My Book Reviews

ISBN: 978-1-118-97221-2 Verdict:  👍👍   Note : Ive given this book 2 thumbs, primarily because its not for everyone and domain specific but this does not reflect the value I derived from it.    If you work for a US🇺🇸 Regulated organisation or one that undertakes operations in the US and is thus subject to some of the strict US regulatory Controls  ⚖️ then this is a book you should read. Some parts are very technical and go into detail around the creation and delivery of legislation but all in all its a well written book that delivers value and explains the role and capabilities (enforcement / fines) for some of the organisations e.g. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). I picked up this book as currently I am consulting for a Global bank with vast operations in the US and needed to understand the role of the SEC , FINRA etc  and the book helped by starting  in the forward with something that hits the nail on the head i.e. "Compliance is...

I SBN :  978-1786 494566 Verdict :  👍👍   A nice short read, with some great facts, that make one think about the general perceptions we have a bias for  about 'stuff' across the globe. I think this is a good follow on read from FACTFULNESS by Hans Rosling  (See previous review) - it builds upon the same outcomes i.e. the world is not as bad as we all think it is . The reference to recent events (Brexit/Trump etc) adds great value and below are my favourite bits  over 90 percent of the data on the internet was created in the last 2 years;44 billion gigabytes of data were created on the internet every day in 2016 ( p10 ). My favourite quote in the book was on p43 ; A story is most important to us in how it ends, and thus the ending effects how we remember it and its lessons for future decisions. ( p43 )  A lot of our fear is driven not by the unknown, but by an apparent misunderstanding of the facts ( p96 )   we've known for a long...

I SBN :  978-1781259658 Verdict :  👍👍   Financial fraud, a derivative of a financial crime, is an interesting topic - For someone who has spent quite a bit of time researching this topic from a regulatory and systems perspective ( transactional monitoring and pattern recognition) this book was on my reading list. The book does not disappoint it is a nice read and I did enjoy it - although chapter 8 was a bit of  curve ball in the sense the author went all  biblical side in terms of crime - which did not interest me , but others may find it useful to read. My highlighter did get used quite a bit and the following are just some of the bits I enjoyed seeing ;   You can tell more about the structure of any industry by looking at patterns of payments than you can from any ‘five forces’ or SWOT analysis (p29) People don’t check upon things which they believe to have been ‘signed off’. The threat is now inside the perimeter . ...

ISBN: 978-1-78125-055-6 Verdict:  👍👍   👍   👍     The story of the Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) is a truly remarkable one in which the transformation from a small bank located in a small fishing village, on the Hong Kong waterfront 155 years ago, to that of one of the largest financial global businesses and hence worthy of a understanding in terms of development , ethos and culture – This book covers some of the years from 1970 to 2014ish.   The book charts the history and key decisions surrounding some major global events in history e.g. the transfer of the island of Hong Kongs sovereignty back to China when the lease expired and the subsequent decisions made to ensure the associated risks were mitigated from political and economic forces.   The 622 pages of banking history is not for everyone and mapped to major economic events which makes it an interesting read and my highlighter 📝 was fully used ! – There are several pearl...

ISBN 978-1-891396-81-6 Verdict :  👍👍   👍 This famous short book on the  Id, ego and super-ego  is only 88 pages, but took me a few days as I needed to think about some of the some excellent points.   My favourite quote came on page 11 where he states " To contradict them at this point would lead to nothing more profitable than a war of words"  - This phrase can be used in so many circumstances ? This is one of those books, due to its size, is worth reading even if you do not find psychology  interesting and hence a very short  review.   Some points I highlighted below ;   Every Individual there is a coherent organization of mental process, which we call the ego  He uses the term “Visual Thinking” and “ verbal images(concepts, abstractions)” Talking about assumptions – “ I am putting forward nothing but a supposition; I have no proof to offer.” “Anxiety is the expression of a recoil from danger.”    

I SBN :  978-0691172798 Verdict :  👍👍   👍 This is one of those books that you have to read in full to fully appreciate, with its well-researched examples to support the concept behind the book.  The book highlights how current automation and Artificial intelligent(AI) systems trends can be used with an historical economic lens to project and address the economic, political and social affects that will arise and by using examples from the industrial revolution when technology displaced workers we can predict the effects of technologies like driverless cars. I like the structured approach to present the argument and learnt along the way with references to various paradox ( Moravec, Polanyi etc. .) which I had not come across before and had to look up  Here are some bits I highlighted in the book. however, there were quite a few so I couldn't  list them all ; The pre-industrial era did not suffer a shortage of imagination, it suffered from a shortage o...

ISBN :  978-0-609-90899 Verdict :  👍👍   👍👍 I actually read this book when it was first published, about 19 years ago, hence the ISBN number does not correspond to that on Amazon ( weird ). However, I decided to revisit this book after reading a misleading post from an IBM Employee promoting the historical credentials in a positive way.  So I picked it up again and scan read taking note of the bits I had previously highlighted approx 2 decades ago to write this review. I t’s one of those books that one should read if interested in the link / connection between business and political regimes.   IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions anticipating the Reich's needs. The amazing thing is that IBM did not sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed to execute the functionality of the machine - execute being an key word ! For m...

ISBN : 0-393-048133 Verdict :  👍👍   👍👍 If like me you grew up during the internet period of the 90’s - a period when ridiculous money was made by a few, who had first mover advantages, taking advantage of new business models using the internet as the channel - you will love this book especially if you were a Netscape Browser user like me hence my 4 thumbs ! The author followed the billionare Jim Clarke for years , observing and capturing key bits of information i.e. the early world of Jim Clark the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon (all billion dollar companies) – he shares a lot but not the intricate details e.g. he mentions the Microsoft Monopoly case but doesn’t tell us about the outcomes . My favourite quote in the book is – “ a thousand people don’t build anything, if you need to build something really complicated really fast, you hire fifty of the smartest people you can find ” p77   This made me smile -   Clark had a...

ISBN : 978-1857151848 Verdict :  👍👍   My first review of 2020 💥 as I’ve been a bit preocupied completing  and getting my new book out. I picked this book up because I wanted to get a better understanding of    the Confucian way of thinking, which in part I did, but did struggle with this. The Analects    were written after Confucius died, when    his students put together records of things Confucius had told them, in essence this is the translation of notes, hence called the    Analects. This book requires some extra    thought especially with the footnotes to at the bottom of the page but it’s important to note ( p19 ) that “ Confucius describes himself as a transmitter , not an originator ”. The book is filled with some great quotes, however be prepared to read the first 71 pages from the Translator explaining some of his t his interpretations from the original notes. Some extracts be...