warfare, race and immigration, with little structure. I admire it for sharing extremely relevant stories from Britain’s political past, but I’m not left with the impression that this book has been impartial in its investigation.

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

4/5 :star: find online

To begin, I see other reviewers comment on Tony’s personal failures and unhealthy leadership styles. I can’t comment on this context as the sum total of what I know about this man comes from this book, so I shall only refer to the book review.

Build is a well structured, if a little petty, guide to a product focused mindset. A lot of the concepts around finding product market fit, storytelling, focusing on press release first, structuring an organisation to ensure stakeholders have to agree (i.e making support sign off on new sales) feels like well founded advice and common sense. Some parts felt needlessly petty (a constant revert back to why google is awful), and some parts just felt like reflections on luck (right place right time hiring for Apple).

In general, I found the book very enjoyable to read, however I would be concerned with repeating all but the product focused points. I fear most organisations would not tolerate such abrasiveness.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

5/5 :star: find online

To be honest, I don’t know what to do with this information. But this is a good framework for analysing your current position (cashflow and balance sheet) and making steps to prioritise asset building. In the UK it’s a little less impactful to “pay yourself first”, and many recurrent tax efficient investment schemes are not available. However this book is probably one of the most impactful triggers for learning more on the subject!

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

3/5 :star: find online

The book is far too long, contains numerous logical errors or contradictions, is both harsh and heartfelt and I fail to see what I actually learnt from this book. That being said, I don’t think it is completely without value, and to the right audience it clearly resonates. I just think it should be called “12 vague themes for struggling young men” instead.

Outliers: The Story of Success

5/5 :star: find online

Outliers is one popular science book that is well worth reading. He proposes the concept that “genius” is a combination of:

A sufficiently high IQ (though beyond 120 has negligible effects)
Proper upbringing (concerted cultivation, as he notes in a few case studies)
Practical intelligence (derived from the latter upbringing)
Situational luck (noting similarities of prominent figures and their economic situations during formative years).

Anyone who falls trap to society’s worshipping of the “lone genius” should read this book to zoom out a little. A related book for the latter chapters around the power distance law and cultural effects on education and work, I would recommend “The Culture Map”.

Permanent Record

5/5 :star: find online

Something I didn’t expect to take away from this book would be an understand of how manipulatively flawed it’s intelligence organisations are structured. The fact that security clearance is not necessarily related to public/private roles seems strange.

The book provides an insightful (yet slightly dull) overview of his time contracting and training through the intelligence community, until ultimately suffering from a burst of epileptic illness, and after spending considerable time indoors, monitoring the traumatic events occurring throughout the Arab Spring, he forms a clearer view of where his own government is failing their people.

My review of Edward’s character is overwhelmingly positive. From his description of events, given his oath to the American people, he did the right thing by disclosing wrongdoings of the 5 eyes governments.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character

5/5 :star: find online

The tales do occasionally come off as a bit show-offish, and he is clearly a bit arrogant of his own abilities. However it’s possible that this was entirely reasonable!

I’m not sure what I expected when going into this book, but it is very much focused on how the man operated, and not on his achievements. So without undertaking external research of Feynman, you are still left with only hints of what his main achievements were about.

His mind was certainly a curious one, and it is extremely refreshing to hear someone detail the ins and outs of his lifelong(!) passion, enthusiasm and energy for all things science. Additionally, after around 1945 the extracurricular focus of his life gets progressively saucier, having switched subjects, cracked safes, learnt languages, moved countries, played in a “band”, frequented bars, drew models professionally, and repeatedly mentioned his adoration of women! Although his “womanising” manner may appear a bit out of fashion nowadays.

Whilst I wouldn’t consider him a direct role model, his curiosity is infectious, and I wish all readers absorb at least some of his passion!

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

5/5 :star: find online

I thoroughly agree, with about 50% of the solutions in this book, and the remainder I feel are too optimistic and not realistic.

Degrowth is a damaging name, for a movement that sounds like it makes sense for humanity: factor in the costs of all externalities (especially negative) when pricing a good or service, and provide a metric of economic progress that is more human-values driven (quality of life, sustainability etc) than merely monetary-value.

The book is well written, and the audiobook is similarly well narrated, however this type of book is more valuable in print format, where you can refer back to sections of interest later.

Something I don’t agree with, or at least haven’t formed a good enough of an opinion around yet, is that this book strangely reiterates the claim that distributing wealth equally would result in an instant improvement in quality of life for all. As far as I am aware, economies currently rely on inequality to price goods competitively, however more reading on my part is required.

Regulation and individual behavioural changes alone are a tough thing to rely on, which this book unfortunately primarily suggests. I however primarily like the concepts of:

Mandatory N year guarantees on new products
Community share-stations for seldom used goods
Limitations on lowest-highest compensation ratios
Direct democracy for long term societal strategies
Externality Tax on goods and services, based on their negative externalities on society/environment. Positive externality becomes a grant.

Overall, I think this is a good book for the future generation to read, but I don’t expect much action to come along with it, until the public is genuinely aware of the societal problems we will face if we continue to exceed our planetary quotas.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

4/5 :star: find online

A good book, but not one I would recommend as a “must read”. The author presents many insightful case studies, although some of which are slightly dubious, and I would have preferred a less opinionated form of writing, presenting the facts first.

The key takeaway for me, is identification of the cue, routine and reward habit loop; keystone habits; and that a habit exists primarily within the basal ganglia, and away from conscious thought.

Life Time

4/5 :star: find online

An interesting book, although I’ll admit that a combination of my reading times, and the bombardment of unfamiliar medical terms/acronyms meant the book had an ironically sleep inducing quality!

My main takeaway would be that “sleep is important”, with a side order of “when you take medication or eat food in relation to sleep is important”.

I’ll admit that I’m not the perfect target audience, as I don’t feel reading this book has given me the filtered information I need to actively improve my own health, although I have absorbed the gist of it.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

4/5 :star: find online

A great autobiography of Amazon and its infamous founder. However it is starting to show its age a bit. Quite poetic considering the opening chapter describes a conversation with Bezos, who questions whether the book is being written too soon.

I didn’t realise quite how… ruthless Amazon is/was. It is quite happy to engage in savage business tactics, and suck the humanity out of any worker, all in pursuit of the hallowed customer experience.

I quite liked the final comparisons between Steve Jobs (who valued profit extraction from addicted customers) and his own biological father (who ran the same small niche shop for decades).

Well worth a read, but be cautious of the survivorship bias of tech CEOs from this era.

Appendix

Code for parsing Goodreads data export

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