{"id":175,"date":"2008-01-27T03:14:32","date_gmt":"2008-01-27T09:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/taking-requests-for-book-reviews\/"},"modified":"2013-12-23T12:18:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T19:18:25","slug":"taking-requests-for-book-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/taking-requests-for-book-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Requests for Book Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the first things I did when I started the blog last year was to write reviews of the books I read<\/a>. Since I had a 45 minute train ride each way to and from work, I cranked through a lot of books, and when I tried to write reviews to keep up with all of them, I realized I liked reading better than writing. So I stopped writing reviews and kept reading tons.<\/p>\n

Now, I have a driving commute and my reading has ground to a halt. I’ve also started writing much more in general, so I thought I’d pick up my old book reviewing pen and take another crack at it. One twist: this time, I’ll use a classic Threadless<\/a>\/Tim Ferriss<\/a> technique: demand measurement. Rather than me choosing which reviews will be most valuable, I’ll let you, yes you, my dozens of readers, decide which of all the books I’ve read you’d like to hear my take on. And if I don’t hear from anyone, I’ll just write other stuff!<\/p>\n

(Funny story that got me thinking about book reviews again: when I was looking at the Search Engine terms that led people to my blog, I noticed several searches for book reviews. Not bad considering I’ve only written four. I also saw “pictures of a head in a vise” and wondered what my blog had to do with that. Well, I have a category “Pictures”, my blog title is “What’s in Peter’s Head”, and I wrote a review of a book by David Vise. Organic search results at their finest!)<\/p>\n


\nHere are the books I’ve already reviewed:<\/p>\n

The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor–and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!<\/a> by Tim Harford (review<\/a>)
\nThe Google Story<\/a> by David Vise (review<\/a>)
\nMathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor<\/a> by John Allen Paulos (review<\/a>)
\nThe Ecology of Commerce<\/a> by Paul Hawken (review<\/a>)<\/p>\n

And here is a list of books I’ve read in the last couple years but haven’t reviewed (don’t worry, I’m not as anal as this looks. I have a wish-list on Amazon where I keep track of books as I finish reading them. A little text-munging got me this list), alphabetical by author’s first name, then title. Please leave a comment to cast your vote.<\/p>\n

A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside One of America’s Best High Schools<\/a> by Alec Klein
\nA Death in Vienna<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nA Random Walk Down Wall Street: Including a Life-Cycle Guide to Personal Investing<\/a> by Burton G. Malkiel
\nA Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition<\/a> by Burton G. Malkiel
\nANSI Common LISP<\/a> by Paul Graham
\nBasilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter’s<\/a> by R. A. Scotti
\nBeautiful Evidence<\/a> by Edward R. Tufte
\nBeginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional (Rails)<\/a> by Christian Hellsten
\nBeyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine<\/a> by J. Storrs Hall
\nBiomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature<\/a> by Janine M. Benyus
\nBoomsday<\/a> by Christopher Buckley
\nBringing Down the House : The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions<\/a> by Ben Mezrich
\nCan I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond<\/a> by Paul Shirley
\nConquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels<\/a> by Jill Jonnes
\nContact<\/a> by Carl Sagan
\nCradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things<\/a> by William McDonough
\nCreating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home<\/a> by Sarah Susanka
\nEnvisioning Information<\/a> by Edward R. Tufte
\nFlight Capital: The Alarming Exodus of America’s Best and Brightest<\/a> by David Heenan
\nForever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago’s Lakefront<\/a> by Lois Wille
\nFree Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea<\/a> by Seth Godin
\nGenius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds<\/a> by Jan Davidson
\nHackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age<\/a> by Paul Graham
\nHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2)<\/a> by J.K. Rowling
\nHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)<\/a> by J. K. Rowling
\nHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4)<\/a> by J. K. Rowling
\nHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)<\/a> by J. K. Rowling
\nHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)<\/a> by J. K. Rowling
\nHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3)<\/a> by J.K. Rowling
\nHarry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1)<\/a> by J. K. Rowling
\nHidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life<\/a> by David D. Friedman
\nHigh Season: How One French Riviera Town Has Seduced Travelers for Two Thousand Years<\/a> by Robert Kanigel
\nHome by Design: Transforming Your House Into Home<\/a> by Sarah Susanka
\nInnumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (Vintage)<\/a> by John Allen Paulos
\nJoel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity<\/a> by Joel Spolsky
\nJohn von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing (History of Computing)<\/a> by William Aspray
\nJustinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe<\/a> by William Rosen
\nMeta Math!: The Quest for Omega<\/a> by Gregory Chaitin
\nNatural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution<\/a> by Paul Hawken
\nNegotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute, Revised<\/a> by Jack Chapman
\nNot So Big Solutions for Your Home (Susanka)<\/a> by Sarah Susanka
\nOn Intelligence<\/a> by Jeff Hawkins
\nPermission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers<\/a> by Seth Godin
\nPrince of Fire<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nRich Dad’s Rich Kid, Smart Kid: Giving Your Children a Financial Headstart<\/a> by Robert T. Kiyosaki
\nSatan, Cantor and Infinity and Other Mind-boggling Puzzles<\/a> by Raymond M. Smullyan
\nSixty Million Frenchmen Cant Be Wrong<\/a> by Jean-Benoit Nadeau
\nSoon I Will Be Invincible: A Novel<\/a> by Austin Grossman
\nTalk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators<\/a> by Riccardo Orizio
\nThank You for Smoking<\/a> by Christopher Buckley
\nThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich<\/a> by Timothy Ferriss
\nThe Art of UNIX Programming (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)<\/a> by Eric S. Raymond
\nThe Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky<\/a> by Joel Spolsky
\nThe Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better<\/a> by Seth Godin
\nThe Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable<\/a> by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
\nThe Bootstrapper’s Bible: How to Start and Build a Business With a Great Idea and (Almost) No Money<\/a> by Seth Godin
\nThe Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary<\/a> by Eric S. Raymond
\nThe Children Of Men<\/a> by P.D. James
\nThe Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual<\/a> by Christopher Locke
\nThe Confessor<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nThe Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists<\/a> by Michael Brower
\nThe English Assassin<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nThe Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent<\/a> by Richard Florida
\nThe Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number<\/a> by Mario Livio
\nThe Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials)<\/a> by Clayton M. Christensen
\nThe Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth<\/a> by Clayton M. Christensen
\nThe Kill Artist<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nThe Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan<\/a> by Robert Kanigel
\nThe Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (Great Discoveries)<\/a> by David Leavitt
\nThe Messenger<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nThe Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)<\/a> by Frederick P. Brooks
\nThe Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live<\/a> by Sarah Susanka
\nThe Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master<\/a> by Andrew Hunt
\nThe Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life<\/a> by Richard Florida
\nThe Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon)<\/a> by Daniel Silva
\nThe Violin Maker: Finding a Centuries-Old Tradition in a Brooklyn Workshop<\/a> by John Marchese
\nThe Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition<\/a> by Edward R. Tufte
\nTuring (A Novel about Computation)<\/a> by Christos H. Papadimitriou
\nVisual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative<\/a> by Edward R. Tufte<\/p>\n

Thanks and I hope some of these titles sound interesting!<\/p>\n

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One of the first things I did when I started the blog last year was to write reviews of the books I read. Since I had a 45 minute train ride each way to and from work, I cranked through a lot of books, and when I tried to write reviews to keep up with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book-review","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pazgP-2P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}