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cdm

cdm@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 5 months ago

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cdm's books

Currently Reading

David Mitchell, David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (Paperback, 2004, Vintage Canada)

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood …

Great book if you are proficient in English

It is a great book, but when I was reading it I was not so proficient in English and some chapters are really hard to read - especially because David Mitchell tried to write like how the people in the different time ages spoke

Ronan Farrow: Catch and Kill (2019, Little, Brown and Company)

very powerful book

  • Ronan Farrow is the kid of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow
  • He is an investigative journalist
  • The book is about the sexual abuse of powerful Hollywood producers like Harvey Weinstein
  • It is interesting because I also read the book of Ronan Farrows father (Woody Allen) who is accused of having sexually abused his own daughter
  • In Woody Allen's book he says he did never abuse her and that this is ridiculous, in this book Ronan seems to believe the side of his mother and sister more even though he was at the time too little so he didn't notice anything
  • He shows how powerful people like Harvey Weinstein, Trump and leading people at NBC and CBS used their power to sexually abuse young women
  • He also shows how these companies protected their leaders even though they destroyed lives
Die Parade (Hardcover)

Unexpected ending

Content warning I tell you the ending

Woody Allen: Apropos of Nothing (2020, Arcade Publishing)

In this candid and often hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers …

If you like Woody Allen

It is okayish - because I don't have any connection to Woody Allen it was kinda boring for me

Rob hart: The Warehouse (2019, Crown)

Cloud isn’t just a place to work. It’s a place to live. And when you’re …

Amazon meets George Orwell

Content warning Summary

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Thinking, Fast and Slow is a best-selling book published in 2011 by Nobel Memorial Prize …

Good insights

  • There is a fast thinking System 1 which is used most of the time and acts immediately and a slower working System 2 which does more analysing
  • There is e.q. the need to always do pattern matching and find a reason behind something - like why a stock price changed
  • The halo-effect is described. If a teacher reads two essays from the student and the first one is better, then the second one is getting a better grade even though it could be shit
  • The law of small numbers is interesting. In smaller sample sizes, the outcomes are likely more extreme. E.g. smaller schools are more likely to be way worse or way better than bigger schools - not because the schools are actually better, but because there are too few people for a good statistic.
  • The Anchor effect is also explained. When a question …
Nir Eyal: Hooked (2014, Portfolio)

Only interesting if you built the next Facebook

  • It's about how to build similar products like Facebook, Google or Twitter which create user habits
  • Hard to follow
  • I felt like I already know most of it
  • Maybe interesting after building a solid user base and reviewing it

reviewed Münchhausens Abenteuer by Gottfried August Bürger (Easy readers -- Leicht zu lesen -- Klassiker -- A)

Good for kids

  • The person which is the main character in the stories actually existed: Hieronymus Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen
  • I liked the stories as a kid, but now they sound too stupid
  • The stories at the middle and end of the book are way better than at the beginning
  • Many stories sound like the ones from Jules Verne but the Münchhausen stories have to be older because Gottfried August Bürger was already dead before Jules Verne wrote his books
  • According to an interview, Jules Verne relished reading the Baron stories as a child, and used them as inspiration for his own adventure novels
Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (Paperback, 2003, Penguin Classics)

The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written …

Wonderful classic

Content warning Summary

Wendy Wood: Good Habits, Bad Habits (Paperback, 2020, Picador)

Good Habits, Bad Habits

  • The author studied habits her whole life
  • She explains that willpower is not enough to form a habit alone
  • Very important is e.g. also the environment.
    • E.g. American soldiers took drugs during the Vietnam War, but only 5% of the drug-takers continued to take it when they came back
    • So you should shape your environment so that it makes you more productive
 Rob Fitzpatrick: The Mom Test (2014, CreateSpace)

Hm. How to tell this. I read this book for exploration and found much more …

Ask your customers

  • Very good book, just a bit short
  • It explains that instead of asking customers about their opinion on your product, you should figure indirectly out how they are currently doing it
  • You should get to know how your customer lives and design the product after that
Brian Tracy: Eat That Frog! (Paperback, 2002, Berrett-Koehler Publishers)

Eat That Frog!

  • Things that I learned:
    • Set Deadlines for all my Projects
    • Plan every Day, Week and Month ahead by creating lists with all the tasks and prioritize them. The most important task should be done first
  • The last few pages were empty (it has less than 120 pages with words on it)
  • Most of the topics in the book I've heard already, but it is a good summary and motivates