Quiet month this month in the reading arena. Studying for the exam last Friday took up a lot of my focus and delayed the writing of this post. Here is what I did manage to work my way through:
- Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris. Sitting aside Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris launches his own anti-religious missiles, with each one landing smack on target. Written as an open letter to America, it easily translates over the pond and cleverly destroys most of the arguments used to justify religious belief. Running at only about 50 pages long, it can be easily read in an afternoon, and is well worth the effort, no matter which side of the divide you stand.
- Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Walter Isaacson. Weighing in at over 650 pages, this was the bulk of my January reading. I usually shy away from biographies – there's only so much narcasism I can stand – but this was written more as a time-line of Jobs' life. Covering everything from his crazy fad-diets, questionable parenting choices and of course the creation and then resurrection of Apple, Inc, it's all here, the good, the bad, the (occasionally) very ugly. If you're interested in a complete overview of the man and his life, this is certainly the book to get it from.
- Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: (And Other Things I Learned From Famous People), Neil Strauss. As writer, and eventually editor, of the Rolling Stone, Neil Strauss (of 'The Game' fame), publishes the parts of interviews which weren't appropriate for print at the time. I found the writing often hilarious, the content bizarre (the interviewees, not the writer). Most of the subjects I knew, which always makes this kind of book more interesting, but some I'd never even heard of; if they were in the Rolling Stone, they must have been important at some point. An easy read, but there are certainly more interesting books out there.
- Get Out While You Can – Escape The Rat Race, George Marshall. More of a flick-through than a read. Covers most of the items already written about in the 4 hour work week, but with less humour. Can easily be distilled down to a couple of tenets: generate multiple revenue streams; selling information is financially more efficient than selling services; if you're working more than a couple of hours a day, you're wasting your life. I actually enjoy what I do for a living, so mostly pointless.
- Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics, Henry Hazlitt. Excellent primer in economics which quickly starts by dispelling common myths. I identified with a number of the core-misconceptions with regards to macro-economics, and I hope the lessons learned will stay with me. Anyone who's gotten into dinner-time conversations which have involved the discussion of unions, economic policies, or anything else even remotely economics based, would be well advised to read this book; you'll immediately be more knowledgeable than many of the armchair economists trying to turn you to their point of view.
