Mr. Reader Eric Mesa > Recent Status Updates

Covered the chapter on merchant ships, with special emphasis on the trade-offs in design. Of special note to me is the clipper design (like the Cutty Sark), which were designed to be fast. Chapelle notes that boat builders took clipper ships to the extreme, sacrificing cargo space to speed with no real economic gain. I thought that was simply fascinating.

The American Schooner has a vivid and extraordinary history!

There was a bit of interesting reading in the accounting chapter, which covered income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Then the author went back to his old habits of speaking about business terms to sound educated, rather than speaking about subjects that pertain to business plans. Thus far, the author has not given any clear idea of how to write a business plan. Disappointing.

I put off reading as long as I could manage, but here we are. So far the writing is decent- Hubbard writes with clarity and acceptable logic. I would say his flaw in reasoning exists in his narrowness of thought- he reasons that pleasure is good and pain bad, and that the highest agony must be death; therefore the greatest pleasure must be immortality. In this he is not wrong, but incomplete.

Finished a Study in Scarlet, and it was wonderful! I have to compare this book to the recent Sherlock BBC series, and I have to say that literature is far superior to TV. The series does an admirable job of adapting the story to modern times, but they leave out the literary quality and elegance of style that makes the book timeless.

Wow. I really didn’t expect the antisemitism to be so upper-case in the book. I expected that it would just be an implication made with a wink. But nope, Hitler makes a halfhearted attempt to understand Jewish people before branding them the enemy of the working class. It’s really concerning how such bold-face hate can be so readily accepted by anyone…

As with all of C.S. Forester's books, this story is technically heavy and sometimes hard to follow. Shortly after starting, I got the movie and watched it. The movie was great, but the book is far more realistic and better illustrates the reality of hunting submarines. I'm liking the book far more.

There is a chilling realization on reading this that Hitler used relatable struggles, pictures of social decline, and the desire for good things like education and work ethic to promote his own agenda. Hitler was a smart man, and that should scare the reader.

Why did I pick this book up out of the thrift bin...

The thing I struggle with the most is that the book doesn't seem relevant- I picked up the book with the expectation that I would be reading about the practical aspects of developing a business plan. The examples are enormously lofty, and the author seems to speak to the reader as if the reader is aspiring to be a CEO someday. I want applicability in starting a small business!

Brilliant work. It's definitely technical stuff, but there are some fantastic perspectives.

Ugghhhh this book is not for me- I expected a guide on how to write a business plan, and so far what I have gotten was a crash course in business management- with an emphasis on ‘crash’. The author has a conversational tone that clashes with the professional nature of the subject. He forces jokes that are very nearly painful to read. Definitely disappointed by the book so far.

Getting to slavers and privateers. It definitely makes the history come alive by understanding the small details between ships.

This is pretty dry reading, but the pages are dense with information. Incredibly useful!

Vivid and powerful. One chapter Hornblower is dining with admirals and senior captains, and in the next he’s fighting close action on land.