Archive | Book Reviews

Wouldn’t it be great to have a photographic memory? We’ve all heard of people who have photographic memories, haven’t we? It turns out no one has a photographic memory. No one. I once had a business project where we needed to get people with photographic memories. I talked to a professor at the University of […]

In my last blog, I related the story of the candidate for a high-level, executive position, who didn’t read books. I felt this was a character flaw that was so fundamental that I would consider it a disqualifier for the job. To me it indicated the lack of critical thinking. I asked for your thoughts […]

A Higher Loyalty by James Comey was released on April 17th. I preordered my copy through Amazon and they delivered it on the 17th. I had ‘cleared the decks’ in terms of my reading schedule and dove right in, finishing the book in a week. A couple of comments right up front. First, Donald Trump […]

This book was recommended by Daniel Pink in his book When—The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, the subject of my last blog. Pink had six books he recommended in his Further Reading section. He said of this book, “You’ll learn more from this smart, concise work—organized into twenty-four chapters to represent the twenty-four hours of […]

The latest book by Daniel Pink, When—The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, was released in January 2018 and became an instant best seller. Pink is one of the most successful authors of non-fiction books. His past bestsellers include: Free Agent Nation—This book is about the gig economy, self-employed people and how the economy—even the meaning […]

I have to believe that anyone reading this blog has heard of Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff. The book has been a publishing phenomenon. It was announced, and then the author started a tour giving interviews and chapters were excerpted in various publications. But the most effective marketing was by the Trump administration, who […]

It has been over a year since the presidential election and I’m distressed. Not because Congress can’t get anything done. I’m fine with that, in fact, I prefer it when politicians get little done. No, what distresses me the most is the incivility of the political discourse and the lack of reason. I prefer when […]

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. Duhigg is a New York Times reporter who got interested in how habits are formed and how they are changed. His research resulted in this 2012 publication. Here is my review. The book is divided into three parts: The Habits of […]

This isn’t my typical book review because Dereliction of Duty isn’t a business book. But the truth is there is much in this book that does apply to business and to life. Dereliction of Duty is H.R. McMaster’s history of what led the United States into the Vietnam War. I had never heard of McMaster […]

Disrupted, My Misadventure in the Start-up Bubble was written by veteran journalist Dan Lyons. Lyons worked in print journalism for many years until he was laid off by Newsweek magazine as a part of the long-term death of ink-on-paper. In an attempt to reinvent himself and start another career as a marketer, he landed a […]