Considering I'd spent the last four years living in the neighborhood that formerly contained the Chicago meatpacking industry and that my favorite steConsidering I'd spent the last four years living in the neighborhood that formerly contained the Chicago meatpacking industry and that my favorite steakhouse is literally inside a repurposed cold storage warehouse, I figured it was time to finish reading this book.
Because so much time had passed since I read the introduction, I forgot whether this was a work of fiction or not. The story remained believable for long stretches, only being undone by the fast pace and overwhelming morbidity.
It felt like a necessary read, through and through. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in early 20th-century American history. Especially those who, like me, have descended from those who immigrated to the US in the early 20th century. The socialist aspect at the conclusion is unfortunate but it provides meaningful context, albeit at the expense of a memorable conclusion. ...more
I do like organized crime, having dazed through the Godfather trilogy the day my wisdom teeth were removed and recently watching Goodfellas on an airpI do like organized crime, having dazed through the Godfather trilogy the day my wisdom teeth were removed and recently watching Goodfellas on an airplane. I also like Irish men (and Irish women, for that matter). What drew me to this book was not the Netflix special I'll never watch, but the specter of Russel Buffalino which looms over my hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
I'm a pretty dark, detached dude, but by the end of I Heard You Paint Houses, I found my interest in the criminal underworld waning. (view spoiler)[Okay, you transported the rifles supposedly used to kill JFK. Okay, you killed Jimmy Hoffa and the FBI immediately identified almost all of the prime suspects. (hide spoiler)] It just seems so senseless when considering that rampant corruption continues to do so much damage to my home region in Pennslyvania.
This was all before my time, and, as the foreword suggested, I had no idea who Jimmy Hoffa was. There's this weird persistent irony where the narrative has to be constructed partially from Frank Sheeran's bedside testimony but that his speaking or "slightly nodding" in response to the author's questioning is heretical. Makes for good books and great television, but drives home the point that nobody living this life could ever truly reconcile the financial loss they caused or the grief they inflicted....more
Anticlimactic and divergent from the implication of the title which is that commodities traders closely collaborate [to fix prices and harm society?].Anticlimactic and divergent from the implication of the title which is that commodities traders closely collaborate [to fix prices and harm society?]. Kate Kelly is a talented investigative reporter but I fail to understand where she is coming from with the tone of this book, which struck me as unnecessarily harsh.
What you will find interesting about commodities trading is that the "fundamentals" make the analysis of companies for equities trading look boring. Yes, it is true that higher grains prices can directly result in starvation in the most vulnerable parts of the world.
The stories here are disjointed and mainly go to show how many experts have no idea what they are doing and that they are often incentivized to take massive positions because being they rarely feel equivalent consequences of being wrong. If you're really into this kind of stuff and need new material because your friends won't find you interesting otherwise, it's worth a look....more
It's... really hard to like Rick Ross as a person. Forging a sinister and aloof persona used to come with the benefit of not having to spend much timeIt's... really hard to like Rick Ross as a person. Forging a sinister and aloof persona used to come with the benefit of not having to spend much time working on public relations. Times, as you're aware, have changed.
To summarize why this guy needed 288 pages to set the record straight:
1. He was a correctional officer for 18 months and denied it when it was dug up. 2. He rapped about drugging a female's drink in 2013 when #MeToo was gaining steam. 3. During an interview, he made a comment that a desire to sleep with female artists was a reason he was reluctant to sign them to his label. 4. After a series of seizures and other health-related issues, many people speculated that he was hiding a serious drug addiction. 5. He was charged with beating his groundskeeper with a gun over money he was owed. 6. He acted really creepily around Angela Yee in a Breakfast Club interview in 2017. 7. The Maybach Music label was kind of a... bust. Meek Mill became a superstar but nobody has ever--ever--praised Ross's ability to hone and develop talent. 8. His rap name is that of a notable drug kingpin, who is still alive. 9. He hasn't had a mega-hit single since Hustlin' in 2006.
Hurricanes is an interesting, succinct, explanation(?) of why Rick Ross is Rick Ross. He's never apologetic but, thanks to the help of an excellent co-author, he makes amends in a straightforward, congenial, 2019 type of way.
I was impressed, especially as I finally synced up my playthrough of his discography with my reading pace. His career has been significant and he's a colossus of modern gangster rap. Most people don't realize how prolific he's been or how skillful and unique you have to be to have a deep discography where you're essentially saying the same thing over and over except after having made more money.
The book does a great job of facing the most public criticisms head-on. I don't think it does enough to address some of the more obscure concerns true fans will have, like how the assemblage of MMG talent on 2012's Power Circle never lived up to the hype....more
An accessible introduction to High-Frequency Trading (HFT). General enough so that it doesn't feel outdated. I suppose I would qualify as a practitionAn accessible introduction to High-Frequency Trading (HFT). General enough so that it doesn't feel outdated. I suppose I would qualify as a practitioner and this book (however "primitive" by others' standards) helped sharpen the edges and reinforce existing knowledge.
If you're interested in the topic or if you're friends with high-frequency traders who won't shut up about their day jobs, this is the book you should purchase. There's not much else out there aside from Inside the Black Box. ...more
In what is possibly the most absurd book I have ever read, Mike Tyson tells his life's story. I've always been a big fan, having worn a t-shirt with aIn what is possibly the most absurd book I have ever read, Mike Tyson tells his life's story. I've always been a big fan, having worn a t-shirt with a picture of Tyson's sprite from Punch-Out!! during most of my reading sessions.
In an effort to dance, strafe, and duck around cliches here, I implore every fan of sport and the human condition to pick up a copy of this book. The claims are outrageous, hilarious; sad, heartwrenching. To supplement the book with Youtube clips is a unique pleasure. To call Tyson a cultural icon after reading Undisputed Truth is to elevate the standard for cultural iconism....more
A touching tribute to my great uncle Frank Scioscia, who died one year before I was born. Frank was one of twelve siblings born in Scranton, PennsylvaA touching tribute to my great uncle Frank Scioscia, who died one year before I was born. Frank was one of twelve siblings born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Italian immigrants. He served in the Army before becoming a sales executive at what is now HarperCollins. He was most prominently memorialized for being the proprietor of Riverrun bookstore in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Though I am biased and though this book is simply a collection of anecdotes sent in by friends, family, and business associates, I believe it has relevance beyond those who had personal connections to my great uncle.
This is perhaps the best window into the life of a bookman just before that common noun fell to a lower rung of archaism. In 1996, when this work was published, insiders demurred the state of the industry while praising Frank's position in it. It is unclear to me whether digitization upended the rare book market in the same way they did the industry as a whole (not to imply that riverrun only dealt in antique books). I often wonder if the Scioscia brothers would have embraced this odd future wherein books don't have dust jackets and turning pages doesn't make noise.
The vignettes that once again give life to Frank Scioscia contain some of the most beautiful testimony to human character that I have ever read. My sphere of reference includes works of fiction and portraits of saints. If I had not heard stories firsthand from my relatives, I would have found some passages to be incomprehensible--wholly incompatible with my understanding of the world today. There are certain qualities that are becoming of a great man and I now doubt I knew all of them until I turned the last page of this book.
One entry recalls how Frank recommended his brother Carl for a job at Harper after just starting himself. My grandfather Carl getting that job sixty years ago is the Big Bang in my own origin story. Without Frank, my family's progenitor of devotion to books, I may not have come into existence. And if we were without his devotion to books yet I still existed, I wouldn't be half of the man I am today. Which is anyway a decimation of the quality of gentleman that Frank Scioscia was....more
Evidence that we're starting to run out of compelling titles for compelling books. If I was Billy Gallagher, I would have toyed with calling my book GEvidence that we're starting to run out of compelling titles for compelling books. If I was Billy Gallagher, I would have toyed with calling my book Ghosted, as that's what Evan Spiegel did to our poor author. And, well, you know--the Snapchat mascot is a ghost.
The story of Snap Inc. is pretty simple even if it is true that many adults have a hard time understanding the app that made it famous. The abridged version is this: 1. Evan's friend came up with an idea; 2. The idea worked; 3. Everyone thought it was for sexting; 4. It probably was for sexting; 5. Evan's friend who came up with the idea got booted; 6. Evan made a great call; 7. Evan made more great calls in an Odyssey of great calls; 7. Snapchat went public (I sold calls*).
The book's spirit wafts away once the author makes the unholy transition from privileged insider to shunned reporter. Maybe it is true that the second half of the book sucks but, as someone who doesn't pay much attention to tech news, the loss of color didn't really bother me. I would rather read a fun relevant book in 2019 than have to wait until I'm on my deathbed in fifteen years for some tool to tell me about how much of a Jobs-esque genius Evan Spiegel is. Maybe they'd even use words like "perspicacious" to describe him.
This is good work that seldom makes you wish you could lift your finger up and have it vanish.
Entertaining work from a great WSJ journalist. Feels like it's missing something, though, especially when sold alongside Billion Dollar Whale. InteresEntertaining work from a great WSJ journalist. Feels like it's missing something, though, especially when sold alongside Billion Dollar Whale. Interesting to me chiefly because I sit on a trading desk and have an affinity for stories pertaining to high finance, especially modern ones.
Ultimately, I found the title of the book to be hyperbolic even when the estimated loss--six billion dollars--dwarfs the sum stolen in the Billion Dollar Whale. I understand that the "what do we do about Libor" story is still playing out as I write this review, but it was hard for me to distinguish this from just another rogue trader tale.
I feel the author did a poor job of distinguishing Tom's competence as a trader from his competence as a manipulator. His Libor bullying is sometimes labeled as "5-10 percent" of his profit, but then, near the end, the courts found that roughly 2/3 of his trades probably have benefitted. Which kind of makes sense, because, you know, the guy spent his career trading interest rates. What else could he have possibly been trading? Were his only trades excluded from that number those that were executed intraday and thus impervious to interday Libor swings?
Also, for a book nearing 500 pages and seemingly intended for the prototypical WSJ reader, why couldn't we learn more about what it meant for Tom Hayes to be a "Math Genius"? It bothers me deeply that his autistic tendencies are mentioned once every five pages but we're offered no color on his trading activity/strategy aside from him having programmed Excel spreadsheets. What was really going on in his legit trades and why did a WSJ reporter consider it unimportant to the key audience?
And, for clarity, yes, apparently the banking system is still a mess....more
A book filled with mixed signals. As the use of "completely fine" might infer in 2019, this is a book about clinical depression with dashes of PTSD. SA book filled with mixed signals. As the use of "completely fine" might infer in 2019, this is a book about clinical depression with dashes of PTSD. So, yep, it won a bunch of awards. Tack on the topics of self-esteem, alcoholism, unrequited love, and dead-end jobs, throw in a cat for good measure, and you've got yourself a Goodreads masterpiece in 325 pages.
It's still a decent book. It's just hard to enjoy beyond the main character's unintentional one-liners stemming from her tragic upbringing and resulting isolation. I admit that the style carrying Eleanor Oliphant never approaches a modicum of triteness. But when it seems like all your hard work is about to pay off and the plot is about to become award-winning, you realize there are only twenty pages remaining and left are to deal with a ~*~mysterious~*~ twist. Because there are so many themes, none are covered in a satisfactory way, despite the writing being excellent.
There's nothing wrong with comingling happiness and sadness or depression with triumph. My issue is that it is too obvious that the author studied her audience and decided to go all in. Maybe I'm a bit jealous. And that's completely fine....more
451 Fahrenheit is the midrange temperature at which the paper used for books will ignite. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel about burning books. As 451 Fahrenheit is the midrange temperature at which the paper used for books will ignite. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel about burning books. As with any dystopian novel in which the central premise is the suppression of intellectual freedom, it will be relevant for a long time. Though the futuristic elements already seem dated. As soon as you start warming up to it, the light is extinguished.
Useful to study in tandem with 1984 as they were published during the same time period....more
Purchased this book before boarding a flight to Utah. Over the last few months, I'd heard it deemed many different things ranging from this year's HilPurchased this book before boarding a flight to Utah. Over the last few months, I'd heard it deemed many different things ranging from this year's Hillbilly Elegy to uh, eh, you know, one of those (my mother said this). I hoped to find meaning beyond these two poles (the former not necessarily being a superlative), but, ultimately, Educated was an engrossing book without being a breakout masterpiece. As usual, my mom was spot on.
Educated is a memoir by Tara Westover, who was raised by Mormon zealots in rural Idaho. Her father was a survivalist who probably had Schizophrenia, while her mother was a midwife who ended up founding a business called Butterfly Express that brews essential oils and other herbal remedies in cauldrons. I imagined her mother being witchlike, a characterization implied but never fully substantiated.
The premise of the book is simple. Tara had no formal schooling as her father thought the government and, by extension, the school system were evil. Tara's entire family works long hours in their dangerous scrapyard, eschewing most modern safety precautions. In a story punctuated by tragedies (many encountered at the intersection of Mormon extremist beliefs and the dangerous scrapyard), Tara teaches herself some things, scores a 28 on the ACT on her second time taking it, kicks ass at BYU, makes an impression on a influential scholar who asks her "how would you like to go to Cambridge?", and eventually goes on to earn a Ph.D in history.
Now, this isn't a Slumdog Millionaire type of success story. The storyline is, in fact, very similar to Hillbilly Elegy. So, how is it that the Goodreads rating of this book (4.49) could be an entire half-star higher [than J.D. Vance's 3.94]? Well, Hillbilly Elegy dealt with rednecks. Bluntly speaking. People in rural areas who identified as "them" got mad. People who were still fuming over Donald Trump getting elected and blaming "those dang hillbillies" docked one and two stars from their reviews just to feel a little better about themselves.
What I am saying is that, on the topic of literary merit, this book is indistinguishable from Hillbilly Elegy.
This book arrived on the heels of the #MeToo movement. Inside, Tara recounts bouts of physical and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of her older brother. In fact, the infliction of emotional abuse (and physical abuse, if you consider the shunning of modern medicine to be physical abuse) can be attributed to her parents as well. Though Tara meticulously kept a journal through her formative years, she occasionally notes that her memories differ from the recollections of others. Coupled with the fact that her parents hired a lawyer to come out and say she's exaggerating, the seeds of doubt have been sown.
Thrust into the modern political climate, this story becomes inexorably intertwined with the angst of every woman who has been abused and wasn't believed or was punished for speaking up. This is not a subject I take lightly or one I would dare poke fun at, but many will reflectively click a five-star masterpiece because it's cathartic. I am happy that people were able to find solace in this book--but someone has to try to explain the abundance of perfect reviews even at the expense of seeming dickish.
In retrospectives, you will find that this theme often overwhelms the others, though they are far from subtle. We're talking about Mormonism here. Most people see Mormons as kind of weird but good people and are happy to leave their ponderings at the curtain call of The Book of Mormon. The book reinforces that extremists are extreme and that the insular nature of the church can make it harder to get out of harmful situations, but, really, most of the other Mormons in the book seemed perfectly normal to me.
The Westovers shunned hospitals except in life-threatening situations. I won't disclose any of the situations where the family did visit hospitals because that would spoil some of the more interesting plot points. Unintentionally, Tara's writing spurred another collision with a hot topic of our times--the refusal to vaccinate children. I cringe at the thought that someone could read this book and exclaim "look how many babies that unqualified woman delivered" or "none of them died because it was God's will" and feel moved to perpetuate any modern medical hoax. But, man, does it provide for some entertaining reading.
Finally, we have the theme of education. Three of the Westover children went on to get the terminal degree in their fields--the Ph.D. So, does that mean that homeschooling works? Is the brain much more malleable than the establishment wants us to believe? The title, Educated, really means "here are the experiences that made me who I am today." Taken literally, once we control for the fact that the schools in her region of Idaho were probably terrible, we can optimistically conclude that maybe there really is something we're missing when it comes to education.
My first opinion, the one that will be derided most widely, is that getting a terminal degree in something like History isn't particularly hard. It just requires grit and financial support. Tara Westover had each of these things in abundance. The next thing is that it does indeed take a village to raise a child or however that saying goes. If Tara went to BYU and it turned out that everyone else had been as isolated and as poorly prepared for college as her, guess what? BYU would be the punchline of jokes. Instead, it's a school deserving of high praise.
When you bring someone who is so much of an outsider that they aren't even on a "spectrum" at all into a rigorous institution of higher learning, they either fail out and go work in the junkyard or they assimilate and go on to be successful. This is why schools do so much "diversity" recruiting now. Once you take away the financial aspect (and you never really can), if a student is so motivated, they can catch up quickly to the people who went to prep schools and dominate college curriculum. This is what Tara did. I'm still a bit fuzzy on how exactly she got that ACT score or how exactly she finagled financial support throughout her formal schooling, but I blame this more on selective editing than the premise of the book itself being a hoax.
Important, gripping, and great to read on airplanes. Especially ones bound for Utah. Left me with mixed feelings, kind of like this oil diffuser from Butterfly Express that I have been inhaling the fumes of while writing this review....more
This was the title of a Facebook page I Liked back when there was a proliferation of very-specific Facebook fan page"What does DJ Khaled actually do?"
This was the title of a Facebook page I Liked back when there was a proliferation of very-specific Facebook fan pages that people created on whims. I also liked the page because, at that time, I had no idea what DJ Khaled actually did.
The Keys is DJ Khaled's answer to that question that ends up spawning a host of deeper inquiries. Such as--would high school dropout have even attempted to use the semicolons that appear in this book's 212 pages? And, more importantly, where do I stand on DJ Khaled's philosophies, talent, and celebrity?
After achieving mega-fame following a string of funny Snapchats and having his first child, the enthusiastic, somewhat obnoxious DJ Khaled adopted a significantly more wholesome image. It's about positivity, being substance-free, and working hard, and it's what comprises the majority of this book. I like it!
Yesterday, I read in the Wall Street Journal that he is selling his old house in Miami, having upgraded to a larger one. Today, he was mentioned in one of the top comments in a Reddit thread about "worst live performances of all time." There's no question that DJ Khaled is a star, but, on Reddit, in the midst of reading this book, I was shocked to find that the sentiment was purely negative.
Many commentators referenced Khaled's appearance on the season finale of Hot Ones where he is a buffoon. Beyond the buffoonery, I found it interesting to observe how quickly his "positivity" facade fell apart as soon as he was challenged by the host. It's easy to preach a gospel when your public image consists entirely of you being the only one speaking into a microphone. This guy really made a fool of himself on what is a lighthearted show where people eat spicy chicken wings.
The interview also revealed that, in addition to lacking emotional intelligence, DJ Khaled really isn't that smart. It is obvious that the guy is surrounded by "yes" men 24/7 and that there is a strategy team behind every move he makes. He claims to be a mogul, strictly speaking is a mogul, but I can't get over my suspicion that he didn't write this book.
The book charts DJ Khaled's career. He started as a DJ and, over time, became a phenomenal DJ, according to him. I respect that hustle. I find it odd, though, that whenever people criticize his live performances, they talk about how horrible he is at basic turntabling. I'm not a purist, I realize that there's more of a market for the mixing and queueing of tracks (which he had to have been skilled at as a radio DJ) then there is for the acrobatics of the needle, but this guy wants us to believe that he won $5000 in a DJing contest 20 years ago. Why wouldn't he still demonstrate this skillset? Did he forget? Am I misunderstanding something?
Further, there has been a continual debate as to what it means for DJ Khaled to be a "producer." Most would imply that this means he makes beats. In the book, he never mentions making beats. It's easy to verify that he hasn't made the beat for any of his hit songs, but did the guy ever make beats at all? He's admitted that he doesn't rap because he's not a good rapper. Okay, that's pretty easy to glean. I think he allows the myth of him making beats to survive because there's really no downside to it.
There is some genuinely cool stuff in the book. Khaled claims to have witnessed Birdman meeting Lil Wayne for the first time while working at a record store in New Orleans. Amazing. Khaled claims that he turns up the temperature in his hot tubs as high as it will go because "they" don't want you to have a hot tub. Amazing. DJ Khaled loved the Rick Ross breakout Hustlin' so much that he played it on repeat for long enough to get suspended from the radio station he worked at. Amazing. He claims that you've got to think future to be future, just ask his friend future. Great line.
DJ Khaled has made a career out of orchestrating incredible hit songs. This was made possible because he's an enthusiastic, relentless dude and he foresaw the rise of the Miami rap scene. I just find it hard to like him. The book left me with too many unanswered questions....more
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