Book Notes

From Strength to Strength

From Strength to Strength, by Arthur C. Brooks.

I picked up From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks after a Bookworm podcast recommendation. It's essentially about finding fulfillment and happiness in later life. Since I'm well into this stage of life myself, the book caught my attention. It helped that both podcast hosts gave the book a 5-star rating (out of 5 stars).

Our Inevitable Professional Decline

The first chapter of the book talks about our inevitable professional decline. Every high-skilled profession goes through it, and it usually occurs between the late thirties and early fifties. I hadn't given much thought to my "professional decline" until now

Writing for Developers: Blogs that get read

Writing for Developers: Blogs that get read by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop is about, you guessed it, writing for developers. While it is full of practical tips that can apply to any technical writer, the book is focused on writing technical blogs.

This book is packed full of information about writing a technical blog post, including going through the draft process, polishing your post, getting feedback, publishing, and even following up.

To be honest, while I found the book easy to read, I skipped over parts that didn't interest me or were already familiar. It's a good book to

Neal Shusterman's Scythe: Death in a Utopia

Neal Shusterman's Scythe: A thought-provoking sci-fi novel exploring mortality in a world where death is controlled by trained grim reapers.

I finished reading Scythe, book 1 of the Arc of a Scythe series, by Neal Shusterman.

What if humanity conquered death, but we had grim reapers overseeing the population?

The story is set in an AI-governed world where the "Thunderhead" ensures simplicity and fairness, eliminating politics, money, war, and violence.

People don't die. They age, but when ready, they can "reset" to their chosen age, keeping their memory and experience. If there's an accident, they reset. Everyone has nanites that prevent pain and accelerate healing.

Scythes are trained grim reapers who "glean" people, killing them in any way. Gleaned individuals

A framework for analyzing societal problems

A break down of Tim Urban's framework for analyzing societal problems, which describes how people think in today's society using the concepts of the Idea Spectrum and the Ladder of Thinking.

I recently read What's Our Problem by Tim Urban. This insightful book begins with a framework describing how people think in today's society.

This post breaks down the framework and explains how to use it for societal and political decision making.

Two types of thinking

There are two types of thinking: Higher-Mind and Primitive-Mind. Higher-Mind seeks truth based on evidence, while Primitive-Mind leans on experience and emotions. We engage in both types based on the topic.

Idea Spectrum

The Idea Spectrum is a graph. The horizontal axis describes what you think, and the vertical axis describes how you think.

For

Writing for Busy Readers

Writing for Busy Readers by Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink is a book about how to write effectively. A short and well-written book (it should be) that is full of examples.

I was browsing in the bookstore when I found this book, and it somehow caught my attention. I write a lot of documentation and email during my day job, as well as posting to this blog, and the ability to write short and compelling content is essential.

As readers, we consume a ton of content, and if it’s not short and to the point, it simply won’

Project Hail Mary

A short review of the book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

Project Hail Mary is by the same author as The Martian. While The Martian’s story is grounded in current science, Project Hail Mary adds more sci-fi without violating scientific principles.

The other difference between The Martian and Project Hail Mary is the scope. In The Martian, Mark Watney is stranded on Mars and needs to get home. In Project Hail Mary, a phenomenon is destroying the Sun, and Ryland Grace must travel to a distant star to save Earth.

The protagonist, Ryland Grace, is a science teacher who ends up as the sole survivor of the Hail Mary traveling

Posts tagged with Book Notes

Our Inevitable Professional Decline

Two types of thinking

Idea Spectrum