Alice

I deducted half a star due to the abrupt ending.

A lot of the book, especially the first half, was hard to get through. I felt a lot of anger toward the main character's antagonists, who were all reflecting the norms of society at the time. It was especially blood-boiling to read about women not supporting women. Obviously, the book has a happy ending, with redemption for a few of the characters, but yea, I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through it.

I received this book as a belated wedding gift, and as the first reader to leave a rating on Goodreads, I felt compelled to leave a review. The book is simple and nothing more than what it says on the cover: 52 ideas (to take or leave). It is a cute book with a lot of sage marriage advice in short-form. It is a cute gift idea for newlyweds, and I can imagine bequeathing my copy to my next friend who ties the knot.

This is not a memoir. It is a collection of over 400 jokes from his long career. And I wouldn't change a thing.

This book was not easy to read (written like a 800-page news article), but at the same time, I wanted to keep reading it. Through it all, Instagram, or its founder, does not come off as the protagonist of its own story. Facebook doesn't come off too well either.

This will probably be my favorite read of the year. Kahneman and Tversky are two of my academic heroes, as they were/are to many behavioral economists and social scientists, so when I heard that Michael Lewis of Moneyball and The Big Short fame was writing a dual-biopic about the pair, I was very excited. To be honest, parts of the book were a little slow and dry, but other parts made me tear up. I cannot imagine how someone who is unfamiliar with this field or their work would react to all of the psychology terminology and mathematical equations, but for me, this book was the origin story of all the topics I loved in grad school. I am looking forward to the movie (half-joking about this).

It took me three tries, but I finally got into this book and read it all. Anyone who went to a small private college or prep school might appreciate the setting; it reminded me of a twisted Dead Poets Society.

Written for any reader (not only climbing enthusiasts) to comprehend. I found it interesting and gripping at times.

Not a feel-good read. Riding the train is supposed to be fun.

Blogger's story of going on 50+ “friend dates” within a year of moving to Chicago as a 27-year-old. A funny and interesting account of an impressive/exhausting feat, sprinkled with sound-bytes from related social psychology research. I thought it was cute, but I skimmed it - one can only take so much of a 27-year-old woman's musings.

After a lot of press and a lot of hype, this book ended up being pretty good. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys social science and/or Aziz Ansari's comedy. The book seems to weigh just the slightest bit more on the humor/comedy side, and that's why I think I would recommend the audiobook, which is read by the author. Biggest takeaways: 1 out of every 3 American couples that got married within the last 10 years met online, half of France thinks cheating is just fine, and Japan is just all sorts of weird.

The main point is that loneliness can be as damaging to your health as smoking or over-eating.

This book is a rollercoaster of emotions. Strayed draws a lot of stories from her own life (some of them very dark) to answer questions from her readers. Collected all together, her columns read almost like a memoir or autobiography. If anything, you should read the entry for which the book is titled: http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64.

While the book had some interesting (if not cliche) stories about high schoolers from different corners of the cafeteria, I felt that I was too “old” for this book - I have already learned most of the lessons this book had to offer.

Don't invest in anything you can't define...

Only read if you like food and like reading about food.

I had to stop reading it because it made me too sad.

This is an elegant read. One of the more impressive and comprehensive appreciations of behavioral economics. An enjoyable contribution to the wealth of popular literature in this field.

This is a transcription of Rowling's 2008 commencement speech at Harvard. The text is available on Harvard's website, but the book includes some illustrations.

The author details the lives of eight high-potential college grads throughout their first years on Wall Street. With the promise of big salaries and plenty of prestige, these promising Ivy League-caliber souls sacrifice almost everything in the name of money.

I majored in economics, and many of my former classmates entered the financial industry in mid-2007. Some of them lost there jobs in 2008. With my proximity, I didn't find any of the stories too surprising. In my world, the work-so-hard-that-you-jeopardize-your-health lifestyle of bankers is not some big secret. None of these 22-year-olds are going into in blindly. And yet they continue to do so - Wall Street firms recruit anywhere from 20 to 30 percent of every graduating class from the most selective universities away from other would-be careers.

The author seems to be making a plea for the brightest students of today to dismiss Wall Street from their lists of career options; instead, he wants them to become doctors, become scientists, and entrepreneurs... anything else that changes the world in a better way.

This is a picture book, so I would recommend the hardcover or full-cover e-reader versions. It takes about 10 minutes to flip through all the pages, glance at the artwork, and read the minimal narrative. But the point is to take the time to “stop and look around” every once in awhile to reconnect to the universe, or the big picture. That only takes a minute.

The advice in this book oscillates between sensible and psychotic, as in deranged. I am a big fan of keeping a tidy living space, but when I read this book, I heard the words in the voice of a Stepford wife. Which was very funny, in a way.

This is a short “book,” or a transcript of Saunders's commencement speech at Syracuse University. It takes less than 5 minutes to read, and it might still be found on The New York Times website.

I always thought this book sounded cheesy, but I'm glad I finally decided to give it a try. It is a good love story, and it is set (really immersed) in Chicago. I saw the movie when it came out, and I thought it was a little weird, but... “the book is better.”

This is barely a book. It reads like a string of blog posts, hurried and annoyingly excited. The authors' voices are written to be fun and familiar, but they come off as trying too hard and lacking credibility. But I guess this book was not meant to be taken too seriously.

The best parts were the Venn diagrams at the start of each chapter, which categorized the music, movies, book, and other cultural keepsakes between Gen X, Gen Y, and of course the intersection in between. I would be interested in a book with an extended collection of these Venn diagrams.