Must be near vacation time | Desolation Island - Book 5 - Patrick O’Brian

My favorite fanatical comment wrt/ this series is “There are only 20 books in the series. It’s just not enough.”

My favorite part of this book was their time in the Roaring Forties. I love the descriptions of the massive waves, how they navigate them, and the massive albatrosses. Feels other-worldly. They went there in a previous book, but I missed the “craziness” of this place. He does a great job on the second voyage thru there.

For those who are new to the series, here is a good place to start Aubrey–Maturin series - Wikipedia. I’d avoid the individual book pages ’cause they have good plot summaries.

An Excellent Oldy - Ries & Trout’s “Positioning”

I recently listened to Ries & Trout’s Marketing Classic Positioning. I really like how they bash “line extension”. I’ve found myself getting caught too often.

Here is an excellent link to a summary of the key points Read it.

Audio Magnificence - Anansi Boys

Anansi Boys is the most fun Neil Gaiman audiobook I’ve listened too! It’s a good mix of darkness and comedy. I highly recommend it.

I really like the narrator Lenny Henry. His Spider and Fat Charlie are great. His Fat Charlie’s Dad - Mr. Nancy and Mrs. Callyanne Higgler are over-the-top entertaining.

I really like how Neil Gaiman leverages folk characters like Anansi into a modern story. I thought I didn’t know about Anansi, but it turns out that this is the basis of Brer Rabbit in the Uncle Remus stories.

I’ve been rivetted to Neil Gaiman’s work for the past year. I’ve listened to American Gods and Neverwhere and now Anansi Boys. I’m gonna keep diggin’ thru the catalog.

A Thank You to Marc E for recommending this book. I listened to it twice.

Thank You, Marshall Goldsmith - WGHY != WGHT

I really needed What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There. The list of 20 bad behaviours and strategies to change them was very enlightening. I particularly liked the discussion on “adding too much value, “saying thank you” a lot more, and “active listening” to make the talker feel like the most important person in the room.

A key part of his message is that — It is not how you view yourself that counts, it is how other people view you that counts. It is the disconnect between how we view ourselves and how others view us that is the problem. Thus we need others to help us find and solve the problem.

The section on follow-up was fantastic. It takes 12-18 months to truly change, it’s a process that you have to work at, one really has to “follow-up” to change. This section had my favorite “story” in which Goldsmith regales us with his motivation for “strong follow-up”. It can be summarized with the following Q&A.

Q. “Does anyone actually get better by taking one of your courses?
A. I had to sheepish say I don’t know.

This is a very popular book and there are a ton of reviews on Amazon

You can also check out his blog. Here is a good post on listening and responding. Marshall Goldsmith Blog » Is It Worth It?

I found out about this book via Harvey Schacter’s 2007 top ten business books. It was number 2 behind “Made 2 Stick“. I listened to the audible version. I’m trying to work on saying “Thank You” and “listening better”.

Better late than never - Permission Marketing by Seth Godin

I really like the library tag on Seth’s books — “658.8 GOD”

I’m a follower of Seth’s blog and I really like his focus on relationships in marketing. Or (maybe) I should say that I only know direct and relationship marketing so I finally found someone that didn’t drive me crazy.

I’ve finally read “Permission Marketing” and I really enjoyed it. I think most technology companies understand this concept, but it is rarely written down. Our world is all customer relationships with differing levels of permission. We all hate that it is hard work and wish we could just do big ads. But those never work. Our ads and press releases are only read by investors, not customers/prospects.

It is “good” to hear logical explanation of why we need to stick to our relationship methods which require immense leg-work, and blocking & tackling ( he calls it farming vs hunting ). Our user groups are the most important asset we have. To me the Cisco’s networkers conference is the “gold standard” with it’s CCIE training and more.

Parting Note - The best part is that I no longer have lingering doubts about “not getting” Branding and Advertising in my business. There is also a ton insight into how to improve the one-to-one messaging. Looking forward to more of his blog and to reading the newer books.

Wow! — Neil Gaiman Reads “Neverwhere”

This is great entertainment. It’s very engrossing. It is imaginative It is scary It is weird. It has evil characters It is good. It is personal. It feels very very real. It is immensely sticky. I can’t get it off me

I completely agree with the final paragraph of this review: SF Site: A review by Alice Dechene .

You may have gathered that I really liked this novel. I’ll admit I don’t know how to classify it: sci-fi, fantasy or psychological thriller. In fact I don’t know how to label this at all except to call it very, very good.

Narrator: The Audible version is expertly narrated by the author himself. I usually avoid author narrations based on past experience, but this was very well done.

Plot: If you want plot hints go to Neverwhere (novel) - Wikipedia.

Book Club Questions - Here are discussion questions

This is my second Neil Gaiman book. I’m glad that there are many more to read.

LOL w/ Christopher Moore’s “Fluke”

My introduction to Christopher Moore was via the howling LOL of my lovelier half. I had to take notice — there just aren’t many books that make one Laugh-out-Loud. I’ve read three from Moore — “fluke“, “lamb“, and “dirty job“. All are just — Too much fun. I’m glad there are many more for me to read.

If you’re new to Christopher Moore, Wikipedia says, “Christopher Moore (born 1957 in Toledo, Ohio[1]) is an American writer of absurdist fiction.”

The NYTimes book review for Fluke provides colour on the extent of that “absurdity“.

BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Jonah and a Whale Awash in Pastrami on Rye - New York Times: “Readers new to the work of Christopher Moore will want to know two things about him immediately. First: Where has this guy been hiding? (Answer: In plain sight, since he has a devoted cult following.) Second, and more germane: What is he smoking?”

Here is the finale to the NYTimes review. I like the phrase “comic recklessness“.

Most of this is calmly presented, but Mr. Moore inevitably raises the ante, sounding the note of comic recklessness that is the best thing about his book. ”Barring that,” he writes, after a list of propositions for saving marine life, ”just yell at people randomly to stop killing whales. It could catch on. Really.”

Note to Audio Listeners — The narrator for Fluke is Bill Irwin and the narrator for Lamb and Dirty Job is Fisher Stevens. There is a big difference and there are plenty of comments on Audible about how bad Bill Irwin is. I’m glad I read those reviews and prepared myself for the difference. At first I was disappointed because I really like Fisher Stevens. In the end I began to like Bill Irwin and felt that he did a good job with Fluke. The lead character in Fluke, Nate, is not as manic as the lead characters in Lamb and Dirty Job.

Silent Message: Vinge’s Rainbows End is Very Cool!

I finally found a Vernor Vinge book at audible. It is the 2007 Hugo Award Winner “Rainbows End”. What a cool book For the techie — It has it all. ( If you’re not a techie — this may be a tough read).

The best Sci-Fi books describe future technical possibilities via traditional storylines. That is — these books describe how real people live their lives with future technology. Vinge knows that the most interesting thing is how people live with technology, and not the technology itself. That is the success of Rainbows End. There is tons of future technology discussed - huge medical advances, ubiquitous networked computing with its security issues, geo-political snoops, huge advances in bio-technology, Virtual worlds, Just-in-Time Training, and more. The technology is very cool. The predictions themselves are fascinating, but the strength of the book is how the characters live with that technology. How they react to magical medical cures, how they interact with the Internet (ie what is the user interface), what do they do on the Internet, what is school like?, etc. What is their life like

So what is life like in 2025 San Diego It is very cool Vinge is pretty positive. He doesn’t say everything’s gonna be great, but this is an acceptable future.

Aside: One of the great features of audiobooks is that the pronunciation is always correct. I always thought Vinge == Vinj, but it is pronounced “Vingee”.

Note: the full text is available on here

quick reading update

I’ve got too many in the fire at the moment … which meant that I picked up Ender’s Shadow at the library a few days ago and powered thru. I’m so addicted to these Ender Wiggin books.

Other irons in the fire at the moment.

• Ian McEwan’s - Saturday - I’ve read Amsterdam and Atonement so far. This guy is very gifted. I can’t power read these though. Takes time do digest, every word counts.
• Marshall Goldsmith’s - What Got You Here Won’t Get You There - I got this book title from the globe & mail’s HARVEY SCHACHTER’s Top 10 Business Books of 2007. It was number 2. It reminds me of chapter 15 “Know Your Strengths and Values” in the Essential Drucker. In that chapter Drucker notes that knowing one’s strengths and values is critical to knowing how to improve oneself, but he also notes that all people have a very hard time knowing who they really are. This book is about really coming to terms with our little flaws. ouch I’ve still got a lot of reading to do. It’s very interesting so far.
  

• Roald Dahl’s - BFG narrated by Natasha Richardson — Just how good is that It’s really good. again so far. I have too much on the reading plate

MediaWiki Admin Tutorial Guide - PACKT

I do a fair bit of work with MediaWiki and finally broke down & bought the only book available MediaWiki Administrators’ Tutorial Guide - by Mizanur Rahman. It’s not that there isn’t a lot of documentation available on-line. It’s just that when I use something a lot, it’s nice to have the book.

I’ve found this book to be useful in filling blanks for me. I use tables a lot and this books description has given me new insight on how deploy them in a more “readable-for-me” way.

I was hoping for some discussion on modifying/editing the Sidebar, but there isn’t any. WRT/ to sidebar I’ve been able to find this on-line but the syntax is still very confusing.

All in all I’m happy I bought this book.