Total 6 books.
The Bomber Mafia
History, Read in July 2022
I got this book from Philadelphia airport while I was waiting for the next flight to Louisville. As a side story, I still feel that I am such a lucky one working for this job - challenging work, and giving me chances to visit the world. I finished the previous book during the first 18h hour flight (Bangkok > Doha > Philadelphia), so I went into the book store looking for a new one.
This book caught my eyes as one of the best seller. It didn’t take me too long to finish it because it was relatively thin (150 pages maybe). It talks about the story of army commander during WW2. Good for killing time but nothing much aside..
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Anxios People, Fredrik Backman
Fiction, Read in July 2022
Whoa!! I almost forgot to write about this book. I am not such a fiction person but my wife really recommend me this one. It’s the first time I feel that I can’t close the book and keep reading till the end. This is the best book I have had for the first half of 2022 so far.
It’s the story of many random things happening in Sweden. The author put together unlikely set of events in the society but when they combined, they made me feel that YES! IT’S SO REAL especially in Swedish setting (me seeing from outside). Imagine to yourself, if you need to write story with all following keywords what would it be - Cashless society / Got fired / Pizza / Housing crisis / Apartment viewing / Same-sex relationship / IKEA / Renovation / Bridge / Psychologist / Police. I can’t imagine a better story!
The Unknown Kimi Raikkonen
Racing, Read in June 2022
I picked up this book because it’s cheap and at that time he was about to quit F1. On the TV, Kimi has a very distict personalities compared to other driver — more towards on bullshit talk. This book is a bit different from other racing biography books that I have read. All of the other ones, so far, are written by the F1 reporters or the person himself. Those books offer more inside view of prople in this industry whilst this book is written by a fiction writer. From a non-F1 fan perspective, story is described in a normal fashion. It’s more of what this profession is like.
When I was studying Master, I had one Finish friend. I recently transitted in Finland, saw the Moomin cafe, walk passed shops in the airport that made me feel like Japanese-styled European - simple minimal styling. Kimi is another story appended to my Finish story collection.
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Psychology, Read in May 2022
How could you skip a book of the Noble prize? Of course, whatever from Nobel prize has such an illusion but the only way to judjudgeege by yourself whether it’s an illusion or something meaningful is by experiencing it. This is one of the book that takes me the longest to finish, so much so that I would like to add … slow (reading) … to the title. I carried it to many places / countries I have been visiting in the past year - USA / Sweden / Netherland / many more provinces in Thailand. It’s a very good sleeping pill while I am on the airplane — just because the content is so so heavy. I am glad that I finished it now and it worths reading.
Almost every second page there are mental experiment for the reader to work out. Most of the time you are given 2 choices to choose in different situations. It’s easy to skip the mental experimenting part and jump to the summary paragraph but as I have some background in probability (Math), I take time with pen and paper to really use the System 2 (analytic part of the brain) to compute the resulting chances before making decision. Most probably I found my conflicting self as explained through out the book.
I initially thought that I wouldn’t read the appendix — two academic papers written in an even smaller characters. I started looking at it after finishing the last chapter and giving a try. I was hooked up by the nature of hournal paper which is very concise and it recaps the whole thought of this book well. I don’t think I would be impressed reading these two journals without going through the book because they are totally different kind of sciences that I got used to.
We human are every emotional (explained as System 1 brain) rather than than rational / logical (System 2 thinking) but that is how we differ ourselves from computer, I think. This book is highly recommended. Only I learn more about Psychology of human beings, I also go to refresh my knowledge on probability theory.
Surrounded by idiots, Thomas Erikson
Psychology, Read in April 2022
What a coincident! It’s the book that my colleague (who sees himself as blue) and my girlfriend (who sees herself as green) were reading at the same period. I didn’t pay much attention back then but after hearing spoils from those people I was curious which color I was exactly. Was I Red/Green/Blue/Yellow?
It’s too easy to say that everyone on earth is different. People often say that we should emphatize each other but then how you would translate such ideological thought into daily practice. It’s surprised to see what others think/feel under an action/event/situation. People are grouped into 4 types probably to simplify the explanation and most important of all to let the readers reflect/associate themselves as one of the group.
It’s funny to see a reflection of myself as a red person - describing in the book. At the same time, it’s a hard lesson to learn that something so normal to a red personal trait could hurt other personality.
Layered Money, Nik Bhatia
History, Read in March 2022
Bitcoin, Crypto, to be honest I felt skeptical since it’s gained so much attention over the past few years, as for trading/buy&sell/making-profit. Until, one of the colleage who is so much into it talks about the story of money when we first met around end of last year. I started to realize that I was way too bias than I actually know about it. I started to learn about Etherium mining. I mined and cashed out the first 10 dollars. Then, it’s all started to get interesting. It’s such a pity being programmer but actually knowing nothing about this upcoming tech.
After 3 months, I met the same Bitcoin guy for the second time. He talked about this book that he just finished. I am into the book because it’s not about Bitcoin or Crypto but it’s more about “the history of money”. It’s interesting to actually learn what’s money, how was it developed and to judge by yourself if crypto is a possible/potential/future-proven solution to the leveled economics.