Bryan
“Who you are is defined by what you're willing to struggle for”
“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience.”
These are the two biggest quotes I took out of this book. It's chalk full of examples pertaining to the two, which was woven entertainingly into a much larger narrative. I took this one in as an audiobook, and I found the narrator perfect for the content.
Ryan Holiday puts forward a strong case on how self-awareness truly dictates our outcome, and an inflated ego can drive us into the ground. Examples are vast, and range from the mentality of UFC and football coaches, to modern and ancient military commanders.
No matter who he references, you have, are, or will eventually go through the things he cites or warns about. I highly recommend this book.
It looks like I'm one of the few that couldn't connect with this at all. I enjoyed the beginning, but as it progressed I lost more and more interest, especially when it came time to tell the story from the perspective of the insects.
An inspiring figure with an entertaining story, sprinkled with motivational bits throughout.
Recommended for anyone interested in UX. This makes for a great reference guide, as it's filled with excel uses designed for small teams.
This is already a short book, but could definitely be even shorter considering most of the examples are exactly the same. As an aside, this guy needs to chill on all the religious interference.
A bit confusing who was narrating in certain parts, and it had some strange character developments, but this world is just too interesting to stop here.
Marking this as 3 stars for now, but I think it might go up once I re-read it and fully grasp the harder to understand concepts.
While it can be a little much in all its examples, reading this spurred real actionable changes for a few stalled side projects.
I preferred the structure of this compared to Tardi's other book in the series “It was the war of the trenches”. Rather than focus on multiple characters, this story follows a single french soldier which makes the story more cohesive.
The last chapter of the book is the most powerful, depicting singular stories from regular soldiers and civilians in the last year of the war. So much can be said in one pane.
Not much to say on this that hasn't been said before. Interesting, digestible content that can be applied to various parts of life. As a bonus, the book I bought has some beautiful traditional Chinese binding that I havent seen before.
A short, insightful and actionable book that anyone that talks to customers should read.
Highly recommended.
Informative and inspiring, I haven't been sucked into a book like this for quite some time now.
Like every other book on this topic, just get started to defeat procrastination. -1 for the religious overtones.
There are lots of little gems in this book, and my highlighter was working overtime throughout. Some parts feel a little bit dated, but it's almost impossible not to considering this was written a decade ago.
While it may be a bit basic, I would strongly recommend this to anyone getting started in UX.
A gripping story with a great sense of reality and brilliant survival tactics. While Mark found himself in some dire situations, he tend to get out of them pretty fast. It seemed like more really tense moments needed to occur during the middle of the book.
The best part about this was the writing style. It's full of dry humor and vulgarity that you would expect from someone stuck on Mars for a couple of years.
He obviously led a wild life and tells an interesting story, but I found I never knew what timeframe I was in by the midpoint of the book.
I squeezed out some extra enjoyment by watching the fights on YouTube after he described what was going through his head, and I recommend doing the same (I do this with most biographies when I can).
2.5 stars
A general guide on how to learn things fast, coupled with the authors experience learning new skills from start to finish. I found some parts really interesting (learning how to program, play GO, switch keyboard layouts to Colemak), but the windsurfing chapter didn't interest me at all, and the Yoga section felt completely bloated.
One of the most powerful books (graphic novel, or otherwise) that I've ever read. It's a gripping look at the struggle and survival of the authors parents during their stay at the concentration camps during WW2.
The illustrations are also masterful, I recommend watching this short video essay on the amount of detail and thought that goes into the layout of each page - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dQEfL2BfUM
