Colin Marks's Blog, page 14

Review: Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing by Elisabeth Hendrickson

This is a quick read and offers some sensible approaches to exploratory software testing. There’s no great insights, and personally I don’t feel I’m going to approach testing any differently as a result of this book, but it certainly contains information that others may find helpful.

See review on Goodreads.

Review: The Toy Makers by Robert Dinsdale

I’ve always loved magical realism, ordinary worlds elevated by enchantments. My bookshelves are lined with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books, I’ve been stunned by the capacity of Jorge Luis Borges, and more recently, I enjoyed The Night Circus (which will draw many comparisons with the Toy Makers). So it’s not a huge surprise that Robert Dinsdale’s The Toy Makers was right up my street.

The book is set in a toy shop in London, and spans the period from before and after the two world wars. It fol...

Review: How to be Champion: My Autobiography by Sarah Millican

My rating: 4 out of 5

This reads like it was knocked out by a ten-year-old with touerrets, but Sarah Millican’s autobiography, “How to be Champion”, has an endearing honesty that makes it very readable. She writes about her life, with each chapter appended by a few comic how-to-be-champion suggestions to get the book onto both the biography and self-help shelves.

If you’re a fan of Sarah Millican’s stage shows, which I am, then you won’t be disappointed – the self-deprecating humour is there,...

Review: Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit

My rating: 4 out of 5

Dirk Kurbjuweit has written a well-crafted literary novel that bounces around the life of the semi-autobiographical character Randolf, his highly strung but intelligent and gorgeous wife Rebecca, and their two children. He follows their turmoil as Dieter Tiberius, the downstairs neighbour, becomes more and more sinister, appearing to threaten his wife and their children. He explores what it means to be suspected of a serious crime, of abusing your kids, how you doubt you...

The Airbnb Story: How Three Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions of Dollars … and Plenty of Enemies by Leigh Gallagher

My rating: 4 out of 5

I read business books and blogs, so was keen to read this one – to see what hurdles the three Airbnb founders encountered, how their product revolutionised the travel industry, and what impact their product has had on individuals and communities. Leigh Gallagher’s The Airbnb Story does address bits of the first two but it’s very much a company manual, even the criticism is framed positively. The three founders are impressive individuals and have taken huge steps to learn...

Review: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

My rating: 4 out of 5

I listen to a range of podcasts (personal development, many aimed at writing, and a few for business skills) and Steven Pressfield’s War of Art kept being mentioned as influential to the many creative and entrepreneurial guests. It’s easy to see why: it gives life and personality to concepts like procrastination and creative flair, and once fully formed, these can be banished or embraced depending on how you proceed with your habits and lifestyle.

I’ve come across Pressf...

Review: Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

My rating: 5 out of 5

Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 made the Man Booker 2017 long list, his second novel to be long listed (his If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things made the 2002 list) and it’s good candidate to take the prize. The story revolves around the disappearance of Rebecca Shaw, a teenager holidaying in the timeless unnamed village at the centre of this novel. Unlike every other novel with this plot-line, instead of focusing on the mystery of the disappearance, the whodunit/what-happe...

Review: The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.

My rating: 5 out of 5

Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House was one of those treats where I started the book without knowing a thing about it. Immediately you know you’re in the safe hands of a storyteller, not just a plotter or a writer, but a craftsman who knows his story-telling trade. The story twists at the start while the characters settle down and the narrator (a neighbour to the Golden’s) is established, and then it jumps into a full blown...

Review: No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein

Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.

My rating: 4 out of 5

I should be the ideal audience for Naomi Klein’s “No is Not Enough” – I’m very much a liberal, very much opposed to all the things Trump, and a strong believer in the positives of immigration. However, I did struggle with this book, and in the end found myself skimming pages towards the end.

Naomi Klein is incredibly articulate and very informed on all these topics, the book is clearly well researched. My problem is that i...

Review: The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve

Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.

My rating: 5 out of 5

I first read Anita Shreve almost 20 years ago with A Pilot’s Wife, too long ago to remember the details, but not that long too forget that I enjoyed it. The Stars are Fire has similar themes: a family wrecked by an event, the wife emboldened while struggling through the aftermath. The writing is sparse, minimal sentences written in the present tense (seems to be the publishing trend this year), and emotionally detached pro...