My Book Reviews

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...

ISBN : 978-1509841103 Verdict :  👍👍   I read this book a year ago, so thought I would post my review on this blog, it presents an interesting view for those like me have consulted both for the UK Ministry of Justice & a CRC as mentioned on p327  If you work in the profession or are a student of Law then this book is worth a read as it describes how the UK Legal System is not perfect highlighting highlight its failures (structures, budgets & conducts) while providing a great insight into the workings of British Judicial System Below I have listed some highlights from the book; ·       There is no excuse for the amateur,  sausage-factory paradigm of justice and ‘that’ll do’ complacency that pervades 94percent of criminal cases…p56 ·       Politicians persuade voters that 1p off a pint of lager is a better investment than a working justice system    p326 ·   ...

ISBN 978-0-7858-3052-8  Verdict :   👍👍 👍 Originally this book was written in 1900 (revised in 1905 ) by the amazing Japanese Scholar / Public officer who had a deep appreciation of Western Civilisation through the times and had appreciation for the Classics allowing him to analyse and compare the teachings of the Japanese Bushido (Samurai) in a Feudal System with that of the European counterparts through history A nice short read ! I found this amazing book on my travels earlier this year – Originally I was attracted to this Hardback book  by its use of the Traditional Chinese Book Binding techniques – Just holding / reading this book gives one great pleasure ~ especially If like me you are interested in Physical Books that present  Lessons of Value – Then maybe you would want to buy a copy. When Nitobe talks of the Influence of Bushido he states “ What Japan was she owed to the samurai. They were not only the flower of the nation but its...