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I liked the idea of the book form the first time I've seen the title and fortunately, it lives up to my expectations. It's not perfect, but it rekindled my curiosity towards math and algorithms. Bringing them to everyday problems makes them much more interesting. The only thing that I'm missing in the book is the application of algorithms in business settings. For example, when I mentioned this book Mateusz K he has sent me a  blog post of  Pieter Hintjens: Amdahl to Zipf: Ten Laws of the Physics of People . For example,  Amdahl's Law  mathematically proves the argument from  The Mythical Man-Month  that you can't just add new people to the project to deliver it faster because of the cost of synchronization. I want this post to be a reminder for myself of the most interesting ideas in the book so if you want to savor it yourself just remember that it's worth buying. Rating: 9/10 Contents: 1. Optimal Stopping Probably the most ...

The book that I wanted to read for a long time. How was it? I have to say that it's really good. I learned a lot about Id and both John Carmack and John Romero - how their lives looked up before and during the creation of the most know Id Games like Doom or Quake. What was depressing but also making it so much more real is how much politics and infighting happened between all those people working in the industry at that time. The only downside for me is that there's not much about the technology side of things. There is a paragraph here and there but most of the book is about two John's allowing you to take a look inside their heads. Maybe another downside as not native speaker would be the font - that made it harder than necessary to read. All in all, I highly recommend it. 8/10

I'm a a listener of The Art of Manliness  podcast for over a year now and just before my last vacation I decided to buy the book. Partly as a support for the podcast and partly to get my own opinion about it (reviews are really all over the place from 1 to 5 starts on Goodreads). If you read most critical reviews you will find that Bret McKay draws a lot of inspiration from 19th century gentleman. You can think about your grandfather more than your father kind of man being the inspiration for this book. There is a bunch of practical advice on all kinds of topics from shaving, dressing to raising kids but also a lot of trivia and random facts you won't really need so you have to pick yourself. There is one annoying quirk of this book though, it tries to explain things with words that should be explained with images. I have skipped most of tying knots and ties for that reason. I've noticed that there's a new book called  The Illustrated Art of Manliness: The Essent...

That's my first review in a pretty long time, but I decided to only review good books - the kind I'm recommending and giving to my friends. I heard about "Sapiens" a couple of times but I bought the book after learning more about the author and seeing that Cal Newport recommends the book as well. You can read about the author at  Yuval Harari Works Less Than You  maybe you will get interested the same way I did. Sapiens starts when humans were hunter-gatherers and brings us to modern times. Most important is his perspective and high level view on agriculture, religions, ideologies and nations. Most striking was how much modern culture we live in is just another kind of ideology and how important it is for people to believe in the same things. Rating: 10/10. Must read. I was reading it in english but I liked the books so much that I bought Polish paper edition as well. Polish readers can find shops at:  lubimyczytac.pl

I published a new review on Medium.com:  https://medium.com/@krzychukula/book-review-influence-by-robert-b-cialdini-f4575b6786a4#.55i8vpylc

I've posted the review on Medium - mostly because the editor is much better and some people have problems reading on Blogger. https://medium.com/@krzychukula/book-review-deep-work-by-cal-newport-97b15ef26265

I have expected a book about music theory, but it's something completely different. You can learn about history and origin of music and how music industry evolved to its current state. It was intriguing to read about amateurs and how that music was played locally before recording technology emerged. Book motivated me to finally learn guitar and explained a lot about the music industry. Rating: 6/10

One of the best books I have ever read. Do you feel that you don't really have the passion for your work? If you have passion then maybe you feel that you don't have any particular mission? Long story short this book will liberate you. Your gain your passion with work and effort you put into something you do - preferably that pays your bills. If you like something or you have no other choice and you have to do something you still can make it your passion. In my opinion, that's liberating. What's the alternative? For me, I would need to be sad that I can't make reading fantasy books my job... Mission: After watching Brett Victor Inventing on Principle,  I was thinking about my mission... What should it be? Cal Newport puts that into another perspective. First you have to gain expert experience and skills to have a mission. With enough knowledge in your field, it will be obvious next step to do. Keep build your skills and mission will show up eventually....

Most interesting ideas: Be mindful about your self-talk. Do not think about yourself as lazy - procrastination is an escape when you're overwhelmed or are scary about finishing. Unschedule Put your free time and thing like commute/lunch/dinner etc into the calendar. What is left is your time for work but: You have to start working for 30min and you can put something in the calendar after you have finished 30min work. Do not work more than 20hours a week and 5hours a day. Interesting that I read it to read how I can do more to discover that I already work too much. Guilt-free time for play is probably the nicest idea from the book. Rating: 6/10

I head about Presentation Zen way before reading Presentation Zen Design  in 2014, but there was always something more urgent to do. Recently I started to think more about a long-term value of books and decided to evaluate my "want to read" list. As a result, I picked Presentation Zen that was on my list since 2008... Prepare. First chapters were about going analog while planning presentation. I have made that mistake many times, but now I see myself thinking with just paper and pen all the time. It really helps. Design. It's really good, but I would recommend reading  Presentation Zen Design  as well. It was really good for me to rehearse it, but the topic deserves more attention. Especially if you don't know much about design. Deliver. A lot of good ideas here. I know many of them, but still, good to be reminded that you shouldn't deliver your presentation in a dark room. The audience has to see you, to be able to understand you. Summary. I'v...

This is must read for all introverts and all who interact with them. In the world so focused on extroversion it's reassuring to hear that introversion is normal and have its own strengths. I'm not exactly shy and introvert person all the time but I learned a lot. In my opinion, everyone can learn something from it. Solitude can be something that not only introverts can benefit from. The most important idea for introverts is to embrace your strengths. Instead of feeling guilty you're not social and cheerful all the time you should use your observational and listening skills. Picking only a couple of close friends over many acquaintances might be better for you as well. Even when everyone around you creates social pressure to talk it doesn't mean that you have to do it. Quiet gives you more confidence in who you are and how you can live your life your own way. It turns out that an introvert can fake extroversion, but it's easier if it's important because...

I wasn't sure who this book is for after reading the description so this post should help you decide if this book is for you. If you never used Node.js or any kind of servers side Node.js then you can learn a lot, but you have to know basics of programming. Most of the technologies will be useful in Web Development as well so I can recommend it to Front-End developer who want to learn more about the Back-Ends. Unfortunately, I expected the book to be harder and more focused on game programming. It was really good to see hard ideas like corrections implemented in simple examples. It was encouraging to see how easy it can be to be implemented regardless of how hard it sounds. If you are interested in more implementation techniques of the game servers and how those ideas you already know might be implemented there then your best companion is the accompanying code. Unlike many programming books, the applications actually work and the code is easy to read. Personally I found the cod...

This is my second audiobook and I have to admit that I really enjoyed listening to it. I've seen the trailer two weeks ago and I had to read the book. It turned out that it's more practical for me to listen to it, but I think it's for the better. So what is the book about? On the first mission to the Mars, one of the astronauts stays behind during evacuation and he has to figure out how to survive. That's it. Most of the book is about him panicking and then having the genius plan how to fix the problem. If you will like the first part about him figuring out what to eat then you will like the whole book. I liked the humour but I think the book is a little too long and in the last chapters you can feel the repetitive scheme of panic and fixing stuff. Good thing it happened almost at the end for me. It's entertaining and I can recommend it as something fun to read. Rating: 8/10

I was curious what this book is about, and what it might be to think like a freak. Unfortunately, I knew most of the stories or they were ordinary. I liked them, but they were not what I expected. The story about Takeru Kobayashi  is the only one about real life freak and how he thinks, this one was great. Most of the ideas were about overcoming cognitive biases and using data to make decisions. Thinking small and having fun are important to keep you motivated. All in all it was my first audiobook - I have enjoyed listening to it - unfortunately it ended too soon - it's really short one. Rating: 6/10

Drawing was on my list of things I want to know how to do for a long time. A year ago I've seen a nice recommendation of this book saying that the science in it is not worth reading, but the exercises are great. I have to admit that I skipped the exercises in last chapters - basically I don't have crayons or pastels and I don't want to buy them right now. Besides that, I have learned a lot. Exercises were really hard for me, even sitting and drawing for an hour was really hard. Fortunately in the end I have set a goal to myself to finish it in June. Without that specific goal, it would probably never happen. After finishing my self-portrait in chapter 10 and comparing it to the one before the book I was amazed. Don't get me wrong, the people on both on them don't resemble me, but the third one at least looks like a person. Most of what I learned about drawing would be something I would consider "cheating". I though that artists just happen to si...

It is a good read - especially after giving up on The Sword of Truth series. I can say that I enjoyed it, especially closer to the end as the action moves slowly. End of the book was much better and I had a hard time to put the book off t go to sleep. I liked the characters and they seem real and thinking for themselves. But Jezel - while he grows throughout the book is just annoying. Most of the book while helps us learn the characters does not move the action at all. I feel like the first book is only the introduction to the book as almost nothing happens. Rating: 6/10

I bought this one a year ago, but there was always something easier to read so I procrastinated. This year I had a problem with getting internet connection in Spain so it was convenient to read something on paper. Book is directed to advanced JavaScript programmers and it is going to be hard for junior programmers. Some parts were hard for me as well and last three chapters (Master Training) was just  complicated code samples with an only high-level overview. The best part of the book are chapters 9-12 (Ninja Training). I would expect most of the book to be at this level and with this kind of elaboration. The rest of the book was too easy or too complicated. I have expected more from the book. Differences between old IE browsers and W3C compatible ones fill most of the chapters. Authors argue many times it is more important how to do things than what actual examples, but I would prefer something more interesting. It's a good read, but you have to know a lot about JavaScri...

Sixth book from the Sword of Truth book series Faith of the Fallen was better than most of the previous ones. Maybe best so far. There is more action than retrospection and it makes the book gripping. Even the plot itself was much better. Of course, there were coincidences but at least they were more probable than in the previous one. If you are a fan of war and military literature then this book covers a lot of the war with The Imperial Order. Rating: 7/10

Fifth book of the series. Most of the time it was better than previous book. The bad part was coincidences around 80% of the book.  They were annoying to the point I was considering dropping the series. I was reading through it when I was too tired to do anything else. After it the end was pretty good and left me pretty optimistic about the next book. All in all, it's a good read. Rating: 5/10

First couple of chapters were interesting and I learned a little about assets and liabilities. Till the end of the book is was more and more general and at the end was all about encouraging people to buy his game and his books. The ratio of useful information and promotion in the book is far too low for me.I will continue learning elsewhere, but it's because I hardly learned anything from the book. I can recommend it if you're afraid of finances. If you are already doing anything like investing it won't help you. Rating: 4/10