Voytek

Everything is EQ

Reviewed: 12-26-24

Or at least it feels that way, as the author tries to include everything even tangentially connected to the main topic: growth mindset, sleep hygiene, cognitive biases, leadership, habit formation, and so on. While this approach is a bit too broad for my taste, it's still a worthwhile read. The book includes many references to research and studies, primarily from psychology and neuroscience.

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I haven't laughed this hard in a long time

Reviewed: 12-26-24

These doctor's stories are sometimes tough to read but always interesting and presented in an incredibly entertaining style.

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An insight into the responsibilities of CTOs

Reviewed: 12-26-24

... VPs of Engineering, and similar positions. The book explores different aspects of the work, such as forming strategy, declaring values, and planning. It also delves into more practical concerns like handling acquisitions, hiring, and meetings.

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1 person found this helpful

An excellent guide to preparing a talk

Reviewed: 12-26-24

And a slightly less excellent (but still great) guide to delivering it. This is a perfect complement to "TED Talks" by Chris Anderson. It's concise and highly recommended for anyone even slightly exposed to public speaking.

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A failed attempt at writing a philosophy book

Reviewed: 12-26-24

For some reason, I expected game theory but got nothing like it. The book starts relatively close to that field but progressively drifts into what feels like LSD-induced hallucinations. To make matters worse, the format is terrible - a series of "rules," often presented as single-sentence points without much explanation or context. While it may contain some valid, intriguing, or thought-provoking ideas, the overall presentation leaves much to be desired. I can imagine why someone might have decided to write it, but I can't imagine why anyone would have decided to publish it.

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Book everyone should read

Reviewed: 12-26-24

I wanted to say "everyone who writes," but in today's world, it's hard to survive without writing at least a few sentences, be it a Slack message or an email. While the advice also applies to writing longer pieces of content, the focus of this book is on more practical kinds of writing: messages, articles, presentations, and documents. Why should everyone read it? Because I'm utterly exhausted by the modern trend of low content density, where people keep writing without actually saying anything. This book teaches you to do the exact opposite. And it follows its own advice!

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Too much of a too blunt romance

Reviewed: 10-02-24

I know it's a bit of a T. Kingfisher's trademark, but this time it was too much for me. The plot was not bad, and there was a bit of good world-building (sentient rabbits!), but it was just a background for the romance. Not going for more.

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Music vs neuroscience

Reviewed: 10-02-24

Why did we evolve to enjoy music? How does our music processing differ from animals? What's the relation between music and emotions or language processing? The book is really good and "The Great Courses" continuous to be a quality mark. The only problem I had: audio quality was subpar, and listening at increased playback speed skewed the experience.

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(Too) comprehensive history book

Reviewed: 10-02-24

It wasn't bad but a bit dry for most of the time. For how long can you go from person to person and from event to event? There were a couple of chapters about culture (Sparta, Greece) that I enjoyed a lot, but it was a negligible chunk overall. Having said that, I still learned quite a lot even though I didn't pay that much attention when listening.

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Extraordinary book on epistemology and much more.

Reviewed: 10-02-24

Philosophy of science, epistemology, humanity and more. It's definitely the best and most fundamental book I have read in a long while. The closest I can think of are books from J. N. Harari (Sapiens, Homo Deus), but this one played even better with me because it comes from a STEM background instead of history and felt more foundational. I didn't comprehend everything to an extent I wished for (which says a lot about the book on its own), but I will definitely go for a re-read. Bonus: it's the first time I've heard a convincing explanation of quantum physics.

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