books

Books are rated on a scale from 0 stars to *****. I only started tracking what I read since early 2016,  good books that I re-read often will show up sooner or later. This isn’t an exhaustive list of all that I’ve read, and it’s biased towards good books – I just stop reading if after 30%-50% of a book I’m not enjoying it or I think it’s useless.

If you’re interested in academic papers, I keep a repository with notes of papers I’ve read on GitHub.

2018

Arden Las Redes – by Juan Soto Ivars – ***

I got this book was a present, I think it may have been one of the few ‘paper’ books I’ve read in quite a while. In the end, I ended up buying the ebook version just so I could listen to it on the subway. The book explores how censorship has evolved from explicit censorship to our days, where even the most anonymous person is afraid to tweet something that may be misinterpreted. The book takes this premise and explores tens of such cases, interviewing people who have been targets of online harassment after publishing some book, comic, etc.. that was not politically correct. There are some very interesting reflections on how our society is taking a dangerous turn toward intolerance and extremism. Frankly I think this book ought to be translated to other languages as it could be a catalyst for a more peaceful society.

El Metodo Ikigai (The Ikigai Method, untranslated as of March 2018) – by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles – ****

Reluctant as I was after reading “Ikigai” – a wildly successful book, see my review below – I bought this on Google Play Books as I’m a fan of Hector’s blog kirainet. In the end, this book actually contains around 35 insights to help you discover yourself, where do you want to lead your life, and so on. Personally I try to make some self-reflection every 3 months to keep me honest about my goals. I have been doing this for several years already, and some of the insights in this book are things you would realize on your own, but it’s great to have them verbalized nonetheless. Overall, a great book to improve your ability to introspect.

2017

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World – by Adam Grant – *****
Wildly entertaining, this book structure reminded me of Peopleware – lots of references to studies on human behavior. The author is a recognized expert in organizational psychology and works as a professor at Wharton. It’s divided in sections to explain how originality happens in a variety of circumstances, business, politics, science. Most organizations seem to follow the patterns studied by behaviorist psychologists more than 40 years ago, so you will most certainly find the book matches a lot of professional experiences you may have had. Concepts like diversity, groupthink, and culture-fit vs culture dissent are explored by examining examples of situations on how to apply them. I think this book gave me a good perspective on how originality is stifled in most human organizations and how to fix that.

2016

Deep Work – by Cal Newport – ***

deepwork

The book is split into two sections. Why and how. The ‘why’ part I mostly skimmed over, because I’m already sold on the concept of deep work. The ‘how’ part was interesting but quite frankly, I already use a lot of the methods mentioned there. It was interesting to read about certain subjects or studies that ‘prove’ that deep work is what makes a difference in today’s society, and it was a good reminder. If you do not know about these techniques, ask me or read the book. I’d rate it as 4 stars if you’re new to these concepts!

Chaos Monkeys – by Antonio Garcia Martinez – ***

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A tale of startups, technology, and the politics involved with that. Enjoyable read about a guy that went from working in a startup, to starting his own through Y-Combinator, and ends up betting his political capital in a “failed” project at Facebook. The book is written in a very casual style, it gets lost in the details, but overall it got me hooked for 2 weeks.

Social Architecture – by Pieter Hintjens – *****

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My personal homage after Pieter (sadly) left this world a few weeks ago. Pieter is an incredible writer (read his blog), and this book is a wonderful recollection of all his lessons building open source communities since the early 90s.

How not to be wrong – by Jordan Ellenberg – ***

410bv521enl-_sx334_bo1204203200_Decent book on how mathematics rule our lives. It teaches you how to spot mathematical rules in everyday life, and gives plenty of examples of it. The book is structured in sections, each trying to explain a mathematical concept and giving examples on how it affects us in life. I thought it was good, however it’s quite long for what it is. Would be 4 stars if it was a shorter book, as I think the advice is worth it but the time it took me to read it was far too much.

The dip – by Seth Godin – ****

the_dipShort book packed with good advice on precisely what the title says. When to quit and when to stick. Seth Godin talks about how he’s seen people go through ‘dips’ or ‘troughs of sorrow’ that were not worth the reward, and others that were worth it.

So good they can’t ignore you – by Cal Newport – ***

sogoodI was expecting more of it after reading raving reviews from Derek Sivers and others. The book itself attempts to systematize how to find the intersection of what you love to do and what you’re great at, by telling you to ‘experiment at the boundaries of your knowledge’. Good advice, but a bit too long and the meaning of the book is lost a bit with so many side-stories.

Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby – ****

51wep6kganl-_sx385_bo1204203200_This one was long due after programming in Ruby for years. It’s similar to other ‘design patterns’ books, but instead of providing you with a sample implementation of them, Sandi iteratively improves an application using them. I would recommend reading through it slowly, not more than a chapter a day, and try to notice these patterns in existing projects. It was kind of eye-opening, and a solid compilation of things I’ve learnt through failing at programming myself!

Ikigai – Hector Garcia – **

81uyf8qleilThis one was a let down. I guess the subtitle was basically a lie (“the secrets of Japan for a long and happy life”). It’s entertaining, as it tells you how the author and his friend went to Ogimi, Okinawa and tried to understand why their population has the most longevity index in the world. A few insights can be drawn from that, but overall I would not recommend it. Hector Garcia’s blog or his previous book “A geek in Japan” are better written are great though.

Sapiens – by Yuval Harari – *****

sapiensA serendipitous discovery. It was part of the sample books that came with Bookari pro (the app I use to read on Android). This is a book about the most interesting story ever told, the story of how we left Africa and ended up in the moon.

The Effective Engineer – by Edmond Lau – ****

theeffectiveengineerIf I had to recommend a book to a recent graduate, it would probably be this. The author had a successful career in Silicon Valley as what he calls an “individual contributor” (vs “sheep herder”). He presents a framework to leverage your effort to cause the most impact in your organization, which I found very useful. I preordered it and it was worth it.

Team Geek (reread) – by Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Ben Collins-Sussman – *****teamgeekI end up reading this book every year or so basically because I like to keep it on my phone/tablet reading app. The authors are ex-Googlers who worked together to create Subversion, and a lot of what the book says is best described as the authors passing their experience on to junior software engineers. I imagine the people who have worked with these two guys learned a lot, and the authors give us the opportunity of taping into 40 years of collective experience.

みんなの日本語初級1  – ****

minnanonihongoGood introduction to Japanese grammar, I started reading 初級2 right after I finished this one. Exercises feel a little dry at times, so I’m planning to complement 初級2 with a tutor or conversation partner.

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning – by Andy Hunt – ***

pragmaticlearningA collection of stories about learning, how our mind works, and how do we learn. If you’re already a productivity freak you will probably find yourself in many of the stories in this book. It’s good, but I don’t think the structure was very coherent and in the end I don’t think I learned that much. Maybe I just had high expectations.

Peopleware – by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister – *****

61lawzxfqil-_sx385_bo1204203200_The bible not only for software development teams, but for any group of individuals who have to do stuff together. The authors compiled the results from tens of randomized control trials on how humans interact with each other, comment on the results, and try to explain what their experiences were trying out these things. Very recommended.

Little Bets – **

lilbetsSimilar narrative as “So good they can’t ignore you”, it tells you a bunch of histories of how successful people became successful by virtue of making little experiments on the boundaries of their knowledge. It’s an entertaining read, just not worth it if you’ve read “So good they can’t ignore you”. It’s short so you can judge it yourself.
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