Serendipitous Reader v2.0

I bought this one based on reviews and because I loved Moneyball. This wasn't as good as Moneyball, but it was entertaining and interesting - even though I don't watch baseball. A fun read.

In 1941, a 30-yr old wealthy and socially-connected woman became leader of a resistance network called Alliance, which became the most successful underground intelligence network in France. By the end of the war, Alliance included about 3000 agents, 20 percent of them women. Throughout the war, this group provided massive amounts of critical information to MI6, including German troop movements, u-boat schedules, and the existence of V1 and V2 facilities at Preenemunde.   Amazingly, right before D-Day, one of her agents produced a 55-foot long map of the beaches of Normandy that included details of every German gun placement and fortification. Fourcade managed this network while being constantly pursued by the Gestapo, and being captured and escaping. It's not particularly well-written, and is pretty dry in parts, but a good read about an amazing woman.

This book is fantastic! It's a great story, and extremely well written. And Phil Knight is an amazing guy. The business world (and the world, in general) has changed a LOT in the 50ish years since Nike was founded, but this is story includes lessons on life and business that are as current today as ever.

This woman grew up in a survivalist family in Idaho. She never went to school until she left home at 17. As I was reading about her growing up, I kept thinking, this is insane; it can't get any worse. And then it would get worse. It's amazing that she left, went to college and then went on to get a PhD. Really incredible story.

Annie Duke was a world-class professional poker player, and uses her background in cognitive psychology to explain how people make decisions. She describes the pitfalls/biases in most people's decision processes and offers coaching for improvement. It's a quick read... engaging and entertaining.

I'm a big fan of Michael Lewis and had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up. It's a great read about how the Trump administration handled - or rather, didn't handle - the management transition of several key agencies within the government. The impact, and potential impact, of this administration's willful ignorance and just plain incompetence is appalling, and in some cases (like the Dept of Energy, which manages the U.S. nuclear arsenal and nuclear reactors) is absolutely terrifying.

A great read about the relationship between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who worked together for decades on the research that Kahneman wrote about in Thinking, Fast and Slow, and for which he won the Nobel Prize. Tversky died in 1996 so he didn't share the Nobel. 

Jefferson invited Hamilton and Madison to a private dinner in which they negotiated and agreed upon the Compromise of 1790: The national government would take over state debts, as Hamilton wanted, and the nation's capital would be in the South (Virginia, not Philadelphia), as Madison and Jefferson wanted. This should be fascinating, but instead, this book spends way too much time on the actual dinner - including recipes (I kid you not!!) - rather than the discussions of the dinner. I'll have to find a better version of this story.

Just about every list of the best books of 2018 included this book, but I thought it was "eh". It's about the fire that destroyed the LA Public Library in 1986 and its aftermath... It was interesting, but I thought the book could've been half as long as it was.

This was a quick, fun read about a woman who became a hacker in the 1990's. It's not particularly well-written and it's longer than it needs to be, but a good "beach" read.

I'm a huge Richard Powers fan and I was very excited to read this. Of course, there were the pages and pages of rave reviews. But I struggled to get through even half of it and it's still unfinished. I'll come back to this one at some point because I can't believe I'm having such a hard time getting into it... Maybe the timing just wasn't right... To be continued...

I happened to see/hear an interview with McCabe soon after this book was published and was impressed with how credible and measured his responses were. So I picked up a copy - partly to support him because he did the right thing, despite the personal consequences. I really enjoyed the book... I learned a lot about how the FBI operates, and about the lead-up to the appointment of Robert Mueller to handle the Russia investigation.

This book was published in 1979 and I'm not sure why I bought it now - but it's a great story about a tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968. Definitely about a different era and since it's John McPhee, the writing is great.

Another great book from Pam Houston. This one is about her ranch in the Rockies. And about her connection to the wilderness, her animals, her writing, her friends... Once I got started, I didn't want to put it down.

There probably was a plot to kill George Washington, and it would be interesting to read a non-fiction account about it. But the authors are trying way too hard to make this book read like fiction; I suspect most of it actually is fiction... The result is - at best - beach reading....

We've watched this movie with Katelyn so many times, I decided to read the book. And it's a great story about really smart, resilient women who had huge impact on the space program.

I read this book on vacation on an island off the coast of Belize, where we could see amazing stars every night. It was a perfect location to read about the far reaches of the universe. Fascinating story about the scientists who spent years assembling the Event Horizon Telescope - a virtual radio telescope comprised of 8 sites around the world - to try to "see" a black hole. It's years of work (and politics) to get the EHT operating. At the end of the book, they coordinate the observations for about 2 weeks at all the sites and HOPE they have the data to product the images. But they don't actually know if they have anything to show, since it'll take about 2 years to process all the data(!) Talk about a cliffhanger... In April, 2019, they released the beautiful images to much international fanfare. Here's a JPL article showing the images and describing the process.

Great book. Exactly what I'd expect from Michelle Obama....Smart, funny, insightful, well-written. I really enjoyed it. This is a super-fun, light read.

The author is a neuroscientist and explains the science behind why we sleep and what sleep does for your body. Given the plethora of benefits he attributes to sleeping 8 hours a night, that may be one of the best things you can do to stay healthy. Really interesting and well-written. And I'm happy to have a good reason to get that much sleep.

Great story about the billionaires who are engaging in the space race v2.0.