The Mormon Way of Doing Business

Title: The Mormon Way of Doing Business

Author: Jeff Benedict

Pages: 221

Genre: Non-fiction

Grade: A-

Synopsis: Jeff Benedict explores how eight men who grew up in the Western US were able to rise to the top of their professions while paying 10 percent tithing, keeping the Sabbath day holy, serving as Bishops, Stake Presidents and Young Men's Presidents and still finding time to spend with their families. The book specifically profiles JetBlue founder and former CEO David Neeleman, former Madison Square Garden CEO Dave Checketts, Former Harvard Business School dean Kim Clark, CEO of Dell Kevin Rollins and four others. Persistence, expecting a miracle, daily prayer and scripture study, Sabbath day service and putting first things first are all skills and commitments that have blessed their lives.

My Review: I'll be honest. I really enjoyed this book. I found it inspiring and uplifting and loved reading about how these men are able to balance work, family life, demanding church callings and personal time. The book is especially enjoyable because each principle is presented and then substantiated with life experiences from a few of these men. Stories of Checkett's hard-nosed negotiations with Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley, Jim Quigley's and Gary Crittenden's stories of leadership at ground zero on 9/11 and David Neeleman working as a flight attendant or baggage handler on busy days. Each of these leaders has qualities to emulate and skills that have allowed them to rise to the top. This is a book that I'll read again.

A Star Curiously Singing

Title: A Star Curiously Singing

Author: Kerry Nietz

Pages: 301

Genre: Science Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: Sandfly is a level-12 debugger. He has a chip implanted in his head that allows him to obtain virtually any piece of information very easily. Each debugger is owned and controlled by a master that can cause the chip in his head to painfully reprimand the debugger when not explicitly following directions. Sandfly is sent up into earth's orbit to repair a robot that has torn itself apart after a journey into deep space. Sandfly begins uncovering a mystery that the new world leaders have been hiding for generations.

My Review: For those of you that are members of goodreads.com, did you know that they have tons of giveaways of books all the time? This particular giveaway was hosted by the author, Kerry Nietz, and out of more than 700 people, I was selected to win a pre-release signed copy. I'm not usually a fan of this type of science fiction, but as I got deeper and deeper into the story I started to enjoy it more. The first 50 pages or so were a blur to me as I was trying to piece together the science fictional world where the story takes place. By the end of the story I was engrossed and I plan on reading the sequels that will follow in this series.

PS - Thanks to Kerry Nietz for sharing his book!

Innocent Traitor

Title: Innocent Traitor

Author: Alison Weir

Pages: 416

Genre: Historical Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: Lady Jane Grey was queen of England for a mere 9 days, the pawn of her scheming father and ruthless mother. Lady Jane was just 15 when she seceded to the throne after the early death of King Edward VI (who had seceded his father King Henry VIII). England was in a state of turmoil between the Protestant religion and Catholicism and anybody who did not subscribe to the religion of their rulers was put to death for heresy.

My Review: The book is written from many different points of view, but it was often difficult to determine who was writing as the tone and style of each person was so similar. I didn't really like the middle part of the book, but by the time I was 3/4 of the way through, I really started to enjoy the story. I've always felt that medieval Europe was somewhat of a black hole for me. I know very little of what went on during these times. I love reading books such as these that attempt to bring these time-periods to life while sticking generally to the facts.

The Devil in the White City

Title: The Devil in the White City

Author: Erik Larson

Pages: 10 discs? (I don't remember)

Genre: History

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The World's Columbian Exposition (i.e. World's Fair) of 1893 was held in Chicago to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in America. This book intertwines the story of the architect Daniel Burnham's struggles to get the fair off the ground in such a compressed time frame and Henry H. Holmes and his World's Fair Hotel just west of the Jackson Park Fairgrounds. Architecturally and from a design standpoint, the buildings and grounds of the fair are simply amazing. More or less in 18 months, the swampy Jackson Park was transformed into a beautiful white city lighted entirely with electric lights (the first place for this to be done). Huge buildings were built to house the different booths with the crown jewel being the first Ferris Wheel. On the other hand, H.H. Holmes' hotel was originally built as a torture palace with dissection tables, gas chambers and a crematorium. All through the fair (and before and after) he would lure young women into his confidence before killing and dissecting them.

My Review: As a design engineer, I especially enjoyed the chapters where the design and construction of the Ferris Wheel was discussed. The Paris Exposition of 1889 had been a huge success with the Eiffel Tower and Chicago needed something great to follow it up. The original Ferris Wheel was huge. It stood 264 feet tall and had 36 compartments capable of carrying 60 people. Nobody had ever seen such a structure, yet the Ferris Wheel turned out to arguably be the strongest structure in the park. H.H. Holmes was one of the first serial killers in the US and almost went undetected had he not made a couple crucial errors. His story, while disturbing, was also very interesting. I also enjoyed random little historical nuggets that are scattered throughout the book from the Pledge of Allegiance being written for the fair's dedication day to descriptions of Walt Disney's father working on the fairgrounds and telling stories to his son about the White City (possibly helping Disney to create his vision of Disneyland).

Disclaimer: This book obviously gets pretty gruesome as it goes into as much detail as is known of the many murders Holmes' committed.

Rome 1960

Title: Rome 1960 - The Olympics that Changed the World

Author: David Maraniss

Pages: 496

Genre: Non-fiction, History

Grade: B

Synopsis: The Rome Olympics of 1960 were held when the world was in a transitory state. The Cold War was at its height, it was the first time that many of the Olympic competitions allowed women to compete and the United States (and much of the world) was in the midst of a racial revolution. While many of the athletes representing the United States were African Americans who were celebrated when they won, there were many restaurants and other places where they were prohibited due to the color of their skin. In addition, the 1960 Olympics were the first Olympics that were really televised and broadcast throughout the world. Clips had been shown during previous Olympics, but this was the first time that prime-time viewers were able to watch much of the competitions. These were the Olympics of sprinter Wilma Rudolph, decathlete Rafer Johnson and boxer Cassius Clay.

My Review: I loved reading the stories of the competitions. There always seemed to be an underlying political theme during every event. The Americans vs. the Soviets, the West Germans and the East Germans competing on a unified German team. The South Africans swearing that no racism was involved in selecting their team yet not a single black was good enough to compete. The inspiring stories of the decathlon, the track events and many others were also very enjoyable. The book did get a little wordy, but all in all was quite an interesting read.

Blink

Title: Blink

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Pages: 288

Genre: Non-fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: This book analyzes the psychology of first impressions and the snap-judgment (or think-slicing). In many cases, the judgments made by somebody in the first second or two of exposure go against everything that the experts say but are nonetheless often correct.

My Review: I found this book to be very interesting and thought-provoking. I enjoyed how the material was presented with stories and examples backed up with research and studies. I do think that the information in this type of book needs to be taken with a grain of salt because there are two sides to every story and research can often be found to support contradicting claims. That being said, there are ways that we can prepare ourselves to make better snap-judgments.