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Phil in SF

kingrat@books.theunseen.city

Joined 2 years, 5 months ago

I have moved my Bookwyrming to @kingrat@sfba.club

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Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition (EBook, 2019, St. Martin's Press) 4 stars

Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care …

Radical Candor is more dangerous for women than for men, and even more dangerous for black women than for white women, for gay women then for straight women. Are you sure Radical Candor is safe for people who don't have the kind of privilege that you do?

Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition by 

Still in the preface to the revised edition. The author engages earnestly with some very pointed criticism of her content. I've no idea yet what conclusions to draw from this, but honest listening is something most of these leadership books don't do well, if at all.

Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition (EBook, 2019, St. Martin's Press) 4 stars

Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care …

It's hard to take seriously anything by a cartoonist who once wrote on his blog that "women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently."

Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition by 

Kudos to the author for having the correct opinion on Scott Adams.

Malice (EBook, 2014, Minotaur) 3 stars

A reserved police procedural

3 stars

For a book about passions and someone's motivation for murder, the narrative operates at a distance from the emotions of its characters. Fairly early on, detective Kyoichiro Kaga divines from the clues (Sherlock Holmes style) who the murderer is. Much harder to suss out is the murderer's motive, and the reader is taken through several iterations of the question "but what is the real reason behind what they did?" 3.5 stars for an inventive form and drawing power to keep me interested in the layers being uncovered. But demerits for the emotion of the text not being in line with the emotion of the characters.

Haunting of Tram Car 015 (2019, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments …

Entertaining

4 stars

What if Egypt was quickly modernizing in the 1910s and also djinns and other spirits were real? One djinn seems to be haunting team car 015 in Cairo's overhead public transportation system. Agents Hamed and Onsi have been dispatched by the ministry to solve the problem.

Hamed is stuffy, but trying to be okay with modernization. Onsi is English educated and fits in better, but is a rookie agent.

They're charming, and the world Clark has created is interesting and has lots of potential.

Nearly all world building loose ends tied up

4 stars

Content warning Mild spoilers

Haunting of Tram Car 015 (2019, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments …

A sprawling vintage Anatolian rug of blue angular motifs, red spandrels, and golden tulips bordered in deep lavender.

Haunting of Tram Car 015 by 

First page, and already a new vocabulary word: spandrel.

The almost triangular space between one side of the outer curve of an arch, a wall, and the ceiling or framework.

The Relentless Moon (AudiobookFormat, 2020, Audible) 5 stars

It's 1963, and riots and sabotage plague the space program. The climate change caused by …

Content warning Mild spoiler

The Poison Squad (EBook, 2018, Penguin Press) 4 stars

From Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, the dramatic true story …

Solid history of early food regulation in the US

4 stars

I found myself fascinated by the chapters covering Harvey Wiley's early investigations and efforts. Once the book became about the political machinations after the law was passed, i became less interested. Business applying secret pressure to get regulations eased is a well trod tale