I discovered the concept of the Johari Window on YouTube. I found it interesting and wanted to dig deeper and learn more. Surprisingly, there is little information about it beyond coaching circles. I thought it would be good to go to the source - the book “Of Human Interaction” written in 1969. That's probably the hardest book to find. That explains why there are almost no reviews for it. I ended…
What a beautiful and inspiring book. What is love? The book teaches what is and isn't love. It shows how to live a happy life. It's a relatively short book. While reading, I had a lot of thoughts popping up from my experience or people I know. Which is always a good sign. I can recommend it to everybody.
This is a good read. A very practical, down-to-earth and common sense book talking about how to make company operations a competitive advantage. In other words, how to make teams more effective by improving team synergy. The book talks about a common mistake when companies' cultures fall into marketing fluff, and how to avoid it. The proposed solution feels almost common sense; however,…
This book has high ratings, so I was expecting it would bring something interesting. Oh boy, I was disappointed. If you don't know what racism is, or don't believe it's real, this book is a good introduction. If you already know racism is a common problem, then this book has nothing new to offer. I'd like to see tangible solutions to the problem. The common solution, that the book also suggests,…
A friend recommended this book, and I'm very grateful as that could be a book of the year for me. The book talks about value measurement, games, and the philosophy behind it. I got multiple interesting perspectives for myself. Inability to measure things that matter and sliding to focusing only on things that can be measured are well too familiar to me. It's a common dilemma when you'd like to…
Short and fun book. Half way i was getting tired about the same joke about corporate culture, but it ended soon enough. Check it out for an easy and fun read.
It's been a while since I saw an outstanding movie. I really enjoyed the immersion and cinematography. I keep getting amazed at the amount of movie slop being produced. Children of Men reminded me that there are still pieces of art in that pile that are mesmerising and breathtaking.
The book was recommended by one of the conference speakers with high credentials in UX design. I read 20%, but couldn't finish it. It an interesting topic, however I found it to be lacking coherence.
I was looking to read something out of my league and picked this book. I found it very interesting and insightful. I found it insightful to learn about the phases of maturity and the challenges girls face today. I'm curious how raising girls is different from raising boys.
Found this book free on Spotify. It looked like I’d be into it; Buddhism, philosophy, meaning of life. However, I found it too abstract and hard to follow. I lost my interest a quarter way through and didn't finish it. Perhaps I'll give it another chance in the future.
I wanted to read this book for a long time. This week I was looking for the next read, and I pick it up. I found this book interesting, easy to read and follow. It gave me confidence and excitement to build native hotwire apps.
The entertaining and a bit educational book about how businesses find ways to extract more money from you. I like that it's about Australia. I already knew most of the tricks; they annoy me every time I interact with them. However, it was a fun read anyway. It's depressing to read about it all at once. It highlights how corrupt and monopolised the economy in Australia is and the lack of…
This was a fun read. The book is a collection of fraud stories grouped by fraud type. The book goes into just enough detail to explain without losing interest and not too deep to get lost. The book is full of information; I feel a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps some summaries throughout the book would be helpful. I recommend it.
This book is small and easy to read. I think it could be a good starting point for people who are starting to read self-help books. It mentions many concepts from other authors and could serve as an introduction. For others, the book lacks depth, research, or practical advice. There is just not that much to it. I agree with what it is selling, and I wish it did a better job at doing it. Kudos go…
I wanted to learn star constellations, but traditional star representations don't make much sense. I found this book specifically because it offers new constellation images. The book is great. It spiked my space interest even further. The only downside is that the book is written with a reader in mind who is located in the Northern Hemisphere. If you can find the same book but focused on the…
I was very excited to read this book. I valued HBR highly for quality. Well, I valued it until now. The book was a big disappointment. The articles are well written, but so shallow that you can summarise each chapter in one sentence. I was also disappointed because I was going to go through their backlog collection. I find it surprising because it seems to be targeted at business leaders. Is that…
This book was recommended, and I was very excited about it. It turned out to be a big disappointment. The book has some good bits and insights here and there, though. I enjoyed some of the analogies with the kitchen. I'm saying some because it talks more about a kitchen than coding. The authors bring a lot of stories from their personal experience, which is very limited and not useful. I feel the…
Big read for a book club. The book is a complete mess and chaos. While it was fun and intriguing in the beginning, I got tired of pointless descriptions and a messy story structure. It’s interesting that not a single person in the book club liked it.
I'd say this is a motivational book with a collection of mainstream advice on learning. It provides a surface-level overview and probably would be useful for people who start a self-development journey. Personally, I found this book boring, shallow, too long, and yet not detailed enough. A lot of pages were wasted on the author's bragging about himself and his work.
I think this book could have good potential, but forced Bible references in almost every paragraph are off-putting. My recommendation - avoid.
What a great book! This book was released one month ago and already was highly recommended by Barefoot Investor and now by me. The book is a collection of advice on how to live a fulfilling and happy life. It's short, well structured, and has a good balance between stories and advice. I feel the book captures the main lessons I would recommend myself. I'd have to think if there is anything missing…
This is a short and entertaining book about art and its creation process. It describes the challenges, and shows what the process of art creation is and is not. I don't take it seriously, but there are some good quotes. After thinking why anyone should read it, I'm struggling to come up with a reason. So I have to downgrade my rating from 3 (average) to 2 (meh).
The book turned out to be a disappointment. I feel the author's main goal was to hype how good it is to live longer, so we should increase research funding. And he might be right, but that does not make this book better. The hype feels overblown in how far the research falls short of the promised picture. I don't like how the book is written. Headings are confusing, it's hard to get the point of…
That would be a good fiction book for a beginner reader. It's short, and the story changes quickly to keep you engaged. I enjoyed reading it. It's the first published book by Charles Bukowski, and apparently, he is a popular writer now.
The book is about a similar journey to what I'm currently going through - how a software engineer built a startup. Tony and I share similar experiences and came to similar conclusions. I found it useful to read for other people’s experiences. It helped me to reflect on my journey. The book is extremely repetitive and poorly written. Which is interesting on its own, as the author is fine to sell…
I enjoyed the book. The novel was engaging and surprising, keeping my interest high throughout the book. I'd love to discuss it with somebody.
Relistening to this story once again. This time it feels very simple. I'm trying to draw some life advice from it, but it feels too naive. I can summarise it as "follow your dreams, otherwise you'll regret it for the rest of your life". However, if I review this book as pure fiction without any deeper intent, the story is too unsophisticated.
The book is a compilation of some principles that could help to make better decisions. I found it a good reminder, but I think such a book format is not very valuable. While I'm fully onboard with promoting mental models, the book lacks depth. I find it hard to apply random principles in practice. Just because we know what it is, doesn’t mean we can use it. The book is short and to the point,…
That’s an insightful book. The authors explain why the US experiences its current problems. Problems like slow economic growth, difficulty building projects, housing, the inability of the government to govern, innovate, and scale innovation. The book doesn't offer many solutions as the problems are multifaceted. However, I don’t think it should; the first step towards the solution is to accept…
The book argues against using rewards, punishment, and praise. The author argues well, and the argument aligns with my experience. People use rewards as a manipulation tactic to make others obedient. Rewards/praise don't work to make any meaningful change. The key reasons against rewards (apart from that they don't work long-term): Rewards punish Rewards rupture relationships Rewards ignore…
I keep pushing my boundaries and reading more fiction books. This book was selected for a local book club . I definitely got lucky with this one, it was very easy and enjoyable to read for a beginner like me. The story is engaging, with interesting characters. The book also touches on different themes like family, attraction, belonging, the past, identity, and more. Loved it.
What a surprising read. This would be a book of the year for me. It gives a comprehensive look into human trauma. I found it very insightful and, in parts, mind-blowing. While the book looks into severe traumas, I learned a lot about the processes of a human brain and body. I believe those processes are always present in us, not just during traumas. I found the book very dense and heavy to read.…
I saw that there was an exhibition about this movie, so I decided to watch it first. It tells such a simple yet touching story. An added pleasure was discovering that it was made locally and uses Melbourne as its backdrop location.
This is probably one of the most balanced and well written books. It is insightful, interesting, touching, well structured, easy to read, short, based on experience. Amazing work from authors. 👏 It's a must read for everyone as it challenges our world view and gives practical tools how to improve our thinking and decisions in order to be more effective in the modern society. I also would like to…
That's one of those books when you think what's there to know about sleep. Turns out a lot. The book is an overview of the current research about sleep. There are a lot of references and details, so be prepared for a long read. Before reading the book I already saw sleep as one of the most important activities. After reading it, I definitely underestimated it. I would recommend this book to…
The books gives a decent summary and overview of subscription models. The author gives plenty of examples and analysis. If you are looking for a structured introduction into subscription models that's a good book for it. Others probably won't find it very memorable.
I read this book 7 years ago . The book has some good points and methods, and teaches you to see new perspective in conversations with high stakes and emotions. I found it quite daunting to listen. I think the book didn't use enough practical examples, or the writing style just didn't resonate with me.
What a great book. Unfortunately for you English readers, it's written in Russian. The book argues that self evaluation is the motivation driver in decision making. I never thought about it but I found it very fundamental. The main point is people don't feel complete as humans due to conditioning in upbringing. They have been conditioned to feel good about themselves only when certain conditions…
This is a continuation of The Goal book but focused on how to find solutions and resolve conflicts in business or life. It's a novel and I found it easy to follow. The book demonstrates the technique however it does not teach it to you. That's a big wasted opportunity because that's the most useful knowledge you can take out of it. Luckily people wrote about it on wikipedia . If you decide to read…
I'm getting more and more into economics. Saw this book and it captured my interest. The book argues for Germany's economic decline. I found it interesting to learn more about Germany and some of its recent history. I really disliked the author's writing. It's repetitive and dives into unnecessary politicians' details. I think that was added to boost the number of references. Speaking of which, I…
A classic novella. It's well written but lacks purpose for me. I enjoyed the audiobook but only because it was 1 hour long. My favourite quote is "a man can be defeated but he can't be destroyed".
This is a technical book about network and web technologies. It's not something you can apply as a skill but rather use it as a foundational knowledge in your work. Do you have to know it? No. Will it make you a better developer? Definitely. Reading this book made me appreciate web technologies: how successful they are and how well they are designed. I feel very fortunate to have my career in web.…
This month I hosted an introduction workshop to Non-Violent Communication topic. I re-read book another 3 times in preparation for the workshop and got my read count to around 7. When I tried to distil it, apart from removing examples I couldn't remove anything else. Everything is to the point and relevant. The book doesn't stop to excite me and I keep finding more gems in it. This time the…
The book is an easy read and a good introduction to Theory of Constraints. It reminded me of The Phoenix Project . I think some relationship drama was a bit excessive but it increased the stakes and made characters more alive. I can recommend.
This movie is similar to Coffee and cigarettes . It's simple and there is more to it. It makes you stop and appreciate. To be honest, it was difficult for me to watch it, because my brain was so desperate for stimulation. And that's the point of the movie. Today I saw this video essay talking about the movie's philosophy. The video raises an interesting point. With ambition we place the future…
My friend loved it, while I didn't expect much of it. I do like his voice so I decided to listen. And wow, amazing! Great story, amazing audio narration, good life lessons, deep and personal. I loved it. I loved it. I thought the audiobook was great, but the written copy is a masterpiece on its own. Photos, notes, journal, side notes. I can't decide which way is the best to consume this book.
I've read this book 13 years ago I remember it was fun but I didn't take much out of it. Since I'm currently exploring usability testing, this book came up again and I thought it would be a good idea to reread it. I can say I feel exactly the same, the book is extremely surface level. 100 things is a big list and you have to compromise quality a lot. As a result the book is more fun than useful.…
The previous book didn't give me enough details and I was eager for more. The author promised this is the book. It is even more disappointing. It's way too long, very repetitive and surprisingly already dated considering it was published in 2010. There are some useful tips on how to run a usability test, but that could be a blog post.
This is an old book. The content is a bit dated and the message is still relevant. I'd say it's only an introduction to usability testing. I agree that the software industry still doesn't do enough usability testing and there is a lot to benefit. I think the book doesn't talk enough (if at all) about balancing competing priorities in design and work. It is much harder than deciding on button…
I finished 35% of this book and decided to stop. The book is unnecessary long and lacks coherence. The author makes big claims but fails to support them with equally sized facts. Also the book pushes on emotions with many individual stories, and lacks analysis of the discussed topics. My recommendation is to avoid this book.