Review: Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life by Ozan Varol
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ok, now we need someone from the business world to rewrite this book drawing actionable business conclusions for each of the author's points. I mean, the points were great, and the examples were fascinating, and maybe I'm just lazy, but I felt like a step was missing in terms of transferring/translating these points into steps to follow/actions to take/methods to use, at least in terms of business (maybe this book isn't for businesspeople?)

Regardless, some of my notes:

Once certainty ends, progress can begin.

Some good arguments against celebrating failure, and Failing fast. (Learning is more important than failing)

Don't ask yourself "what would you do if you couldn't fail"? but "What would you do if it didn't matter if you failed"?

Ask yourself "What have you failed at?" every day. You should fail at something every day. Otherwise you're not pushing yourself.

Where failure ends, complacency begins.

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Review: Onassis: An Extravagant Life

Onassis: An Extravagant Life by Frank Brady
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The man is obviously fascinating, and not really knowing much about him beforehand, I certainly appreciated that.

However, I can't say I liked the book itself. This book didn't delve deep at all, with all associated characters basically being neglected aside from their direction interaction with Onassis. So his wives, children and parents are basically just mentioned at intervals (Jackie Kennedy gets more than anyone else, but even then it would have been nice to know how she was affected after his death). Even the rift with his father is quite mysterious, and then sort of dropped (I don't believe his father's death is even mentioned).

Also, some of the details of his life seem a bit stretched. I doubt he "learned Italian fluently" thanks to the boat ride across the Atlantic and a week staying with an Italian family. I doubt even more that he, a Greek speaker, learned English and German fluently working as a phone operator in Argentina listening to other peoples' phone calls. All of this makes me doubt whether he really slept 3-4 hours per night, like the book claims.

Having said that, the book doesn't hide how he beat women, had terrible ethics (see the whale hunting section), and was all-around very devious.

Anyway, so if there is another, more in-depth biography of this man I might read it, because he is obviously fascinating. Having been born in luxury, witnessing the ethnic cleansing of his people around him, escaping with nothing to Greece, then escaping once again to Argentina, only to build a huge empire and become the richest man in the world, is quite impressive.



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Review: Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe

Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe by Gaston Dorren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun book! A bit sporadic, but it was to be expected, covering a smattering of languages and cultures. It will be full of little tidbits you probably didn't know (Avalanche is the only English word we got from the Romansh language; gönnen is the German word for finding joy in another's success. We had a word for this in Old English, but have apparently stopped doing so; etc.)

Don't expect a treatise or any in-depth study. But if you want some interesting Trivia for European-related languages, this is a great book. 

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