The Goliath Stone

http://www.amazon.com/The-Goliath-Stone-Larry-Niven-ebook/dp/B00C74OY7M/ref=pd_ybh_6?tag=dedasys-20

Larry Niven has written a lot of great science fiction books over the years, and I would highly recommend you read those rather than this book.

There isn't much of a plot in that the protagonists just bounce from success to success.  The whole thing is dripping with political snipes at people who disagree with the author on various issues.  And it's full of dialogue with lots of "in" jokes for people who follow a lot of sci-fi.  One of these alone might have been tolerable, especially if mixed with a great story, but that's not really there.

The science fiction premise was kind of interesting, but were the sentient nanobots given their choice in the matter, I'm sure they too would have fled from this book towards something better.

After Tamerlane

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Z9L4O4/?tag=dedasys-20

At nearly 600 pages, this is not a light read.  Spanning the past 600 years, and the entire globe, it also covers a lot of space and history.  If you don't find history interesting, this is most certainly not the book for you. On the other hand, if you think that history is fascinating, this book contains a great deal of it: it covers the rise and fall of empires around the world since the fall of Tamerlane.  That's a long time, and the book is not restricted to Europe; indeed one of the things I liked most about it is the coverage of Africa and especially Asia.

It breaks down and discusses, in detail, a lot of what happened in India, Iran, and what was the Ottoman Empire over the years, as well as China and Japan, and how all of them interacted, in turn with the European nations.  It turns out that the "Europe dominates the world" story is pretty simplistic and requires a lot more detail and nuance to give a good account of what happened where, and when.

While not a page-turner, it's written fairly well, and I found it easy to make progress.  As above, I greatly enjoyed some of the coverage of the world outside of Europe.  I've got a reasonably decent grasp of European history, but am well aware that there are critical parts of the "old world" like China and India that I know precious little about, and this book helps fill in some of those gaps.

As the book concludes:

But if there is one continuity that we should be able to glean from a long view of the past, it is Eurasia’s resistance to a uniform system, a single great ruler, or one set of rules. In that sense, we still live in Tamerlane’s shadow – or, perhaps more precisely, in the shadow of his failure.

Zero-Sum Game: The Rise of the World's Largest Derivatives Exchange

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004APA77W/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title?tag=dedasys-20

Some books jump out at you as something you have to read.  Others, like this one, sneak up on you.  Commodities trading and a corporate merger hardly sound like subjects that could keep most people awake, let alone hold their interest.  And yet... the book was interesting and engaging.

I have a weakness for books like this; books that take something that you don't know much about, and explain it in a way that's vivid and easy to understand, but not too dumbed down.

Zero Sum Game tracks the acquisition - officially labeled as a "merger" - of the Chicago Board of Trade, or "CBOT", by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or "Merc", which was finalized in the summer of 2007 by newly hired marketing executive Erika Olson, who had no idea for the wild ride she was in for when hired just before the acquisition commenced.

The book closely follows the action, and gives some background about many of the major players.  At times, given that I read the book in bits and pieces, I'd forget who someone was, as there are a lot of people mentioned, but the descriptions add a lot to the story in terms of making it human, rather than just a description of what the various companies did.

It's a pity we don't learn more about institutions and economics like those described here in school, as markets like these are so central to the economies of modern countries.

Would I recommend it?  If you're interested in reading about something different, certainly!

In an interesting footnote, one of the major players in the book, the ICE recently (end of 2013) concluded their purchase of the storied New York Stock Exchange.

Authority

Since this book is so related to what I do professionally over at LiberWriter, I wrote it up in the blog over there:

http://blog.liberwriter.com/2013/11/21/nathan-barrys-authority/

I thought it was pretty interesting, although you can probably pick up some of the same advice on the internet if you have the time to do the research yourself.  If you're a professional who could package up some of your knowledge and sell it, this book would easily pay for itself, though, as it's got lots of great advice on how to write and market a book that will help people with their jobs.

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others-ebook/dp/B0087GJ8KM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=&tag=dedasys-20

Everyone is in sales.  Well, maybe not 'sales' sales, but pretty much all of us are involved in trying to convince other people to do things, if not actually buy products.

The book starts with this thesis, which makes intuitive sense.  The author then spends quite a few pages trying to sell us on... err... convince us that it's a fair assessment of the world.   We need to be on board with the idea that selling is important for the rest of the book to be worthwhile, but I pretty much knew that I was getting a book about sales from the get go, so I didn't really need much convincing.

In any event, from there the book picks up, and I found it to be an enjoyable read.  I like the fact that he cites a lot of other books and explains their relevance.

One of the critical points of the book is that a lot of power has moved from sellers to buyers - in the past, there was often "information asymmetry", meaning that one party (almost always the seller) knew a lot more about what was being sold than the buyer.  This is a case where knowledge is power, and buyers came off the worse for it, but sellers also gained a reputation for being somewhat sleazy.

These days, thanks mostly to the internet, if you're buying something, you can almost always do a lot of research and know as much as the seller, putting the two parties on a more even footing.

Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity are the keywords of the second part of the book, and are contrasted with the "Always Be Closing" mentality associated with sales in the past.

• Attunement means the ability to be 'in tune' with the people you are trying to convince.   If you're receptive to their wants and needs, you'll be better placed to help them see your own point of view.  This isn't really a "touchy feely" skill, but the ability to think about what motivates the other person in a logical and rational way.  It also turns out that being very extroverted may not really be an advantage in terms of producing results, according to studies cited in the book.
• Buoyancy means the ability to bounce back from setbacks.  If you're out there trying, you'll inevitably hear a lot of "no"s.  One cited technique is to practice questioning self-talk.  Rather than, "I'm the best, I can do it!", ask yourself "can I do it?".  It seems to produce better results, perhaps by stimulating thought about how you are going to accomplish what you set out to do.

"The more you explain bad events as temporary, specific and external, the more likely you are to persist even in the face of adversity."

• Clarity is defined as "the capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more revealing ways and to identify problems they didn't realize they had".  On other words, to clearly communicate how you can help them.

The third part of the book focuses on "what to do", and covers the pitch, improvisation, and how to really serve your customers (or those you're trying to influence): genuinely improving others lives.

The pitch section defines a few ideas for pitches, including one that struck me as less than convincing, the 'one word pitch'.  The idea being that you can simplify your pitch down to one word.  He conflates it with branding where some companies basically own a word in customers minds, like search (Google).  But that's going to be pretty much impossible for all but the largest of behemoth companies.

Improvisation is necessary in a world where scripted sales don't really work very well any more - you need to be able to listen to those you are trying to convince, rather than simply rattling off a list of points in your favor.

In any event, to draw things to a close, it's a pretty good book that also comes with some exercises to try out in order to help you think about what he's trying to impart.

Thanks to fellow MicroConf attendee Stephen Kellett for the recommendation.

Worthless, Impossible and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B6U63ZY/?tag=dedasys-20

"Contrarian" would be a good one-word summary of this book, and one of its strong points.

Rather than joining in the "everyone is an entrepreneur!" hype, the author rightly points out that no: it's difficult, and it's not for everyone, and to really be called an entrepreneur, you probably ought to be able to point to significant value creation.

As the author points out, it's not really about innovation per se: there are plenty of innovators who don't manage to create businesses from it, nor capture much value.  And there are plenty of good businesses that don't really innovate a great deal - one of those profiled in the book is a group that created an American style Cinema chain in Mexico.  They basically changed nothing about the format besides, of course, the location, and adding some spicy popocorn.

The central thesis of the book is that most people who really do create something new and big are often viewed a bit askance at some point along the way.  As per the title, the new business is seen as either worthless, impossible, or plain stupid.

And - many new businesses really are - but the trick is the ability to be an independent thinker, and to persevere in the face of difficulty.

The book doesn't have a lot of actual advice, but I liked it.  The tone is, in some cases even a tad "grumpy", which I found a refreshing change from some of the "rah rah!" material out there, and the author takes some shots at various ideas like "intrapreneurs" (as heavily promoted in The Lean Startup): those people are often not really going out on a limb, and neither are they really going to get the huge rewards a "real" startup will.  I appreciated the honesty, and also reading someone with a unique point of view: being a programmer, I fall into the orbit of Silicon Valley for some things, and that place can be a big echo chamber in many ways.

I also appreciate some of the policy recommendations: stop trying to pick winners, just make doing business easier for everyone, and what will be, will be.  Politicians hate to hear that, because they want to be the protagonists, or at least supporting actors.  But the reality is that the economy is too complex, and trying to determine which sector to favor is a losing bet.

Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UCUX5A/?tag=dedasys-20

The rise and fall of John Fremont is a fascinating, epic, and very American story.

Born out of wedlock in the early years of the United States (Madison was president), he achieved fame as an explorer of the west, grew wealthy thanks to the discovery of gold on his land in California, was the first Republican presidential candidate, and subsequently went on to lose most of the money he had acquired.  He was far from a perfect person, but what a life he lead, in very interesting times!


While his mother was part of "high society", the circumstances of his birth were considered "scandalous" and he does not seem to have grown up wealthy, although he did manage to go to college (without finishing it) and educate himself.

His explorations of the west were what really made his name, though, and make for fascinating reading

• On his first expedition, he went as far as the continental divide in Wyoming, and climbed a high peak - it's uncertain exactly which one - which is an achievement in and of itself, considering the rudimentary gear available at the time.  Interestingly enough, one of the things they hauled out west was an early version of a rubber raft, that they used to float down a river heading east.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the river was a rather wild one, and between one set of rapids and the next, they lost the boat and were lucky to get away with their lives.  To me, the mental image of "old west guys" doing river rafting is a funny one.
• Fremont's second expedition led him to Oregon, where, at The Dalles, in December, he headed south.  To anyone who knows anything about winter weather in Oregon, this doesn't sound like a pleasant idea even now.  Then, it must have been quite an ordeal.  A number of geographical features in eastern Oregon that he visited still bear the names he gave them.  Eventually, after gradually making his way south, his party decided to cross the Sierra Nevada in the heart of winter.  Apparently, despite their already very lengthly expedition, they had the men and means to do it.  They arrived in Sutter's Fort (near modern day Sacramento) bedraggled, but alive.  After all the cold, snow and mountains, spring time in California's central valley must have seemed like heaven.
• A third expedition found him once again in California, in the midst of a quickly shifting political situation in which American settlers sought to seize the territory with the idea of joining the United States.  There seems to be some confusion and controversy over his role in subsequent events, which the book covers extensively.  In any event, Fremont was in the thick of things during very interesting times, going on to be - briefly - one of the military governors of California, and later, very briefly, one of the first Senators from the new state.

Skipping ahead, he was the first Republican candidate for president, with the slogan "Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont and victory!" - meaning that the Republicans were against the spread of slavery into new states, and against the institution in general.  As an aside, it's interesting to note that over the years the Republican party has done... if not quite a 180 degree turn, because they're not in favor of bringing back slavery... a 180 degree turn in terms of their demographics: it is now very much a "southern-fried conservative" party, to quote The Economist, rather than a party with its base in the north as can be seen in the 1856 election results:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1856

He lost the election, which probably marked the high water mark of his career in some ways.  The election of Abraham Lincoln followed, then the civil war, in which Fremont had a brief and not particularly successful career as a general.

His later years were spent trying, and mostly failing, to accumulate wealth, and, if accounts are correct, carrying on various affairs.  Indeed, he died relatively poor and unknown.

All in all, a story that ranges from the early years of the republic to the death of Fremont's wife Jessie Benton in 1902, and provides a very personal viewpoint on the rapidly expanding country where Fremont lived and died.