What you'll find on this page is a list in no particular order of books I've read, re-read, and have loved. Some of these will be books I've just discovered, others will be books I've had for a long time. Some will be reviewed in a degree of depth, others will be the equivalent of me tossing a paperback along the bar and saying "'ere, try this" as a 300-page novel skilfully avoids knocking over your vodka. Or, more importantly, mine.
Dream Teams, by Shane Snow. I read this at the back end of 2022. Hands down, it's one of the most useful and thought-provoking management books I've ever read. Snow spends time exploring the importance of diversity in teams - the differences in perspectives, thinking and understanding a diverse team can bring. And by 'diverse' we're not just talking about 'race', as you might expect. But profession, gender, class, knowledge and just about any factor that can differ between two humans. He then goes on to discuss the problems inherent in hiring, forming and managing a diverse team, giving diverse teams the support they need to use their strengths effectively, and the disadvantages of a diverse team. It's a well balanced book, not the one-sided manifesto in favour of diversity I expected it to be. I found every section interesting and useful, with plenty of real-life examples of how diversity has/hasn't worked for various companies. An essential read for every manager.
Second entry, and I'm going to talk about A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin, et al. Yes, it's a comic (a Batman comic, in fact). And yes, I'm an adult. But if I listened to other people's opinions I'd have cut my hair long ago, never got any tattoos, and never owned a Harley. And I'd probably be a lot less happy.
This wasn't the first 'dark' comic I'd read. That honour goes to another comic -another batman comic, in fact- that I lost long ago. The Robin in that comic from the late 80's possibly killed a bad guy off-panel to prevent him from getting away with a crime he'd committed, but couldn't be tried for. I remember the writing being really subtle, my first experience of writing being implied in that way rather than obvious. The characters were much more morally ambiguous than those in A Death in the Family, but there are some murky motivations in this one too. Up until reading those books I'd been raised on Fantastic Four and Thor; as well as Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton and CS Lewis. Those were great reading, don't get me wrong. But in those books the good guys were good guys. And the bad guys either learnt the errors of their ways, or were punished for their bad deeds. The stories were great, but the characters a little flat. These two comics were the stories that got me interested in ambiguous characters, and character development. Now, if only I was the World's Greatest Detective I'd be able to track down that missing comic...
This wasn't the first 'dark' comic I'd read. That honour goes to another comic -another batman comic, in fact- that I lost long ago. The Robin in that comic from the late 80's possibly killed a bad guy off-panel to prevent him from getting away with a crime he'd committed, but couldn't be tried for. I remember the writing being really subtle, my first experience of writing being implied in that way rather than obvious. The characters were much more morally ambiguous than those in A Death in the Family, but there are some murky motivations in this one too. Up until reading those books I'd been raised on Fantastic Four and Thor; as well as Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton and CS Lewis. Those were great reading, don't get me wrong. But in those books the good guys were good guys. And the bad guys either learnt the errors of their ways, or were punished for their bad deeds. The stories were great, but the characters a little flat. These two comics were the stories that got me interested in ambiguous characters, and character development. Now, if only I was the World's Greatest Detective I'd be able to track down that missing comic...
First entry, and I'm going to go for 'Tribe of Mentors' by Tim Ferriss, author of 'The Four Hour Workweek'. This, on the surface of it, is one of the laziest books ever written. Perhaps this is what he decided to do one particular workweek. In a nutshell, he's compiled a short list of questions that he emailed to numerous famous entrepreneurs, creatives, and the like. They then replied to the questions they wanted to answer, usually three or four out of the ten he sent. Some of the answers are trite (for a skull-numbing drinking game, take a swig every time someone 'resets' themselves. Take two if they do so by meditating, yoga, or connecting with nature). The male reader is, I'm 90% certain, an AI; and the female voiceover artist has to 'act' every reading rather than just, you know, reading. For this reason I wish I'd picked up the paperback as both become irritating after a while. Despite this, over all it is an interesting listen. I particularly liked listening to how different people interpret and answer the same questions. Some of the answers are very thought-provoking, too. If I had bought the paperback it would be the sort of book I'd dip in and out of rather than reading through, so I'm listening to this during my shorter journeys instead.
