Books I have recently read

An avid reader, though not getting enough time to read lately, I read mostly non-fiction; in particular, books on technology, startups, and people related to technology and startups. I’m not very particular about the type of books I read, and get any books I come across in a bookstore or browsing the Internet that sounds interesting. My latest interest is the formation and functioning of informal communities. Here is a list of books I’m planning to read this year as well as books I’ve already read this year.

If you wonder why my speed of reading books is slow as a snail, let me tell you I have two small children at home – my son is two years and ten months and my daughter is four and a half months. If you have ever been in a similar boat, you know what I mean.

Book I’m currently reading:

Books I’ve recently read:

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell
In true Malcolm Gladwell style, the book, with numerous stories, shows how sometimes going with simple intuition can be much useful than having loads of knowledge. A very interesting premise convincingly and well presented.
My rating: Excellent

I Am America (And So Can You!)
Stephen Colbert
In typical Stephen Colbert style, the book is a humorous take on all things American. It would have been much humorous on TV. Not as good reading in the book.
My rating: Good

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company
David A. Price
A detailed account of how Pixar started, its fortunes fluctuated, and ultimately the company tasted success with Toy Story 1 and never looked back.
My rating: Excellent

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell
Small ideas, diseases, trends explode and become an epidemic when they cross certain thresholds under certain conditions. The book explains, using a lot of examples, how and when this happens. A very interesting and unusual take on some epidemics.
My rating: Excellent

YOU: The Owner’s Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition: An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger
Mehmet Oz and Michael F. Roizen
A great book for the common man. Using numerous analogies and examples to explain the parts of our body, how they function, and what we can do to keep them functioning, the book covers every part of the human body. Humor has liberally been thrown in, which always works great. Overall, a great book.
My rating: Must read

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
Seemingly an interesting book, I was disappointed, mainly because I didn’t find what I was looking for – the logic behind why mass collaboration is beneficial. The book builds its cases on companies such as IBM, Wikipedia, and Linux, which obviously are exceptions, and their examples cannot be generalized. Imagine Google opening up the code for it’s search engine hoping that independent developers would contribute to improve it, and then Google would find some way of making money off it. Just imagine. A lot of similar logic fills the book. Maybe I didn’t understand the content.
My rating: unrated

The Wisdom of Crowds
James Surowiecki
An excellent book on how and why a large group of common people are able to make smarter decisions than experts. With the help of numerous examples, the book covers in detail the conditions in which the crowds can be wiser than the smartest people among them. (By the way, my opinion is that “expertise” is a highly overrated virtue.)
My rating: Excellent

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The authors, an economist and a jouranlist, cast aspersions on conventional wisdom and try to answer several questions driven by hard data. For example, children who have more books in their homes or were born to older mothers have better chances of scoring higher on standardized tests; drug dealers live with their moms even when drugs is considered a highly lucrative business. The authors also have a blog – Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of Everything.
My rating: Excellent

In the Line of Fire: A Memoir
Pervez Musharraf
The book gives an insight into the early life of the author, his family’s migration to Pakistan during the India-Pakistan partition, his childhood, and his ascension to higher ranks in the army. However, he spends the entire second half of the book trying to justify all he had done as a military ruler of the country, and how he transformed every aspect of the government and the populace and took them to incredible heights. I wonder why his popularity kept on plummeting despite such great leadership!
My rating: Avoidable

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
Jessica Livingston
Jessica Livingston, a partner in the startup incubator Y Combinator, interviews 32 startup founders or creators of a new product in an organization. This is really interesting stuff, especially for people who like to read about startups, their challenges, failures, and triumphs. A must read for any aspiring startup founder.
My rating: Must read

Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
Paul Graham
Paul Graham, the cofounder of Viaweb and Y Combinator (and a Microsoft basher), studied computer science in Harvard and painting in Italy. He believes that software programmers (hackers) and painters have similar qualities. A nice book for people interested in technology startups and hacking, though the book quite often unnecessarily and incorrectly glorifies hackers as belonging to an altogether different world.
My rating: Average

Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution
Geoffrey A. Moore
A very interesting title. An interesting book. But I stopped reading after about one-third of the book because I found it too jargon-y and too many Cisco-specific examples. Doesn’t talk much about startups though this book is more suited to big and successful companies.
My rating: unrated

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Elizabeth Gilbert
A good book though not a travelogue, as I’d expected it to be. Sometimes delves too deep into personal aspects. The India and spiritualism part is very boring and drags on and on and on. I wish she had traveled to India for food (instead of Italy) because she missed the great Indian cuisine.
My rating: Average

The Design of Future Things
Donald A. Norman
Unlike his seminal book, The Design of Everyday Things, which had numerous examples from daily life and very funny, The Design of Future Things is mostly presents a skeptical view of recent developments in the field of human-machine interaction. There are very few examples and the content covers mostly design unlikely to be developed in the foreseeable future. However, the simple principles of design for things like smart cars and homes presented in the book are great.
My rating: Average

Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0
Sarah Lacy
Everybody knows who Mark Zuckerberg is, but this book is a must read for people who are also familiar with names such as Marc Andreessen, Jay Adelson, Kevin Rose, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman. A very engaging and interwoven account of these people, their Silicon Valley dreams, successes, and their professional ups and downs.
My rating: Excellent (a must read for “the Valley” fans)