Books I've read

...in partial, or in full.

I read a lot of technical articles, just didn't read books–especially fiction–for a long time, since I'd get too engrossed. In an attempt to get away from social media, I figured books were a better source of info and space for thinking.

Like many, I used to think that it only counts if I read the whole book. Well, life is short. I shouldn't stick to reading something that I'm not enjoying. Here's my ongoing list, most recent first.

Under the Skin ⛔️

It starts off with the bizarre scenario of a woman that picks up hitchhikers and gets them abducted. Thematically, it asks questions about what it means to be human through a role reversal setup.

Spoiler: It read like a serial killer story until I realized she was an alien. Somehow, that made it more palatable. Anyway, aliens are killing the hitchhikers for meat.

This is the kind of set up I'd probably write, but I found it a bit of a slog to read. The central question of "what it means to be considered human" is muted by the assertion that we don't have X, Y, and Z, without defining what those are. Though I finished it, it didn't evoke a perspective shift. Looking forward to watching the Netflix adaptation though.

Tenth of December ⛔️

Reading good writing is supposed to make you a better writer, so I asked GPT for recommendation of short stories and picked up this one. Honestly, I couldn't get into many of the stories, but I could see the varied writing styles and story structure. There was a story about a mom that chained up her mentally disabled kid in the yard, and a different mom that went to her house to buy a dog. I thought the structural contrast was interesting. However, the content really didn't resonate with me, and I just read three or four stories.

Romney: A Reckoning ✅

This was an biography of the former Utah Senator, with sources from his personal journal. As a result, there's a lot of shade thrown at other Republican Senators, with names. There's lots to say about it, but the main question for me: Why was Romney able to buck against the tide? I don't think there's a single ingredient. There was his belief in God, the reputational stubbornness of Romney men, the support of his family on his political decisions, already feeling like an outsider as a Mormon, and a deep desire to win the approval of both his deceased dad and beloved wife. All coalesced and put him in a position to say no when it mattered.

One Hundred Years of Solitude ⛔️

I don't know much about Latin American history, so the analogy was lost on me. Didn't finish it, but I got the gist of the allegory once I asked GPT-5 about what I was reading. In addition to my recent interest in geopolitics through Dr. Sarah Paine and the allegory, I have a deeper appreciation for just how fortunate the United State is to have had a stable institutions upon which to build an economy. That said, I know this book isn't for me.

The Mom Test ✅✅

When conducting ethnographic customer development interviews, you can't ask people hypotheticals or what they'll do in the future. That's just inviting people to lie to you. The only reliable thing is to ask people about their concrete and specific experience in the recent past. It's up to you to notice their pains. I recently turned this into a coaching prompt.

Heart of Innovation ✅

Two important ideas: First, people don't buy what you think they're buying, because the context with which they find themselves (so that they they have a problem to solve) isn't always clear to you. Hence, you need to shift perspectives to figure that out. Second, figure out why they can't afford to not buy you. That means you're sitting at the part of the value chain where you offer something unique, where there aren't many alternatives. That's where the value capture occurs.

Pattern Breakers ⛔️

This is a book that looks backwards for patterns, to project them forward. That usually has survivor bias. This is more of a collection of startup conventional wisdom at the time of writing. There's wisdom in there, but it's not clear which half.

A Mind at Play ⛔️

I wanted to like this book, but I didn't finish it. Claude Shannon is one of my mathematician heroes. I got turned on to biographies in the hope that I'd be able to glean how people at the top of their game do what they do. However, the book mostly assumes he's brilliant and just documents how he went from one thing to another.

The Fund ✅

I hesitated to recommend this book. It was kind of a slog to read, since it's a story of completely dysfunctional people. But it at least dissuaded me of the idea that Ray Dalio had any nuggets of wisdom to offer. I was also surprised at how unctuous James Comey was, which seems in stark contrast to the image of the integrity-abiding Directory of the FBI in the first Trump administration. Overall, I my take away is just that it's really hard to build organizations that are functional.