You Don't Love Me Yet

You Don't Love Me Yet is a novel written by Jonathan Lethem about a dysfunctional set of relationships revolving around the members of a band trying to make their mark. There's even a kangaroo thrown in for good measure, alongside the breakups, hookups, recriminations, flameouts, and arguments. I'm just not even sure what to say about this book; it's not my type of fiction, and the last 30 pages just seemed to drag on a bit.

Values-Driven Business

Values-Driven Business is a little book written by Ben Cohen and Mal Warwick about how to run a for-profit business without sacrificing compassion for people and communities for the pursuit of profits. The book doesn't go into any detail on standard business management techniques, or how to actually generate a profit (although it does offer the unsupported correlation that given two equal businesses, the values-driven one would be more successful than the non-values driven one). The name of the book is a bit of a misnomer, since it seems like most businesses have some set of values, albeit values that don't play nicely with those of the authors. For managers that want to lessen their companies' negative environmental impact, or boost morale, there are some useful checklists and case studies. Those checklists boil down to treat people fairly, ask for and listen to their input, and look for green suppliers and processes to minimize waste.

Smart & Gets Things Done

Joel Spolsky's latest book, Smart and Gets Things Done is a short little book that reprises a bunch of his web essays. It quickly goes through why hiring good developers is a good idea, how to locate them, deal with them, woo them, and screen them out from the masses of mediocre developers. It's a good read, although short on details at times, but with plenty of pointers to more information (it made me order Peopleware, for instance), and required reading for anyone trying to grow a software company (and probably any company composed of knowledge workers).

The Sand Cafe

Neil MacFarquhar wrote The Sand Cafe after the first gulf war, but this inside look at the life of a foreign correspondent in the Middle East sounds like it could have easily been set in the second conflict as well, judging by the current complaints from journalists. The novel quite clearly shows the culture divide between the U.S. and the Middle East, in a way that is both funny and sad. I could have done with less of the romantic angle of the novel, though, as the bits about the clash of cultures and the journalistic process were more than interesting enough to fill a book.

Building Leaders the West Point Way

Building Leaders the West Point Way, written by former Commandant of Cadets at West Point Joseph Franklin (also an alumni of MIT) is a short interesting book for potential leaders. While strongly based on his military experience, the lessons definitely apply to the business world, even though not many business-people have to deal with small unit tactics. The gist of the book can be found simply in the chapter titles though: duty, honor, faith, courage, perseverance, confidence, approachability, adaptability, compassion, and vision. Those ten qualities are mostly self-explanatory, and I doubt I'll read the book again.