Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
2018 reading challenge (Not so impressed (Think Like a Freak Levitt,…
2018 reading challenge
Cognitive psychology
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst Sapolsky, Robert M.
This book is situated ahead of Kahneman's "Thinking fast and slow", the longest book I read in 2018 and describes the role of genes and biochemistry in behaviour, clears out several misconceptions around how different low-level factors influence our behaviour or attitude
The Art of Thinking Clearly Dobelli, Rolf
This is like "Thinking Fast and Slow" for dummies, much easier read, focusing on cognitive fallacies
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Rosling, Hans
Why this book? Because it's in Bill Gates TOP5 for this year, explains how to avoid common cognitive fallacies in understanding and interpreting the world around you
Sports/nutrition
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It Taubes, Gary
Case agains sugar/carbs and for ketogenic diet
Fitness Confidential Tortorich, Vinnie
More like an autobiography book and becoming ultra-endurance athlete than fitness/nutrition book
Finding Ultra, Revised and Updated Edition: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself
Roll, Rich
Generally inspiring but would have expected more theory and practical advice
Autobiographies/ individuals/nations
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Wolff, Michael
Read this book to verify if I had overlooked something significant, I hadn't. This was the first non-fiction book I completed in 2018 and remember when I was listening for it for hours when waiting in queue in Warsaw airport after it was closed after a plane crash
Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction Parekh, Bhikhu C.
Relatively short intro to Gandhi's phenomena, what are his lasting philosophical values but also his dogmas that make no sense in today's world and are standing against progress
The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia Booth, Michael
Probably did not agree with everything in the book but did help to understand some behavioural patterns that had been puzzling me explained the historic background of many phenomena visible today
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution Isaacson, Walter
A book that had been sitting in my reading list for a long time. Not very short book and a lot of information was packed into it, looks like a small encyclopedia. The initial chapters about the distant past were not that interesting, maybe because I could not relate to them in any way
Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story Schwarzenegger, Arnold
This book has earned a lot of critics but I think it should not be evaluated for something that it is not, I think it's an amazing story of persistence and going against all odds successfully
Philosophy of life
The Art of the Good Life Dobelli, Rolf
Bought this book after reading "The art of thinking clearly", interesting mix between psychology, stoicism and value investing principles, some of the statements were too modest for my standards
Principles: Life and Work Dalio, Ray
Not so short book, I liked to autobiography part, the explanation of what principles are and why they are powerful and also the sections on radical transparency, in parallel there were several chapters that sounded quite mainstream. I think that the book could have been shorter
Mastery Greene, Robert
Not as provoking as "48 laws of power" but definitely a good focus step or planning tool and how to supercharge your development towards desired skills
Negotiation/persuasion
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Voss, Chris
The negotiation book that takes into account the cognitive fallacies of people (VS assuming it's a purely rational process), this is the best book on negotiation strategies that I have read so far
Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade Cialdini, Robert B.
Quite sophisticated framework and probably also effective but not so intuitively applicable, will probably use for analyzing some stuck situations or those that did not go as intended
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High Patterson, Kerry
A reference guide for difficult conversations, needs practice and reflection
Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale Ziglar, Zig
Management classic on persuasion that is decades old but still intriguing
The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Cardone, Grant
I was again disturbed by the high amount of self-appraisal in the book but it does give some thought-provoking information and useful lifehacks
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads Wu, Tim
Slightly scary chronology on how we are taken advantage of and manipulated to benefit the attention merchant (whoever that is), book value is in interesting examples
Expanding the horizon
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth Kaku, Michio
This book is bold and goes much further than Harari's Homo Deus, while doing that it does not become too much science fiction. Sums up the most probable futures ahead of us.
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Tegmark, Max
So far the best book I have found on this topic, from building AI to harvesting energy from black holes (computing power does not energy... ), focus is on two important goods in the information age: information and energy. Life 3.0 is when you design both your "hardware" and software according to your wants and needs
21 Lessons for the 21st Century Harari, Yuval Noah
I started reading this book the day it was first published internationally. All Harari's books are good but I did like Sapiens and Homo Deus better, this book was a bit too "New Age stuff" for me towards the end
The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order Vigna, Paul
Background stories and theory overview is good, the predictions about cryptocurrencies dictating the future has not realized so much by today...
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age Doctorow, Cory
Facts-checking on copyright and distribution, probably more for non-IT people. Good summary but not that much new information for me
With a twist
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel Wainwright, Tom
Interesting insights, today's challenges in drug wars and how the situation can actually be improved
Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance, Debauchery, and Billion-Dollar Deals LeFevre, John
This is a rather absurd story of Wall Street investment banker's crazy life as an expat in Asia, sounds unreal but might actually be true, not really a sustainable way of living and 48 laws of power is quite soft compared to this one
How to Be Ultra Spiritual: 12 1/2 Steps to Spiritual Superiority Sears, J.P.
Even a parody gives you overview of respective field. I have to admit that JP videos are funnier, yet this book has its brighter moments
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Munroe, Randall
Making science interesting with absurd examples, does not improve your competitiveness on the job market probably but does entertain
Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Lifein Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
West, Geoffrey
“We need to understand how the dynamics of innovation, technological advances, urbanization, financial markets, social networks, and population dynamics are interconnected and how their evolving interrelationships fuel growth and societal change—and, as manifestations of human endeavors, how they are all integrated into a holistic interacting systemic framework . . . and whether such a dynamically evolving system is ultimately sustainable.”
Great companies
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup Carreyrou, John
This story sounds too unreal to be true, but it makes you think that one should actually take away the money from stupid people (but not with such grave risks as there are in medicine sector)
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Galloway, Scott
The book explains very well the underlying strategy/key differentiators of those companies and what might await them in the future (ceteris paribus)
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration Catmull, Ed
For some reason this book was in my reading list for too long time, one of the best books I've read in 2018 on how to build and retain an engaged creative organization
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility McCord, Patty
Netflix surely is challenging the status quo in organizational culture, their approach is bold and arrogant (not in a bad sense). I found my way to Netflix culture deck through this book and have been referring to it since in my professional life (how to respond to growing complexity)
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Schreier, Jason
One of the very few books written on game development, helped me to understand several core dynamics in this business when looking into investing to game development companies. Also the stories of some games/game studios were really interesting.
Enterpreneurship/Startups
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Ries, Eric
The "Bible for startups" that gives you the vocabulary/definitions and also key focus areas to have some chance of succeeding with your idea/startup. Startup is mainly about continuous learning and looking for product/market fit, ideas are easy, execution is hard (and not so sexy) and you must not be afraid to pivot. The book was written quite many years ago so is becoming slightly outdated in the light of latest technology/ecommerce trends but is still very relevant as a base book
The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth Ries, Eric
The book argues for the need for continuous transformation and creating the conditions to enable it in a corporate organization. The insights are interesting but the concent as a whole is extremely difficult if not impossible to implement in a established big corporation with long history and core structure carved into stone
Strategy
The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results Bungay, Stephen
This is an amazing book explaining the relations between organizational structure and strategy, what happens if these are not aligned (constant compensation is needed) and what are the key characteristics of organizational structure that enables the execution of strategy. I have been advocating the key concepts of this book on professional level as much as I can during this year
Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters Rumelt, Richard P.
The best book I have read on strategy, what should actually be considered strategy and what not, how to identify bad strategy and avoid the fallacies related to strategy. I'm also planning to use key concepts from the book extensively in my work life.
Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing - Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth Kim, W. Chan
Need to read Blue Ocean Strategy book also, the important aspect of this book is stressing the importance to focus on non-customers instead of hunting for customers from your competitors
Economy
The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die Payne, Keith
Challenges from inequality and how it is enforced through negative feedback loops, several topics are built on exposing cognitive fallacies
China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle McMahon, Dinny
Fiction
Best reads
A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini, Khaled
The most emotionally touching book this year
Ready Player One Cline, Ernest
Felt like TRON experience where you visualize the action (even without seeing the movie)
The Martian Weir, Andy
Much better than movie and the movie was not bad either
Metro 2033 (Metro #1) Glukhovsky, Dmitry
The computer game series is grim and hard, the book was more positive and expressed the overall philosophical challenges better, looking forward to other books in the series
The Hobbit Tolkien, J.R.R.
Have already read once in Estonian, this was the very last Tolken book I decided to read again after completing all the rest of his books last year
The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1) Liu, Cixin
Long but engaging, pace gets much faster towards the end
Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury, Ray
One of the classics that you definitely need to read, similar to Brave New World and 1984 but stands out on its own
Time and Time Again Elton, Ben
This book was given to me as a present and only now managed to finish it, very good and I heard that Ben Elton has written many more good books
Circe Miller, Madeline
Goodreads Choice Awards 2018 winner in fiction category, I was not that impressed after finishing it but seems to get better the more you think about it
Neverland Vadi, Urmas
This is a book about human relationships and I would call it slightly absurd, especially in the culmination part
The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2) Liu, Cixin
Liked the first part better but this was interesting also, again pace is getting much faster in the end and the solution was a bit disturbing/illogical
Alien: Out of the Shadows (Canonical Alien trilogy, #1) Lebbon, Tim
Have seen all the movies a few times and this is my first book in the series, worth checking up the others also
The Christmas Hirelings Braddon, Mary Elizabeth
Among free Audible Originals before end of the year, good for creating a Christmas atmosphere
Fortunately, the Milk Gaiman, Neil
This is supposed to be children's book, very short but sensed similarities with The Hitchickers Guide to Galaxy series
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War Brooks, Max
They say that the movie with Brad Pitt was crap but didn't find the book very good either, was OK read
Norse Mythology Gaiman, Neil
Was reading this book after "American Gods" and seems to be mainly narrating/simplifying the core stories from Norse Mythology, good as general intro to the topic but American Gods was much better
Productivity/learning
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Allen, David
Read this book for the 3rd time to remind me about it's core ideas, still the best book on personal productivity and getting things done. This year I restarted several very useful concepts from there (like weekly reflections and TOP priorities)
The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy Bailey, Chris
When you feel overwhelmed with all the productivity books then this guy has done the job for you and reviewed many of the widely known frameworks, I was again inspired by the positive effect of regular summaries/reflections and the timeless methods of David Allen
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Kondo, Marie
This is a disturbing little book. When something does not bring joy into your life you should get rid of it... will come back to those thoughts sometime later...
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance Gawande, Atul
I read "Being Mortal" from Atul last year which was one of my favourite books and this one is written in a similarly engaging format. Listen to what this man is saying because he is making the world a better place (approved by Bill Gates).
High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way Burchard, Brendon
I was disturbed by the amount of self-appraisal on this book if you can look around this then it does provide a good structure for your focus check
How We Learn: Throw out the rule book and unlock your brain's potential Carey, Benedict
Fine-tuning your learning focus, this is more a general principles books and you need to see how you can apply them in your won situations
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit Godin, Seth
Small book and does not say much but what it says it does elegantly, good for self-check on when to quit and when you should not even start
Organizational culture
Leadership in complex volatile environment
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World McChrystal, Stanley
This book resonates with my today's challenges, managing information fields and improving collaboration/effectiveness in a complex environment that is in constant change itself. The only book I have found so far to cover complexity and leadership together, praised by many reviews and references.
Radical Inclusion: What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership Dempsey, Martin E.
How to stay on top of your goals in the post-truth era against distributed volatile challenges, the indirect positive effects of engagement and taking initiative in information sharing
Organizational learning
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization Senge, Peter M.
The management classic about systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building a shared vision and team learning
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement Goldratt, Eliyahu M.
The "father" of Phoenix Project, how to turn around a crashing organization and reach continuous improvement, management classic
Field Guide to Understanding Human Error Dekker, Sidney
Topic is important but I was not overly impressed by this book, it did contain some interesting ideas though
OKR
Measure What Matters Doerr, John
John Doerr is considered the biggest authority on OKR's and is not just writing about this topic but has consulted tens of companies on successfully implementing and using OKR's, examples are quite good. This is another book from 2018 which principles I will use in my daily work
Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results Wodtke, Christina
Management tale and brief intro to OKR's, I think the story illustrates well what might happen without clear goals and focus.
IT management
Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, Second Edition Cagan, Marty
According to general understanding this is the best holistic book on Product Management and a revisited version was just published in 2018, definitely eye-opening and great reference material on product management and I will be referring to it a lot in my daily work.
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time Sutherland, Jeff
Filling my gaps on IT management and DEV. This book is written by the founder of Scrum and nicely explains how most organizations misunderstand its true meaning and implement just the facade without substance and do not realize its immense potential. Especially important are the factors around organizational learning, collaboration and facilitation.
The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations Kim, Gene
Started this book already last year as it's not an easy read. This is considered "the Bible" of DevOps theory and while I'm certified in DevOps and have read several other books on this topic I did not find much new information from there. This book can be used as reference material in specific situations
Management/ leadership
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done Drucker, Peter F.
The timeless management classic and good reality/focus check. Two ideas that got stuck in my head were about most of executives time not being under his control (I have learnt to cheat that) and also you should aim to make very few but high quality decisions.
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever Bungay Stanier, Michael
It is also acknowledged that if you are reading just one book on coaching then it should be this book, this is like a "master key" to this topic and gave 10+ more books to my TO-read list. The 7 core questions presented in the framework are easily applicable in real life situations and very effective.
The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company Charan, Ram
The main value of this book is about understanding the essence of each management layer in the organization from individual contributor to CEO and it's very good guide for clarifying your focus and understand if specific role is working according to the correct expectations according to his level in the hierarchy.
Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst Sutton, Robert I.
Collecting of good principles to check from time to time to stay on the side of a "good boss".
Not so impressed
Think Like a Freak Levitt, Steven D.
Have read also Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics and already after second book started thinking if the following books were just written to cash out the success of the first one, it's OK for spending your time but no long-lasting generally applicable knowledge
Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself Epstein, Mark
Too common sense, mixing Buddhism with midnfulness but the outcome was not that spectacular
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment Tolle, Eckhart
I'm probably too rational mind for this book, common sense and lack of theoretical substance for me
You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life Sincero, Jen
"Elevating your wavelenght to attract success"? Too New Age for me...
Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley Pein, Corey
The author seems to have some personal issues against Silicon Valley in general, ungrounded criticism
Find Your Why: A Practical Guide to Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team Sinek, Simon
Generally OK book but Find Your Why is much better and this book does not offer much value compared to the original one
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts Duke, Annie
Idea was interesting but argumentation was quite poor and not really convincing
CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT: How Our Blindness to Context Cripples Even the Smartest Organizations Oshry, Barry
Found out that this was the least read book in Goodreads from all my 2018 books, again the ideas were good and I got some takeaways for professional life but it failed with execution
Vello 42 maailma avastamas - Vello42
Quite OK for spending time and from time to time makes you laugh but the short Facebook posts are better, only two stories (working in Finland and trip to Greece) are not enough for such long book.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos Peterson, Jordan B.
Highly rated book in Goodreads and very visible in bookstores this year but I did not find that much from it...
We Have a Deal: How to Negotiate with Intelligence, Flexibility and Power Reynolds, Natalie
There are much better books on negotiations, mostly common sense
Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know Kaplan, Jerry
I already knew most of those things...