📚 Year of books 2024

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 ⭐

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.

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #

4/5 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

Learnt absolutely nothing and loved every page of it.

Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval #

3/5 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 ⭐

“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 ⭐

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 ⭐

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 #