Category: Books
-
Book: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
I loved Good Strategy/Bad Strategy (Amazon) and learned so much from it. What really stood out to me was the depth required in defining strategy, and the way of thinking that takes that depth, and constructs a long term trajectory built on proximate objectives – the next steps that seem totally possible from where we…
-
Book: Love Sick
I read Love Sick on the recommendation of my friend Natasha. I found it an interesting and at times helpful read, but whether or not it’s interesting probably depends on the person. It’s about the way people experience love, mostly as told by literature, illustrated with comparison to mental illness. It’s heteronormative, and not exactly balanced…
-
Book: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
I bought Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (Amazon) by accident trying to buy We Should All Be Feminists, but I have no regrets because I loved it, found myself reading it going yes yes yes and so what follows is not a review so much as a strong endorsement that you should really read it,…
-
Book: So You Want to Talk About Race
I read So You Want to Talk About Race (Amazon) after seeing my friend Jill tweet about it. As a white European, whilst I care about intersectionality and try to educate myself, I know there’s a lot I don’t know, and going deeper on this topic seemed like a good next step after reading Whipping…
-
Book: Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Reading Working Effectively with Legacy Code (Amazon) made me really want to get into something and write some tests. It’s a really actionable book, and I liked how pragmatic it was – focusing on being able to create incremental progress, but balancing that with what you’re aiming towards. I think a sign of a foundational programming…
-
Book: Whipping Girl
I read Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Amazon) pretty quickly – over the course of 8 days (most of which I was traveling). I sought out the recommendation because I was looking to better understand the experiences of trans women and their evolving (or not) medical support and…
-
Book: The Brand Gap
I read The Brand Gap (Amazon) on the recommendation of my colleague Michelle. I wanted to better understand what branding is, how it works, how it fits in with marketing etc. At the end of it, I bought her a small gift which demonstrated that I had understood the book. The gift was a Yoko Ono…
-
Book: Org Design for Design Orgs
I read Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams (Amazon) on the recommendation of my team mate, Matt Miklic. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 18 months working with Matt on how engineering teams can work better with designers, and I wish I’d read this book earlier! It was…
-
Book: Finite and Infinite Games
Finite and Infinite Games (Amazon) was my final piece of assigned reading for the AltMBA I took last summer. I don’t know why it was on the list, and having read it I still don’t know what it’s about. It reads like someone got incredibly high and saw the meaning of life, which they then…