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Grover's first book in the coaching space is not as strong as his sophomore effort, "Winning". In this text, he mostly provides a look at the various archetypes of high performers.

I think this book is most useful as a guide to introspection. Grover divides high performers into three categories and then gives various traits of each. Matching those traits against yourself is helpful for framing your own headspace.

Grover is exceptionally blunt and is pretty frank that some aspects of high performers aren't necessarily helpful or flattering. After multiple decades of working with some of the best athletes ever, he's candid about the ups and downs.

There's not much guidance on how to actually apply this knowledge, but I think it's still a useful exploration of mindset from someone with serious credentials. It might help you better understand yourself or the people you're leading.

Many texts on mindset have a glossy, self-help feel. This is not Tim Grover's approach.

This book covers Grover's experiences, observations, and strategies he collected over multiple decades of coaching some of the world's best athletes. Its lack of refinement is a refreshing departure from the "You can do it!" tone of so much of the mental coaching space.

Grover pulls no punches in describing how the road to high-performance is brutal, demoralizing, and never ending. It's written for folks who have been-there-done-that and find themselves compelled to go back and do it again. If the reader is looking for a gentle "pick me up", this isn't it.

This text has become a go-to recommendation for people that are about to do something really, really hard. An easy recommendation for any high-performer or someone who leads them.

This book follows the life of a German fighter pilot who once risked treason to help a damaged American bomber escape German airspace. It provides a nuanced look into the German warfighter's experience during the Second World War.

Portions of the book are spent on the backstory of the American crew, but the majority is spent with Franz Stigler, the German pilot. The book covers the entire flying career of Stigler and only two chapters are spent on the titular event.

It's a solid retelling from an author that has genuine respect for the subject matter and discusses some seldom covered details about the Luftwaffe. An easy recommendation for any military historian or aviation enthusiast.

This book is a mess. I can't tell if Sanger simply doesn't understand technical minutia or if his writing is so sloppy his explanations are useless - probably a bit of both.

The author repeatedly latches on to the most scandalous explanation of certain events, occasionally even acknowledging more mundane explanations are plausible and then proceeding to spend dozens of pages building up the more outlandish story. He extrapolates on scant details and builds complex theories on nothing other than pure speculation.

Further, many of his predictions on the future of cyberwar have simply proven incorrect in places like Ukraine. I can't necessarily fault Sanger for that - pretty much everyone in the information security community made the same forecasts - but nonetheless, they're wrong.

Go read Kim Zetter or Andy Greenberg.

The plot is given more room to breathe, the characters are a little more sophisticated, and larger swaths of the BattleTech universe begin to make an appearance. Still pulp sci-fi, but an improvement over the author's first BattleTech novel.

Classic 80's pulp fiction. There is some great stuff in here - the opening few chapters really stand out - but the rest is so-so at best. The author's military experience shines through and the depiction of service life and political friction therein feels spot on. I feel like the plot had potential, but wasn't given enough room to breathe with the brevity of the text.

Unless you're a BattleTech completionist, you can probably skip it.

The subtitle of the book is a bit misleading: the book focuses on the investigation of the assassination and not so much about the assassination itself. It is expertly researched and draws upon interviews with many of the investigators as well as the publicly-available documentation on the subject.

It is an eye-opening look at a messy piece of American history.

The book reads like a grocery list of failures, which is fine, but there's just too little context. Very little space is spent explaining why things didn't work - the reader is mostly left to conclude that the plan was stupid and the people attempting to execute it were also stupid.

The author also goes out of his way to share his disdain, either through direct editorializing or sharing an anecdote to demonstrate the outrageous behavior of the people involved. Simply describing the failure would have been sufficient - the remainder just made it seem like the author had an axe to grind.

"Stranger than fiction" is about the only way to describe this story. A handful of deeply flawed people fundamentally changed the course of human history.

Extensively researched and expertly told, I'm knocking a star because the early tone of the book seemed almost breathless with admiration. The tone settled over time and the... let's charitably call them "quirks" of the main cast of characters become more heavily emphasized.

A great read for anyone interested in covert operations or the Cold War.

Mattis is a blunt, no-nonsense storyteller. He has had an inside look at some key moments in the last several decades of US history and presents his lessons learned from each of those eras. Great lessons on how to lead for anyone with any authority over other people, as well as some wonderful behind-the-scenes peeks at major events most of us just saw on the news.

I suppose if you did not realize how important microchips were, or did not know how they were made, this would be a good introduction. Anyone that's read a handful of Wall Street Journal articles on the topic isn't going to find much new here.

Mostly focusing on the dominance of Nintendo of America in the late 80's and early 90's, the book covers much of Nintendo's early history. The video games themselves are only mentioned tangentially: the emphasis is on business practices and maneuvering. Nintendo has an interesting history, portions of which were pretty controversial at the time. Easy to recommend for anyone interested in the evolution of gaming.