Serendipitous Reader v2.0

Interesting book about the Manhattan Project and the relationship between Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was clearly a genius and did an amazing job managing the scientists, but I was again struck by Groves' remarkable leadership.

After watching the horrifying HBO mini-series, Chernobyl, and listening to the companion podcast, I wanted to go back to the beginning of nuclear power and hear the story from one of the key players. I'd started this book a couple of times over the years but never got past the introduction. This time, I got into it and couldn't put it down.... It's an astounding account of project management and leadership, and all the people (and companies) that stepped up to help make this extraordinary achievement happen. Groves was the just-promoted Army General who ran the Manhattan Project. The scope of his responsibilities was astounding - including engineering, construction and operation of the plants to make the bomb materials, R&D (he hired Oppenheimer to manage the science), security and counter-intelligence as well as global intelligence related to atomic activities, selecting the target cities and managing the execution of the actual delivery of the bombs. Ironically, whe...

I read Sacred Hoops by Jackson years ago, and really enjoyed it. So I had high expectations for this book - but I had a hard time finishing it. I'm not a huge basketball fan, so maybe the detail was lost on me but I found it too detailed in places and somewhat disjointed.

Taking the wide (and long) view of innovations in 6 areas, and their impact through history: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, light. The connections are fascinating and the impact is amazing. I was particularly blown away by the chapters on glass and cold. Quick, easy read.

Light, fluffy and very entertaining. A socially inept genetics professor sets up a project plan to help him find a wife and then meets a woman who doesn't meet many of the criteria, but intrigues him anyway.

I don't read much fiction anymore and I picked up this book because it was literally next to the bed when I forgot to take a book with me for a weekend... And I really enjoyed it. About a curmudgeonly old man and the neighbors and people in his life who keep interfering with his well-laid plans. The writing is great.

Interesting perspective and advice on being an entrepreneur. He addresses situations and problems that are more colorful and nuanced than most business books. 

An interesting overview of the history of the universe from a multi-disciplinary perspective. I really enjoyed the first half of the book - the Big Bang through the appearance of humans. The second half of the book was tougher to get through - possibly because I'm more interested in cosmology/physics/chemistry than in anthropology.

I bought it because I was amused by the title, and I enjoyed this little book. It offers a friendly, easy-to-read, bite-sized overview of astrophysics for anyone who's curious. Not a lot of depth - but that's not to be expected in a "bite".  Fun, quick read.

Good book to read with my daughter... about being present and focusing on the journey/task and persevering... A very quick read.

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.