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…
All Book Reviews
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….
Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff
Rating: 9.1/10. Who are the Native Americans, and how did they get here? This book explores the prehistory of Native Americans through archeological and genetic evidence (and occasionally with linguistic evidence and oral histories as well). The question of the origin of the natives was first explored through the investigation of burial mounds by Jefferson…
Essentials of Supply Chain Management by Michael Hugos
Rating: 7.2/10. An overview of things to consider when designing and managing a supply chain. A supply chain consists of many players: factories make the product, distributors take bulk from factories and deliver packages of related goods to retailers, who sell small quantities to the public. Each player needs to think about production, holding inventory,…
Firmament by Simon Clark
Rating: 7.7/10. Firmament: The Hidden Science of Weather, Climate Change and the Air That Surrounds Us by Simon Clark Book by a popular YouTuber who recently finished his PhD in atmospheric science, explaining his field to a general audience. Each of the nine chapters covers a different topic: the people who discovered it, and the…
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Rating: 7.5/10. Classic book about marketing, published in 1980. Positioning is the act of communicating to your user what your product is. Consumers are constantly bombarded with advertisements and are overloaded with information, so they cannot absorb your message unless it is very simple (no need for poetic wording in the slogan). Always position your…
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend
Rating: 8.3/10. A history of the Aztec people, compiled using recently-available sources in the Nahuatl language that tell the story from their own perspective. The word “Aztec” was never used by their own people, instead they called themselves either the “Mexica” when referring to the political entity (centered in Tenochtitlan), or the “Nahuas” when referring…
Onward by Howard Schultz
Rating: 7.3/10. Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz Memoir by the CEO of Starbucks about how he turned the company around during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. In 2007, there were lots of small things that indicated the company was losing its competitive edge: they prioritized opening…
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
Rating: 7.9/10. Book about the principles of design, using examples from everyday objects that we’re familiar with, like doors, clocks, faucets, etc. The first job of the designer is to communicate to the user what actions are possible on the item (affordances) and where should the action be directed (signifiers), for example, a handle signals…
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Rating: 8.2/10. The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick Book about how to validate startup ideas by talking to customers, and common mistakes that founders make when they try to do so. Unlike many business books,…
An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching by Keith Johnson
Rating: 8.0/10. Book covering a lot of research about best practices in language learning and teaching. There is a lot of implicit knowledge that’s required to effectively use a language: the obvious ones like phonology, syntax, and the lexicon, but also often-overlooked ones like pragmatic differences between languages. There is some overlap between this book…
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Rating: 6.8/10. How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan Book by journalist Michael Pollan (author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma) about psychedelics like LSD, and its yet untapped potential for medicine. The author is in his 60s and did not…