Ein Klassiker, den ich las weil ich mich durch die literarischen Grundwerke arbeite und sogleich als Vorbereitung für das Kieler Sommertheater, welches zur Zeit dieses Stück zeigt.

Das Buch war ganz gut!

Es war unterhaltsam, zum Teil lustig und, obwohl es für mich nicht an 22 Bahnen oder Windstärke 17 herankommt und ich die vielen Meta-Einschübe nicht verstehe, habe ich es gerne gehört.

Chantal Busse liest ganz wunderbar.

Incredible book, I loved the pseudonymized interviews of industry leaders that show how they think. She makes it plain and obvious that taxing the rich is something we can and we must do, and she goes even further talking about a basis inheritance for everyone.

This book is less violent than the previous ones, maybe because Murderbot got a mental health module? Or maybe some of the people he’s rescuing are juveniles, with their own needs and problems.

I loved it, a worthy successor of the series!

It’s a short book and while it becomes fairly predictable, it does a good job in challenging you to think about the same questions.

These series has some of the best sci-fi books I’ve ever read, I cannot recommend this enough.

The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, ‘Please do not tell us what you feel.’ … If we cannot heal what we cannot feel, by supporting patriarchal culture that socializes men to deny feelings, we doom them to live in states of emotional numbness. We construct a culture where male pain can have no voice, where male hurt cannot be named or healed.

Great book, cannot recommend enough!

While I miss the thrilling space fight scenes from the earlier books that had my heart racing, this is still a great book and I loved reading it, just as the others.

In constrast to her previous book, Die Wut, die bleibt, this one shows the side of resignation and peace, but keeps the theme of sisterhood. Fallwickl writes beautifully, I really liked it!

It’s entertaining, highly political and really funny. A good continuation of the series. Kling also narrates the audiobook and I can recommend that over the written book–the voices are just perfect.

There were parts that I enjoyed and most of it is beautifully written with lots of layers, but as a whole, I couldn’t get into it and had to push through to finish the book.

You can feel the sadness and the loss—and you can feel the female rage. You get a glimpse on what real gender equality could look like. I loved the book.

While this book is directed at women and other people marginalized by the patriarchy, which I am not, it was super insightful to read and made me more sensitive for these everyday situations.

One really interesting concept in this book is that the Radchaii are not distinguishing people by gender and don’t even have words for it. Because of that, Leckie is using she/her pronouns for everybody and even Breq has trouble choosing the correct pronouns for languages and cultures that to differentiate. This felt a bit weird in the beginning, as it messes with how you imagine a character, but I started appreciating how it challenges exactly that.
The other concept I found fascinating is that of Ancillaries and the general technology of owning multiple (sometimes up to thousands of) bodies and the difficulties of that.

I enjoyed reading this book, can recommend!

This is a short book, the audiobook version is 90 minutes and I listened to it twice on consecutive days. It’s really good.

I was initially put off by the format of the book; the back-and-forth between the two people feels constructed, but once I got into it it, I noticed it doesn’t matter. The goal of this book is not to be a literary masterpiece but to convey the gist of Adlerian psychology, and it does that wonderfully. Questions that rose up after reading the philosopher’s words were often asked by the youth.

There are many moments in this book that made me rethink how I view life and interpersonal relationships. Great book if this interests you even the slightest.

A German classic, written in 1962. Fun and tragic short story with an absurd turn.

In the beginning it felt like many other fiction books, but the Antichrist angle—and other relevations that would be spoilers—made it interesting. I liked this book.

This book is two books, intertwined with sometimes awkward intersections. It‘s experimental and fun to read. I liked it!

I’ve watched the TV show and it’s rare how close the show is to the book and how well the characters are cast. The book is thrilling, well written and fun to read, recommend—even more if you’ve watched the show!

Great book, I liked this more than the previous, 22 Bahnen. It‘s rawer, has more anger and darkness, and even though the love story is stereotypical it was a good read.

It might be just me, but I felt like something is missing from this book—it didn’t pull me in, there was no story arch, no punchline, it felt more like a concatenation of individual stories. Maybe that’s all it wanted to be.

But it’s incredibly valuable to hear these anecdotes told from his perspective and I think you should read it.

My central claim in this book is that these two trends-overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.

Jonathan Haidt proposes four foundational reforms:

1. No smartphones before high school
2. No social media before 16
3. Phone-free school
4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence

I really liked this book, it’s very data-driven and gives good advice. If you have kids under 18 or are working as a teacher, this is a must-read.

Edit: It might not be as data-driven as it appears and instead go for the good old confirmation bias. There‘s a podcast episode on If Books Could Kill about this book which looks critical on the methods in this book. Thanks, Daniel!

The feeling that is described in the book is something you’re left with after finishing it. One could compare it to the feeling of in-between dream and reality after waking up from a nightmare. I read it in a single day and I liked it, even though it’s certainly not for everyone.

“The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins is that video, but with Let them/let me. Look, this book has some good advice: It’s healthy to stop worrying about situations you don’t control, it’s healthy to take responsibility for your situation. I don’t like how some of the techniques described are based on looking down on other people because you “let them”.

If this book didn’t try to frame every single situation in life as let them/let me and managed get rid of 2/3 of the pages, I would probably recommend this.

This book opens your eyes to the, albeit widely known, huge inequality between the rich and everyone else and the danger and the political failure to address it.

You’ll probably get angry while reading this. You should still read it.

I loved this book. The way Akbar writes is beautiful and make me smile. He paints a picture of a life, switching to other perspectives to fill out the corners, and creates something special.

That’s the first part of the book. In the following chapters, Kahneman introduces various biases that influence our decision making. He also introduces the prospect theory he developed with a colleague that, in part, got him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2002.

This book is 400 pages, but it feels like more, due to the fact that it can only be fully understood if read slowly. I would 100 % recommend this to people which are interested in psychology and/or economics (ideally both).

Jeannine Mik, an expert in emotional health, explains the interactions between your body, your nervous system and your emotions. She provides tools to get out of a dysregulated state and become more present in your everyday life.

Being aware of the state of your nervous system and getting a feel for where you are on the ladder from Dorsal to Ventral is fascinating and super helpful in everyday life. You need to be ready to look at yourself and understand how you work to get the most out of this book, but if you are I cannot recommend this enough.

It’s been three decades since Admiral Winston Duarte and his roughe fleet from the MCRN (Mars Congressional Republic Navy) moved through the Laconia gate. They completely blocked access and did not let anyone in during that time.
Camina Drummer is the president of the Transport Union, who controls the gates, the crew of the Rocinante does contract work and things start to look normal. Until a huge alien-looking battleship comes through the Laconia gate and claims power over systems connected with the Slow Zone (including Sol).

It’s less space fights than other books and not a lot of time on the Rocinante, but it fits well with the other books and I loved reading it!

This book is more scientific than I initially expected, but I loved the deep dive! This is probably most relevant to people working in schools, kindergartens, or other institutions working with children.

I like the stories of the book, I think it‘s important to show the lives that, although fictional, are based on real experiences. For me it had a few too many happy accidents and too much writing on a meta-level, but if you can gloss over that, this is a good read!

This is a great book in 2025, I cannot imagine what it was like reading it in 1984, the year it was published. Many concepts are part of modern science fiction works (especially cyberpunk) and you can really tell why this is seen as one of the defining works for the genre. William Gibson’s writing is incredible, and the world fascinating. I especially liked the 3D representation of the matrix, representing firewalls as ice that is covering an entity. Great book!

I had a hard time getting into this book, but once I committed I enjoyed it. It‘s got melancholy, love and small everyday moments. It’s like a window into a life.

1. Rumbling with vulnerability
2. Living into our values
3. Braving trust
4. Learning to rise

Brené takes from data she’s collected from interviewss and research and shares what she’s learned in this book.

One part I particularly enjoyed was where she compares armored leadership with daring leadership using concrete examples—very hands-on.

While I liked this book, I had to push myself to finish it. For me personally a more concentrated version would’ve worked better, but I would recommend this nonetheless.

I read the original when I was a kid, reading this now reminded me of the great feeling of adventure—which arguably is dampened by the harsh reality of Jim being black in America in 1840.

This book is amazingly written, I couldn’t put it away.

Incredible space fights, piracy, ethical questions and a bit of politics make this into another amazing Expanse book. Loved it, can’t wait for the next in the series.

Reading this book feels like watching an action movie. The rotating perspectives, the battle scenes, the incredible character development, the variety in location and challenge.

Loved it.

The book contains interesting stories of Mark Zuckerberg meeting world leaders and how that is handled from Facebook’s side. While working with Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and other Facebook executives and employees, she slowly learns that most of them put other values, like growth and success, above all else. She showcases many pathways where Facebook could’ve done the right thing, taken responsibility—but didn’t. On top of she is experiencing sexual harassment that is swept under the rug and leads to her being fired.

It’s a good book, you should read it. There’s shocking revelations, that confirm what you’ve been probably assuming anyway, if you paid attention.

So, how do I get off WhatsApp?

This is in the top three leadership books I tell newcomers to read, cannot recommend this enough.

Eskarina Smith is the name of the girl, and she is so full of magic, that Granny Weatherwax, a witch, takes her in and teaches her the herbs and “headology”. But is that enough? Does Esk want to be a witch or a wizard?

This book is the third novel in the Discworld series and was published in 1987, but is still shockingly relevant. Really liked it!

If you feel like spending too little time working on things that really matter, this book is for you. But even if you don’t, it can help you bring structure and intentionality to your life. It helped me think differently about how I work, and I can already see positive effects.

It’s a good book, and it fits well into the series. I kind of missed the action scenes—they’re one of the best things about the espanse books, and this book was all about deescalation. Still, interesting dynamics at play and the multi-perspective storytelling continues to add variety to the story.

After reading a few heavy books in our book club, latest being Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, this is a comforting change. It‘s nicely written and I loved the chapters from the Cat‘s perspective.

In the end it didn’t really hook me–it was a nice story, but that‘s about it.

I don’t feel like I can write a review for this. I loved it.

Thanks beloved wife for this recommendation.

If you‘re interested in BuJo, this is a must-read.

Lauren, Bankole and the rest of their group start building their community at the land that Bankole earns. They grow their own food, trade with neighbours and even build a school. Lauren preaches her Earthseed religion and converts more and more people. But when Jarret becomes president and starts his “Christian America” initiative, their small cult needs to be careful to not get into trouble.

This book is written from the perspective of Laurens daughter, though most of it continues to be diary entries from Lauren. It’s even more brutal than the first one, so be warned. But it’s a great continuation of the first book!

This book is written in diary-form, from the perspective of Lauren. It’s post-apocalyptic, in a way, but it’s an interesting setting as the currency still holds, there’s companies, police, fire department, even a president— everything still exists, but not in an effective way. How can you find hope in a world as broken as this? How can you trust strangers?

I really enjoyed reading this, it was entertaining and thrilling, although really brutal at times. If you can stomach that, I recommend reading this.

James Holden and his crew of the Rociante (the salvaged Mars warship) end up at a mysterious ring structure, created by the Protomolecule, an alien lifeform. What they find there changes everything. I don’t think I can say more without spoilers.

This book is more serious than the earlier ones, with more politics, ethics, and more complex characters. If you’re into science fiction and haven’t read these, you’re missing out!

While I didn’t enjoy the polemic style, Alexandra Zykunov does a great job showing the level of misogyny and unfairness women have to endure every day. She also shows alternate approaches to care work, how other countries do it, and why they could actually benefit our capitalist system.

It helped me expand my perspective on care work and the level of disadvantage women have to deal with every day. Read it!

Susanna Clarke, who also wrote Piranesi, builds a fantastic world full of mysteries and twists. If you decide to read this, you need to commit to it. This book has a thousand pages, and while I was struggling to read the first half, the second half more than made up for it with a faster story and more magic.

He is narrating the whole book, sharing his thoughts and sometimes directing passages to the “ignorant” reader themselves. Topics include his early life and education, his love affair and his struggle for power and glory.

Since life is the greatest benefit the universe can bestow, and there is no beggar who does not prefer poverty to death (which is itself a delightful influx of Humanitas), it follows that the transmission of life, far from being an occasion for gallanting, is the supreme hour of a spiritual Mass. Hence there is truly only one misfortune in life: never being born.

To be honest, I had a hard time with this book and I probably wouldn’t have finished it if it wasn’t for a book club.

Is this book for you? I really don’t know. Someone in the book club described it as “Forrest Gump, but not uplifting.”

The book is built like a workshop; each chapter is split into an input part and an interactive part—often with links to articles and videos. This book should be required reading in Germany. It makes you more aware of everyday racism, situations where you are racist (event if unintentional), and helps you make a difference.

I ordered the physical version of the book to hand out to everyone of my white friends and family.

Here are four points that really resonated with me (there are so many more in the book):

When someone tells you what something means, it’s never true because it’s not the only answer.

Nothing has inherent meaning. Whatever meaning you project into it is your own.

Beliefs are often self-fulfilling. Wether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.

No choice is the best in itself. A choice becomes the best when you choose it.

Reading this book can change how you think about the world, reframe and find other perspectives. It’s a must-read, at least from my perspective.

The crew around James Holden investigates the reason for a military escalation between the already tense UN (Earth) and Mars for the OPA (Outer Planet’s Association). A scientist’s daughter was abducted during the kerfuffle, and they agree to help find her. What does the missing girl have to do with the escalation? And why does the Protomolecule on Saturn react to certain events?

While the first book was written mostly from two alternating perspectives, this one has four: Holden (the captain), Prax (the scientist), Avasala (the senior politician) and Bobbie (the Martian marine). These perspective shifts are an amazing device for storytelling.

Another book I couldn’t put away. It’s really good!

• Infrastructure
• Digitalization
• Public transportation (esp. Deutsche Bahn)
• Clean energy
• Social inequality
• Edcuation
• Pensions
• Federalism

They dive deep into each topic, adding references and suggesting solutions. This gives insight into the background of these problems, which people experience everyday. Sometimes it’s the work of a political party, sometimes it’s misunderstandings, more often than not it’s just negligence.

In the epiloge, they adress their priviledged perspective and everyday racism in Germany. I love their weekly politics podcast Die Lage der Nation, and this book adheres to the same high quality bar. Great read!

This might be actionable at companies with large product teams and large projects that need to be planned—while reading this with a startup in mind I found it hard to map to my day-to-day, although I picked up some ideas I want to implement.

I personally would’ve gotten more from this book if it started with a practical application of these habits, to first get an overview of what this book helps you achieve and with what. During the first half of the book it was all this theory with little insight on the value of it, that came in the second half. One of the last chapters has practical advice how you can start implementing some of these habits at your current workplace.

If this is interesting to you, go give it a read, but I recommend starting with chapter fourteen.

The book is split into two stories, alternating each chapter. One follows Miller, a cop on a space station in the Belt, the other follows Holden, an “earther” and the XO of a (space) water freighter. One thing comes to the other and Holden finds himself captain of a stolen salvaged Mars gunship, Miller is out of a job for not dropping the job to find Julie Mao. What does she have to do with the war? And who’s behind all of it?

I loved reading this book. The concepts are fascinating, the story is thrilling and the characters are interesting. Even if you’ve watched the Prime series, I cannot recommend this enough.

I got most of the value from the earlier sections, but knowing how things can work in general was super interesting as well. If you work in tech, this is a good book to read, it’s full of valuable insights and interesting anecdotes.

This is one of the books that leave you with lingering thoughts and concepts—of reality and time itself. I loved how the concepts and their limitations are explained, instead of being stated as facts. If you like science fiction, highly recommend!

Most of the story takes place under water. Peter Watts writes from different perspectives, but mostly about Lenie Clarke, one of the rifters. I really like how the sci-fi parts make the rifters adapt to the deep sea, how they get used to being in almost complete darkness, how it subtly changes them. The Smart Gels (organic brain-like computers, also called head cheese) remind me of today’s LLMs: Nobody trusts them, they’re basically black boxes and they don’t understand the first thing about language.

If you like reading deep-sea sci-fi and don’t mind a dark story, give this a read!

A video goes viral, showing a sixteen-year-old girl getting abused. Yasira Saad, a BKA¹ inspector, takes the case of finding the attackers and the girl, who went missing a few days earlier. The video sparks national uproar and a new violent far-right movement is getting traction. Will Yasira solve the case before more people get hurt?

I’ve enjoyed every book by Marc-Uwe Kling so far and this is no exception, although it‘s very different than the others—the first crime story. It‘s hard to put the book away, and I love that it‘s very close to the Zeitgeist.

If you like thrilling crime stories and a bit of social criticism, this book is for you. Just be careful, parts of the book are disturbing.

1. Absence of Trust (Invulnerability)
2. Fear of Conflict (Artificial Harmony)
3. Lack of Commitment (Ambiguity)
4. Avoidance of Accountability (Low Standards)
5. Inattention to Results (Status and Ego)

Because this is told in an interesting story and split up into small chapters, it is a joy to read, and doesn’t feel like reading non-fiction at all (because it’s actually mostly fiction). In the last 20% of the book, Lencioni switches to non-fiction, starting with a questionnaire to figure out the dysfunctions of your team, then going into each dysfunction en détail, explaining symptoms and strategies to overcome them.

If you work in a team, I can’t recommend this enough—it helps you discover and identify ways to improve how you work together.

Ali Abdaal takes on the hustle culture and shows techniques to feel good while still being productive. The book is split into three parts: Energize, Unblock and Sustain, which are again split into three chapters each. Every chapter talks about a specific component of “feel-good productivity”, like Play, Clarity or Recharge. Almost all the points are made through anecdotes or explaining scientific experiments.

I had a hard time trying to find value in this book¹, most points seem known and obvious. If this were a book without the anecdotes and experiments, it could probably fit on 20 pages, and I would enjoy it a lot more.

Should you read this? I don’t know.

In The Hard-Boiled Wonderland, we follow a Calcutec, a human data processor who is doing an encryption assignment for a professor and finds himself in the middle of a huge conflict between the Semiotecs, who want to steal data, as well as INKlings, violent entities who live in the sewers and worship a fish.
The End of the World is about a man who arrives in a surreal town with high walls, unicorns and people without a mind. On entry, his shadow is cut off, and he’s given the job of the “Dreamreader”, which reads dreams from skulls in the library.

I enjoyed guessing how the two stories are related, or if they even are. Both worlds and both stories are interesting in their own way, though I found myself looking forward to the next Hard-Boiled Wonderland chapter—mostly because that story has more action and suspense. The underlying concept is fascinating, and it has a few “oh snap”-moments towards the end. If you like surreal books with novel concepts, I recommend reading this one.

Tom Standage lays out the complete history of the telegraph, from its predecessors to its invention, and to its death. It’s interesting to how inventors worked during that time, from getting the machine to work to register a patent quickly to try to sell this to countries.

When I started this book, I expected the whole book to be about what the telegraph network and the internet have in common. Instead, only the last 5 pages do so.

But if you are interested in the history of the telegraph and how the telephone was invented (spoiler, sorry), I can recommend this book.

It’s made up from a collection of journal entries from someone called Piranesi.

The world Piranesi lives in is a house filled with statues. It’s surrounded by the sea and has three levels: The lower halls are the domain of the tides; that’s where Piranesi gets nutrition. The upper halls are the domain of the clouds; he collects rainwater there. The middle halls are where he lives.

There is only one other person alive in the house: The Other. Piranesi and the Other meet every Tuesday and every Friday, and Piranesi helps the Other find the hidden knowledge in the house.

One day, Piranesi finds out that there is someone new in the house: 16 is writing him messages in chalk. Slowly, but surely, Piranesi unravels the mysteries of the house and himself.

The Beautify of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

We read this book in our book club at work, and it was always difficult to not keep reading past the point we agreed upon.

Every time I picked it up, I felt immersed in the world of the house and how Piranesi sees it. I wanted to solve the mysteries, and sporadically, I wanted to shake him (especially when he was erasing potentially crucial messages).

Seriously, go read this book.

This book has it all: Thrilling close calls from improvising in outer space, friends who help each other out and plausible technical explanations¹. And because it’s set in the near future and this mission is only possible because of the very alien microbes that threaten Earth, everything just feels more realistic².

I loved this book.

This is the eight book in the Murderbot series, but the first one I’m writing a review for. All of them would’ve gotten 5/5 and this one is no exception; I love these books. They’re written from the perspective of Murderbot and Martha Wells does a phenomenal job both making the bot super relatable and showing the mushy humans from a bot’s perspective.

If you like sci-fi but haven’t read these, you’re missing out.

Yuval Noah Harari starts by explaining how humanity has solved famine, plague and war and will therefore focus on advancing humans themselves (even if you ignore COVID-19 and the Ukraine invasion, what about the climate crisis?). God is dead and the new religion, Humanism, has the goal to create super-humans, therefore creating the next evolutionary stage after Homo Sapiens: Homo Deus.

He’s talking about consciousness, how it will be decoupled from intelligence and how every living being, including humans, is just a complex algorithm that we’ll just reverse-engineer and recreate in the future (“there is no human touch”).

Harari makes it hard to distinguish between fact and opinion because everything is presented as a fact. Even if there are references that are supposed to back it up, they often only cover a very small part of the statement. And the statements are wild. At one point he’s saying that national socialism is just a variant of humanism (see this statement by Humanists UK: Yuval Noah Harari and ‘humanism’ ).

I would’ve given this book a two-star rating but I’ve read this in a book club and what this book actually does well is sparking discussions and making you think about these topics.

It’s a collection of numbered statements from human and humanoid employees on a space ship after the crew took on some “objects” from the planet New Discovery. The statements are not ordered so you only get pieces to the puzzle and nothing makes sense in the beginning.

I loved the weird and unique way of storytelling and how it showed different perspectives, struggles and tensions. The “objects” were weird, I can’t imagine what they‘re like (maybe that’s the point).

Not an easy read, but if you‘re into dystopian sci-fi I would recommend it.

Dale Carnegie shares 30 principles for dealing with people in four parts:

1. Fundamental techniques in handling people
2. Six ways to make people like you
3. Win people to your way of thinking
4. Be a leader.

Each principle is annotated with anecdotes from famous people or reports from people that attended his courses. These can feel arbitrary and constructed, especially towards the end, but they do show how a principle can be applied in practice.

This was nonetheless a great read and I recommend giving this a try, there’s lots of good advice and I sincerely believe it will elevate how you deal with people.

Morgen Housel takes a complex topic and distills it into 20 parts, each talking about a specific angle of looking at or working with money.

This is the kind of book I’ll give to my sons when they’re old enough. It gives you an understanding of how markets work (and why they work like that), which investment strategies make sense for which people and how to prepare for retirement.

Here’s a quote that made me laugh:

When most people say they want to be a millionaire, what they might actually mean is ”I’d like to spend a million dollars.“ And that is literally the opposite of being a millionaire.

It’s not your fault, but you can do something against it. Humans have evolved over millions of years to read social cues in face-to-face conversations and we’re having a hard time figuring out the digital “replacements” that came up in the last decades.

Cal Newport takes on the attention economy and helps you to reflect on your digital consumption. Not only social media, but also checking the news and texting can be a waste of time and even harmful to you. Digital minimalism is not against technology, but using technology wisely and living an intentional life.

This book made me go through my notification settings and disable almost everything (I recommend using the scheduled summary on iOS liberally). I’m also using the iOS Personal focus, which disables almost all notifications, more often, especially when reading or during family time.

If you’re asking yourself if you should read this book: you should. It makes you more mindful of the things you spend your time on.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt start by talking about the ways democracies fell apart in the past. Some of them by coup and some, more recently, by autocrats undermining democratic values. For example eroding the trust in the voting system, being openly hostile to their opponents instead of respecting them as part of a democracy or attacking the press (“Fake News”).

I learned, how Davic Price, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, put it, that “American democracy may be more fragile than we realized.” But I also learned what to look out for, how to behave when a party is violating democratic norms and how (American) democracy can be saved. All this can be applied to other democracies as well, some of which already show similar signs of partisan hostility.

Highly recommed reading this if you care about democracy (which I hope you do).

One chapter tells you to get a rural off-the-grid home with your own electricity, water and food. Another tells you to go into a small village that hasn’t adapted to new technologies and uses the old, tested ways. Yet another tells you to go into the big city because that’s where ambitious people live.
These all make sense in the context of the priorities, but you can obviously only do one.

I read this book and found my values represented less in some chapters, more in others, but almost every chapter had at least one or two points I could agree with.

Derek Sivers writes a masterpiece that gives you lots of answers, you have to pick the ones you want to apply. There’s no right or wrong. It’s all a matter of values.

It took me the first 100 pages to really get into it, but then I was immerged into the fascinating world of the desert planet Arrakis (or “Dune”) with its sand worms, the Bene Gesserit sisterhood with superhuman powers, the native Freemen who learned to live in the harsh environment, the intrigues, the politics and the religion.

I loved to see the evolution of the main character from being a royal youth from House Altreides to leading the native Freemen as Muad’Dib.

This quote really stood out to me, as it’s still relevant today:

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Can’t wait to read the other books in the Dune series!

A door should have a push plate or a pull handle, signifiers which clearly indicate what actions are possible without you having to stop and read the signs.

Don Norman talks about human psychology in interacting with objects or machines, the principles of discoverability, of feedback and affordances, signifiers, mapping, and conceptual models. Those all work together to create delightful, natural user experiences.

This book has changed how I look at objects and UI design forever, making me appreciate good design and notice bad design everywhere I go. It’s a classic and will be relevant as long as humans interact with objects.

I cannot recommend this book enough if you care about design at all.

Or that most medicine trials are done with no or only a few women (so a drug might be safe for men but too potent for women, or the other way around)? And there’s many situations like this, where the default human is male (and white) and everything else is an anomaly and not even considered. This creates data gaps, where we don’t even know how women are affected.

Caroline Criado Perez argues that we need to start collecting sex-aggregated data in studies and stop excluding them from decisions that affect them. And I agree.

• Your team
• Collaboration
• Helping your team do their best work
• Your work

She talks about 1:1s, giving feedback, navigating conflict, holding good meetings, happiness and drive, change management, prioritizing your time and much more.

One of the cornerstones of the book is the chapter about values. Values are defined as the “fundamental belief that guide us, motivate us and drive our action”. They can help to give us context so we can be see where people might be coming from. Aligned values can build trust in a team and misaligned values can lead to burnout.

This sentence at the end has me stop and re-read because it’s so on-point:

Your job is to be interruption-driven so your team can be focus-driven.

Highly recommended.