Andrée’s Arctic balloon expedition In 1897, three Swedish scientists leaves for a polar expedition in a hydrogen balloon. Thirty years later they are found, by accident, dead on a deserted island. What happened to them and why did they die? The author, Bea Uusma, gets obsessed by the subject and spends decades trying to find […]
Quick Review: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Ed Catmull decided to create the first ever computer animated feature film, it took him 20 years, but with the premiere of “Toy Story” he reached he goal. Now he turned to another challenge; to create a sustainable creative work environment. This is not a “The 10 Things to Do to Be a Great Manager”-book, […]
Quick Review: Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
A review of Caroline Knapp’s memoir Drinking: A Love Story. A books that provides a valuable look into the secret life of the functional alcoholic.
Wanderlust: A History of Walking – Quick Book Review
Wanderlust tagline, A History of Walking, is a bit misleading because it feels very superficial as a history book. The book is better described as a collection of musings and digressions around the subject of walking in the context of cultural history. Walking and it’s influence on the world and human thought In Wanderlust: A […]
Quick Review: Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield
Turning Pro is about the struggle against Resistance that keeps us from pursuing our creative endeavors. It is this Resistance that makes us hate ourselves, and that breeds undirected discontent. Amateurs and Professionals The world is made up of amateurs and professionals. They are both dealing with the same material (the pain of being human […]
Quick Review: The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei
Instead of being dressed in traditional black Buddhist clothes, they wear white, the color of death. They carry a knife in their belt. This is to take their life if they fail in any element of their practice. Knife for self-disembowelment – belt for hanging. These buddhist monks and super athletes reaching for enlightenment in […]
Quick Review: Fables of Fortune by Richard Watts
Richard Watts has worked as a legal counsel for the super rich for many years. In his book, Fables of Fortune – What Rich People Have That You Don’t Want, he shares stories for this hidden world, showing that it might not be all roses after all. This is not a psychological study of the […]
Recovering from depression induced by “Superintelligence”.
“Superintelligence” was a great and valuable read but it left me depressed. There seems to be so many dangers with AI and just so much time for us to get a grip on the control problem before It arrives. To lift myself up I started to read “How to Live: or a life of Montaigne” […]
Quick Review: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Christopher McCandless was found dead in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992. He graduated 2 years earlier, having what we would call a “promising” career ahead of him. But Alex had other plans. He donated his 25.000$ worth of savings to charity, left his family and society as a whole. Disgusted by […]
Quick Review: Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments With Truth
We get to follow a great man in the making in this autobiography by Gandhi. Like a mad scientist, and from an early age, he experimented with every area of his life to find essence of the soul. Being very limited in my knowledge about Gandhi, I expected a focus on religion in this book, […]