TiesMorskate.nl

Well, I finished the first of the fantasy books, and as I expected, it was good.

Feist has always been able to create believable and likable characters, and it’s no different in this book. Also, I feel the series is finally coming to a close. As I wrote in my first posting about the book Feist keeps returning to a group of characters and their struggles. Every struggle seems to  be the biggest struggle ever but in the next series he will just invent a new one and you sort of feel cheated.

After finishing this book I’m again looking forward to the next installment of the series. And I’m hoping that Feist will close this chapter in his writing  and will start inventing new characters, storylines and perhaps a new world. Even though he only wrote one other book that wasn’t placed in the Midkemia universe, he has shows great strength in creating new characters.

The first installment of the Serpentwar saga for example was fantastic, the followup; Rise of a Merchant Prince, to me, was one of the most appealing Feist books ever. You did get to see some of the old characters but the entire story was totally new! Please get back to that Feist, I will stop buying these ‘THE WORLD IS IN PERIL #6″ books eventually.

Aside from the book I wrote about yesterday; The Lords of Strategy I also bought two other books. Both books are in the fantasy genre. The first is from a series I’ve been reading for years; written by Raymond E Feist it tells the story of Midkemia, its royal family and the magician Pug. Amazon describes the book as follows:

After nearly thirty years and more than two dozen novels, Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Cycle has become one of the most iconic, beloved, and enduring sagas in modern fantasy. The Riftwars—including the original Riftwar, the Serpentwar, the Darkwar, and the Demonwar—were epic battles between Good and Evil whose ramifications have echoed through generations. The latest entry in the epic, A Kingdom Besieged, ushers in the most fearsome threat the Kingdom has yet faced—the Chaoswar—a magic apocalypse with cataclysmic results.

It’s book number 27 or so and I started it a few days ago. It promises to be another great trilogy but I do hope Feist will manage to drop a few of the current story lines because it’s starting to become quite, how to say this, epic in scope.

(more…)

At least this is what I intend to do by reading the book; he Lords of Strategy: The Secret History of the New Corporate World by Walter Kiechel III. It’s supposed to give insight in how four men were responsible for changing the business world and what influence they have left today.

It should improve my understanding of strategic decisions and help me in shaping strategies for our clients. I decided on this book because of the following review on Amazon: “I haven’t had this much fun reading a business book in many years, and never this much fun reading an intellectual history. Walter Kiechel has succeeded in capturing the detail of how strategy developed as an area of corporate focus while generously exhibiting the rich ironies involved.”

The four men discussed are:

• Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group
• Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company
• Fred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of
• McKinsey & Company
• Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor

Of course I will let you guys know what I thought of the book!

In my earlier post about Umair Haque’s new book, the New Capitalist Manifesto I mentioned some great expectations. Well, today it finally got delivered, and while I couldn’t read more than the preface and the first chapter, it looks really promising. Very excited about it and I expect to grade it at least 9/10!

Finally, it’s done. By comparing one of the most famous emperors, Nero, and the roman philosopher, Seneca, to despots like Stalin and Hitler, Hooff let’s us picture their lifes. Starting with their deaths, who couldn’t be more different we are lead to the start of their lifes, and how their ends came to be. (more…)

I just ordered the book. I quoted him in my recent article on Gamification because I was very impressed with his way of thinking, most of his other articles are worth reading so I guess this book is a safe bet. I will let you guys know when I finished it. I put a more detailed description of the book after the read more. (more…)

Finally, I finished another book! Because of my growing interest in the field of social media and its mechanics I bought Tara Hunt’s debut. Basically because Seth told me so, and enjoyed it, for a while. The book details a lot of best practices in the field of social media, a lot of them Hunt’s own accomplishments, and it provided me with some great insight, for a while. Because while the book is interesting and readable, the feeling that she tried to convince me of something kept creeping up on me. She lost whuffie, so to say.

In list form:

• All the basics are covered; both media and messages thoroughly explained
• Practical applications, a lot of them, every seperate subject is broken down in practical to-do’s
• Examples of great practices
• Personal experience
• Connect the dots between the different parts of the book

Sounds great right? It is, but my biggest problem with the book is that I fail to see what went wrong. You learn by making mistakes, you learn by trying, and in the book, Tara Hunt only presents her successes. There’s just two examples of worst-practices in the book if I remember correctly, how am I to learn from that? For all I know by this book, everybody is already 100% proficient in social media and I couldn’t even get in on it. End result; I focus too much on this bad feeling I got, the book is well-written, entertaining and very informative. Full marks minus 2,5 for bad feeling at the end comes down to a 7,5/10, not bad! I do recommend you guys reading it if you still don’t understand social media!