A Long Way Gone

Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 229
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: At the age of 12, Beah is swept up in Sierra Leone's civil was when his village is attacked and his family is killed.  He is eventually pressed into service as a soldier for 3 years, until he is extracted from the army by UNICEF and placed in a rehabilitation camp.  The book describes his memories of being a child soldier, and his process of coming to terms with what he did as a soldier as he re-enters normal society.
Thoughts: This is a hard book.  The things that we humans are capable of, both good and bad, are simply shocking to me, and I think that this book really highlights the bad.  It also highlights our amazing ability to adapt to very difficult circumstances.  The things that Beah and other soldiers did, indeed had to do to survive, are beyond comprehension for someone like me who has lived an extremely sheltered life.  Frankly, I didn't enjoy reading that section, although that's not necessarily a good reason not to read it.  The second half of the book, which deals with his rehabilitation, I enjoyed more; probably most people would feel that way.
Disclaimer: This book is has extremely graphic depictions of war-time violence.

12 Years a Slave

Title: 12 Years a Slave
Author: Solomon Northup
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 248
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Solomon Northup was a free black man living in New York, with a wife and several kids and a successful farm.  On a trip to Washington, D.C., he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, deep in Louisiana just a few years before the Civil War.  As the title suggests, he was a slave for 12 years before he was freed when the fact that he was a freeman was finally proven.  This book is his memoir of that experience.
Thoughts: This was a fine book, but I actually didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to.  I guess you don't really enjoy a book about slavery, but I never really seemed to into this book, and then it was finished.  The most interesting parts were about the day-to-day lives of the slaves, how their masters used fear as a constant motivator, and how the slaves adapted to this terrible form of life.  In the end, this is a fine first-hand account of what slavery was really like, but I can't say that I really learned all that much more about slavery than I already knew.  If you're looking to read a book about slavery, this one should be high on the list.  But if not, I don't know that you need to go out of your way to read it.
Disclaimer: There are a few graphic depictions of brutality towards the slaves.

Failure Is Not an Option

Title: Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
Author: Gene Kranz
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Gene Kranz was one of the original flight controllers hired at the newly-formed NASA in the early 1960's.  Using meticulous notes and old recordings, he tells the story of NASA sending the first man into space, the first successful orbit and docking of spacecraft, the tragedy of Apollo 1, the success of Apollo 11, and the near failure of Apollo 13.
Thoughts: This book is really superb.  Kranz does a great job of balancing story-telling with historical and technical details, with the result being a gripping tale of adventure in the "final frontier" of space.  Several things impressed me about the book: first, Kranz's writing style is perfect.  He sounds like a flight director who's not going to take any crap from anybody.  For me, this really helped me get into the setting.  Second, it was amazing how many risks these guys had to take to get to the moon by the end of the decade.  Obviously, the tried to minimize the risks as much as possible, but at the end of the day everything they were trying was brand new, and the margin for error was zero.  I can't believe they actually made it, especially given that they literally survived each mission by the skin of their teeth.  Third, I kept thinking throughout the book about how there really isn't an equivalent national goal today like the Space Race was in the 1960's.  I would love to really see the nation come together around something like we did 50 years ago.  Anyway, this was a great book that I would certainly recommend.
Disclaimer:  A few swear words.

The Disneyland Story

Title: The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream
Author: Sam Gennawey
Genre: History
Pages: 336
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A blow-by-blow history of Disneyland, from its original conception up until 2012.
Thoughts: Few individuals are as well-known worldwide as Walt Disney, and few places are as patently American as Disneyland.  So, it is surprising that a comprehensive "biography" of Disneyland hadn't really been written before 2013, when Gennawey published The Disneyland Story.  I'm a pretty big Disney fan, and I found all of the details of the creation of the world's first theme park absolutely fascinating.  I especially liked how the book described how The Disney Company's experience with movie-making affected the creation of Disneyland.  It wasn't just a place to go have fun with your family.  It is essentially a true 3-D movie, where you are the main character experience adventure after adventure.  Each scene was carefully created at Disneyland, helping kids and adults alike suspend their disbelief for a day.  That's the key thing that sets Disneyland apart - each detail is taken care of so that the fantasy is maintained continuously.  Anyway, the book was super detailed, with tons of source material and careful attention to detail.  My only complaint with the book is that at times it reads like a timeline rather than a story.  "First this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, etc."  Still, overall, if you love Disneyland and are interested in true innovators, you would enjoy this book.
Disclaimer: None.

The Chosen

Title: The Chosen
Author: Chaim Potok
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 304
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood.
Thoughts: Such a great book.  It's very similar to My Name is Asher Lev, also by Potok, which I read (and loved) several years ago.  What I really liked about The Chosen was its exploration of our relationship with faith and God.  I don't want to give away much about the plot, but for me Danny's relationship with his father was a perfect metaphor for how our relationship with God can feel at times.  By the end of the book, I felt like I had truly learned something valuable, and actually feel like my faith is maybe a bit stronger because of it.  There's a lot more to the book (father/son relationships, dealing with differences between friends, etc.), but that was what has stuck with me.  The writing is great and it's a great story, so I'd highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: None.

The Most Human Human

Title: The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive
Author: Brian Christian
Genre: Non-fiction (Popular science/philosophy)
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In 2009, Brian Christian participated in the "Turing Test," the annual competition in which computers and real people engage in 5-minute instant message sessions with a panel of judges.  The twist is that the judges don't know if they are speaking with a computer or a human, and at the end of the conversation they must vote on whether they think they were talking to a real person or not.  The computer that receives the most votes wins the "most human computer" award at the end of the competition, while the person that gets the most votes receives the "most human human" award.  Christian decides that he's going to go all-out to be the "most human human" in the competition, and prepares for several months beforehand to figure out what really makes him (and us) human.  Holding degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry, Christian is ideally suited to tackle the surprisingly beguiling question of how to be human.
Thoughts: I loved this book.  I found it surprisingly profound, and I'm still thinking about some of the ideas in the book a month after finishing it.  I expected it to be a kind of Malcolm Gladwell-esque book that was interesting and well-written.  It wasn't actually all that well-written, but it more than made up for it in super interesting material.  What really surprised me was how much it made me really re-think how I can make myself more human.  By looking at what things computers can easily copy when they are imitating us, we can easily see things we do that are quite pre-programmed, mundane, and robotic.  But there are some things that computers simply cannot (yet) copy, and that's where true human interaction really takes place.  That's where I want my relationships to go, and reading this book helped me understand better how to get there.  Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: None.

Saturday

Title: Saturday
Author: Ian McEwan
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 304
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Saturday tells the story of a single day in the life of Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon who lives in London.  It is a Saturday in February of 2003, and Henry wakes up to see a place with its wing on fire streaking towards Heathrow.  Henry's first thought is terrorism, and although it turns out he was mistaken (it was just an accident), terrorism and threats from unknown persons continue to haunt him throughout his day.
Thoughts: First off, you have to admire McEwan's prose.  Aside from any messages or deep thoughts that one might get from Saturday, I thoroughly enjoyed the great descriptions of everyday events, of situations I find myself in all the time.  And, to be sure, Saturday is filled with a lot of description and detail.  The plot doesn't unfold very quickly at all, so you've got to enjoy the prose if you're going to enjoy the book.  As for the plot itself, it was fine but nothing spectacular.  I felt like things got tied up a bit too neatly in the end (don't want to give any spoilers) for my taste.  However, the book did an excellent job of being a vehicle for thinking about terrorism, clashes of cultures, and more generally, how we handle situations and people that we are unfamiliar (and probably uncomfortable) with.  The book allows you to think about this on many different scales: terrorists (macro), muggers (mezzo), and within your own family (micro).  That is what made the book worth reading for me.
Disclaimer: There is plenty of swearing in the book, and some love-making between the main character and his wife.

Lone Survivor

Title: Lone Survivor: The eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL Team 10
Author: Marcus Luttrell
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 464
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Tells the story of how Luttrell became a Navy SEAL and was eventually deployed in Afghanistan.  While out on patrol, his team was attacked by the Taliban.  Miraculously, Luttrell survived the ordeal.
Thoughts: This is such an amazing story that you can't not enjoy reading it.  Luttrell spends considerable space writing about his SEAL training, and I actually enjoyed that as much as the story.  It really gives you an insight into who the SEALs are and how they are trained to think and act.  The story itself is amazing, sad, and patriotic all at once.  My only complaint with the book is that Luttrell goes off on random diatribes about a few issues (such as the liberal media) here and there, and that kind of detracted from the story.  Not that he doesn't have a right to express that, but it comes off just sounding like a rant and it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  All in all, though, I enjoyed the book and am glad that I read it.
Disclaimer:  Like most military books, the language gets salty at times, and there is plenty of wartime violence and gore as well.  However, I'd say that this is actually cleaner than many war books that I've read.

Foundation

Title: Foundation
Author: Isaac Asimov
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): **1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Set far in the future, Foundation tells the story of a galaxy-wide Empire that has enjoyed peace for thousands of years.  But a brilliant psychologist named Hari Seldon has worked out a set of mathematical equations that predict the future, and what he finds is that the Empire is on the verge of collapse.  He sets up a foundation of scientists designed not to prevent the collapse of the Empire (its too far gone for that), but rather to shorter the dark ages that he knows will follow by retaining the accumulated knowledge of mankind.
Thoughts: This is one of the first, great sci-fi books out there; the predecessor to Star Wars, Star Trek, the Ender series, 2001, and basically every other sci-fi bit of media you've ever seen.  Written way back in 1951, it is quite imaginative and, in some ways, maybe a bit prescient.  But, I'm just not much of a sci-fi fan, I don't think.  I never really got into it; much of the story seemed too contrived so that everything tied up just a bit too neatly.  And the writing itself isn't great either, although I'm willing to let Asimov slip on that given that he was just 21 when he wrote the book.  Anyway, if you like sci-fi, you should read it.  Otherwise, it might not be worth your time.
Disclaimer: Maybe a swear word or two??  Pretty clean.

The Devil in the White City

Title: The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Author: Erik Larson
Genre: History
Pages: 447
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Larson weaves together the story of the building of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 with the tale of a mass murderer far worse than Jack the Ripper.  Both stories are so outrageous that you might think he made them up, but they're both true, and they happened at the same time in the same place.
Thoughts: It took me about a hundred pages to really get into this book, but by the end I was hanging on every word.  Having moved to Chicago a year ago, this was the perfect time for me to read The Devil in the White City; I've been here long enough to know my way around, but I'm still trying to figure out its aura.  Knowing a bit of the history helped with that.  And the World's Fair is a huge part of what put Chicago on the map (and its imprint is still quite visible on the South Side).  I was mind-boggled at how many firsts there were at the fair (a small sampling: first shredded wheat, first usage of AC current, first Ferris wheel) and at the vastness of the project of just putting it together.  It left me wondering why we don't have World Fairs any longer; it's a shame they've gone away.  At any rate, throw in the true tale of a truly clever and sick mass murderer to boot, and you've got a great book.
Disclaimer: The descriptions of the murders were somewhat gruesome.

Sum

Title: Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives
Author: David Eagleman
Genre: Modern Fiction / Philosophy
Pages: 128
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, writes 40 different vignettes of what the afterlife might be like.  In one version, you re-live your life but with events grouped together so that you sleep for 30 years straight, spend 200 days in the shower, five months on the toilet, and so forth.  In another, you find out that God created humanity but then lost control and is farming out the work of managing people's lives to individuals who have passed away.  Each chapter is only 2-3 pages long.
Thoughts: I really loved this book.  It is amazing how much the afterlife can teach you about THIS life, and Eagleman does a really amazing job of delivering a new insight or deep thought in an incredibly creative way by forcing you to consider what each type of afterlife would be like.  What if in the afterlife you were stuck in a room until no one remembered you any longer?  How would that change how you behave?  I found myself underling the last couple of paragraphs in nearly every single chapter, finding new thoughts that made me think about how I'm living.  Eagleman's book was so good not because he writes about what the afterlife will actually be like, but because each different afterlife made me thing about what my current life is all about.
Disclaimer: None.

Confessions of a Public Speaker

Title: Confessions of a Public Speaker
Author: Scott Berkun
Genre: Advice
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): *** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Scott Berkun is a professional public speaker.  This book gives his advice on how to prepare and give a great talk, as well as advice on how to handle difficult situations and what to do when things go wrong.  It's also full of funny stories about public speaking.
Thoughts: I find myself doing a lot of public speaking in my career, so it seems worthwhile to try to get better at it.  Berkun's book had a lot of good advice, and it was fun to read as well.  I really liked that it didn't come off as preachy at all, but more, "I've made a whole bunch of mistakes; hopefully you can learn from some of them."  Berkun is pretty funny as well, which is always a plus.  At the end of the day, I didn't come away with any earth-shattering new advice, but all of it was solid and helpful.
Disclaimer: Maybe a few swear words in this one, but not much.

Quiet

Title: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking
Author: Susan Cain
Genre: Behavioral Psychology
Pages: 368
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Susan Cain's goal in this book is to dispel misconceptions about what introverts are, to remove any negative stigma there might be out there about introverts, and to try to convince the world that we should not cater only to extroverted types.  Laced with lots of anecdotes and scientific research, she tries to champion introverts in the same way that feminists began to be advocated for back in the 60s.
Thoughts: I loved the topic and the content of this book, and I really think that everyone should read it.  Whether you're and introvert or not (and you may be one without even knowing it!), this book is full of useful information that might change the way you structure your life, or at least make you more understanding of how others choose to structure theirs.  It has totally helped me understand better what motivates and energizes me. (I'm a total introvert, for the record.  Like, 100%)  My only complaint with the book is the tone.  It's written almost as a manifesto.  Cain is very upfront that she wants to spark a social movement for introverts similar to how the feminist movement was partially sparked by Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique.  To me, the book came off a little bit too much as a "Rah! Rah! Introverts are amazing!  Extroverts just don't get it!" kind of a message, despite it being chock full of really great insights.  In my view, she would have been more effective is she had just kept it more informational and let the reader decide what to do with the information.  But, you should read the book, and just ignore the tone.
Disclaimer: None.

The Road

Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 287
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In a post-apocalyptic world, a man and his son are barely staying alive.  Due to some worldwide destruction (that is never specified), nothing grows and ash is constantly falling from gray skies.  Meanwhile, the man and his son travel along the road, hoping to find a better place, hoping that they can find enough food to last for a few more days, and hoping that they meet no one else along the way.
Thoughts: This is a book that will stick with me for a long time.  I couldn't figure out why anyone would write such a book for most of it; it's just so dark and depressing nearly all of the time.  Is it a commentary on how humans are essentially animals?  On how easily our society could come apart?  On the human spirit's amazing drive to survive?  Yes, it's about all of those.  But, when you come right down to it, this is a book about a father who knows he can't protect his son from the hard, dark things of this world, no matter how much he wants to.  And that certainly resonated with me.  Aside from the themes of the book, I also loved the writing style.  It felt almost like Hemingway to me, and I really like to read Hemingway.  All in all, I would definitely recommend it.  And, I must say, that despite how dark the book it, I do think that its main message is one of hope.
Disclaimer: There is some bloodshed in this book, and probably a swear word or two.  Mostly, though, it's just a mature-themed book.

The Brothers

Title: The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
Author: Stephen Kinzer
Genre: History
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): *** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles were the Secretary of State and the head of the CIA, respectively, under Eisenhower.  Working jointly as the overt and covert foreign policy directors for the U.S., this book describes their shaping of American foreign policy during the darkest times of the Cold War.
Thoughts: I've joined a men's book club, and this was the first book of the year.  It was extremely fascinating, and I'm surprised that I had never heard much about the Dulles brothers, despite the fact that a major airport is named after them.  The book is really well-written with amazing details (from de-classified documents) about the secret workings of the Cold War in the U.S. that I knew nothing about.  My only complaint is that it's clear the the author really hates the Dulles brothers, and his bias taints nearly all of the book.  It's clear that Foster and Allen were no saints and did plenty of bad things (with Eisenhower's sanction), but I would have preferred for Kinzer to just tell the story, and let the reader come to that conclusion on their own.  Other than that, though, this was fascinating and really taught me a lot about a period of U.S. history that I knew almost nothing about.
Disclaimer: I ran out of time to quite finish this book before our book group met, so I didn't get all the way through, but read enough to feel confident saying that it's quite clean.

The Indian in the Cupboard

Title: The Indian in the Cupboard
Author: Lynn Reid Banks
Genre: Children's Fiction
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Omri receives an old medicine cabinet for his birthday, and discovers that plastic figurines come to life in it when it is locked with his mother's special key.  The Indian in the Cupboard tells the story of Omri's efforts to help "his" little Indian, and his realization that responsibility often accompanies new privileges.
Thoughts: Henry and I listened to this book during the drive to Virginia over New Years, and we both enjoyed it a lot.  I read it first in 3rd grade, I think, and had forgotten nearly all of the details.  It's a great story: funny, touching, and captivating, with a good (but not overt) message at the end.  It's a great book for an 8-11 year old.
Disclaimer: None.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
Genre: Non-fiction (science/history)
Pages: 544
Rating (out of 5 stars): **** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Bill Bryson sets out to write a science book that is actually readable.  In it, he briefly covers everything from  the Big Bang to evolution to the discovery to gravity (and much, much more).  The focus of the book is not on the what so much as the how.  How did they figure out the distance to the sun?  How do we know what we do about dinosaurs?  And so forth.
Thoughts: I ate this book up.  It's been a long time since I had read much about pure science, and this book filled that gap for more.  Bryson's writing style is extremely readable, with just the right level of detail that it's quite easy to follow along.  He is also very adept and moving from topic to topic in a very natural way.  Interestingly enough, my biggest takeaway from this book is how little we really know about our universe.  For example, only a tiny fraction of all animals that die end up creating fossils, and then we only find a tiny fraction of the fossils that are on the earth.  There are huge pieces that we are just missing.  Given how little we know, the other surprising thing for me was just how difficult it typically is for new discoveries to become widely accepted.  Bryson details multiple times how the established scientific community discredited new evidence for years and years because it didn't match with their conception of the world, only to be proven wrong later.  Anyway, I would highly recommend this book.  It only missed out the extra half star because I felt like it dragged on a bit towards the end.  It needed to be 50 pages shorter, and it would have been perfect.
Disclaimer: None.

The House of the Seven Gables

Title: The House of the Seven Gables
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Genre: Classic
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): **
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A twisting tale of the Pynchon family, a venerable bunch from a small New England town in the 19th century, who own the House of the Seven Gables.  The story focuses on two members of that family who have been shut up in the house for many years due to some dark past and terrible rumors, and how they finally break loose of those chains with the help of young Pheobe, who comes to live with them.
Thoughts: I never liked The Scarlet Letter or The Cruicible when I studied them in 11th grade English.  Turns out I'm still not a fan of those kinds of harsh, New England, gothic stories.  I found my mind wandering nearly every time I listened to this book, and when I'd snap to I'd usually find that I hadn't missed anything and that the story was still describing some ancient relative of the Pyncheons that had little to do with the plot.  Overall, I just never got into the book, and the best thing about it were the names of the main characters: Hepzibah, Jaffrey, Phoebe, and Clifford.  After living near Concord for the past five years, I'm glad to have read the book, but it's never a good thing when you're relieved that it's over.
Disclaimer: None.

The Lost Symbol

Title: The Lost Symbol
Author: Dan Brown
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 624
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1.2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Robert Langdon is at is again, this time right in Washington, D.C.  The plot swirls around the Masons, the U.S. Capitol Building, and the Smithsonian Institution as Robert Langdon is forced to crack an ancient code in order to save his friend.
Thoughts: The Robert Langdon novels are maybe a bit formulaic, but they're certainly page-turners.  Dan Brown really does an amazing job of weaving arcane details and real-life objects into some pretty fantastic stories.  I listened to this one on a drive from Zion's National Park all the way to Tucson, and it was a great way to pass the time.  My only complaint with it is that the build-up and suspense in every single chapter got a bit tiresome by the end of the book.  It just felt like Brown was trying so hard to prolong the revelation of what was really going on that it forced him into some pretty poor writing at time.  Other than that, it's a fun book.
Disclaimer: As with other Dan Brown novels, there's some violence as well as some sexual material in this one.

Mayflower

Title: Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Author: Nathaniel Philbrick
Genre: History
Pages: 480
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Mayflower covers the history of the original Pilgrims from the time they leave England to the end of King Philip's War in 1678.  The book really isn't about the Mayflower voyage very much, but instead focuses on the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans during the first 50 years after the colonists arrived in the New World.  The two groups were able to maintain peace for a remarkably long time, but war was nearly inevitable by the end.
Thoughts: This is a period of history that rarely gets covered, and it's always seemed strange to me that we learn in school that the Pilgrim's landed in Plymouth in 1620 and then the Revolution happened in 1776.  There's 150 years there that we just never learn much about!  So, I enjoyed reading this book to help fill in the gap.  I thought it was well-written, but not grippingly so, and hence I'm only giving it 3 stars.  Still, it's fascinating material and I'm glad I read it and know at least a little bit more about this time period.
Disclaimer:  None.

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Title: How Will Your Measure Your Life?
Author: Clayton Christensen, James Allworth and Karen Dillon
Genre: Self-help
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Clayton Christensen uses his renowned ideas on business and applies them to people's lives instead.  In particular, he focuses on how we can make sure that we reach our goals, how we can make sure our goals are the right ones, and how to be ethical along the way.
Thoughts: I saw Clayton Christensen give a lecture on this material at HBS a little over a year ago, and it was spectacular.  Reading the book was a great reminder.  In a lot of ways you almost feel like you're reading a church book, except it's not directly preachy and throws in a lot of business references.  But seriously, this is the kind of book I think I should read about every 5 years, just to make sure I'm on track and going where I want to be going.  The only reason it missed out on all 5 stars was that I had heard nearly all of the ideas in the book previously, so it wasn't as new or exciting for me.  Still, I highly recommend it!
Disclaimer: None.

Choose Yourself!

Title: Choose Yourself!  Be Happy, Make Millions, Live the Dream
Author: James Altucher
Genre: Self-help
Pages: 274
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Altucher is a self-made millionaire several times over.  Between each of those times, he lost all of his money, and had to pick himself back up again and start over with nothing.  Along the way, he learned a lot about himself and what makes him tick.  In this book, he shares what he has learned from the violent roller-coaster his life has been.
Thoughts: By nature, Altucher is much more of a risk-taker than I am, and hence he has had both more successes and failures than I have had (or ever hope to have, really).  But, it makes him a very interesting person to listen to, even if I disagree with much of what he says.  The main things I like in this book were his ideas on not getting stuck in a mental rut.  I definitely need more creativity and spontaneity in my life, so I've tried his suggestion of coming up with 10 new ideas every day, and I think it's really good for me.  Much of his advice seemed quite conventional to me (get enough sleep, don't carry grudges) even if they were good reminders.  And then there was plenty of things that I disagreed with completely (you don't need to have a purpose in life).  Luckily, all of it was interesting.  My main complaint with the book is that felt very disjointed, with random stories thrown into the middle of chapters than didn't have much connection to the main point.  Often I found myself thinking, "Okay, this is interesting and enjoyable to read, but what's the point he's trying to make?"  At any rate, this book was not life-changing for me, but it was fun to read and had a few good ideas.
Disclaimer: None.

Addendum:  You can read Altucher's blog at www.jamesaltucher.com.

Adapt

Title: Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure
Author: Tim Harford
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 352
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Harford makes the claim that most of the problems we face in today's world are too complex so be solved with a single silver bullet.  Instead, he argues that solutions need to evolve, much like complex organisms have evolved and adapted to very difficult environments.  He they lays out how to create environments that encourage adaptation, failure, and evolution towards better solutions to our most challenging problems.
Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book a lot.  I pretty much buy into Harford's main idea that most problems in our lives, from nationwide issues like healthcare or social security to personal issues like choosing a career or parenting, are so complex that finding the best solution right off the bat is just not likely to happen.  I really liked how this book made me think about what I'm doing in my life to stay adaptable and tolerate failure when something that I try doesn't work.  I think that the ideas in this book are applicable to nearly anything, and are worth thinking over.
Disclaimer: None.

Mornings on Horseback

Title: Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child who Became Theodore Roosevelt
Author: David McCullough
Genre: Biography
Pages: 370
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A biographical sketch of not just Theodore Roosevelt, but of his whole family.  The book describes what it was like growing up a Roosevelt, and follows Teddy only until about age 30, a full twelve years before he became president.  Rather than give a full biography, the goal of the book is to help the reader understand how Teddy became Teddy, one of our most iconic presidents.
Thoughts: This is another great McCullough book, full of interesting detail and extremely well-written, as I've come to expect from McCullough.  I did find it fascinating to learn about Theodore Roosevelt's upbringing in one of the super-rich families in New York.  My only complaint really is that it ends too early; I wish it had at least covered his life up until he became president.  Instead, we miss out on any information about his rise in politics or his time with the Rough Riders and the Battle of San Juan Hill.  On the other hand, the focus of the book allows much more detail about Teddy's upbringing in a truly unique family.  So, there's trade-offs there, I guess.  Overall, another solid book from David McCullough.
Disclaimer: None.

Eldorado

Title: Eldorado
Author: Baroness Orczy
Genre: Classic (19th century adventure/romance)
Pages: 352
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A sequal to The Scarlet Pimpernel, Eldorado picks up the plot and follows Sir Percy and his gang back to France who seek to rescue the young King Louis XVII from the hands of the French Revolution.  But the plot thickens when one of the Scarlet Pimpernel's gang ignores his command and endangers the Pimpernel himself.
Thoughts: This is the kind of fun, light-hearted book that I have a hard time putting down once I start.  I'm a sucker for intrigue and twisting plots, and this has plenty of those.  My only complaint is that it might be a bit over-dramatic at points, but you have to expect that with these kind of books.  Overall, a very worthy sequel to The Scarlet Pimpernel, and if you liked the first one you should pick this up as well.
Disclaimer: None.

Matterhorn

Title: Matterhorn
Author: Karl Marlantes
Genre: Modern Fiction (Vietnam War)
Pages: 640
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Lieutenant Mellas arrives in Vietnam and joins Bravo Company deep in the bush.  The book follows Mellas and Bravo Company over the next three months as they struggle to capture Matterhorn (a low-lying hill), while coming to grips with the meaning of the war and life and race and growing up.
Thoughts: This was an incredibly captivating, well-written book that really opened my eyes to what the Vietnam war was like for at least some of the Marines.  It's really hard to comprehend what it must have been like for these 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds to suddenly be making decisions on which the lives of many men depended, and to be faced with dealing with the mental burden of living with those decisions for the rest of their lives (if they lived).  This book does a great job of trying to convey that, though.  However, I can't whole-heartedly recommend this book due to lots and lots and lots of bad language (F-bombs), heavy violence (as you might expect), and many inappropriate sexual references as well.  In the end, I kind of feel like reading this book is like watching Saving Private Ryan (which I haven't seen): in order for it to be realistic, there is a lot of filth and violence.  So, that's why it gets three stars from me.  I'm glad that I've read the book, but I'm not going to recommend it to my boys when they're older.
Disclaimer: Lots of language, violence, and inappropriate references.  HEAVY disclaimer on this one.

Inverting the Pyramid

Title: Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics
Author: Jonathan Wilson
Genre: Sports (Non-fiction)
Pages: 384
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Wilson covers the history of soccer (football!) tactics from its beginnings up to the present day.  From the very first matches on up nearly until WWII, most soccer teams employed only 2 defenders and had 5 forwards.  Since that time, the pyramid has inverted, so that today we see 4 defenders and only 1 or 2 forwards.  Wilson talks about the matches, coaches, and players who were involved in that evolution, describing how ideas bounced around the globe until we came to the point we are at today.
Thoughts: You have to really love soccer to like this book, but if you like soccer you should totally read it.  It's changed the way that I watch games, actually, as I have a much better idea of the role each player is supposed to play and how they came to play those roles.  Also, I thought it was really interesting how he described the way that different ideas were exported around the world.  This idea of exporting and importing ideas I think is really at the basis of how businesses (including soccer teams) around the world stay competitive.  So I loved that aspect as well.
Disclaimer: None.
Note: A huge thanks to Kati and Joe for getting me this book for Christmas 15 months ago!  The fact that it took me 15 months to read it is simply due to the fact that I mostly listen to books, and didn't have a chance to read a real, physical copy until I rode on so many airplanes and sat in a lot of airports over the past few weeks.  Anyway, many thanks!

Rocket Boys

Title: Rocket Boys
Author: Homer Hickam, Jr.
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 368
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Homer Hickam,  a 14-year-old boy in Coalwood, West Virginia, decides in 1957 that he's going to learn to build rockets so that he can someday get out of his small coal-mining town and join the team in Cape Canaveral.  He and his group of friends start learning how to build rockets from scratch and come of age in the process.
Thoughts: This is the best book I've read in the past few months, easily.  Maybe I'm just a sucker for coming-of-age stories, but I really enjoyed this book a lot.  I love that it's a true story, and it had just enough humor, tension, interesting facts, and difficulties to keep me hooked all the way through.  This is the kind of book that I really want my boys to read when they are teenagers; it's all about pushing through difficulties and finding a way to make things work when things don't go your way.  All in all, just a great book.  Also, the movie October Sky was based on the book, so if you've seen that and liked it, you'll love the book.
Disclaimer: Some teenage romance, but nothing too descriptive.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Title: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Author: Daniel Kahneman
Genre: Popular Science (non-fiction)
Pages: 512
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel-Prize winning psychologist, boils down decades of psychological research into how humans think and make decisions into a single volume.  In it, he describes the differences between fast and slow thinking, the biases that result from fast thinking, and ways that our surroundings and experiences can alter our decision-making in surprising ways.
Thoughts: This was a spectacular book if you like psychology and/or economics.  It basically covers all of behavioral economics in a very readable format, with clear examples but enough technical detail as well.  I liked it enough that I bought a print copy of it for reference.  However, keep in mind that it does kind of read like a reference book a little bit; it got to be a bit tiresome to read straight through, I thought.  Still, an amazing book from one of the best thinkers in the past 50 years.
Disclaimer: None.

This I Believe

Title: This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
Editors: Jay Allison & Dan Gediman
Genre: Philosophy
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Over the past several years, NPR has aired a feature called This I Believe in which individuals from all walks of life write and record personal belief statements.  Each statement is around 3 1/2 minutes long (about 400 words), and is typically focused on one personal belief or one story that has changed their views on life.  This book is a collection of those recordings, with about half of them coming from more famous people and the other half being culled from individuals who have submitted their "This I Believe" states to NPR directly.
Thoughts: I really liked this book a lot.  It was fascinating to listen to what people would choose to say given only 400 words to write a personal belief statement.  I found myself constantly thinking in my head, "What would I write?"  In fact, I've committed myself to writing one (I've started, but it's really hard!), and it's been a really healthy thing for me to try to do.  Nearly every segment made me think hard about whether I believe the same thing, or why my beliefs differ from others'.  If you're going to read this book, I have two recommendations.  First, listen to it on audiobook.  They have the authors each read their own statements, and I really liked having each person's own voice behind the statements.  Second, don't listen to it all straight through.  I found that with one belief statement coming right after the next, I didn't have enough time to think about what the last person had said, and sometimes I'd find myself thinking about the last statement while the next one was going on.  It'd be better to listen to one or two, then take a break, I think.
Disclaimer: None.