Rating: 7.5/10. The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor Book by an Australian journalist describing the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party. The politburo (“The Party”) is a secretive organization, out of sight of the common people. It comprises of only a handful of elite individuals, who are seldom…
Category: Topics
That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph
Rating: 7.6/10. That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph Story of the early days of Netflix, from its founding in 1997 until its IPO in 2002. The author is a serial entrepreneur: after his previous company got acquired, he starts brainstorming new business ideas…
A History of Modern Tourism by Eric G. E. Zuelow
Rating: 7.7/10. A book describing the history of tourism, i.e., travel for leisure reasons. Although humans have migrated for thousands of years, travel for fun was not common until quite recently. In ancient times, people traveled for trade, in search of new resources, or for religious reasons, but these types of travel have a very…
The Art Question by Nigel Warburton
Rating: 8.0/10. Philosophical investigation into the question of: “What is art?” This question is often asked when faced with certain postmodern art pieces, such as readymade objects like a urinal displayed in an art gallery. Bell proposes that art must have “significant form” — choices made by a human artist in order to produce an…
Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America by Michael Reid
Rating: 7.9/10. Book about the recent history of Latin America — despite encompassing approximately 20 countries and spanning across two continents, the countries in this region has had remarkably similar histories and has faced similar societal issues: inequality, lack of development, political instability, crime, etc. Compared to the Western World, Latin America started to fall…
Fortress Besieged (围城) by Qian Zhongshu
Rating: 8.0/10. A classic Chinese novel of the 20th century, set in 1937, a period of chaos and disorder in Chinese history when it was being invaded by the Japanese. The main character, Fang Hongjian, is a student who studied in Europe for a few years but drifted around without earning a degree and ended…
Catching Hell by Allen Ricca with Joe Muto
Rating: 8.2/10. Catching Hell: The Insider Story of Seafood from Ocean to Plate by Allen Ricca with Joe Muto Book by a businessman in the seafood distribution business. His business essentially buys seafood from producers and sells it to restaurants, handling warehouse and delivery operations. The author took over the business from his father: after…
Hope is Not a Strategy by Rick Page
Rating: 7.9/10. Hope Is Not a Strategy: The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale by Rick Page Guide to how to make complex sales to businesses, this is challenging because of multiple stakeholders involved on the client side, and the complex decision making process. The salesperson needs to have good understanding of the client’s…
The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars by Michael E. Mann
Rating: 7.6/10. The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines by Michael E. Mann A memoir by a climate scientist about the politics of climate change and the efforts of climate change denialists to sway public opinion on the subject. Initially there were some legitimate scientific debate about whether global warming…
They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan
Rating: 7.8/10. They Ask, You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer by Marcus Sheridan. Guide of how to do content marketing for your business. The author worked in a pool business selling and installing swimming pools for homeowners, and describes how content marketing improved his sales and saved…
Simple and Usable by Giles Colborne
Rating: 8.0/10. Simple and Usable: Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design by Giles Colborne Book about designing products that are simple and easy to use. Often this is achieved by handling a lot of complexity behind the scenes so the mental burden on the user is minimal. Mainstream users generally just want to get a task…
Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups by Jason Calacanis
Rating: 8.3/10. Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups — Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000 by Jason Calacanis Book that’s meant to be a guide for angel investors, but is also a good reference for founders who are looking to raise funding to understand what investors are looking for….