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Queue
Books Currently in the queue:
- Code Breakers
- Emperors New Mind
- Brief History of Time
Non-Fiction
Title: Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts
Author: Brene Brown
Read: Pending
Summary: Pending
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: Facing Cyber Threats Head On: Protecting Yourself and Your Business
Author: Brian Minick
Read: Q4 2020
Summary: Pending
Rating: 7 out of 10
Title: The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Author: Camille Fournier
Read: Q4 2020
Summary: Pending
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: The Art of Invisibility
Author: Kevin Mitnick
Read: Q4 2020
Summary: Kevin is known for a high-profile arrest in 1995 for various computer crimes. He wrote a book on how to become invisible during the age of big brother and big data. This book covers all information on how your identity can be tracked. Anywhere from cameras seeing you walking into buildings, to identifying your IP address from your house, to even your car. Kevin covers how to make yourself invisible. While the information was valuable if you are trying to be completely invisible, I did not find the book very rewarding as the steps needed are extreme. The main purpose I read the book was due to curiosity of what he had to say, but not necessarily to take any actions. This is a book to read if you felt you wanted more insight as to how you can be tracked and pinpointed, or if you just had a fascination around anonymity in todays age.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Title: Becoming
Author: Michelle Obama
Read: Q3 2020
Summary: My wife read this book when it came out and mentioned it was really good. Normally, I am not one to read political books. However, knowing that Michelle wasn't a politician, I figured it would be okay. Turns out, this was a really great book. This book is a memoir of the former First Lady of the United States and it was excellent. I learned a lot of great insight and values that Michelle went through growing up and how it was being the wife of a President.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking
Author: Christopher Hadnagy
Read: Q3 2020
Summary:
Takeaways:
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: Fooled By Randomness - The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Read: Q3 2020
Summary: A colleague mentioned this book to me the other day and it sparked my interest. While it is mostly geared towards investments (as this is the background the Author has), it can really help in any walks of light. Essentially, this book points out things in life that we believe 'probable' or 'predictable' but in fact are actually random. There were many key takeaways and here are the few that stood out:
Takeaways:
- Chance favors preparedness, but not caused by preparedness.
- Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance
- The quality of a choice cannot be judged just by the result. (I first learned this in baseball. Just because a pitch you call or play you call doesn't work out doesn't make it a poor choice. It could have been the right call, but bad luck. Or vice versa.)
- There is nothing wrong with losing. The problem is losing more than you plan to lose.
- Important point: you can never affirm a statement, merely confirm its rejection. There is a big difference between “this has never happened” and “this will ever happen.” You can say the first, but never truly confirm the second. It just takes one counter example to prove all previous observations wrong. We never know things for sure, only with varying degrees of certainty.
- Do not blame others for your failures. Even if they are at fault
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
Author: Cliff Stoll
Read: Q3 2020
Summary: Oh man!! How have I never read this book before? Even though it was written in 1989, the events, context, explanation and everything in between is SO prevalent! Sure, some of the things in it is outdated, but let's be serious here, it was 30 years ago! This is a great book for ANY security or IT professional wanting to know about hacking. It's a MUST read for any Incident Responder too. The way Cliff (the main character) is able to track down a hacker all because of a 75 cent "glitch" is utterly amazing. The techniques and tactics used are brilliant.
Key Takeaways:
- I found it brilliant how Cliff was able to set up a pager, using Morse code to be alerted when the hacker had accessed his network
- I loved how "methodical" the hacker was. He rarely typed the same thing twice (only when he first accessed the machine to see who was logged in), but rather, had printouts of output and would review/reference it later. This minimizes unnecessary keystrokes and chances of being caught
- I found it fascinating the different 3 letter work entities were involved and how they were tracking things behind the scenes
- I thought it was great how the hacker would cloak themselves with an account of someone already in the /etc/passwd file, or choosing a common name that wouldn't stand out.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: The Making of a Manager: What to do when Everyone Looks to You
Author: Julie Zhuo
Read: Q2 2020
Summary: This book was a very quick and easy read. I appreciate how honest Julie Zhuo was in this book. She is one of the early designers for Facebook. She walks through what it takes to be a manager.. and honestly, what it doesn't take. For example, she mentions that not everyone 'needs' to be a manager in order to further their career. There are many individual contributors out there that are extremely successful. People pay a lot for '10x' IC's. There were also many great tidbits around how to directly relay messages to people. Being a great manager doesn't mean you cushion everyone or beating around the bush. Being direct, honest, and even transparent can go a long ways.
Key Takeaways:
- Make sure every meeting has a purpose
- Organize meetings and make sure its worth everyones time
- Be direct, but passionate with information to the team
- More to follow
Rating: 6 out of 10
Title: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Author: Ashlee Vance
Read: Q2 2020
Summary:
Rating: 7 out of 10
Title: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
Author: Patrick Lencioni
Read: Q2 2020
Summary: This book was a great eye opener of how teams can be dysfunctional. This is told as if it were a story, but is able demonstrate real scenarios. The book follows a new CEO of a company that is struggling. She meets with all her direct reports (COO, CIO, CFO, etc) as a group to work out the problem. The CEO drills down to the 5 dysfunctions of a team:
- absence of trust
- fear of conflict
- lack of commitment
- avoidance of accountability
- inattention to results
Key takeaways:
- When part of a team, get to know each other in a more personal level. During introductions, have everyone answer simple questions like: How many siblings do you have, what was your first job, where did you grow up? Please describe a unique or interesting challenge or experience from your childhood.
- When attending meetings, put away all laptops (unless taking notes) and pay attention
- Once everyone can trust each other, thats when real work can get done. All meetings should have some sort of edge and passion, but thats good because it means real outcomes can occur. If everyone is holding back, it will go nowhere
- A manager does not equal a leader. While there are qualities in both, they are not the same
- A manager doesn't mean promotion. Being an individual contributor is still sought after
Rating: 7 out of 10
Title: Extreme Ownership - How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win
Author: Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Read: Q1 2020
Summary: This book blew my mind away. Jocko and Leif are retired SEAL's who take their knowledge, experience and discipline as retired SEALs to help business, world, local leaders become better leaders. Many of their stories relate to their time during the Iraq war, specifically around the Battle of Ramadi. They cover the principles of being a great leader, such as taking extreme ownership, knowing there are no bad teams (only bad leaders), managing your ego and more. This is a book for anyone needing motivation and understanding what it takes to become a leader.
Key Takeaways:
- A leader must take extreme ownership. If something fails, it is ultimately on you. Maybe you didn't explain the problem well enough, you didn't give them proper training or guidance. But it is your responsibility as a leader to take ownership
- Keep things simple and prioritize. If something is too complex, something is bound to go wrong. If things are simple, you can be more agile if something needs to change.
- Believe in the mission and help others believe in it too. If everyone is on the same page, success is bound to happen
- Keep teams of 4-5 and have a leader clearly defined
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: The Phoenix Project - A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
Author: Gene Kim
Read: Q2 2020
Summary: While this is technically not a non-fiction (It's a Novel, Fiction), I still believe this book was valuable. The book follows Bill who is the newly promoted director for the company. He is in search of making things better and is told about "the 3 ways". He works on ways to better functionalize the team and the business by focusing on what matters most.
Key Takeaways:
- There are "3 ways":
- The first way: The first way focuses on maximizing flow of work from left-to-right starting from business to development to IT operations to the end user.
- The second way: The second way focuses on increasing the feedback loop from right to left. The focus is not only on getting feedback but also on how fast we can get the feedback in order to make necessary corrections/improvement quickly.
- The third way: The third way is all about developing and fostering a culture of continuous experimentation and learning.
There are also 4 categories of work:
- Planned Work — these are typically business projects or new features
- Internal Projects — server migrations, software updates and so on
- Changes — usually driven by feedback on already completed work
- Unplanned Work — support escalations and emergency outages
Rating: 7/10
Title: Sandworm
Author: Andy Greenberg
Read: Q4 2019
Summary: This book follows the Russian hacking group "Sandworm" and a piece of malware that they send to Ukraines power grid, that ultimately spreads across the world. They pieced together different exploits such as BlackEnergy, NotPetya and Olympic Destroyer, to create a destructive digital weapon.
Rating: 8/10
Title: Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon
Author: Kim Zetter
Read: 2018
Summary: This book follows a worm that sabotaged Iran's nuclear program. The worm ultimately traced back to the US government (or so we believe). Stuxnet was a digital weapon that had many checks and was specifically targeting the airlocked nuclear program and would not spread to other systems if it encountered it. Stuxnet also contained multiple zero-day exploits, which is extremely rare as just 1 zero-day is hard to comeby.. and to use multiple in a single worm is unheard of.
Rating: 10/10
Fiction
Title: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Read: Q2 2020
Summary: Where does one even begin with this book? Besides.. if you enjoy fantasy books.. you'll love this one. A classic about a hobbit that 'doesn't like adventures' and rather 'chill at home' goes on the ultimate adventure and lives to tell the story. This book is one I read as a kid, but had to read it again as it was great and I'm glad I did.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: Terminus
Author: Peter Cline
Read: Q1 2020
Summary: I've enjoyed many of Peter Cline's book. This is another book that takes place in the world created, with flying tentacle whales and parallel universes. This book takes place on an island where a specific building is controlling 'the world'.. so to speak. It follows characters that realize something is not just right. I enjoyed the suspense, mystery.. and oddly, the gore that goes along with it. Peter Cline does a great job in portraying his vision of this altered universe and I will continue to read this series.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Title: 11.22.63
Author: Stephen King
Read: Q4 2019
Summary: I really liked this book. However, I tried to watch the Hulu series on it and it was.. not good. I think I made it to the second episode before never returning. The book however, was great. Essentially you follow this guy who is able to 'go back in time' to a specific location, time, event.. EVERYTIME. If he goes down the 'rabbit hole'.. lives there for 1 year, comes back 'home'. Time will only have changed like 5 minutes. If he were to return back down the rabbit hole, he'd go back to the same time that he was 1 year ago. A really cool concept. It turns out the book is based around the assassination of JFK and the events leading up. Since I didn't really know much about that era, I really enjoyed the ride along of the book. I thought it was great.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Title: The Institute
Author: Stephen King
Read: Q4 2019
Summary: This book had SOO much potential. It starts out so great. So much suspense. It follows multiple story lines that eventually meet at the end. The institute itself was crazy. However, the end just didn't quite cut it for me. It ended very lackluster. But following the people in the story was a very common, typical and great Stephen King effort. A good book that just didn't quite hit it out of the park in the 9th inning.
Rating: 4 out of 10
![Dead Moon by [Peter Clines]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51eMr-9gLBL._SY346_.jpg)
Title: The Witcher: Blood of Elves (The Witcher Saga)
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Title: The Witcher: Season of Storms (Standalone novel)
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Read: Q3 2019
Summary:
Rating:
Title: The Witcher: Sword of Destiny (Short story collection)
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Read: 2019
Summary:
Rating:
Title: The Witcher: The Last Wish (Short story collection)
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
![CyberStorm: A Novel by [Matthew Mather]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51v5W+HqNWL.jpg)
Title: Cyberstorm
Author: Matthew Mather
Title: Trojan Horse: A Jeff Aiken Novel
Author: Mark Russinovich
![Zero Day: A Jeff Aiken Novel (Jeff Aiken Series Book 1) by [Mark Russinovich, Howard Schmidt]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ZxRMTDKlL.jpg)
Title: Zero Day: A Jeff Aiken Novel
Author: Mark Russinovich
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating:
Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Read: 2018
Summary: I loved this book on the sheer fact that video games are involved! This whole world that Ernest Cline creates is amazing. It also had a movie made on it. I loved all the classic video game references and 80's pop culture. It's an easy read but the quest that the players go through is very entertaining. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys video games or the 80's.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: The Woman in the Window
Author: A.J. Finn
Read: 2018
Summary: Honestly, I really enjoyed this book. It is a psychological thriller that is later to be turned into a movie. We follow a woman who is fighting many mental issues due to past events and finds herself unable to leave the house. With binge drinking, downtime and your own thoughts, you can see how someone can go a little crazy. She also has this view directly into her neighbors house across the street. She watches them regularly and finds herself almost obsessed. <continue>
Rating: 8 out of 10
Title: The Fold (Threshold, #2)
Author: Peter Clines
Read: 2018
Summary: This is the second book in the series and takes place in another location of the same world. The characters are different, but with previous knowledge of book #1, we can see how there are certainly many similarities. I really enjoyed the main character who has photographic memory. I loved how he was able to index his thoughts and how he was able to retrieve them in his endless storage. This book kept me on my toes from the beginning and had a quick ending. But it was still a great book.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Title: 14 (Threshold, #1)
Author: Peter Clines
Read: 2018
Summary: 14 is book #1 in the Threshold series written by Peter Clines. We find ourselves in a world that feels very much like our current one, however, there are some weird things going on. We follow a group of tenants in an apartment who notice weird things going on. After banning together and getting to the roots of what the apartment is, they open themselves up to another world that isn't quite as it seems.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Title: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1)
Author: Dennis Taylor
Read: 2018
Summary: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is about a man named Bob, who pays a lot of money to have his "mind" frozen. After a tragic accident, he wakes up a century later to find that his mind has been uploaded to a computer and now considered Artificial Intelligence. This book places us in the mind of Bob and how an AI may be "thinking". It's an outer space thriller that takes a bit to get used to, but it was quite entertaining.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Title: Percepliquis (Book 6 of Riyria Revalations - Prequel)
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: Wintertide (Book 5 of Riyria Revalations - Prequel)
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: The Emerald Storm (Book 4 of Riyria Revalations - Prequel)
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: Heir of Novron (Book 5-6 of Riyria Revalations)
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: Rise of Empire (Book 3-4 of Riyria Revalations)
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: Theft of Swords (Book 1-2 of Riyria Revalations)
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Read: 2018
Summary: This was my first book that I read within the Riyria Revalations series. I can't speak enough on how much I enjoyed this series. The world that Michael J. Sullivan takes us to is amazing. These books were the first in the series. However, he went back and wrote prequels which were great, but I can go to that later. The two main characters that we follow, Royce and Haydrien are a joy. They are two opposites, yet they counter balance each other perfectly. It's really quite the sight to see. The Theft of Swords is actually two books. The first book is The Crown Conspiracy and the second is Avempartha.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Title: Kill Decision
Author: Daniel Suarez
Read: 2018
Summary:
Rating
Title: Change Agent
Author: Daniel Suarez
Read: 2018
Summary: Change Agent was a fascinating read. Again, Daniel Suarez takes us to a world that isn't necessarily far fetched, but the realism also can be questioned. However, the thriller aspect is real. Change Agent kept me on my toes as I flipped pages through how humans can essentially control evolution. This book kept on pace with the action that I'm used to from Daniel Suarez. If you like his other books, this one will not disappoint.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Title: Freedom
Author: Daniel Suarez
Read: 2018
Summary: Freedom picks up where Daemon left off. We continue our journey down the world that Daniel Suarez has created for us. There were things that occurred in the first book that were repeated (which I liked because it made me feel a connection) and then there were new things that occurred that I didn't think could happen. This book, again, kept me on my toes as I followed the main character navigate through the world. Oh yeah, did I mention how much the MAJOR is a psychotic badass. Oh man, I may have to read this series again.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Title: Daemon
Author: Daniel Suarez
Read: 2018
Summary: The first thing that stuck out about this book was the geographical location. At one point I remember the first few pages had a reference of Southern California and the accuracy of its description. I was very impressed! Next, how Daniel was able to make technology from this book feel real was very impressive. I remember thinking "oh man, that can totally happen!". This book will take you on an adventure and paranoia of how computers interact with us daily and the world that could be.
Rating: 8 out of 10