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I haven't read a non-fiction book this engaging in some time. This was an amazingly well written autobiography. It read like a fast paced novel through much of it. Many autobiographies are too long - this one if anything is too short! Like many startup companies, the story of Nike (or Blue Ribbon Shoes as it was initia... | 0 |
Best book of the series, and best book about American history that I think I've read. Now we are getting to the drama and corruption at an interesting scale - the US Senate. And the portrait we have of Johnson is fascinating.
Lyndon Johnson was just simply power hungry. He had no principles of note, no things he was ... | 0 |
A fascinating look at the early part of LBJ's life and career. This is the first of a four book series covering LBJ's life. At least 3 extremely smart people that I respect told me that this series was one of the best books they've ever read. I was also interested in reading about politics and corrupt politicians to ge... | 0 |
A beautiful story. It is rare to encounter a book that does such a good job painting the scenes in your mind - you really felt like you were there and got to know the characters and the people they came across. I generally love WWII books and movies, but wasn't sure if I'd like one featuring a blind girl and a young Na... | 0 |
Another hard to put down nonfiction book from Erik Larson. I really enjoyed this book - mostly to learn more about submarine warfare in WWI, but also to learn about the history of the time. How America entered the war, the importance of shipping to England, the ruthlessness and autonomy of German u-boat commanders. Lar... | 0 |
Sacca and Nate recommend | 0 |
I tore through The Pillars of the Earth, and couldn't wait to pick this up. Set in Kingsbridge but a few centuries later, the story has a lot of similar elements: a cathedral that needs repair, a brilliant young builder (Merthin), a love story, a priorship up for grabs, and of course political manuevering, backstabbing... | 0 |
5 stars for being a un-put-downable page-turner, full of interesting and engaging characters I empathized with, and for teaching me about the politics and religion of the middle ages. Follet is a thriller writer, and it shows.
Fascinating that in medieval times, most villages were surrounded by walls (or were inside ... | 0 |
A truly inspirational book by a truly inspirational man. Coach Wooden coached 17 seasons at Indiana and UCLA before winning a championship - and then he won 10 out of the next 12! He is one of the greatest coaches ever, and Reading his book gives some great insights into his philosophy.
My only criticism of the book ... | 0 |
A fantastic continuation of Fall of Giants - couldn't put it down. Great to see the same characters back, including their children. | 0 |
A fun, dark, slightly comical western about two killers (Charlie and Eli Sisters) on their way to California for the gold rush. Going into the mind of a killer is a strange experience - I'm not sure I totally enjoyed it. But what I did really enjoy was the authors writing; it was clean, fun, and even poetic - which mad... | 0 |
I loved this book. Although it was a beast of a book, and could probably have been a lot shorter. I had not read a Lincoln biography before, so was firstly blown away by how he rose up from nothing, self-taught himself a college degree, and then somehow rode the middle line and got himself elected President. Nobody see... | 0 |
This is a fascinating glimpse into American history, of which I was largely ignorant - well worth a read. I had no idea prohibition lasted 14 years! My only criticism is the author spent way too much time on the politics of prohibition - that could have been cut by half.
The bottom line of prohibition is that is was ... | 0 |
Wow. Amazing story, and well told - kept me up late at night! Louie Zamperini truly went through hell and came back - and it's inspiring to read a story of such willpower and determination. It was also interesting to me to learn more about Japan and their role in the war.
One big takeaway was just how cheap human lif... | 0 |
This is an amazing inside view into the life of one of the great businessmen of our era. A must read.
The thing that struck me most about Steve Jobs was that he was an incredible perfectionist. He was a craftsman, and wanted the computers he built to be beautiful and amazing and useful. He believed that computers wer... | 0 |
A hilarious and book from Tina Fey - definitely worth listening to over audio as she reads it herself. She makes fun of herself a lot, adds lots of light humor, and of course shares TMI.
The most interesting bit was hearing the behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live, and how she was a joke writer there for 3 years ... | 0 |
Great story of the US Ambassador to Germany and his experience during the build-up of ww2 from 1933 - 1937. Nothing new or exciting really revealed, and I'm sure there are many other accounts of the buildup to ww2 out there, but this one told it from the perspective of mostly the Ambassador, Dodd, and his daughter, Mar... | 0 |
Great story about the founding of Microsoft from it's cofounder Paul Allen. I've read a few books about Microsofts history before (such as Gates), but it was fascinating to hear it from the horses mouth.
What stuck out for me was that Paul and Bill were on the cutting edge of software ever since they first saw a comp... | 0 |
A very interesting book about John Boyd, who was a crack fighter pilot, and then later military strategist and reformer. Boyd flew as an instructor in the real life version of Top Gun, and beat everyone in 40 seconds or less. But later in his life he really studied military strategy, and this is where the interesting p... | 0 |
List of great observations and leadership tidbits. Doesn't give full stories examples behind each, so I found it a little hard to apply or let the lesson synch in. I switched to his auto-biography, They Call Me Coach (see my review) to get those. | 0 |
If I ever go to Peru, this is top of the list. | 0 |
I learned two major things from this book: the power of branding, and the fact that Richard Branson has balls of solid steel.
Branson is one of the great entrepreneurs of our era, and it was truly inspiring to hear his story in his own words. A kid who skipped college and dove straight into business, and time and tim... | 0 |
This is a book that every entrepreneur definitely needs to read, and everyone who works even remotely with Facebook needs to read. It does a simply amazing job going behind the scenes of Facebook and describing where the site came from, how it got to where it is, and where it's going.
The author had amazing inside ac... | 0 |
Recommended by Tim O'Reilly | 0 |
It was nice to be back in Africa, even for a short time. This was a beautifully written memoir, and a remarkable glimpse into what Africa was like a century ago. I fear the Africa Dinesen described is long gone.
I picked this up tainted by having seen the movie first, and was kind of glad and surprised at the differe... | 0 |
Great book. Fun to see how Aubrey approaches being a commodore. He really focuses on surrounding himself with the right people, and knowing what they are good at. | 0 |
A great finish to the D'Artagnan series - definitely enjoyed it. Ending wasn't what I wanted though, you could tell he was just trying to permanently end the series. It could easily be having seen the movie made me want more drama. | 0 |
** spoiler alert **
Great book - I liked it better than the second. I ate up the descriptions of India, and felt Stephen's pain with Diana the whole way. O'Brian really makes you feel like you're learning what it must have been like to have been at sea in an 18th century English ship of the line - a most impressive f... | 0 |
** spoiler alert **
I equally loved book 2, and am definitely hooked. I did feel it took a little while for them to get to sea, but I guess we can't bring in a love interest if we aren't on the land!
My favorite thing by far was the Lively, and the descriptions of how fast she is and how much care the crew took kee... | 0 |
I started this on audio book but after 14 CD's realized we were missing the last 2, so I just finished it with the hard-copy. The writing cracked me up with how graphic the descriptions of the battles and sex scenes were, but overall I really enjoyed this book. It's a very interesting account of the Seige of Malta, of ... | 0 |
A truly heartwarming story of riches to rags - I tore through it on a NY-LA flight. Highly recommended for anyone who works and wonders if they shouldn't be paying more attention to their personal happiness. Some great business anecdotes throw in from the authors experience in a top-tier advertising firm in NYC. But mo... | 0 |
I love California history... | 0 |
A great snapshot of history. It's about the experiences of ordinary French people as they flee Paris in 1940 when the Germans are invading. The second part is about after the Germans occupy France, how people in the towns get along with their hosts.
I loved the class breakdowns that occur. When the rules of society a... | 0 |
My safari guide gave this to me, saying the author was a friend who had lived a life similar to his own. It's a very well-written memoir style book of a man who is raised among a very proud people called the Maasai in East Africa. By modern standards they live very primitive lives: herding cattle, and living in dirt hu... | 0 |
I learned a lot about an area of the world I knew very little. The book was a journalistic nonfiction account of Sierra Leone, as opposed to the fictional movie (which I also enjoyed).
Key takeaways:
- Human beings can be pretty indecent to each other when the economic incentives are right, and when there are no ch... | 0 |
I heard this book described as interesting but a little dry, so I was fully planning on just skimming a lot. But I ended up reading almost the whole thing! I have two biases though: one was I was in Africa at the time I read it, and the other is my grandfather did a lot of hunting in Africa in the 1960's, so I could al... | 0 |
"Dr Livingstone, I presume!"
That phrase was buried in my mind somewhere. It was familiar, yet I knew not how nor who this Livingstone person was. This book explained it, and was very entertaining in the process. Highly recommended if you ever travel to East Africa.
A friend recently wrote an interesting piece abou... | 0 |
I got an advanced copy of this and tore through it last weekend. It was a memoir style account of desert warfare in world war 2, and a fascinating and realistic account of what it was like. A little heavier on logistics (names/places/etc) in a few places than I would have liked, but that did make it seem very real.
I... | 0 |
Highly recommended if you are curious about Manic-depressive disease. A fascinating and even very well written insight from a woman who is both a Psychiatrist who treats it and suffers from it. She was very brave and very poetic in writing this book. | 0 |
On loan to Diana Sonn | 0 |
Loved learning about Morgan and Jay and the rest. Very slow and dry and I gave up halfway as it was just taking too long. This book needs to be cut down by about 2/3. | 0 |
Kareems top 10. Similar to delivering happines | 0 |
On recommendation from Gerald Chamales | 0 |
A quick read, but somewhat inspirational | 0 |
Great book about Galileo from the perspective of his daughter. | 0 |
The sequel to Lonesome Dove. I enjoyed the first one more, but this one was also a good read. | 0 |
Despite having a name that sounds like its a chic-book, this was a pretty sweet western novel. Thoroughly enjoyed it. | 0 |
A very interesting WW2 book that chronicles how a gang of street orphans fought the nazis. I love to hear different perspectives, so this was very enjoyable. | 0 |
Inspiring profiles of 7 great businessmen: Andrew Carnegie, Thomas J. Watson, George Eastman, Robert Noyce, Charles Revson, Sam Walton, and Henry Ford. The author is an HBS professor. | 0 |
I picked this up in a Library in Big Sur, expecting to learn about Bill Gates, and instead found it was about the history of the PC industry. A fascinating history, and still a very relevant read, even though the history stops at 1995. There have been just a few developments since then! | 0 |
If steve recommends it, it must be good! | 0 |
Listened to this on the way back from Mammoth. A great story full of Pirates & Arabs & Africa - worthy of any road trip. | 0 |
Man I wish I hadn't read this yet so I could enjoy it again. | 0 |
This book was a pure delight. The subtitle "Adventures of a Curious Character" is spot-on. Feynman gave an amazingly human and honest view into his philosophy and take on life, thought a series of stories.
One thing that struck me most deeply was his passion for learning new things. You would think a world-famous Phy... | 0 |
The LA Times did a story about this book & it sounded interesting: [http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-...]
An excerpt:
The former president also asserted that pro-Israel lobbyists have stifled open debate in this country on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. "It's impossible for any candidate for Congress to mak... | 0 |
I read this in college in my 'spiritual book' phase, and despite its cheesy name remember rather liking it. Its basicaly an intro to Buddhism. | 0 |
Again - elizabeth got this for free at work, sounded interesting - if anyone knows anything about it let me know | 0 |
Nothing revolutionary about this book, but interesting to hear Jack's story from his own mouth. GE is famous for the way it handles its employee reviews, trimming the fat & promoting the best each year. | 0 |
elizabeth got this for free at work... anyone heard anything about it? | 0 |
Om recommends it: http://gigaom.com/2006/11/30/profit-f...
Ryan Sarver @twitter recommends it highly. | 0 |
I loved this book. I agree with Elizabeth - the movie wasn't close. Something about Nicholas Cage trying to do an italian accent? | 0 |
I read this right after my dad passed away from cancer. Lance was a hero of my dad's for some time, but I'd never seen his autobiography until I found it on my dad's shelf. Lance's drive to survive and win against all odds is an inspiration to anyone, but especially to cancer survivors & their family. It really helped ... | 0 |
I remember reading this on Greg's recommendation. It was pretty good overall, just had lots of parts where the author felt it necessary to devote entire pages to decriptions of nature. But to get a glimpse of the life of a surf-bum its a pretty good read. Paints a much different picture than Spicoli... | 0 |
A fascanating history of the NY Times. Interesting tidbits were:
- The family was Jewish but so afraid of being dubbed a Jewish paper that they barely covered the holocaust - most stories about the mass graves were buried on page 7 and didn't mention the fact that the victims were mostly Jews.
- Adolf Ochs, the fir... | 0 |
A fascinating history of science. Ever curious how everything we know about the world came to be - read this! I loved reading about what old greats like Darwin thought about the world - they were all right about most things, but also very wrong about some things - makes you wonder how much we are wrong about today!
A... | 0 |
I greatly enjoyed this book. From a mistreated child who worked far too hard for a little boy to a wild hearted teen who hated to follow the rules, Alfie grew into a hard working young man. He writes his story in a way that inspires compassion without pity. The book draws you into life in the times he grew up in. I fou... | 0 |
It is very hard to believe this is all true, but I'll take the author's word for it!
I've always had an open mind toward women who choose to work in this trade and a lot of compassion. I feel that often there is desperation in making the choice to sell your body, as shown by this story.
I feel like the story at tim... | 0 |
forgot I had read this until I started again, so I am trying to start keeping track. We'll see.
I remember it being interesting.
But not enough to re-read to go to the book group meeting for which I started reading it. :) | 0 |
Very difficult to get through. Don't waste your time on this one! | 0 |
Hilarious! :)
Listened as an audio book, great car ride companion! | 0 |
Incredibly heart-wrenching and deeply moving. | 0 |
Unbelievably boring and poorly written. | 0 |
This was a quick read and very engaging. My maternal grandfather immigrated to the United States from Latvia during the second world war, and this book gave me a parallel of many of the stories and events he used to talk about. To think of what these displaced families faced is truly tough to comprehend. | 0 |
Very well researched and written. A bit long, but excellent read. | 0 |
Incredibly powerful. Amazed that this escaped me until now. Why was this not required of me somewhere along the line of my education?
I loved his Nobel acceptance speech printed at the conclusion of the book, as well as his preface. It is difficult to say that you love a book about such horror. I will say that I love... | 0 |
A tremendous book. With a brother with the grim diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, I am facing not only the mortality of my brother, but also of myself and all of those I love. When Breath Becomes Air so eloquently speaks to the essential questions of life, our existence and our journey towards our death. Dr. Kalanithi's ... | 0 |
A wonderfully British book that addresses how the "promise" of war and then the "reality" of war affect the proper members of an English community. Absolutely gorgeous prose. | 0 |
This was a very powerful story. The author alternates between the past and present in two stories that are connected yet are not. I've read reviews that stated they were disappointed in the lack of Sarah's character development, but in the end, Sarah was a mystery to nearly everyone, including her own family. It made s... | 0 |
Beautiful Tale of Past and Present
Moyes work is unlike anything out there. Her stories are original and captivating. I cannot put them down. She draws such beautiful characters and settings that you soon feel you are part of the story. If you have not had the pleasure of reading and of Moyes books, I strongly recomm... | 0 |
Loved this book and all the sequels. Galbaldon's writing places in you in the action. Writing is so detailed and descriptive that you see and feel what you are reading. Fell in love with Jamie and Claire. | 0 |
I enjoyed most of this book, I think the struggles with recovering from Polio that Franny is going through were told well. It lost me a bit when they start to travel the world on the flying horse......just got a little too 'fantastic' for me. | 0 |
One sitting read, again from John!
First look at WW1 Shell shock syndrome and not only what the war did to a family and a street and a town and a country BUT what war does to the individual who is really there living it.......
WOW, loved it, well done Sir!
Great read aloud, discussion for the classroom etc. | 0 |
WOW.
I found the story a little 'difficult' off the top, with the Creole and French and voodoo......however
What a great history lesson of past and present Haiti. The two stories being told where amazing.
I found myself on Google checking both past and present facts and histories. Looking at Toussaint and Dread W... | 0 |
Historical Fiction......an account of the SS City of Benares tragic sinking with 90 children aboard being evacuated to Canada from Britain during the second world war. The children were only a part of the
ships population but were an 'experiment to save British children'. I was not drawn into the characters and had a... | 0 |
Wow, that was a really good book - great read-a-loud and discussion book!!
So many layers and thoughts and feelings - of course, Mom is dead........but what a quest and adventure
of finding the 'answers and yourself'
4 1/2 stars after some reflection - I'm going for the 5 star rating!!
Teachers and librarians s... | 0 |
Read it in one day !! It helps that there are no 'chapters' and the story just keeps moving along......
I enjoyed it !! | 0 |
I think if I could give half stars I'd probably give this one 3 1/2 but I liked it well enough to go with 4. It's a sweet story and an unusual one. I think it had an added appeal for me because the main character was not only gay but a Jew who had escaped the Nazis (this should be quite clear from the cover alone) and ... | 0 |
This was decent. It's a short read and only cost a few dollars. It was on a list of MM non-con books and I definitely don't feel it fits that category. There's some bondage and a bit of a D/s relationship but it's not really non-con.
It's set back in the time of stage coach robbers and bounty hunters on horseback. I ... | 0 |
Found this book interesting! I agree that it could have been two separate stories, but the alternating chapters did keep my interest, especially the ones about Holmes. Lots of cool historical tidbits about the fair! | 0 |
Loved this fascinating book! Behind the scenes in the secret operation to build an atomic bomb during WW2. | 0 |
Loved this one! Probably not the most historically accurate book ever, but it was interesting! | 0 |
Smash Glass and Read this Book if you're going to fight a president.
You're not likely to be more prepared by when fighting someone like Andrew Jackson, you'll have an anecdote or stinging insult to hurl before getting your butt handed to you.
Every dead president gets a short chapter where we learn strange tails t... | 0 |
So I was really excited to read this book. It started out pretty good but the action didn't progress as quickly as I had hoped. A large part of Esther's life was saving the Jews and the book focused more on her becoming queen than her saving them. When it did get to to the climax, it was very lackluster. However it was... | 0 |
I had just learned about he Russian Revolution and the Great Purge in Russia in my European history class just before i read this book. It really helped me get a better grasp of what was actually going on in Eastern Eurpoe during this time period. Lina and Jonas are incredibly strong gharacters that are very relatable ... | 0 |
WARNING! SOME SPOILERS!
I'll Give it like a 3.5. I don't really like Andi. She has a such a negative outlook on things it was hard for me to like her. Yes, I know she was sick and depressed but still. The journal was very informative and accurate. The French Revolution is one of my favorite periods of time in history... | 0 |
Whitehead uses a style to tell this story that is straightforward and simple yet visually rich, which is a difficult thing to do. The story is well paced, and he knows when to weave in each character's narrative thread so that it enhances the tension of Cora's main plot and leaves the reader satisfied by the end.
Bah... | 0 |
What kept me reading were the details about Williams's competitive swimming, the logistics of her underwater choreography, and the gossip (of which I believe about 64%).
What irritated me as I kept reading were many: Williams's constant contradictions about herself, MGM, and the world around her (she was constantly p... | 0 |
This is an interesting -- and politically relevant -- snapshot into the lives and viewpoints of a population I know little about and with whom I have only spent a small amount of time.
Vance's story is personal and, at times, stunning. He and his family have struggled with violence and substance abuse and poverty; bu... | 0 |
** spoiler alert **
McGuire has written a dark, cold, bloody book that's ultimately satisfying, though I wish it had been longer, more developed. Maybe I wanted to follow Sumner all the way to safety; maybe I wanted more from Drax's p.o.v. on the ship (or, rethinking, maybe not...); or maybe I just wanted more of the... | 0 |
** spoiler alert **
I might catch some flack for not liking this book, since a few of my friends here on Goodreads are big fans of it. Sorry, friends.
I should disclaim that I don't read either historical fiction or romance on the reg, so that might have colored my opinion of this, but after having a lengthy discus... | 0 |
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