Was Effective Altruism a creed to do good or a cover for personal greed? Does anyone understand the Crypto marketplace? Will you understand Crypto and Bitcoin exchanges and millisecond trading after immersing yourself in the pages of Michael Lewis’s new book GOING INFINITE? Maybe, but it will be a struggle.
What I can say is that you will get a good look at the persona, ethos and tactics of Sam Brinkman-Fried and exactly how he momentarily became the richest person in the world under 30 years of age. Brinkman’s rise and fall and the monetary and human wreckage he left behind is an astonishing story as told in Lewis’s unique style.
With Lewis’s book you need not have been in the courtroom to predict what would be a guilty on all counts verdict. You will understand why and may decide never to become a Crypto investor.
I disagree with the tepid reviews in the New York Times and Boston Globe about the NETFLIX mini series of Anthony Doerr’s novel All The Light We Cannot See. Of course no mini series or even a full length film can completely do justice to the book but the NETFLIX film interpretation is well worth viewing and I believe captures the essence of Doerr’s novel.
Search Gordon’s Good Reads for my take on the book.
Like all of Isaacson’s biographies you will come away with an intimate knowledge of the subject. Elon Musk is trademark Walter Isaacson excellence.
I choose to peak your interest in this very large volume by selecting quotes from throughout the book that I feel are particularly relevant to Musk and his formula for success. Some may even hint at his personal idiosyncrasies.
Move fast, blow things up, repeat. It’s not how well you avoid problems it’s how fast you figure out what the problem is and fix it.
Nobody is going to pay for something that looks like crap. The way to get a car company started was to build a high priced car first and then move to a mass-market model.
Every part, every process and every specification needs to have a person’s name attached to it to personalize blame when something goes wrong.
I think the best defense against the misuse of AI is to empower as many people as possible to have AI.
Musk made a rule to be wary of anyone whose confidence was greater than their competence.
And finally:
Is being unfiltered and untethered integral to who is is? Could you get the rockets to orbit or the transition to electric vehicles without accepting all aspects of him, hinged and unhinged.” Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world.Walter Isaacson.
Just like his biographies of Franklin, Jobs, Einstein, and da Vinci Elon Musk is a six hundred fifteen page read that is part of our nation’s history.
Some have, but so very many have not read Homer’sTHE ILIAD). Emily Wilson’s translation, THE ILIAD, puts this classic within the scope of almost any reader. Wilson has accomplished a remarkable feat in bringing to the reader in contemporary iambic pentameter this incredible poem of over 500 pages vividly telling the mythical story of the nine year siege by the Greeks of ancient Troy. None of the mythical and mortal characters are missing.
What makes Wilson’s work even more accessible is her carefully detailed introduction which perfectly sets the table for the giant epoch. Furthermore, in THE NOTES, Wilson writes summaries of each of the twenty four books (sections) of the poem. However, don’t look for the Trojan Horse in these verses. That story is told in another ancient tale OF Troy, the Aeneid by Virgil.
When I first opened THE ILIAD I admit it was daunting. But once I ventured into the poem it unfolded very logically despite the enormity of the plot and cast.
The ancient story has contemporary meaning. You can raid fine cattle or well fed sheep, and you can trade to get tripods and horses with fine golden manes. But human life does not come back again after it passes through the fence of teeth. No trade or rustling can recover it. (9.324.29)
Cowards and heroes have the same reward. Do everything or nothing-death still comes. ( 9.493.97)
THE ILIADteaches: In war, killers recognize no binding obligation to compensate the families of their victims. The only way the bereaved can recoup their losses is to kill the killer-whose comrades will demand vengeance in their turn. Killing begets killing, death begets death, and every loss of life generates further loss of life. ( THE ILIAD Introduction P2)
Ancient perspective for the world affairs of October, 2023.
The perfect author for a book on the Astors. Anderson Cooper is a journalist and he understands the culture because he is a Vanderbilt. Don’t discount the collaboration of Katherine Howe in the research and writing of ASTOR. She is brilliant in her own right as a novelist and historian.
This writer can not think of a better collaboration for the book. ASTOR has the organization, narrative and storytelling that comes from two excellent authors. In the book’s 279 concise pages you will learn of the Astor family and fortune and also receive a continuing glimpse into the vast American income inequality of then and now.
So much to learn of THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN FORTUNE in a most rewarding several hours. ASTOR is worth every minute.
You’ll explore as much about the New York City competitive newspaper environment at the turn of the 20th Century as you will about the discovery of the North Pole by either Robert PearyFrederick Cook! Darrell Hartman’s book is a fascinating enlightenment of the parallel stories, each with its own surprising turns. BATTLE OF INK AND ICE reads like a historical novel making all of the facts easily digestible.
Who got to the North Pole, Cook or Peary? Better yet, the book raises the prospect that neither of the men may have accomplished the feat.
The personalities of Cook and Peary are fascinating but the in sight into Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, James Gordon Bennett of the Herald, William Randolph Hearst of the Journal reveals the competitive environment of the period amongst the New York media barrons.
Who first reached the North Pole, which newspaper got the story right? You will be the judge.
Without hesitation, this superb work by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin is among the very best biographies I have read in recent years. I place the writing and research on a level with Robert Caro and Jon Meacham.
The wonder of this book is the understanding of Oppenheimer and his time and place in American History. The story of the Atomic Bomb is well known to many. However, the complexity and passages of Oppenheimer himself amid the social and political atmosphere in which he lived and worked is a revelation. The beauty of Bird’s and Sherwin’s writing is that you need not be a physicist to wrap yourself around the life and story of this complex scientist, intellectual and iconic American figure. The dimension of the book is enormous, foremost in its content, but also in size!
I am confident that reading THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY of J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER is a plus before seeing OPPENHEIMER the movie.
Isabel Allende weaves the characters in her new novel THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME with contemporary themes and political consciousness. The book is a perfect combination of fact and fiction just as she accomplished in another novel A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA.
Here, Allende strikes at the heart of the immigration issue while at the same time tugging at the heart with her prose.
Add THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME To your summer reading.
Yet another excellent work by Jon Meacham. AND THERE WAS LIGHT ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE is a detailed chronology of Lincoln’s positions on slavery from his early years in politics prior to the Civil War through the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a remarkable look not only at Lincoln’s changing personal views on abolition but how he managed this toxic issue as a master politician.
Meacham coaxes the reader to evolve along with Lincoln as the president wrestles emotionally, religiously and politically to ultimately envision and execute the correct route to not only abolish slavery but to save The Union.
Search gordonsgoodreads for these other works by Meacham. The Soul of America, American Lion Andrew Jackson and the White House,Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.
I doubt there is a greater perspective on Slavery than the July 4th, Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered before an audience in Rochester, New York. Applewood Books of Carlisle, New York published the complete text, WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY? It is available of Amazon for $9.99. It is worthy of all American households.
Gordon's Good Reads 