I am sometimes asked which books I would recommend reading. For the blog, this is generally not difficult — it’s enough to open all posts with the tag “I-recommend.” But since it’s been almost five years now since I revived my blog and began writing about the books I’ve read, I decided to put together a selection of non-fiction books I’ve read during this time that fall into the category of “you must read them.”
I have already written detailed reviews of all these books, so this time I’ve selected only the very best, grouped them by topic. For each book I give only brief recommendations on why they are worth reading, but you can always open the link to the full review. I hope this will be useful to someone. So, let’s begin.
The main theme of my blog is books, so I decided to write about the best ones I’ve read this year and would recommend.
I’ve read 78 books, but the number isn’t as impressive as it seems because it includes several short children’s books that I read with my younger kids before bed. Still, there are many great books I can recommend.
Venture Deals — a great introduction to venture investing: how to secure funding and not end up at a disadvantage.
As for fiction, I didn’t read much this year, and most of it consisted of well-known works that I either finally decided to read or was revisiting. I’ll highlight just one:
Britt-Marie Was Here — a wonderful novel by one of the best contemporary authors, Richard Backman. I savor each of his books and wait a long time before picking up the next one.
And the most delightful part: this year, I received the first review of my own book (only in Russian) — Graphomaniacs Don’t Cry.
Over the past couple of decades, the word “startup” has become insanely trendy, and for most people, it’s synonymous with the promise of inevitable success. We know dozens of stories where an ordinary student started a business in a garage that later turned into a multibillion-dollar company. Everyone wants to try on that role for themselves. To help them, there’s an abundance of books explaining how to create the company of your dreams, refine your idea, and build something people truly need. Even in my blog, I’ve reviewed several such books (for instance, “The Art of the Start“ by Guy Kawasaki and “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future“).
Of course, few people mention that for every success story, there are thousands of failures, but who’s interested in those? Everyone wants to look up to the best (this tendency is known as “survivorship bias”). Moreover, not all authors tell you that often, to launch a successful and rapidly growing business, you need funding. At best, they give advice on how to structure your presentations for potential investors. But what comes next… few will shed light on that.
The book “Venture Deals” is one of the rare few that focuses specifically on communicating with investors, the rules of drafting investment deals, and all those details that a future owner of a successful company must know and understand—unless, of course, they want to end up with nothing, even if their business turns out to be groundbreaking. The book’s subtitle is “Be SMARTER Than Your LAWYER and VENTURE CAPITALIST”. And it’s written by none other than those very venture capitalists who’ve mastered the art of such deals.
There is a concept known as affiliate (referral) programs. In short: you promote a store’s products, and in return, the store gives you a percentage of each sale. It’s generally beneficial for everyone: the store gains new customers thanks to advertising on external platforms, and the authors of popular resources get a small cut from the stores if their readers decide to make a purchase. Moreover, this is highly advantageous for stores (from my non-professional point of view). In most cases, when you pay for advertising, you spend money without any guarantee of getting it back. But here, you essentially receive free advertising and only pay a small percentage of the actual revenue generated by the user. Furthermore, as a store, you typically pay for a single purchase, but the buyer might stay and become a long-term customer. For subsequent purchases, you almost never pay anyone. Additionally, there’s the well-known factor of the first purchase—it’s much harder to convince someone to make their first purchase, but if they’re satisfied, the likelihood of a second purchase increases significantly.
As a devoted bookworm, I’ve always kept an eye on the development of online book sales. I witnessed the rise and growth of ozon.ru, and I even had a small hand in the creation of the Belarusian oz.by when it launched. From then on, I simply followed the market’s evolution.
As soon as such stores started offering affiliate programs, I signed up to test them out. This was especially advantageous when I was regularly writing the ” The Notes of Glitch the Hamster” series (the namesake of this blog), which reviewed all the latest sci-fi releases on the Russian-speaking market. Back then, I included links to books directly in my reviews, using my affiliate ID. I wouldn’t say I earned a lot, but I did manage to buy a few books (considering that getting books from Russian ozon to Belarus at the time wasn’t exactly easy).
Peter Thiel is the founder of PayPal, who later merged with Elon Musk, and together they created a unique solution for the payment market, supporting the growing eBay at the time. Later, as an investor, he backed a relatively young Facebook. In short, he has plenty to be proud of. But beyond pride, he decided to share his knowledge and views on business and startups with students at Stanford University. His lectures gained widespread popularity, partly thanks to the efforts of student Blake Masters, who recorded them in detail. Masters’ notes took on a life of their own, spreading far beyond the university. After some time, Peter Thiel decided to turn Masters’ notes into a book (hence, Masters is credited on the cover as a co-author).
The core idea of the work is to create businesses that bring something entirely new, rather than simply copying or slightly improving existing concepts. The reasoning is that existing ideas can only be improved to a certain extent, whereas new ones offer entirely unprecedented opportunities. Thiel supports this idea by sharing his views on what a startup team should look like, what they should focus on, and more.
To jump ahead slightly, I didn’t initially expect the book to offer groundbreaking insights, but it turned out to be less of an instructional guide and more of a stimulus for reflection on the examples provided and the questions posed by the author. Peter Thiel doesn’t try to teach; instead, he shares his perspective on building businesses, the ways in which the educational system and ingrained American beliefs help or hinder this process, and he poses very interesting questions that have no definitive answers:
This book is about the questions you must ask and answer to succeed in the business of doing new things: what follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.
In this form, the book became not only interesting but also useful for me. I definitely recommend it to anyone involved in business and the creation of unique products in one way or another. But let’s talk in a bit more detail about the points Peter Thiel emphasizes in his book.
I have often heard opinions that the work of a consultant is useless and lacks prestige. Something like, “They show up, give a bunch of advice, and leave, without caring about what happens next.” Such an approach to work has always been unacceptable to me, and now that I myself work as a consultant, I want to briefly describe one type of task I have performed at the request of several CEOs, whose feedback on the results was positive.
With experience in both software development and operational management, I can take an external view of a business and evaluate different aspects of its work. As a result, analyzing existing processes—everything I can get my hands on—has proven to be in demand. (Sometimes this is called an audit, but I prefer the term “analysis” as this term has a less negative connotation.) I begin high-level examination of a company by interviewing its CEO: why they reached out, what they want to achieve, what they are dissatisfied with, and what their key products, departments, and people are. Then I compile a list of individuals and competencies that can provide insight into internal processes. It’s crucial to identify who will be available and as open as possible for discussions. During several interviews, I try to understand what the person’s work entails, what motivates them, how they interact with and perceive their colleagues, and so on. Simultaneously, I ask to join key meetings of managers and leads, simply to listen to how they discuss topics, set agendas, conduct meetings, and follow through on decisions. Of course, I also gather relevant documentation about products and processes for further study.
Bitcoin, blockchain… Over the past couple of years, everyone has heard these words, along with the phrase “should have invested in bitcoin in time.” However, very few people truly understand what this technology is and the principles behind these new digital currencies. I’ll admit, for a while, I also had only a vague idea of the details. But there are people out there who are willing to explain everything in plain language.
I first learned about Alexey Markov by chance when I stumbled upon a link to his book with the rather politically incorrect title “Hulinomics”. In this book, he explained economics in simple terms, peppered with some profanity, and why understanding its principles is essential for everyone. I rather liked the book (4 out of 5), as I mentioned in my review at the time.
Since then, I’ve kept an eye on what else Markov has published, though I wasn’t in a rush to read more. He wrote a book about “why some people have it all, while others have nothing,” essentially exploring why not everyone earns a lot of money (“Zhlobology”). He also authored a collection of clever advice on various topics (“Hoolifacts”) and, together with Alexey Antonov, a book about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology titled Crypt-Your-Mathics. It was the latter that I decided to read.
I’ve already written about Markov in my previous review, so let me briefly introduce the second author of the book—Alexey Antonov. Since 2016, he has been interested in blockchain technology, actively involved in business in this field, and engaged in educational activities, giving lectures. In short, he jumped on the train early, so he knows both its advantages and drawbacks.
Together, Markov and Antonov wrote a book that, in style, closely resembles Markov’s eccentric manner, seen in his articles and his famous “Hoolinomics”. The authors set out to explain not only clearly but also as openly as possible about this new market, which is full of pitfalls. At least, that’s what they promise, albeit in their own distinctive manner:
When I wrote about Alexey Krivitsky’s book Agile Retrospective Kickstarter a month ago, I mentioned that much of his work is based on the work of Esther Derby and Diana Larsen (as he openly acknowledges in his book). At that time, I also promised to write separately about the book by these women facilitators. So here I am, fulfilling that promise.
I read the book in English, although in 2017, it was also published in Russian by Dmitry Lazarev Publishing under the title “Agile Retrospectives: Turning Good Teams into Great Teams.”
Why do teams need retrospectives? I’ve already written about this in detail elsewhere, but here’s a brief reminder: retrospectives help teams learn from their mistakes and grow. Without them, no Agile methodology can operate at full capacity.
Esther and Diana explain how to make such meetings as productive as possible, drawing from their many years of experience and unique insights. It is in this book that they propose the five-stage format for retrospective meetings, which Alexey Krivitsky actively adopts and promotes in his own book.
Lately, I have been actively rereading various books and articles about Agile, and sometimes even exploring new material. In my opinion, Agile methodologies offer a lot of valuable practices, but one of the most useful ones is retrospectives—meetings where the team can look back, reflect on what has been done, analyze their experiences, and choose a few experiments to improve how things are done.
When people implement different Agile methodologies, they often forget that flexibility is not just about introducing daily stand-ups and breaking tasks into short sprints. It is fundamentally about learning from experience, adapting, and evolving. Without retrospectives, this does not work. That is precisely why retrospectives are so important. However, even these meetings can either be conducted properly and effectively or simply for the sake of formality (“because it is required”). For this reason, retrospectives are sometimes the subject of not only individual articles but even entire books.
Agile Retrospectives Kickstarter is one such book. Although it was written by a Russian-speaking author, Alexey Krivitsky, it was originally written in English, with the Russian version created later with the help of his colleagues.
The book itself is relatively short, just over 50 pages. The author, a practicing Agile coach, shares his experience in conducting retrospectives. However, he does not do this by providing an extensive set of examples or academic knowledge. Instead, he has compiled experiences from many sources into a highly condensed “retrospective cheat sheet,” offering a collection of possible exercises for conducting effective retrospective meetings. Alexey candidly admits from the outset that he did not invent any of these exercises (or at least does not remember inventing any) and even borrowed the methodology for breaking a meeting into several stages from other coaches. His contribution was to compile all of this into one relatively short guide that can be kept handy and used whenever preparing for a retrospective.
Sometimes even I fall for advertising, especially when it’s promoted in a reputable community. A few weeks ago, I came across an invitation to a free webinar on strategic sessions in a remote setting. It’s clear that the topic of remote work is being exploited by just about everyone these days, but I’m genuinely interested in the subject of strategic planning in general (and this is a good moment to remind everyone of the excellent book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt). At the same time, I’ve spent many years building workflows with remote teams. So, this webinar touched on two areas of interest for me.
The webinar was hosted by Constantine Koptelov, someone I hadn’t heard of before. However, the hour-long presentation flew by almost unnoticed. I took several notes during the session and became so intrigued by the topic that I immediately purchased Constantine’s book, Order in Chaos: Objective and Key Results (OKR), which I’ll tell you about today.
