Tag: non-fiction

Kenneth Blanchard, William Onchen, Jr., Hal Burrows “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey”

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Just a couple of weeks ago, I knew nothing about The One Minute Manager until a colleague told me about a book he had just read. He mentioned that, in his opinion, as a manager, I was already following all four rules for “managing monkeys.” That piqued my curiosity, and I decided to figure out what kind of monkeys I was supposedly dealing with.

Ken Blanchard, a well-known author of management books, coined the term One Minute Manager in his book of the same name. By this term, he refers to a highly productive leader who follows some fairly simple rules. Blanchard’s first book, co-authored with Spencer Johnson, sold millions of copies and has been translated into nearly 40 languages worldwide. It kicked off a series under the same name, in which Blanchard, collaborating with various business authors, presents different productivity methods.

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Ha-Joon Chang “Economics: The User’s Guide”

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Lately, I’ve become increasingly interested in economics. It’s not that I want to become an economist, but market principles are useful in many areas. What’s especially interesting is that back when I was a student, I had no interest in economics at all. In fact, I failed my second-year exam miserably and had to retake it in August. But by the time of the retake, I knew the material inside out. Perhaps that’s when my gradual interest in reading about economics started.

The book Economics: The User’s Guide by Ha-Joon Chang came highly recommended to me by various platforms (“you might like this”) and colleagues alike. Supposedly, it covers everything. The book certainly has a strong marketing presence. The author is originally from South Korea but currently lives and teaches in Cambridge. He’s consulted for many well-known banks, and the president of Ecuador almost worships him.

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Lyudmila Petranovskaya “The Secret Support: Attachment in a Child’s Life”

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As an experienced father, I hadn’t heard of Lyudmila Petranovskaya. Turns out, my wife has known about her for a long time and reads her articles. I discovered her book on the recommendation of a colleague, a man. That’s when I learned that L. Petranovskaya is a well-known child psychologist in the modern world. And her book The Secret Support: Attachment in a Child’s Life introduced me to her as an author.

The book’s main message is to show that children always need their parents and that they seek support from them. However, they do this in different ways during different stages of life, which is why certain behaviors and “problems” manifest.

What really stood out from the first pages is that the author doesn’t try to present her opinion as the only correct one. She immediately states:

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Laurence Rees “Auschwitz. The Nazis & The Final Solution”

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I have written more than once that the topic of the Holocaust is very important to me. I’m certain this is directly tied to the fact that the extermination of Jews during World War II personally affected my family. But this is also an example of something people must never forget so that it never happens again.

The book Auschwitz by Laurence Rees didn’t exactly fall into my hands by chance; modern algorithms recommended it to me because I had read other books on this topic. Until that day, however, I knew nothing about the author. Laurence Rees is a British historian who has devoted much of his career to studying Nazism, its causes, and its rise. Auschwitz: The Nazis & the Final Solution is just one of his books, in which he attempts to explain not only the history of one of the most infamous death camps but also the development of such a horrific concept as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”

Before I share my thoughts on the book, I’d like to quote the author’s own words with which he concludes the book. I couldn’t put it better myself (I have read the book in Russian and couldn’t find the original quote so here I place the back translation from Russian, sorry):

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Jason Schreier “Blood, Sweat, and Pixels”

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A month ago, I celebrated my 10-year anniversary working at the game company Wargaming.net. However, my entire professional career actually began with video games, back when I used to write out the program for a computer version of Monopoly in a notebook. I never finished it—making games is tough, especially when all your work can vanish due to a faulty audio cassette where it was saved. But even my first programs were related to games: business simulations, educational, and card games. So, you could say I’ve been in the industry, with breaks, for over 25 years.

That’s why it was especially interesting for me to read Jason Schreier’s much-talked-about book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, which, as its subtitle suggests, reveals “stories behind how video games are made.”

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Don Norman “The Design of Everyday Things”

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The book “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman absolutely did not meet my expectations. The reason for this was a misunderstanding of the synopsis on my part. I expected a book filled with numerous examples of good and bad design, a sort of entertaining read, and perhaps even colorfully illustrated. But the book turned out to be something entirely different.

This book is about proper design. And it’s not limited to just objects: it covers anything from the things around us to technological devices, rules, and procedures. The key idea is that the solution should best fulfill its purpose.

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Peter Bregman “18 minutes. Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done”

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The book “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done” by Peter Bregman had been recommended to me several times, although I no longer remember by whom. It’s about improving focus, avoiding distractions, and accomplishing what you set out to do.

Even though it’s written in a fairly easy-to-read style, I didn’t like the first half at all. It felt like a typical business book, full of fluff, self-praise, and similar things. Something along the lines of “I was a loser, but then I saw the light, and now everyone should follow my lead.” I’m exaggerating, of course, but that’s the feeling I got from the tone between the lines.

However, later on, the author switches to practical examples and more actionable advice.

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Shaun Bythell “The Diary of a Bookseller”

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I’ve loved reading since childhood and have almost always held books in reverence. My parents had a fairly large library, and I enjoyed browsing through the books, cataloging them, and even keeping track of everything I’d read. Later, I started buying books myself and often felt pleasure simply from owning them, even if I hadn’t yet had time to read them. Just having a book on the shelf was wonderful in itself. At one point, I even seriously considered getting into the book business but eventually limited myself to making good acquaintances in that world.

Then, out of the blue, someone recommended The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell to me, saying, “If you love books so much, you absolutely must read it.”

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Boris Akunin “Eurasian Empire. The History of the Russian State. The Era of the Empresses”

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I love Akunin’s books, including the much-criticized series The History of the Russian State. Yes, the author is often not very objective and adds much of his own perspective and worldview into the text. However, because of this, his works are often more lively and interesting to read than more scientific but dry historical books.

Now, he has finally reached the 18th century, the period after the death of Peter the Great and up until the reign of Alexander I (which will be covered in the next volume of the series). Akunin calls this period the “Era of the Empresses” because women largely dictated Russia’s development during this time. Men were also in power, but far less frequently compared to the empresses.

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Auschwitz: A History in Photographs

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In 2013, my wife and I took a road trip through Poland. One specific stop on our itinerary was Auschwitz, not the town, but the museum located on the site of the former concentration camp. This was a place I absolutely wanted to visit. The genocide of the Jews is part of my family’s history.

I won’t talk about the museum itself right now, that’s a subject for another conversation. But before leaving, I bought a photo album titled Auschwitz: A History in Photographs from the shop near the exit. It’s one of the few books I took with me when we moved to another country. However, for some reason, I only started to study it in detail five years later. I don’t quite know how to write about this book, but I still want to.

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