Review: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a truly The Big Picture Book. It takes seemingly impossible task - to cover all the major events of the humankind in 500 pages. And it does it surprisingly well - focusing on what has mattered most to humans and the planet, with the good dose of humour and controversy.

Harari makes some unexpected arguments that really make you think and consider history and present. What a sheer intelligence!

He starts with how humans became so special compared to other animals and how big of a role domestication of fire has played in it. Then came the collective myths and collective imagination which later gave birth to larger communities, trade, states, even empires.

A very intriguing is Harari's argument that the varied life of hunters-gatherers was not necessarily all that bad compared to the miserable and dull life of "most of the peasant, shepherds, labourers and office clerks who followed in their footsteps". He argues that it is not humans who domesticated wheat. It really domesticated us - meaning that humans have done all they could to make wheat (or other selected types of plants we use for food) survive and thrive.

Another interesting and sad paradox:

"Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that every lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueller."

Harari then breaks the process of internationalisation and globalisation into three elements behind it: trade and capitalism, empires and universal religions. He describes the role all three have played in unification of the humankind, with both good and bad sides related to it.

Scientific Revolution is given a separate large role in the book:

"The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance: the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions."

Science has fuelled both trade and empires - and vice versa. It both has given humankind countless technological, geographical and biological discoveries, but also massive slave trade between Europe, Africa and America and breakdown of the role of traditional families and communities.

Good writing, good examples, intelligent humour, well-weighted arguments - it was an enjoyable reading I can recommend to anyone.

Review: This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The long-term cybersecurity journalist from the New York Times writes her account of how the area of cyberespionage and cyberwar has evolved in the recent decades.

It really sheds the lights on how state and state-affiliated actors exploit vulnerabilities (so-called zero-days) in software to spy and inflict damages on those they don't like. Something previously unknown to me was the detailed description of how the global market for vulnerabilities works - where hackers can sell their hacks to someone who wants to exploit them before anyone else gets to know (and is able to patch the problems). A software vulnerability can cost thousands dollars if it is a buggy and not very significant software - or tens of millions dollars if it is a closed and well-guarded environment such as Apple.

The story of NSA and revelations by Snowden are also well described. The main problem with NSA is arguably that it found and bought vulnerabilities in software used by millions across the globe - without saying anything to its vendors such as Microsoft, Oracle, Google and others (in order to preserve its advantage towards foes). However, not-so-nice state actors have eventually learnt about these vulnerabilities too - and have inflicted damages on many businesses and have stolen national secrets around many places.

The inner world of cybersecurity specialists and hackers is interestingly depicted - how has the industry come to be and how has it developed.

As for the disadvantages of the book, there are unfortunately several of them. For the first, I would have liked to read somewhat more technical accounts of how the things have worked (and have been broken) in cybersecurity domain - instead of the author's numerous personal stories of her mingling with hackers. The book is often bogged down in the U.S politics and administrative relations and is somewhat too long. Alarmist repetitions about the nuclear plants and hospitals being wired to the World Wide Web get annoying when reading them every 50th page or so.

Still, it is an eye-opening insight depicting the global cyberthreats and cyberbattles of 2000s-2020s.

Review: Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have heard about the Opioid Crisis in USA, but have never known the actual roots and consequences.

This book, based on excellent investigative journalism, covers the story of Sacklers, the family which started their business in selling prescription drugs back in the 1930s. The first generation of Sacklers benefitted a lot thanks to smart selling tactics of anti-depressants. The second and the third generation of Sacklers benefitted even more by selling painkillers based on opioids via their main company Purdue Pharma (which was selling the best-selling drug OxyContin). The opioids are the medications prescribed by doctors to treat pain. They have essentially similar effects as morphine or heroine. They have proven to be highly addictive.

Investigations by Keefe revealed how ingeniously intertwined were Sacklers' efforts to both educate doctors and market to doctors. They have used aggressive sales tactics towards doctors, while at the same time sponsoring conferences, medical journals and retreats for medical community. They have managed to get officials from drug administration on their side too.

And, along the way, Sacklers were carefully developing their image as generous philanthropists of arts and education (preferring never to speak where the wealth has come from). They made many galleries and institutes were called after Sacklers.

It is a story of the worst of capitalism, unchecked, unlimited. You can essentially bribe doctors who get paid more when selling more medications to a population which spends more if they get addicted more. It is a visualisation of why healthcare as total in USA costs way more per capita than in any other developed country of the world.

Review: Эшелон на Самарканд

Эшелон на Самарканд by Guzel Yakhina
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Очень сильная книга. Это повесть о начале 1920-х, массовом голоде на Поволжье и множестве детей, которые гибли из-за этого. Это повесть о результатах кровопролитной войны (гражданская война в России), о том, то делает с людьит голод, но также о человеческой доброте, целеустремлённости и детском доверии и непосредственности.

Хорошо суммирует посыл книги цитата доктора-фельдшера Буга: "Неправильная она, твоя доброта, внучек. Шиворот-навыворот." Это о людях, которые помогали эшелону поезда из Казани в Самарканд, везшему детей, оставшихся без родителей. Эти же помощники - чекисты, белые казаки, разкулачивающие коммунисты - до этого воевали, грабили, убивали. Доброта на фоне зла. Надежда на фоне потерянности.

Запала в душу трагичная история Загрейки, ребенка, который обрёл "брата" и слепо следует ему везде и всегда - даже когда "брат" уже не в своём уме.

Review: No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am always fascinated by the stories behind a success. Yes, there is often luck involved - which successful entrepreneurs and leaders tend not to mention. But there is certainly something to learn from the company which revolutionised the way we watch films and series - globally.

This book reveals some "secrets" of the way Netflix is run. Some of them are rather obvious: hire talented people and pay them well, encourage a lot of (actionable) feedback and be transparent. Some other methods are more intriguing. For example, encouraging yous employees listen to recruiters and ask what salary can be provided - and then match it to make sure your employee doesn't leave because of money. Or so-called live 360 sessions - where all members of the team are openly giving feedback to each other during a 3-5 hour session.

A lot of learnings from the book are not new. Many of them (being transparent towards employees, nurturing your talent, culture of learning from mistakes) are actively practiced (especially in a tech sector). It was still interesting to read how systematic Netflix seems to be regarding these principles. For example, their official feedback guidelines:
#1 give feedback with positive intent
#2 give actionable feedback
#3 appreciate feedback
#4 accept or disregard feedback.

And there is this oh-so-hard-management-truth that one needs to remind oneself time-to-time:

“If a person on your team were to quit tomorrow, would you try to change their mind? Or would you accept their resignation, perhaps with a little relief? If the latter, you should give them a severance package now, and look for a star, someone you would fight to keep.”

The book is well structured and easy to read. Good anecdotical stories to support.

Review: The Value of Everything

The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What is value? What is valued? What is more valuable than something else?

Is it as simple as value = price that market pays for it?

The book takes a provocative stand against the way the value of goods, services, GDP etc is calculated.
For example, a resource that is destroyed by pollution may not be counted as a subtraction from GDP – but when pollution is cleaned up by marketed services, GDP increases. An obvious paradox it is.

One notorious example of where creating and extracting value has been mixed up in the recent decades, according to Mazzucato, is financial sector. If before it was mainly about financing 'real' economy, then most of finance today is about trading between various financial institutions.

"Finance is valuable simply because it is valued, not because it creates that much value."

One of the main arguments of the book is that much of valuable investment that fosters society is done by public / government (schools, universities, basic science, roads, radical innovation such as Internet) - but its role is routinely seen as mostly a 'regulator' that should not intervene in an otherwise free-standing market economy.

Although well researched and making one to think critically, the book does not really offer a solution of how to measure real value of anything - what shall and what shall not be considered when saying that something is of value X and not Y. It is also somewhat idealistic about the value-creating nature of the state. In many cases having government investing into common good is indeed desirable - yet in many other (more?) cases around the world it tends to lead to cronyism, corruption and nepotism.

Review: Ramon Pons: Count of Toulouse

Ramon Pons: Count of Toulouse by Michael A. Ponzio
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A tale about the Count of Toulouse (the region in South Western France) in the early medieval times. This not very long book depicts his life as it "could have been", including his political manoeuvring, fighting with Saracens, Hungarians and others, building the monastery, serving the king in Paris and more.

The historical background of the book is well set. It was interesting to learn that Hungarian tribes reached as far West as Catalonia. The Roman heritage and deep religious influence of Christianity in all aspects of life in medieval France were depicted very well too.

However, overall, the book is quite one-dimensional: plain characters, plain language, not very realistic dialogues (where characters explain to each other history of the places etc) and all these references to Pons / Pontus and origins of the surname. The latter might be exciting for the author (imagining where his surname might originate from and where it has left all its traces), but was just too repetitive to encounter again and again.

Review: Why We Sleep

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is a passionate book about a very impassionate part of everyone's life - about sleep. Matthew Walker walks us through numerous studies, experiments and analogies to prove the point - sleep is essential for our wellbeing. However, being members of the fast-pacing modern world, we tend to cut on sleep.

It is enlightening book, based on the years of research and it is spiced up with a good dose of humour. Easy to read, but really makes you think - a wonderful combination.

At some point, I felt somewhat overflow of all these studies and examples to prove one point - that sleep helps against many maladies we experience. Still, a worthwhile read - it goes deep into the whole essence of what sleep is all about and what impacts it (and vice versa).

Some selected passages I found particularly interesting:

Our sleep cycles tend to be different during different periods of life. But our society is often not supporting them (in particular, teenagers whose natural sleep cycle would start and end later than what the school day requires of them).

"You do not know how sleep-deprived you are when you are sleep-deprived". The low-level exhaustion after just too little sleep chronically becomes our accepted norm, or baseline.

We need to sleep enough to reach the REM (or dreaming) phase of sleep. That makes us remember what we would like to remember from the day before - and provides emotional healing to cope with the difficult events in our lives. Moreover, the REM sleep literally creates new connections in our brains - allowing for greater creativity.

"In this fast-paced, information-overloaded modern world, one of the few times we stop our persistent informational consumption and inwardly reflect is when our heads hit the pillow. There is no worse time to consciously do this. It is difficult to initiate sleep when we worry about things we did today, things that we forgot to do, things that we must face in the coming days, and even those far in the future."

One of the worst offenders of our sleep in the modern world are ubiquitous electric and LED lights. "Artificial light in our indoor worlds tricks us into believing night is still day."

Another backside of modern civilisation apparently is regularised temperature. We are wired to sleep in the night when it is naturally colder. The room temperature should rather vary to reflect this natural pattern too.

Walker himself stresses that "If only adhering to one advice each and every day, then it is: stick to a sleep schedule. Go to bed and wake up at the same time of day no matter what (even on weekends)."

There are many other valuable pieces of advice. Some are rather well-known like avoiding caffeine and alcohol before sleep. Yet others are less obvious, although very well explained like removing any visible clocks from the sleeping room (not to feed sleep anxiety)or not lying awake in bed for a significant time period (rather get out, do something relaxing, get sleepy and go back to bed).

I can definitely recommend it.