I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

There is no Blurb On The Back. Instead there are the following quotes:

”Gavet has delivered a very important piece of work which highlights the issues around technology, information, democracy, and the human condition. Everyone will benefit from reading her analysis.”
ROBERT SIEGEL, Lecturer in Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Gavet proposed a number of remedies - not quick fixes, but fundamental shifts into more equitable, long-term thinking that will actually make everyone much happier without the addictive highs of 100x returns and CEO worship.”
ESTHER DYSON, Founding Chair, ICANN; Executive Founder, Wellville

“Despite being a tech insider, Maëlle Gavet successfully applies outside-in thinking to the tech backlash. The future of tech depends on it.”
CHRISTA QUARLES, Former CEO, OpenTable; Board Member, Kimberly-Clark and Affirm

“Gavet doesn’t just discuss the current and emerging problems confronting the tech industry and those of us who use their products; she recommends thoughtful and implementable solutions. This is a book for anyone who cares about the future of technology and the technology industry.”
LARRY IRVING, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce; Member, Internet Hall of Fame

“Maëlle Gavet has written a book that should be an alert to us all - not by pointing a finger, but through sound diagnosis leading to a credible course of action. A great contribution to inform a public debate that needs to happen now.”
RICHARD STRAUB, Founder and President, Global Peter Drucker Forum

“Trampled By Unicorns is essential reading for anyone who leads or aspires to lead people and companies.”
SHAN-LYN MA, CEO, Zola

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Maëlle Gavet was CEO of OZON.ru (Russia’s largest e-commerce site) and executive VP of Operations at Priceline Group. This is a breezy look at the well-documented issues surrounding big tech companies and suggests how to fix it (the most interesting being on taxation and privacy). Gavet emphasises “empathy” but doesn’t defines it and given the demands of venture capital and shareholders, it’s not clear how it’s supposed to work in practice.

TRAMPLED BY UNICORNS: BIG TECH’S EMPATHY PROBLEM AND HOW TO FIX IT was released in the United Kingdom on 9th October 2020. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Of all species that have ever existed on earth, only one has reached human levels of intelligence and social organisation: us. Why? In Genesis, celebrated biologist Edward O. Wilson traces the great transitions of evolution, from the origin of life to the invention of sexual reproduction to the development of language itself.

The only way for us to fully understand human behaviour, Wilson argues, is to study the evolutionary histories of nonhuman species. Of these, he demonstrates that at least seventeen - from the African naked mole rate and the sponge-dwelling shrimp to one of the oldest species on earth, the termite - have been found to have advanced societies based on altruism, cooperation and the division of labour.

Whether writing about midges who dance about like acrobats, schools of anchovies who protectively huddle to appear like a gigantic fish or well-organised flocks becoming potentially immortal, Genesis is a pathbreaking work of evolutionary theory filled with lyrical observations. It will make us rethink how we became who we are.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Edward O. Wilson is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and one of the world’s pre-eminent biologists and naturalists. This slender book about sociobiology and how human society evolved from and have structures in common with eusocial groups such as termites and wasps did not convince because the comparisons seemed vague. However there were some interesting facts in here about the natural world that kept my attention.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

The kiss is the image that, perhaps more than any other, encompasses the beauty and poetry of love. Every love is required to maintain the kiss, to make it last. When they kiss, the noise of the world is silenced, its laws broken, time is stolen from its normal continuity. They fall together in their distinct, embraced tongues. The kiss joins the tongue that declares love with the body of the lover. And the extinction of the kiss and, most importantly, of the desire to kiss one’s beloved announces the demise of love.

In this short book, Massimo Recalcati - one of Italy’s leading intellectuals and bestselling authors - offers seven brief lessons on the mystery and miracle of love, from the serendipity of the first encounter to its end or its continuation over time, as mysterious and miraculous as the fist encounter itself.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Massimo Recalcati is a psychoanalyst and author who teaches at Pavia and Verona universities. This masculine look at love (translated from Italian by Alice Kilgarriff) draws heavily on Roth, Freud and Lacan and is written in an intellectual, pretentious style that alienated me. However, it is an offshoot from an Italian TV series called Lexicon of Love and I wonder if it would be more accessible with sounds and images to support its points.

THE ENDURING KISS: SEVEN SHORT LESSONS ON LOVE was released in the United Kingdom on 22nd January 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Silence is never an option - stand up, speak out, be the difference.

In his non-fiction debut, Stuart Lawrence talks about what he had learned from life - the tools that have helped him live positively and kept him moving forwards when times have been tough.

From role models to self-control, failure to imagination, Stuart uses his own experience to help young people - to help all people - harness the good in themselves and in the world around them, using that fire of positivity to create change in their lives.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Stuart Lawrence is a former teacher turned motivational speaker and specialist in youth engagement. He’s also the younger brother of Stephen Lawrence who was murdered in a 1993 racist attack. This is a thoughtful and at times moving self-help book for children aged 10+ that draws on Lawrence’s own experiences to discuss self-control, confidence, developing passions, having ambition, life-long learning, wealth and privilege.

SILENCE IS NOT AN OPTION: YOU CAN IMPACT THE WORLD FOR CHANGE will be released in the United Kingdom on 1st April 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, world peace is at risk again. The President of the United States has withdrawn from the disarmament treaty with Russia, Europe is disintegrating, China is surging forward and a wave of nationalism and populism is destabilising established political institutions and endangering hard-won liberties. Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has brought into sharp relief the fragility of the global order and the speed with which it can slide into chaos.

In view of this dangerous and unpredictable state of affairs, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last great statesman of the 1989 revolution, has written this short book to warn us of the grave risks we now face and to urge us all, political leaders and citizens alike, to take action to address them. He focuses on the big challenges of our time, such as the renewal of the arms race and the growing risks of nuclear war, the new tension between Russia and the West, the global environmental crisis, the global threat of diseases and epidemics, the rise of populism and the decline of democracy. He argues that self-serving policies and narrow-minded politics aimed at the pursuit of national interests are taking the place of political principles and overshadowing the vision of a free and just world for all peoples. He offers his view of where Russia is heading and he urges political leaders in the West to recognise that re-establishing trust between Russia and the West requires the courage of true leadership and a commitment to genuine dialogue and understanding on both sides.

Now more than ever, the responses to the great challenges we face cannot be purely national in character but must be based on a collaborative effort in which political leaders put aside their differences and work together to advance the human security for all.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in reducing nuclear weapons and improving world peace. This book (translated from Russian by Jessica Spengler) is a short, shallow summary of the current crises facing the world (including nuclear armament, global warming, and the rise of populism) but lacks insight, practical answers and defends Russian aggression with ‘what-aboutism’.

WHAT IS AT STAKE NOW was released in the United Kingdom on 18th September 2020. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

In the Land of the Bumbley Boo
All the mice go Clang!
Hello Jolly Guardsman
But a Hippopotamus Could eat the Lotofus!
The wonderful Bumbley BOO!!!
And Edser, in bed sir, was dead sir
Hello Jolly Guardsman
And Bottles of Dandelion Stew
Hello Mr Python
The People are red white and blue
English Teeth, English Teeth!
I’m not frightened of Pussy Cats
English Teeth, English Teeth!
While an elephant raised his hat
You must never bath in an Irish Stew
Look at all those monkeys
On the Ning Nang Nong
But a Hippopotamus Could eat the Lotofus!
And Edser, in bed sir, was dead sir

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

This is an illustrated collection of 34 silly verse for children aged 9+ by Spike Milligan, including On The Ning Nang Nong, A Thousand Hairy Savages and Today I Saw A Little Worm. Some of the illustrations in the version I read (published in 1968) don’t really pass for modern day attitudes but the verses themselves are brilliantly silly and ripe with Milligan’s distinctive voice and I think that kids will love the rhyming and the sheer fun of them.

The Blurb On The Back:

Agatha Oddly: No case too odd …

Agatha Oddlow’s just stumbled across her next big case … a murder at the British Museum.

But as Agatha starts to dig beneath the surface she begins to suspect that a wider plot is afoot below London - a plot involving a disused Tube station, a huge fireworks display and five thousand tonnes of gold bullion.

Luckily, Agatha’s on the trail …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The second in the AGATHA ODDLY TRILOGY by Lena Jones (a pseudonym for the Tibor Jones Studio) for children aged 9+ is a ho-hum, formulaic mystery adventure where the murder mystery hook fades away in favour of the overriding story arc of the Gatekeepers’ Guild. Pacing is okay but the characterisation very thin and I have to say that I never believed in Agatha as a character as her reactions never ring true and the Poirot element is very gimmicky.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Do you know what a Onecan is? Have you met a Gofongo or the Bald Twit Lion? Can you guess what the Wiggle-Woggle said?

Another collection of goonish poems and zany drawings by Spike Milligan.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

This is a collection of illustrations, verse and one short story for children aged 8+ by Spike Milligan that drips with his trademark silliness and unique way of thinking about creatures and the world in general. The book ends with a short story about a foolish lion who goes bald, which I enjoyed but might be a little too unstructured for kids. Sadly this book is out of print but is worth checking out for Milligan completists.

The Blurb On The Back:

THE NIGHT BEGAN WITH BLACKMAIL:

Eight o’clock. Portgrave Pier. Can you keep a secret?

Ten teenagers lured to a derelict carnival. Each one with a dark past they are determined to keep hidden. As they start to die, is it an unknown killer they need to fear … or each other?

Mind games. Murder. Mayhem.

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SURVIVE THE NIGHT?

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Kathryn Foxfield’s debut YA novel is a horror/thriller mash-up that, for me, fails to deliver in either genre. The characters are paper thin, their secrets either too easy to guess or so inconsequential that it made me wonder why they were worried and the world building too ethereal. There’s an interesting central idea about the power of guilt to overwhelm you, but ultimately I just didn’t care enough about the teens or their plight.

The Blurb On The Back:

Critical thinking is essential in higher education.

Think Critically gives you simple, direct advice on ow to effectively assess and critique the world around you.

- understand the nature of assumptions and claims
- grasp the notion of valid and invalid arguments and evidence
- gain practical skills and confidence in reading, writing and doing research.

Succeed at university with Super Quick Skills

Giving you the tools and advice you need to progress your skills and excel in your studies and life.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Tom Chatfield is an author, tech philosopher and educator interested in the teaching and practice of critical thinking skills. This is a breezy but useful introduction to concepts of critical thinking that’s aimed at university students but can be used by anyone looking to sharpen up their skills. It’s particularly good at explaining concepts such as reasoning, bias, hypothesis and assumptions in a way that’s not patronising and easy to remember.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.