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Saturday, December 31, 2016

Good to Great by Jim Collins

Good to Great by Jim Collins

My friend the Monicat pushed this one on me, complete with all of her little notes, handwritten in the most precise script, never giving answers, just asking probing, sphinxlike questions in the effort to make me a better leader. Her timing of this gift was prescient; there are major changes coming in the structure of the company where I work which will push me to expand and extend my responsibilities. This will be great, but will force me to learn a lot quickly. And since I received this a few days before disappearing on a two week (relative) break in which I intended to try to be a little more reflective, particularly on my goals, leadership, and the traits that I wanted to continue and those I wanted to shed… Well, this particular prescription couldn’t have come at a better time.

Collins and team looked at a bunch of companies who dramatically outperformed their competitors over a sustained period of time, and tried to ask WHY they did. Then they attempted to distill the commonalities from these stories into a guide for how companies went from average performers in their market (Good) to market leaders (Great.)

I ended up with a deeply marked up book and two or three pages of useful notes from this book. Wish that I could spend two days discussing the lessons here with my fellow leaders at Kabam. But not today.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
I enjoyed this novel about a professor from the Dominican Republic and the women he has loved and lost over the years. Diaz writes comfortably, fluidly, lyrically, and with lots of street lingo that feels convincing.

I really appreciated the gift of this novel. Diaz has a unique voice that I’d not been exposed to before, and I appreciated his inner nerd (Wintermute beach reference, etc.) that shined through from the DR womanizer narrator.

Will definitely read another of his books.

The Fireman by Joe Hill

The Fireman by Joe Hill

Some say the world will end in fire… And in Joe Hill’s long, sometimes bumbling novel, that’s certainly the case. This is a decent thriller and a half-hearted stab at the type of post apocalypse that his father did so fine a job of in The Stand. Unfortunately, we end up bogged down in small-camp politics and end up missing out on any greater theme or lesson. And since I’m using words like bogged and bumbling, I suppose that tells me that we also miss out on a particularly thrilling adventure or story.

Will still happily read more of Joe Hill’s work, but this was perhaps my least favorite of his so far.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram is a lovely sprawling adventure story and romance set in the Indian and Afghan underworld as seen by self-aggrandizing escaped convicted Austrialian heroin addict and thief. The novel I swell written, albeit in something of an over-the-top Pat Conroy style in which music and soul and moonlight and a generalized excessive romanticizing of the Indian subcontinent dominate the prose.

Our hero escapes to India, falls in with the locals, lives in the slums, is a heroic doctor, becomes a powerful and wealthy gangster, overthrows an evil madam, loves women, smokes a lot of hash, smuggles drugs, goes to prison, falls in with the mujahedeen, fights Russians in Afghanistan, and returns to Bombay.

There is a lot to like here, and I was happy for the recommendation. This book is alive with the magic and romanticism of India, as seen by Western eyes. This is exactly what Rushdie and Adiga are rebelling against, so in the larger context of literature about the region it suffers a little. But it is a lot of fun, and an enchanting story.

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

So then Joe took his barbarians into the realm of the classic Western, and it was kinda awesome!

A caravan of merchants, misfits, and those who have lost something important head out into the badlands of wherever. They have a few folks with mysterious pasts along for the ride. After a few adventures they arrive in a depraved town that is caught in the midst of an underworld conflict between two bosses. Our heroes pick sides, get involved in the wild west range war that ensues. Everyone mostly loses, but there are some great heroics along the way.

And yes, Logan is here, if you are an Abercrombie fan. Good times.

Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist

A childless couple finds a little girl on the side of the road. But she turns out to be some kind of a weirdo siren, who, as she gets a little older, ends up leading a bunch of other little girls into a weird American Idol style death-cult.

I like his writing, and I like some of his stories, but this one was a bit goofy.

Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman

Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman

I am fortunate to have a colleague who spends a lot of time thinking about appropriate books for me to read that will help me become a better leader, better executive (which is what I seem to be these days. Gulp!) She thoughtfully annotates these HBR style selections with little notes – questions mostly – and they are almost always very timely and thoughtful.

Primal Leadership mostly told me that I need to quit being such an aggressive boss and “pacesetting” all the time. This is good advice, and the book had a lot of other good advice too, covering a bunch of types of leaders and common leadership foibles. There’s probably something here for almost everyone who is a manager. The key lesson for me was to quit pushing people so hard. Good advice.

The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy

The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy

This wasn’t a very impressive dialog. One guy convinces the other guy that life is shit. That’s basically it. I was unimpressed; just felt like a nihilistic sketch without anything interesting to say or any particularly strong language. Given that McCarthy is such a powerful writer, this one just felt like an exercise that he published to capitalize on the strength of his name.

Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov

Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita…”

I read this book for the first time my twentieth year, when I was much closer in age to doomed Dolores Haze than to its protagonist. I recognized it then as a masterpiece and a beautiful, powerful, troubled account. Upon rereading it this summer on an extended trip to China I was struck again by the power, the majesty, the terrible tragedy and love of this story. Lolita is a heartbreaking love story between a terrible Old World Grendel and crass, blossoming overripe adolescent America. This is a heartrending feat of sculpting with language.

From the opening paragraph to the closing sentences above, Nabokov’s showy florid prose is both electric and elegiac. This is the kind of writing that makes anyone (me at least) want to put down their pen in despair, with the certain knowledge that you will never write a single page as good as what he is able to deliver in the hundreds.

There isn’t much new to say about this tale that hasn’t been said before. I don’t think I’ll try, except to mention for my own notes that HH’s heartbreak over his inability to achieve any truly lasting immortality with Lolita (who is- at best- destined to grow beyond the transcendent moment of nypmhetism that so captures him) struck me as a reflection on the deep tragedy of any pair of lovers ever to live: None will ever know all the secret languages and moments and passions and conflicts and hopes of a couple but that couple themselves. The full-near-to-bursting emotions and secrets of love that (hopefully) almost everyone is lucky enough to experience at least once in life are doomed to pass, unremarked, unknown and forgotten by everyone else, to disappear, “like teardrops in rain.” Beyond embodying all of that love in offspring – children – then, the creation of inspired art, like this wonderful novel, is the only immortality that lovers may ever share.

Happy New Year 2016

It has become fashionable of late to blame the year 2016 for those things which have occurred within it. And make no mistake, some very stupid or unfortunate things did occur. But on balance, for me, 2016 has been one of the best years of my life. I'm writing this today from a place that I couldn't have imagined I would ever end up, high above the Mediterranean overlooking an ancient city, watching dawn rise on golden stone. Professionally and personally things just seem to keep getting better. The good Doctor and I are happy, we live in a beautiful place, there's a cat who is spoiled beyond belief, and he is constantly surrounded by books in his library in the sky.

I feel like I read less each passing year. I blame it on these fiendishly convenient and engaging little devices which allow us to bring games and social connections and all of the wonderful stupidity of the internet to bed with us. It's too easy to pick up the ipad and play a game. And then, there are a few elements in this grand and complicated life that distract from reading. But, at the same time, there's been a whole lot of plane travel this year, and a lot of nights in hotel rooms, and these are places that help me focus on the book at hand.

I hope that 2016 was not the flaming-trash-fire it has been popular to call it for you. I hope your life exceeded some of your greatest expectations, as mine did. And I hope you got to read a lot of words. After all, they're all we have to go on.

12/31/2016
-tf