Fifth Avenue Forum

@eddy

Just finished up In the Lives of Puppets… TJ Klune’s newest book. Not nearly as good as his other work.

House in the cerulean sea is a 9 for me.
Under the whispering door is a 7.5 or 8.
This one is a 6.

@eddy

Just finished up In the Lives of Puppets… TJ Klune’s newest book. Not nearly as good as his other work.

House in the cerulean sea is a 9 for me.
Under the whispering door is a 7.5 or 8.
This one is a 6.

I've still just read his first book.

Just finished Red Rising by Pierce Brown, it's great and I'm looking forward to the next books. Don Winslow's city on fire was also a good read. I had problems with Demon Copperhead bc just too depressing for me.

Just finished Legends and Lattes.... what an enjoyable book. A bounty hunting orc retires to open a coffee shop in a town that doesn't know what coffee is. Basically goes through her struggles of leaving her past life and starting a new one. It's pretty short too.

Just finished Legends and Lattes.... what an enjoyable book. A bounty hunting orc retires to open a coffee shop in a town that doesn't know what coffee is. Basically goes through her struggles of leaving her past life and starting a new one. It's pretty short too.

I added it to my queue. I am intrigued.

I liked Old Man's War, but otherwise I didnt really enjoy his work. This looks interesting though.

I liked Old Man's War, but otherwise I didnt really enjoy his work. This looks interesting though.

Check out his Collapsing Empire trilogy, I thought they were terrific

@eddy

Just finished up In the Lives of Puppets… TJ Klune’s newest book. Not nearly as good as his other work.

House in the cerulean sea is a 9 for me.
Under the whispering door is a 7.5 or 8.
This one is a 6.

I've still just read his first book.

Just finished Red Rising by Pierce Brown, it's great and I'm looking forward to the next books. Don Winslow's city on fire was also a good read. I had problems with Demon Copperhead bc just too depressing for me.

Red Rising OG Trilogy is my favorite set of books. The subsequent 3 have been really good too, but the first 3 were my perfect Sci-Fi.

i made a goal this year to 'read' more books. i put 'read' in quotes because most of them are via audible when i am driving around but still counts.

2023 litt book tour

Ron Chernow - Washington - biography on George Washington. Always wanted to learn more. the 42 hour audiobook didnt disappoint. i learned a number of things that were novel to me about GW and our nation

Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary - from author of The Martian. interesting book about an intersterllar bacteria that uses energy from the sun to reproduce and substantially decreases the luminosity of the sun leading ot potential ice age. would recommend if you liked the martian

Bob Iger - The Ride of a Lifetime - Iger's autobiography. very interesting about his career and some fruitful examples that pertain to leadership and business

Jocko Willink & Leif Babin - Extreme Ownership - Willink and Babin were navy seals that served in Ramadi in 2006. they started a leadership consulting group and relate leadership principles to the combat tactics the seals employ. excellent book and have used many of the tactics and examples in my day to day. highly recommend

Chris Vos - Never Split the Difference - was the lead international hostage negotiator for the FBI for several years (spent time in pittsburgh, apparently), worked in the NYC joint terrrorism task force before FBI. tactics and strategies for how to effectively negotiate. not sure if i would recommend or not. some useful nuggets about the psychology behind negotiating and what to look for in your mark

James Clear - Atomic Habits - how to change your habits, break down habits in to small, digestible bits, and how to identify triggers and tactics to protect yourself from yourself

Michael Lewis - The Big Short - didn't really know much about the workings of this before reading but enjoyed learning about it. its interesting to consider the groupthink that occurred in so many board rooms that something like that could ever happen

Phil Knight - Shoe Dog - great book. really enjoyed understanding the history of nike, the risks they took, their unwillingness to go public for so long.

Jim Collins - Good to Great - this book sucks.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness - only made it about 3 hours in to this book and had to stop. just insufferably boring to listen to. almost wrecked my car falling asleep

Bethan McLean - The Smartest Guys in The Room - similar to the big short, wanted to learn about Enron. so much to unpack about corporate culture, intentional and unintentional misinformation, negligence. very interesting how far they were able to take it.

Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential - just randomly popped up on my audible. loved it.

Patrick Radden Keefe - Empire of Pain - chronicling of the family (Sackler) of medical doctors behind Purdue pharma (oxycontin) and it's role in the opioid epidemic and rise of heroin and fentanyl use worldwide. morally reprephensible group of individuals who thought they could whistle past the graveyard by being in bed with the FDA, making donations to charities and foundations, and 'distancing' themselves from the operations of their company via installing figurehead CEOs they could control. the family siphoned cash from the company annually (they talked about taking 700M distributions annually for 7 years) and never really invested in r&d oustide of oxycontin so its pretty clear they knew exactly what they were doing.
several clever maneuvers to extend the patent as well. cunning business folks. would highly recommend.

up next

don Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements - mrs litt told me to read this and it will make me a better person

I read Cuckoo's Nest in college and loved it. It doesn't exactly suddenly become a happy book, though. I'd say if you're not feeling it, move on to something else and revisit it later. It's too good to force yourself to slog through it.

i made a goal this year to 'read' more books. i put 'read' in quotes because most of them are via audible when i am driving around but still counts.

2023 litt book tour

Ron Chernow - Washington - biography on George Washington. Always wanted to learn more. the 42 hour audiobook didnt disappoint. i learned a number of things that were novel to me about GW and our nation

Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary - from author of The Martian. interesting book about an intersterllar bacteria that uses energy from the sun to reproduce and substantially decreases the luminosity of the sun leading ot potential ice age. would recommend if you liked the martian

Bob Iger - The Ride of a Lifetime - Iger's autobiography. very interesting about his career and some fruitful examples that pertain to leadership and business

Jocko Willink & Leif Babin - Extreme Ownership - Willink and Babin were navy seals that served in Ramadi in 2006. they started a leadership consulting group and relate leadership principles to the combat tactics the seals employ. excellent book and have used many of the tactics and examples in my day to day. highly recommend

Chris Vos - Never Split the Difference - was the lead international hostage negotiator for the FBI for several years (spent time in pittsburgh, apparently), worked in the NYC joint terrrorism task force before FBI. tactics and strategies for how to effectively negotiate. not sure if i would recommend or not. some useful nuggets about the psychology behind negotiating and what to look for in your mark

James Clear - Atomic Habits - how to change your habits, break down habits in to small, digestible bits, and how to identify triggers and tactics to protect yourself from yourself

Michael Lewis - The Big Short - didn't really know much about the workings of this before reading but enjoyed learning about it. its interesting to consider the groupthink that occurred in so many board rooms that something like that could ever happen

Phil Knight - Shoe Dog - great book. really enjoyed understanding the history of nike, the risks they took, their unwillingness to go public for so long.

Jim Collins - Good to Great - this book sucks.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness - only made it about 3 hours in to this book and had to stop. just insufferably boring to listen to. almost wrecked my car falling asleep

Bethan McLean - The Smartest Guys in The Room - similar to the big short, wanted to learn about Enron. so much to unpack about corporate culture, intentional and unintentional misinformation, negligence. very interesting how far they were able to take it.

Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential - just randomly popped up on my audible. loved it.

Patrick Radden Keefe - Empire of Pain - chronicling of the family (Sackler) of medical doctors behind Purdue pharma (oxycontin) and it's role in the opioid epidemic and rise of heroin and fentanyl use worldwide. morally reprephensible group of individuals who thought they could whistle past the graveyard by being in bed with the FDA, making donations to charities and foundations, and 'distancing' themselves from the operations of their company via installing figurehead CEOs they could control. the family siphoned cash from the company annually (they talked about taking 700M distributions annually for 7 years) and never really invested in r&d oustide of oxycontin so its pretty clear they knew exactly what they were doing.
several clever maneuvers to extend the patent as well. cunning business folks. would highly recommend.

up next

don Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements - mrs litt told me to read this and it will make me a better person

updating prior post

Oh boy, you are in for a treat. It only gets better from there. Try to get the novellas as well, they are now in one collection with a new ending novella:

https://www.amazon.com/Memorys-Legion-C ... 447&sr=8-1

Obviously, read the novellas in the right order to avoid confusion/spoilers etc.

Oh boy, you are in for a treat. It only gets better from there. Try to get the novellas as well, they are now in one collection with a new ending novella:

https://www.amazon.com/Memorys-Legion-C ... 447&sr=8-1

Obviously, read the novellas in the right order to avoid confusion/spoilers etc.

I finished Book 8 on vacation and ordered Book 9 so it would be home when I arrived. Easily a Top 2/3 series for me, the perfect combination of hard science fiction, great character development, and a solid premise/world building.

Over eight thick books in five months is certainly a record for me.