award tour

I just wanted to make a quick comment about CBC Radio. The comment is that it is awesome. I drove from Toronto to Ottawa today and decided to see what makes the Sunday morning program. First up was Sunday Edition which had this amazing piece about Canada’s new “Guest Worker” visa program which basically brings people into Canada to do unskilled labour that no one in Canada will do (like work at Wendy’s or work on farms). Next up was The Late Show which profiled a late author named Martha Blum who resided in Saskatoon and was a Holocaust survivor. The piece on her was phenomenal. Next, Vinyl Cafe did a show about covers which included crazy stuff like William Shatner’s Mister Tambourine Man, some standards like Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, but the one that really surprised me was a cover of the BeeGee’s Islands in the Stream by The Constantines & Feist. The Debaters was pretty good and then Wiretap was fantastic (I especially loved the bit about Josh trying to “rid himself of his material possessions and hit the road, wandering-hobo style”).

I really wanted to point this out because radio in Toronto is genuinely atrocious and it’s so nice to see that the CBC has such diverse, entertaining, and quality programming.

I wrote a post one year ago this week called books in 2006 which included brief reviews of all the books I read (or tried to read) in 2006. Here’s the same thing but for 2007 and, again, in the order that I actually read the books.

The Blind Side - Michael Lewis. This is the fourth book by Lewis that I’ve read. The book intertwines two stories. One, about the evolution of football over the last 30 years which led to the left tackle (the guy who protects the quarterback’s blind side) being the second highest paid position. And two, the remarkable story of Michael Oher, an orphaned teen who became a high school All-American left tackle. I absolutely devoured this book and I don’t even like football. Every person I recommended this book to also read it in record time. Lewis is a born storyteller.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman. This is essentially a primer on Buddhism but told through a fictional tale. I found the book to be very similar to “Ishmael”. It features an old and wise teacher with special powers and a hapless student who asks far too many questions. Unfortunately, also like “Ishmael”, much of the writing is second rate and reads like incredibly forced dialogue. That said, I still enjoyed the book.

Mavericks At Work - William Taylor & Polly Labarre. Includes some really great case studies in how bucking trends and valuing people can lead to business success. The book still struck me as verbose at times and a little too “cheerleader” in others. No real concrete advise.

Thinking with Type - Ellen Lupton. A fantastic primer on typography. It was exactly the overview on fonts that I was looking for. Also a very quick read at 176 graphic filled pages.

Making and Breaking the Grid - Timothy Samara. Cool book on the history and theory of page setting and grid systems. Lots of interesting and inspiring examples. I was hoping for more web-related content but it was still a useful read.

The Seven Day Weekend - Ricardo Semler. Probably the most interesting business book I’ve ever read. Semler is the CEO of the Brazillian conglomerate Semco which has lines of business in industrial machinery, inventory control, HR management, internet ventures, etc, etc, etc. The company has no defined roles or work hours, no planning longer than a few months, no mandatory meetings, and a whole slew of other ideas which fly in the face of accepted thinking. If you’re interested in the topic, I highly recommend checking out this lecture Semler gave about some of his ideas or check out this summary of the video over on the 37 signals blog. Oddly enough, the book doesn’t seem to be in print and Amazon only offers the book through used-book sellers (or on the Kindle if you have on).

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond. This book made my 2006 did-not-finish list and, holy crap, did it take a long time for me to finish in 2007. The book, which attempts to explain why western societies came to become so dominant. Essentially, “those who domesticated plants and animals early got a head start on developing writing, government, technology, weapons of war, and immunity to deadly germs.” The book is very long in some parts which, in retrospect, I wish I had just moved on to the chapter summary. I found the chapter on the development of writing systems to be especially interesting. I’d definitely recommend the book to anyone but would also advice you just skipping sections that you don’t find interesting.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond. I starting reading this within days of finishing Guns, Germs, and Steel. The book profiles societies which have collapsed and provides a terrifying allegory for where our globalized society could be heading. The single biggest thing I took away from the book was a quote about the fallen society on Easter Island, which used to have lush forests but is now a barren dustbowl: “What were Easter Islanders saying as they cut down the last tree on their island?”

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment - David Swensen. Great book on long term portfolio management. Talks heavily about the virtues of working with core asset classes & rebalancing and talks very extensively about the failures of the mutual fund industry. I’d recommend just reading the summaries of the last two chapters about the extensive failures of the mutual fund industry. I also just started reading The Four Pillars of Investing which seems to be a better intro to portfolio theory and appears to include real world examples of a portfolio (which I found Swensen’s book lacked).

Books I didn’t finish

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Chris Hedges. One part uber-depressing and one part terrifying. Couldn’t get that into it.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Got through most of it but just couldn’t get it done. Some interesting arguments about our tendencies to under account for the impact of randomness. This is probably the first book I’ve read where the author’s arrogance shown through so clearly that it seemed he was annoyed that you were reading his book. I’m hoping to take a look at Taleb’s latest book, The Black Swan, sometime in 2008.

The Elements of Typographic Style - Robert Bringhurst. More than I cared to read about typography. Might be useful if you were actually going to be designing a typeface.

Maverick - Ricardo Semler. Semler’s first book about what was going on at Semco. Originally published in 1988, it’s more autobiographical and not nearly as interesting as his aforementioned book.

Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise - Ray Anderson. I first heard about this book and Anderson when I watched the The Corporation earlier this year. This is also how I found out about The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken. I didn’t have a chance to really get into either of the books but I’m hoping to in 2008 as I’ve been really interested in the topic since reading my favorite book of 2006, Cradle to Cradle. I’m sure that not a week goes by where I don’t wonder how I might be able to pursue a corporate endeavor which can create a positive environmental impact by design.

Have your own opinion on one of the books mentioned? Read any books in 2007 that you’d highly recommend? Then add your comment below.

I just finished reading my fourth book by Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker and Moneyball. His latest book, The Blind Side, is another sports title. The book is split into two parts which intertwine. The first story is about how the left tackle has come to be the second highest paid position in football. The short answer to “why?” is that the left tackle is usually the player who protects the blind side of the quaterback (usually the highest paid player). Lewis chronicles this evolution from Bill Walsh popularizing the West Coast offense, to Lawrence Taylor literally breaking quaterbacks in two, to coaches searching for a specific genetic monster who can stop the Lawrence Taylor’s of the world. But this isn’t the real story of the book.

The other story in The Blind Side focuses on the incredibly random story of Michael Oher, who currently plays left tackle for the University of Mississippi’s football program. His story is incredibly bizarre. He didn’t know his father and was raised by his crack-addict mother and social services until he was 15. Then, as luck would have it, he basically stumbled into the family of rich white folks. Though Michael had little experience playing organized sports he quickly became of the most coveted college recruits in his graduating year. This isn’t that surprising once you find out that age the age of 16 Michael was 6″5, 350 pounds, with a 50 inch waist and a 55 inch chest, and could run a 40 meter dash in under 5 seconds. An excerpt of this story, Michael’s story, was actually included in a New York Times Magazine article a couple months back and is well worth reading.

As some of you might know, I’m not a big sports fan. I don’t watch sports on tv and I probably only attend 2 or 3 major league sporting events in a year. I keep reasonably up to date on who’s leading in each sport but that’s only because newspapers print sports sections. That said, this book is phenomenal. Michael Lewis is an incredibly gifted storyteller and, luckily for us, he stumbled upon a truly amazing story to tell.

Here’s the books I read in 2006 followed up by the books I started reading but didn’t finish for one reason or another. The list is basically in the order that I actually read them. If you read any of these books, let me know what you thought of them in the comment section.

Two Percent Solution - Matthew Miller. I saw Miller speaking at Seattle City Hall on a local access tv channel when I first moved to Seattle and was really impressed with his lecture. His book talks about how a 2% tax on everything in America could be used to fully fund a solution to the what he considers the biggest problems in the United States: public education, universal health insurance, and social security. I was pretty impressed with some of his ideas on education and health insurance. His ideas were quite centrist and made concessions to all sides involved.

What’s the Matter with Kansas - Thomas Frank. The details of how the Christian right consumed the republican party in kansas is pretty crazy. None the less, Frank is pretty whiny and the book isn’t very memorable.

Illicit - Moses Naim. I saw Naim talking about his book on Fareed Zakaria’s show and pretty impressed. Naim, who has a pretty impressive CV, profiles the inner-workings of modern day smugglers and traffickers. Some of the descriptions in the book would come straight out of a management textbook for a global high tech corporation. It absolutely convinced me to never buy counterfeit goods.

Mr. China - Tim Clissold. The memoir of a Brit who traveled most of China trying to do investment deals. Clissold is a great storyteller and makes a very entertaining read which details the utter insanity of doing business amongst chinese bureaucracy and personal politics.

Watchmen - Alan Moore. I was expecting a lot more. Probably the last graphic novel I’ll read for a while.

Getting Things Done - David Allen. This has got to be the most hyped personal time management book of the last decade. I found I couldn’t apply it to my job (not to say it wouldn’t work for other jobs) but I do use some of the ideas in my personal life.

Smartest Guys in the Room - Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind. I covered this book in another post but suffice to say, it’s really quite interesting considering it’s length and topic.

When Genius Failed - Roger Lowenstein. In Smartest Guys in the Room it said that every trader at Enron had to read two books, When Genius Failed was one of them. It chronicles the creation and eventual implosion of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund, which nearly brought down wall street. A great read if you’re interested in business and wall street.

Liar’s Poker - Michael Lewis. This is other book Enron trader’s had to read. The book is memoir of when Lewis worked at Salomon as a bond trader in the 80’s. The most infamous story in the book is about John Meriwether, founder of the aforementioned hedge fund Long Term Capital Management. Of the three books I’ve read by Lewis, I’d actually have to say this was my least favorite.

Trail Fever / Loser - Michael Lewis. Last year I read another book by Lewis entitled Moneyball. I was really impressed in that book how he managed to create such vivid characters. The same is true for Trail Fever. The book tells the hilarious story of how Lewis followed a bunch of candidates in the 1996 republican primary and basically makes everyone involved in the whole process look barely human. Well worth reading if you’re into politics.

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell. I’ve pointed out Gladwell’s articles and lectures several times this year. He is a truly gifted storyteller especially considering that his work is usually about bringing academic research to the masses. Blink is about how our first reactions, our gut, can work wonders in some situations and fail miserably in others. I’d highly recommend this book to anyone.

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell. Another fantastic book by Gladwell which I would recommend to anyone. Just read the description off amazon for more info.

Getting Real - 37 signals. A collection of 90 short essays on how to do more efficient and better designed web development. A quick read which makes some great points. Definitely worth reading if you’re in software development and it’s available for free.

Pragmatic Programmer - Andrew Hunt & David Thomas. A new classic on the topic of software development. This was recommended to me by just about every good programmer I’ve ever worked with. The book covers a series of best practices most of which I would agree with. Though the topic is dry, the authors get to point pretty quickly, keep it reasonably interesting, and provide pretty good examples. As a measure of how good it is, this is the first book on the topic that I’ve actually finished.

Execution Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. This was recommended to me by several people (including my dad, who loved it). The book is orientated towards managers (which I am not). Wasn’t the most practical book but did have some pointers on how to get get things done. If you’re a people manager, this book is worth checking out.

One Up On Wall Street - Peter Lynch. Lynch, the original manager of Fidelity’s Magellan mutual fund, writes about why you shouldn’t invest in mutual funds and how anyone can pick stocks. His suggestions are very broad and doesn’t provide enough info on how to evaluate a company’s financials. The book wasn’t totally without merit and I did take away a few good nuggets of investing know-how but not enough to recommend the book.

Rule #1 - Phil Town. I actually saw Town speak at our office. First off, he struck me as an absolute shark who loves schilling his book on “Self Improvement / Motivational Speaker” tours. That said, this was actually a really good book for new investors. The book is very straight forward and basically explains a formula for deciding whether or not to invest in a company and at what price. It makes some superfluous claims about how much time you’ll actually need to research stocks but I’d still totally recommend the book to anyone looking to start investing in individual stocks.

The Successful Investor - William O’Neill. Honestly, who designed the cover to this book? It’s probably the hokiest looking book I’ve ever read. Unfortunately, you can judge this book by it’s cover. The book is about using technical analysis to buy stocks and didn’t do a very good job in convincing me that their theories made any sense. My 2 cents: don’t read this book, period.

The Search - John Battelle. Battelle, a co-founder of The Industry Standard and an original editor for Wired magazine, also came into our office when The Search came out. He was a really capivating speaker and actually ending up talking a lot about the publishing industry. The book is about the evolution of search engines (with a lot more ink dedicated to one specific search company, i’ll let you guess who) and the immense impact this technology will have on our culture. If you’re into high tech at all, it’s definitely worth reading.

The Long Tail - Chris Anderson. Based on an article originally published in Wired Magazine, The Long Tail describes how the Internet has changed what kind of content (books, music, movies, etc) we consume and how it is created, financed, and marketed. Some of the statistics in the book are quite amazing and provides for a pretty engaging read. The book would be quite informative for anyone who works in content creation, marketing, or high tech.

Cradle to Cradle - William McDonough & Michael Braungart. Of all the books I’ve read in 2006, this is one that I’d recommend every person to read. The books premise is that our current direction for creating environmental change isn’t working. That our currently focus on making people and companies do “less bad” is not a solution. The book is an accessible manifesto to the idea that all products should, by design, have no waste. This might seem like wishful thinking but the authors provide several amazing examples of how they’ve achieved this in their work with all sorts of large companies. Even the book is made of a special paper-hybrid which can be reused without recycling and is more durable then normal books (it’s incredibly hard to tear and isn’t damaged if you get it wet). Long story short: Read this book

The Stranger - Albert Camus. A gift from Boris which I read, for the most part, while on vacation this summer. Oddly enough, George Bush read the same book this summer while on vacation. It won the pulitizer, is a staple of French existentialism, and is probably one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century. I have no idea why though. It struck me an short simple piece of very dark comedy.

Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser. I wasn’t really interested in reading this book until I saw a really captivating interview with the author. The book basically puts the business practices of fast food companies and meat packers on trial. It lists in shocking detail the problems the industry has with worker safety, paying a living wage, ripping of franchisees, and food safety. The stories from the meat packing plants are beyond horrific. I’m so glad I don’t eat fast food or meat.

Chuck Klosterman IV - Chuck Klosterman. A collection of articles written by Chuck over the last decade. The stories are usually longer then the ones originally published and include lots of great footnotes along the way. I’m a huge fan of Chuck’s and although it’s not as entertaining as Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs it definitely made for great reading on the commute to work. And the interview with Val Kilmer is priceless.

Books that I didn’t finish reading:

Mao: The Unknown Story - Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. I read about 50 pages of this 800 page tome before I had to return it to the library. Basically, Mao was a twisted genocidal maniac who is probably rotting in hell.

Notes on the Synthesis of Form - Christopher Alexander. A book about the process of design. It is certainly well written, I just put it down and never finished it.

Dealers of Lightning - Michael A. Hiltzik. The story of Xerox’s legendary PARC lab. I’ll probably try and read it again sometime. Just wasn’t into it at the time.

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond. A really interesting topic but just not enough to keep me going.

Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs. I really liked the topics discussed in the book but Jacobs spends sooooooo much time giving examples for her points that I just kept getting tired of reading it. At times the book seems like Jacob’s only wants to convince you that her neighborhood is greatest neighbourhood in the world.

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham. Warren Buffet says this is the only book you’ll ever need to read on investing. It’s really dry. I stopped reading it months ago but I recently picked it up again.

Technopoly - Neil Postman. Every sentence Postman writes is pretty dense and as serious as cancer. Once I got the jist of the book, I really didn’t have the energy to continue. It did have some interesting observations about how people interact with information which provided quite a bit of food for thought.

Stumbling Upon Happiness - Daniel Gilbert. Had to return it to the library before the Christmas break and just didn’t get it done in time. The book is about how human’s are basically terrible at predicting what will actually make them happy and is written along the same lines as Gladwell’s Blink but is definitely not as engaging. I’ll hopefully pick it up again sometime this year.