What Books Are You Reading Right Now?

Does anyone have read The One Thing by Gary Keller?
I really liked it and found the idea discussed on the book very helpful. Trying to get used put it to work.
 
I came across “Shadow Divers” by Robert Kurson on another forum. This is one amazing book, hard to put it down. It chronicles the discovery, in 1991, of a German U Boat off the NJ coast. It’s the story of the divers who become obsessed with finding out its identity, people die, get divorced during the 6 year quest. There is a PBS documentary about it, “Hitler’s Lost Sub”, I haven’t watched it, yet.
 
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. A "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic". It's bizarre.

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The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, ed. Jake Alimahomed-Wilson/Ellen Reese, Pluto Press Sept. 2020, Paperback ISBN: 97807453441484.

This is an anthology of articles, mostly by academic sociologists and reprinted from scholarly journals. You will not read it for pleasure but perhaps for information. You may have noticed that some Amazon deliveries are made by people in street clothes driving their own cars, and others are made by uniformed drivers of Amazon Prime electric vans. If you want to know exactly how this works and why Amazon has structured it this way, you will find that here. If you want a laudatory or critical study of Amazon the company with personal histories, anecdotes, and interviews with bosses and ex-bosses, look elsewhere. Brad Stone's The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon was a critical best-seller.

If you're bored and you need a laugh, look up The Everything Store on Amazon's web site and check the customer reviews. The first is a 20,000 word one-star review by Andy Jassy, who is now Amazon's CEO, titled "Kind of like Billy Blaze in Night Shift." Jassy is one of the Amazon bosses Brad Stone interviewed. Jassy was actually there at all those management meetings, and he has all the corporate records and his own personal notes. It was easy for him to do a keyword search through The Everything Store for all the things Brad Stone got wrong and make him sound like a clueless amateur with an axe to grind. That is why I prefer an anthology of articles from scholarly journals. "The facts, ma'am, just the facts." Facts about Amazon deliveries and how they work, without having to work there. If there are still people in the next century, perhaps there will be The History of the Decline and Fall of the Amazon Empire.
 
After reading "Shadow Divers" I got "Pirate Hunters" by the same author, Robert Kurson. I didn't like it as much as SH but it was interesting. Finding a pirate ship isn't easy and especially in a third world country.

I've read all the Prendergast books and the latest was pretty good, "The Cabinet of Dr Leng". Preston and Childs can sure tell a good story.
 
Ivan Campos said:
Has anyone read "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari?
I have read the first fifty pages and found it very interesting so far.
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Harari is a gifted popularizer, but his work is shallow, careless, and sometimes ludicrous.

I do not agree with everything in the following review, but it is one of the few reviews that seriously considers Harari's scientific ignorance.
www.currentaffairs.org

The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari ❧ Current Affairs

<p>The best-selling author is a gifted storyteller and popular speaker. But he sacrifices science for sensationalism, and his work is riddled with errors.</p>
www.currentaffairs.org www.currentaffairs.org
 
As I get deeper into the book, I can see what you mean and I really dislike the politically correct view that he sometimes show.
Another Shepherd said:
Harari is a gifted popularizer, but his work is shallow, careless, and sometimes ludicrous.

I do not agree with everything in the following review, but it is one of the few reviews that seriously considers Harari's scientific ignorance.
www.currentaffairs.org

The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari ❧ Current Affairs

<p>The best-selling author is a gifted storyteller and popular speaker. But he sacrifices science for sensationalism, and his work is riddled with errors.</p>
www.currentaffairs.org www.currentaffairs.org
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J's~Pioneer Style Knives~ said:
I myself have not read the book, although it seems to be an interesting book to read and topic ~ I would agree with the statement made by its author or at least their viewpoint on the subject in regard to ~ {"

Cognitive Biases​

Main articles: Cognitive bias and List of cognitive biases
A cognitive bias is a repeating or basic misstep in thinking, assessing, recollecting, or other cognitive processes.[4] That is, a pattern of deviation from standards in judgment, whereby inferences may be created unreasonably.[5] People create their own "subjective social reality" from their own perceptions,[6] their view of the world may dictate their behaviour.[7] Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.[8][9][10] However some cognitive biases are taken to be adaptive, and thus may lead to success in the appropriate situation.[11] Furthermore, cognitive biases may allow speedier choices when speed is more valuable than precision.[12] Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations,[13] coming about because of an absence of appropriate mental mechanisms, or just from human limitations in information processing.[14]

Actually I myself would take it even a bit further, to say it is absolutely impossible to not be Bias to some kind of extent ~ Not only Humanly, but even the gods as well ~ The very thought processes would not even be possible without some kind of Critical Thinking, Judgment, Weights and Measures and the Such ~ Cultures, Society's, and Countries, all Have them and Yes even the GODS ~ Therefore it is Impossible to not be BIAS ~ without it you could not even Know Right from Wrong ~ or What's What ~ Like the Yin & Yang ~ Black and White ~ Dark and Light

Ivan you would probably like the Book ~ The Study of the Popular Mind "By Gustave Le Bon "


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One more for my book list that is absolutelly endless :)
I just finished the book and then read the critic article in ordeer not to be influenced and this book, although entertaining and full of information (besides the clear problems shown in the article about it) falls on the same category of other books of "pop science" - too much information, too difficult to check everything, etc, so they aways better be read with a grain of salt.
I prefer to see books like this as a source of questions as they make you think and look for more information about specific subjects, instead of seeing them as a finished answer to their topics.
Plus, bith the book and the article couldn´t foresee the AI revolution that is already upon us.
In the last two days I also read "The 5 Second Rule" by Mel Robbins", wich is a motivational book clearly based on the NLP tehcnique of anchorage, although the author never mentions it, maybe because it is more of a self-help book very focused on the technique and not deep in concepts at all. I read it because I saw the Ted Talk and got curious.
Now, on to the next: Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. This book is almost two decades old but I for some reason haven´t had the chance to read it yet. Lets see how it goes.
 
Blink was a fine, easy to read book that explains some very well known concepts and reactions we have all the time. I just found some parts a little disconnected but it may very well be just me not paying enough atention :)
Next on the list, wich is not a new title: The Selfish Gene.
I usually read most non-technical books in Portuguese and now that I am reading them in English, I noticed I read much faster and retain a lot more information. I had already noticed that I write and create texts much easily in English, too. Maybe it is just me or it is because English is a much more concise language but it is funny, anyway,
 
I have several going: "American Prometheus," the new bio of J. Robert Oppenheimer; and thrillers, "Dark Angel," by John Sandford and "The Drop," by Michael Connelly.
 
I've been reading the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva, it's very good. In between I just read "The Wager - A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder" by David Grann. He wrote "Killers of the Flower Moon" which is a must read IMHO. The Wager was good, I like stories about the time of sailing ships, this is sure was different. Most will have never heard of the Wager but the story is true, book well written.
 
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Just finished this one. I’ve read almost all of Salter’s fiction in the last year. Not sure how I missed him for so long.
 
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