Books
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No Novel November (2014)
→: No Novel November (2014)Like last year, I felt like I had been reading too many novels, and so as November approached I challenged myself to repeat last year’s experiment: No Novel November. It went less well than last year for a couple of reasons. I actually cracked and read a novel (Nov 26). I watched the entire of…
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Book: How to Deliver a TED Talk
→: Book: How to Deliver a TED TalkHow to Deliver a TED Talk (Amazon) is packed with some solid and fairly standard public speaking advice, which was good, but the most interesting parts for me were the deconstructions of TED talks. When prepping talks personally, I think a lot about my narrative, and taking notes during other peoples helps me see theirs better,…
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Book: Pioneer Programmer
→: Book: Pioneer ProgrammerI was really excited to discover Jean Jennings Bartik, one of the original ENIAC women programmers had written a book, Pioneer Programmer (Amazon) and bought it immediately (although I confess it took me a while to get around to reading it!) The Computers documentary is amazing, but it’s only 20 minutes and so lots of…
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Book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things
→: Book: The Hard Thing About Hard ThingsI really, really enjoyed The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers (Amazon). So much so that I read the whole thing in a day (something I regularly do with novels, but not so regularly with non-fiction). It’s compelling because it’s about difficult answers to shitty situations. Because it’s…
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Book: Gravitas
→: Book: GravitasI read Gravitas (Amazon) really slowly, and part of the reason for that was that I wanted to take the time and process each chapter. The “gravitas” eqation of Knowledge + purpose + passion (- anxiety) = Gravitas is what I think of as “poise”, and as I’ve mentioned before is my goal as a…
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Book: It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single
→: Book: It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re SingleIt’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single (Amazon) is a series of essays and anecdotes around themes. The themes are the things that you tell yourself, or that people tell you, about why it is you’re still alone. Mostly I found it… reassuring. The thoughts of “oh I’m inadequate” or “I need to do X, Y…
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Things That Annoy Me When Reading Novels
→: Things That Annoy Me When Reading NovelsI’ve been reading a lot of novels lately (oh hai, lurgy). And I enjoy the escapism but often find myself exclaiming WHAT WHY WHAT NO. Some of the things that cause that… Drippy protagonists who want nothing other than a relationship, or put up with a terrible relationship for a long time. First kiss to…
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Book: Self Promotion for Introverts
→: Book: Self Promotion for IntrovertsI didn’t really enjoy Self-Promotion for Introverts (Amazon), but I think that is probably not just about the book, and also about my general negative feelings towards self-promotion. However my biggest peeve was that it is not formatted properly for kindle, resulting in some sections of text being cut off. This just seems shoddy (especially…
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Book: The Charisma Myth
→: Book: The Charisma MythI quite enjoyed The Charisma Myth (Amazon), although I’m not sure how much more Charismatic I managed to become from reading it! Charisma is behaviour (not personality!) that can be learned. Marilyn Monroe could turn charisma on and off. A young woman went to dinner with William Gladstone and separately also with Benjamin Disraeli. She said she left…