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Created December 23, 2015 15:50
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Copy/paste from my read.md file ;)

Jan 2015

  • A Slip of the Keyboard, Terry Pratchett - Mildly entertaining, if a bit repetitive in places. Especially since it was grouped into themes.
  • Ax, Ed McBain - Reminding myself how good a writer he is.
  • Replay, Ken Grimwood - Somehow avoided reading this until now. Fun.
  • Master & Commander, Patrick O'Brian - Starting my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Post Captain, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Peripheral, William Gibson — Didn't enjoy this as much as the Red Ant books. But less than excellent Gibson is still head and shoulders above most writers.
  • The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen - reread
  • Ten Plus One, Ed McBain - God McBain can make you turn pages.

Feb 2015

  • The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick - Good solid practical introduction to custdev interviewing for those without a background in it. Will be recommending this one to my interviewing workshop folk. But not the paper copy, since the quality of the physical product is awful. Terrible typography and the book feels like it will fall apart in five minutes.
  • Ghosts, Ed McBain - Late 87th Precinct book. Not quite as page-turny as the earlier ones. And the paranormal stuff didn't mix well with the police procedural.
  • HMS Surprise, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Badass: Making Users Awesome, Kathy Sierra — Lovely book that synthesises a bunch of stuff on motivation, skills acquisition, flow, etc. into a nice product development framework (and unlike a certain popular science writer I could name references the original sources for those who want to dig further ;-) As an additional bonus Kathy uses the techniques she describes in the book in a delightfully meta way to structure the book itself. Totally badass.

Mar 2015

  • The Mauritius Command, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear — Not normally a huge fan of steampunk, but this was fun. Sassy heroine and an enjoyable romp.
  • A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark, Harry Connolly — A pacifist urban fantasy / mystery! Imagine Buffy grew up, got some perspective, and decided that maybe, just maybe, everybody trying to kill each other was a bad idea for long term survival of all sides. Some years later she's in her sixties, trying to atone for decades of what she now sees as mass murder, while keeping Seattle a safe zone for all sides. Then somebody kills her nephew. The conclusion of the mystery stuff felt a little rushed at the end, but still great fun. Recommended.
  • Desolation Island, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Fortune of War, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Among Others, Jo Walton — A tiny bit of fantasy. A lot of family and growing up and friendship and love and books and SF and fantasy and writing and… just masses of stuff. I don't know if it speaks to me because of being a child of the 70s, or because of the protagonist's love of books, or because it's just bloody good. However about fifty page in I realised that it's going to be one of those books I force upon friends in an annoying way. Felt like reading a classic for the first time. Loved it.
  • The Surgeon's Mate, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read

Apr 2015

  • The Ionian Mission, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Treason's Harbour, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Far Side of the World, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Reverse of the Medal, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read

May 2015

  • The Letter of Marque, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Design for the Real World, Victor Papanek - Fascinating combination of spot-on insights, and barking mad predictions. More the former than the latter. Still a depressingly relevant read.
  • The Thirteen-Gun Salute, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Nutmeg of Consolation, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • Never Go Back, Lee Child — Popcorn. Passed the time while ill.
  • Personal, Lee Child — Popcorn. Passed the time while ill.
  • Clarissa Oaks, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison - Really rather nice vaguely steam-punkish fantasy. Politics, court intrigue, assassination attempts, etc. as an unlikely heir becomes emperor. Recommended. Only flaw (from my perspective) was a language/naming scheme that made it hard for me to grok all of the characters. Part of this year's Hugo voting read.
  • User Story Mapping, Jeff Patton — Really rather excellent introduction to user story mapping. Actually a really rather excellent introduction to user stories and user story mapping. Actually a really rather excellent introduction introduction to agile/lean product management, and user stories, and user story mapping. A lot of good advice and examples packed into few pages. Recommended.
  • The Wine Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Commodore, Patrick O'Brian - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read

Jun 2015

  • The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, Jack Campbell - MilSF. Author had heard about show don't tell and for some reason decided to do the opposite. Meh.
  • The Yellow Admiral - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Lost Fleet: Fearless, Jack Campbell - Why have I carried on reading this series. It's terrible.
  • The Hundred Days - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Lost Fleet: Courageous, Jack Campbell - Still really bad.
  • Blue at the Mizzen - Continuing my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read
  • The Lost Fleet: Valiant, Jack Campbell - More than half way.
  • The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey - Ending my Aubrey–Maturin re-re-read. Sigh.
  • The Lost Fleet: Relentless, Jack Campbell - Is hatereading a thing?
  • The Lost Fleet: Victorious, Jack Campbell - The. End. Thank goodness for that…
  • The Long Utopia, Terry Pratchett & Steven Baxter - Not terrible. Not anywhere near as good as Long War/Mars. Felt rushed. Lots of info-dumping.
  • Vicious, V.E. Schwab — Mildly entertaining superhero book.

Jul 2015

  • The Annihilation Score, Charlie Stross — Latest in the Laundry Files series, probably the best since the original. Nice to see Mo's POV for once. Seems to have pissed off a bunch of folk who thought Bob was awesomesauce.
  • Cunning Plans, Warren Ellis — Collection of some talks by Ellis. Seen/read most of them before but worth a re-read. His talent for a pithy phrase makes me jealous.
  • Just One Damn Thing After Another, Jodi Taylor - Tale of historians who explore historical events in contemporary time (don't call it time travel!). Soapy fun.
  • A Symphony of Echos, Jodi Taylor — Second in the time travelling historians series. Still fun.
  • A Second Chance, Jodi Taylor — Historian's series reboot via parallel worlds.
  • A Trail Through Time, Jodi Taylor - Still entertaining.
  • No Time Like The Past, Jodi Taylor - More fun.

Aug 2015

  • Counting Heads, David Marusek - Just excellent. Like Philip K Dick & William Gibson had a love child.
  • The Incrementalists, Steven Brust & Skyler White — Came in expecting SFish conspiracy-theory murder-mystery. Got something closer to a magic-realism love story. In Vegas. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
  • Elektrograd: Rusted Blood, Warren Ellis — Walking buildings, Soviet experimental architecture, robots, murder, burned out detectives, explosive bullets. What's not to like!
  • The Shepherd's Crown, Terry Pratchett — A worthy end. You can see the holes that a little more work would have filled — but still very good good.

Sep 2015

  • The Bloodline Feud, Charlie Stross — because it was on offer for 99p on Amazon and I was interested in re-reading the re-edited version…
  • The Traders' War, Charlie Stross — …it was good so I bought the next one. So that worked well…
  • The Revolution Trade, Charlie Stross — …especially since I bought the third too. These flow much better as the originally intended three volumes rather than the six forced by the publisher.
  • What could possibly go wrong?, Jodi Taylor — more popcorn fun with the time traveling historians of St Mary's.
  • Rocket Surgery Made East, Steve Krug — re-read as prep for teaching some usability workshops. If you're not a usability/UX person and want to do usability testing go buy this.
  • Make Me, Lee Child — Latest Jack Reacher. Mildly entertaining popcorn reading.
  • Killing Floor, Lee Child — Decided to read all the Jack Reacher books since popcorn is all my head is capable of reading ATM. I've only read the later books and the quality of the first one is… not so good.
  • Die Trying, Lee Child — My god the writing of the women in these grates.
  • Tripwire, Lee Child — More than a little silly & the the "romance" was more than a little ick.
  • Running Blind, Lee Child — FSS, this one was idiotic. Perp, motive, method & opportunity all guessed very early — but discarded as being far too bloody stupid… hypnotised into suicide? really? REALLY?
  • Echo Burning, Lee Child — Moving up from flat out impossible to merely implausible. Progress I guess.
  • Without Fail, Lee Child - Silly, but at least mildly enjoyable silly this time.
  • Persuader, Lee Child — Back to implausibly silly and icky things happening to female characters

Oct 2015

  • The Enemy, Lee Child — In this story we have the Jack, an expert MP, repeatedly make stupid mistakes in the investigation… sigh…
  • One Shot, Lee Child — Good lord. This one was mostly coherent. I can see why they made the film from it.
  • The Hard Way, Lee Child - Two vaguely coherent stories in a row…
  • Bad Luck and Trouble, Lee Child — Not only is Reacher stupid, his entire team of elite investigators is stupid. Sigh.
  • Nothing to Lose, Lee Child — Silly.
  • Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child — Very silly.
  • 61 Hours, Lee Child — Reacher is dim again.
  • Worth Dying For, Lee Child — Good lord. Reacher doesn't make dumb mistakes to drive the plot! The plot makes vague sense! Strong female character who doesn't fall into bed with Reacher.
  • The Affair, Lee Child - Silly.
  • A Wanted Man, Lee Child — Quite good until the point it became very silly.

Nov 2015

  • Effective Workshops, Alison Coward — Okay introduction to workshop facilitation. Not quite enough meat for me to recommend tho.
  • Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie — Fitting closure to the trilogy

Dec 2015

  • Practical Empathy, Indi Young — Initially I thought this was going to be one of those "good, but I know this already" books, but it ended up sparking a lot of ideas in my head. Especially some of the ways of talking about ongoing research — language is so important in helping folk see value. Going to be revisiting this in the context of the stuff I do with customer interviewing & incremental persona.
@miglen
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miglen commented Dec 30, 2015

Cool list, keep up the reading pace!

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