Style: Non-fiction
Eat that Frog – Brian Tracy
by
This book is all about doing the hardest thing in your day first so that if you don’t get to much else, at least you’ve got the hardest things done. While I felt it was a rehash of many of the ideas I’ve read about in productivity books, there are a few new ideas and
Against Creativity – Oli Mould
by
In Against Creativity, Oli Mould, takes a critical look at the creativity the world wants to push on us. Your boss cuts funding and says that you need to be “creative” to provide the same level of service with half the employees. What they really mean is you should work extra hours for the same
Saving Time – Jenny Odell
by
This is Jenny Odells attempt to make sense of time outside of how capitalism tells us we should view time, the relentless pursuit of productivity at the expense of inhabiting the life around us. This is much more a philosophical book than practical one. Jenny offers little advice on how to break out of working
The Outrun – Amy Liptrot
by
The Outrun follows the author as she deals with recovery from alcoholism. Part of her journey is heading back to the quiet island she grew up on, Orkney, and then going to an even quieter island to live in a seasonal cabin that is vacant for the winter “off” season. I enjoyed Amy’s reflections on
Kill it with Fire – Marianne Bellotti
by
Kill it with Fire is all about how to manage legacy software projects. How do you determine if you need to rewrite it? How do you keep a team motivated while working on a legacy project? How do you stop a current project from becoming legacy full of dead code ready to die? I found
Clear Thinking – Shane Parrish
by
Shane Parrish, of Farnham Street fame, brings us a book that is intended to help us think clearly. The first half is all about defining the enemies of clear thinking and the second is about putting clear thinking into practice in our lives. While there are many good tidbits to take away from the book
Slow Productivity – Cal Newport
by
Slow Productivity is Cal Newport’s 4th book looking at how to be productive and maximize your career. As such it blends portions of all the previous books, adding a few bits and rehashing many of the same principles explore in earlier books. As the title suggests it focuses on working a slower pace, on fewer
Smart Brevity – Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz
by
Smart Brevity is here to teach you how to cater your communication to the over-stimulated worker, and community, of today. There are 4 Core ideas for the writing system presented. The authors really like their bullet points and figure that’s the correct way to do your communication. Their strongest point is that you probably write
The Cost of Being a Girl – Yasemin Besen-Cassino
by
In The Cost of Being a Girl, Besen-Cassino, looks at how part-time employment in the teenage years affects the income of teenage girls vs boys. The biggest takeaway is similar to what I’ve read in the past about wages for women, they make less, are asked to do more emotional labour, and get penalized if
The Color of Law – Richard Rothstein
by
The Color of Law looks at how redlining affected the wealth of Black Americans after Word War 2. From not letting Black Vetrans get the financing that all Vetrans were supposed to be eligible for, to breaking up Black neighbourhoods for “public projects” this is a sobering look at how white people stole wealth from
