August and September Books: lots of fiction and a few audiobooks

Thanks to Yujin, I’m addicted to Farnam Street. It’s the blog I wanted to start :)

Here are the books I read in August and September. I’m using a simpler format, with the hope that less work = more consistent updating.

August

I drove from LA to San Francisco twice in August, hence the 3 completed audiobooks. Oh, and plenty of podcasts.

The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator by Randall Stross

I kept putting off reading this book, but after unabated nagging from a few friends, I took the plunge and got through it pretty quickly. Stross provides a great refresher of YC lessons learned, and his behind-the-scenes access unlocked plenty of new insights and stories.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (audiobook)

Did you know Stephen King had his first short stories published at the age of 18? And that his ironclad rule is to write 2000 words a day, every day (holidays and weekends included)?

It reminds me of that Somerset Maugham quote,

I write only when inspiration strikes me. Fortunately it strikes me every morning at nine o’clock sharp.

Stephen also dislikes adverbs, for example “he aggressively jumped” or “she silently tip-toed”.

Thanks Magic Ming for the rec.

The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey (audiobook)

It’s nominally an investigation of how average tennis players like myself can perform at their highest level, but its lessons can be abstracted into a life philosophy on how to overcome obstacles, face competition, and be your best self. Some of Timothy’s lessons are trite and of the self-help variety, for example his belief that opponents are blessings in disguise, but overall I enjoyed reading the book and understanding the difference between my conscious and subconscious self.

Stein on Writing by Sol Stein (audiobook)

You know you’re a big poo-bah when the title of your book can follow the format “[your last name] on [some topic]”. Like “Jordan on Basketball” or “Santana on Guitar”. I guess that’s where Stein fits in the pantheon of book editors, having published the works of David Frost, Elia Kazan, W. H. Auden, and Jacques Barzun. I learned so much from the audiobook that when it was finished, I immediately started over and listened to it again. For example, the best dialogue should be oblique, as in:

Harry: “Did you like that new movie Gravity?”
Sally: “How can you not like a movie with George Clooney AND Sandra Bullock?”

The dialogue is oblique because Sally doesn’t just say “Yes” or “No”. So yeah, many nuggets like that.

September

Dominated by fiction.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Yes, I read this book in middle school and I think it’s really meant for on-the-cusp adolescent boys. Where the re-reading urge came from, I can’t tell you. But I’m glad I re-read it, particularly the first half which focuses on how Jonas discovers his gift and how it changes both his relationships and his view of the world. I find it amazing that an adult author can write something which touches both children and adults, sort of like Pixar does today with its movies. The Giver profoundly affected 12-year old me, and it’s probably changed the lives of millions of kids and will continue doing so. Powerful stuff.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

As I’ve mentioned too many times before, I love Murakami’s writing. Like going on a run with a really fit friend, it pushes you beyond the limits of what you thought possible, and you’re left better for the experience with an undeniable reader’s high.

Not all’s perfect in Murakami-land, though. His sometimes bizarre, usually unpredictable endings can be aggravating, because I like to have my literary i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Those endings can feel like a girl who careens into your life, crashing through the emotional boundaries that you’ve carefully built, and then vanishes without a warning, leaving you with questions that your heart keeps asking but your brain knows will remain unanswered.

…or something like that, I imagine.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

The 2 books are so different that it doesn’t matter what order you read them in. Hard-Boiled was more…cerebral. And Kafka left me with a melancholy that is I wouldn’t try to explained.

If you do read them – or any of the other books – I’d love to hear your thoughts. Always open to recommendations as well. Cheers!

5 great articles – John McEnroe, Scott Weiss, Chris Dixon, Dr. Drew and The People’s Premier

Every article I read through the browser is shared via Clearly and a public Evernote notebook.

Since I doubt anybody checks it (on a regular basis, anyway), I wanted to step up the frequency of sharing interesting links, like what Seth Roberts and Tyler Cowan do with their Assorted Links.

Here are 5 recent articles I enjoyed:

  • Old article and my site may get blacklisted in China as a result, but former China Premier Wen Jiabao’s extended family is worth $2B. Hats off to NYT on great investigative reporting and ohhh, China
  • Beautifully written article on the tension between the pursuit of perfection and the management of one’s emotions featuring America’s favorite mercurial tennis player John McEnroe. I actually thought this famous outburst was overrated
  • 2 great posts from a16z’s Scott Weiss (former IronPort CEO and cofounder) on underlooked aspects of being the CEO: the need for tough feedback on a personal and board level. I really enjoy Scott’s ability to write in an upbeat tone while sharing much-needed truths
  • Chris Dixon with yet another short but thought-provoking piece on the macro-trend of digital content atomization. I’d add that, in such an environment, curation and synthesis become even more important (yes, that’s a self-serving remark :)
  • I’ve been hearing the word “grit” a lot lately. First from Dr. Drew and now popping up everywhere. As a predictor of career success, it’s the “new IQ” among the social science crowd

Why does “touchstone” mean what it does? And other words

Raining cats and dogsI’m fascinated by the history of words and phrases that have more than just a literal meaning. Why does it “rain cats and dogs”? How did “eavesdropping” come to mean listening furtively to other peoples’ conversations? And is a touchstone an actual stone?

A touchstone, as used in casual conversation, can mean two things:

  • A way to measure the quality of something, as in “His athletic success became a touchstone for future athletes at the school”
  • An essential part of something, as in “Nirvana was a touchstone of the grunge music scene in the 1990s”

Where does the word touchstone come from?

According to that most wonderful of resources Wikipedia, a touchstone is an actual stone. More precisely, it’s a small stone tablet used to determine the quality of precious metals like gold and silver. When you use gold to draw a line on a touchstone, it leaves a streak, the color of which can be compared to streaks from gold pieces of known quality and composition.

Fascinating, right? Although explaining why it’s popular today is much harder, like trying to explain why we use “what’s up?” to greet people. Who knows, maybe some famous person decided to use it and it spread from there.

Now I’ll answer the first 2 questions with less precision.

In England several centuries ago, when it rained really hard, stray dogs and cats would drown and pile up in the gutters. Thus the phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs”. Makes you think twice about using that phrase, right?

As for eavesdropping, there are several competing explanations, but old houses used to have eaves hanging from their roofs. Thus if you were right outside the window or door, secretly listening to the conversations inside, you’d be beneath the eaves and thus eavesdropping.

What words or phrases can you explain? I’d love to hear.

1-Read-A-Day: what I learned running a newsletter, September edition

Every month, I share stats and learnings on the 1-Read-A-Day newsletter. Here’s the launch post.

How well is it doing?

Subscribers: 220 (last month: 161)
Open rate: 22.9% (22.8%)
Click rate: 2.6% (2.2%)

Thanks to Kale’s feature, I got 27 signups in a single day. By far the largest jump since the July launch. I highly recommend subscribing to his Hacker Newsletter and also enjoy his Wayback Letter, a nice way to re-surface classic content that has disappeared from the interwebs.

What did I learn in September?

1. Per Tommy’s advice, I customized the Gmail preview snippet.

Open rates have increased, but it’s correlation, not causation. The change makes me feel better, though.

To customize the snippet and not harm the email’s readability, I explored several options but went with this one: the text snippet is placed it at the top of each email, then the font size is set to 1 and font color to white, so it’s invisible to readers.

2. Readers complained they couldn’t distinguish direct quotes from my color commentary. So I added a quote symbol inside each yellow box. This has received positive feedback, but there is a downside: before, each email was image free and did not require you to click “Display images below” (if you’re using Gmail) to load the quote-symbol-image. Another lesson: product “improvements” are often double-edged swords

3. Quizzes are the most complimented feature, so I added more questions to each quiz. I will also have a big, 10-question quiz after Lesson 50. I’m even thinking of launching startup quizzes as a separate project. “test your startup IQ” sort of thing

4. There’s a tension between esoteric and popular content. Well-read startup folks appreciate the esoteric content, but it’s often esoteric for a reason (niche appeal, out-of-date, too technical). However, I do agree that I’ve relied heavily on popular content, so going forward, I will feature more esoteric/lesser-known articles and bloggers (such as this thoughtful essay from Max)

What’s coming up – niche email courses and audio lessons

My goal was 50 lessons before I began to widely market the newsletter and release topic/problem-specific email courses (eg, 20 email lessons on hiring engineers, or 35 email lessons on raising a VC round). I’m on lesson 50 (congrats if you’ve read all of them), so these are coming soon.

I’m also planning to record 60-second podcasts for each lesson, for those who enjoy audio learning and have time to kill on the daily commute or while at the gym.

Thanks to all my subscribers for your participation and feedback. Keep it coming, it’s been a pleasure to do this. Here’s to showing up and getting to work. Cheers!

PS. If you run an email newsletter, I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, what works, and what doesn’t.

1-Page Cheatsheet: The Big Miss by Hank Haney

The Big Miss by Hank HaneySome athletes are SO GOOD that they suck you in. Any article, forum thread, tweet…you want to know anyone and everyone’s opinion. And of course you have your own.

My SO GOOD list includes Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, and of course Tiger Woods. When I heard the premise for this book – a behind-the-scenes-tell-all from his former swing coach – a book so explosive that a fairly reticent Tiger even complained publicly, I was sold.

Unfortunately, I’m missing 1/3rd of my highlights. After a long flight engrossed in the book on my iPad Kindle app, I absentmindedly left that iPad in my seatback pocket. Those highlights are lost unless a kind stranger returns it, which probably won’t happen because it’s a new iPad mini and those things are pretty sexy.

From the remaining 2/3rds, here’s my 1-page cheatsheet to The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods by Hank Haney [Amazon Kindle].

From Hank’s Wikipedia:

Hank Haney (born August 24, 1955) is an American professional golf instructor best known for coaching Tiger Woods[1] and two-time major championship winner Mark O’Meara. A graduate of the University of Tulsa, Haney owns and operates four teaching facilities in the Dallas, Texas area.

Insights and Highlights

Tiger plays to avoid “the big miss”

Although it’s commonly thought that Tiger plays go-for-broke golf and tries the most difficult shots with no fear, it’s a false image. Tiger is, above all, a calculating golfer who plays percentages and makes sure to err on the safe side.

Avoiding the big miss was a big part of what made Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus so great, and it’s a style that Tiger has emulated.

Tiger and Phil have a chilly relationship

Tiger has always had a chilly relationship with Phil. Some of it is personality, but most of it is that Mickelson possesses the kind of talent that has made him a legitimate threat to Tiger’s supremacy. Phil’s popularity with the fans and gentle treatment from the media add to Tiger’s annoyance.

Full-time, traveling coaches are a relatively new thing

But the publicity given to overhauls of pro players’ swings, especially the attention paid to the success David had with Nick, changed the model. Not only did it drive more tour players to seek full-time teachers; it led more instructors to travel the tour looking for business and developing stables. Whereas previously the only “lessons” on tour practice ranges had been one pro passing a quick tip along to another, soon there were so-called swing gurus walking the practice tee with video cameras, often serving multiple players at once.

No surprise – Tiger is GOOD

I was focused on Tiger’s progress, but I also had moments—especially when we first started working together—in which I’d just admire how good he was. Beyond his technique, his swing was mesmerizing for displaying the sheer grace that only the most special athletes possess. But besides exhibiting impressive coordination and explosiveness, even in practice Tiger had a focus and intensity that were beyond anything I’d ever witnessed. I could feel his love for what he was doing: his thrill at controlling the ball, his enthusiasm for learning how to do it better.

Even the people around him weren’t close

But as I was beginning to figure out, Tiger really didn’t let anyone in. It was interesting that Mark also advised that when it came to Tiger, the best policy was “Don’t get too close.”

*Mark Steinberg, Tiger’s agent

Tiger had a close relationship with his caddy Steve Williams…before the fallout

After Mark Steinberg, the next-closest person to Tiger was Steve Williams. Without a doubt, Steve is the best caddie I’ve ever seen. His greatest gift is that he stays completely calm and retains a commanding presence under the greatest tournament pressure. His former boss Raymond Floyd once said that Steve is the only caddie he ever had who didn’t choke. He proved it many times with Tiger, either by saying the right thing at a nervous moment, staying solidly silent in a moment of crisis, or calling Tiger off a shot if he believed it was the wrong one. Steve prided himself on being able to read Tiger’s mind, and Tiger respected Steve’s guts, judgment, and instinct. He also relied on Steve’s ability to be gruff and intimidating so that fans and media would give him a wider berth.

His weakness was the driver

Simply put, Tiger played the driver with a lot of fear.

Sometimes, to make it less of a big deal, he’d remind me that he had never considered himself a particularly good driver, at least in comparison with the rest of his game. “That’s why my name is Woods,” he’d joke. “Maybe it would have been different if I’d been named Fairway.”

He was reserved and could be moody

I saw Tiger in many modes. He could be very gracious in public when he chose. But when the mood struck him, he could be coldly aloof with media, autograph seekers, or even officials. In private, I found that he could either be good company—conversational and intelligent in a way that made you wish he’d allow that side of himself to come out all the time—or completely distant.

He enjoyed breaking small rules

Mostly he just drove his Escalade, but in a way that reflected an impatient guy who wasn’t going to follow the silly rules of regular schlubs. He’d go over the speed limit, but not by a lot. Mostly it was rolling stops, turns over double lines, parking in a restricted spot—time-saving stuff he thought was worth the risk. When I was in the passenger seat, sometimes I’d say “Nice” after one of his illegal moves. That would draw a smile from Tiger as he enjoyed the rare feeling of breaking rules.

He likes popsicles

I always remember a quirky aspect of Tiger’s behavior that in retrospect says a lot about how it was with him. When we were watching television after dinner, he’d sometimes go to the refrigerator to get a sugar-free popsicle. But he never offered me one or ever came back with one, and one night I really wanted one of those popsicles. But I found myself sitting kind of frozen, not knowing what to do next. I didn’t feel right just going to the refrigerator and taking one, and I kind of started laughing to myself at how hesitant I was to ask Tiger for one. It actually took me a while to summon the courage to blurt out, “Hey, bud, do you think I could have one of those popsicles?” He looked at me as if puzzled that I was asking, and said, “Yeah, sure, go ahead and get one.” I did, but even after that, Tiger never offered me a popsicle. It can sound petty, recalling a slight so ludicrously tiny, but my point is, it was that quality of paying attention only to his own needs that was so central to his ability to win.

He has a one-strike policy

The next time I saw Tiger, though, a couple of weeks later, I realized that it had somehow leaked that I’d tipped off the producer. He told me in a flat voice, “Don’t tell people where I’m going to play.” I said, “OK, sorry; won’t happen again.” And that was the end of the discussion. But from that moment, I was never again told whether he was entering a tournament until the same day he publicly announced his decision on his website. It made my life harder as far as planning went, but I guess he felt I’d betrayed him, and this was the consequence. In the bigger picture, he probably didn’t trust me as much, although I’m not sure. With Tiger, as far as staying in the inner sanctum, you’re pretty much one and done.

He has a unique ability to manage emotion

I think one of Tiger’s gifts was the ability, when he needed to, to turn off emotion. It was why after a tantrum he could still be serene over the next shot. No doubt he’d learned early on that strong emotions unchecked adversely affect coordination and focus and generally impede winning. His knack for shutting down emotion was a big reason he closed out victories better than anyone else in history, and why he was so incredibly good at making the last putt.

He’s ruthlessly competitive

Early in his career, when Ernie Els was the next-best player, Tiger handed him a string of hard defeats, and he frankly thought it broke Ernie as a serious rival. Tiger was always looking to do that with anyone who challenged him.

I can remember a few times when another player would make a conciliatory gesture toward Tiger, like sitting down at the lunch table or stopping to say something nice on the practice tee, and Tiger would respond with the cold shoulder. Sergio Garcia got the treatment after some early success against Tiger, and I think it bothered Sergio to the extent that he never played well in their matchups again.

That’s it, folks

Here’s my active reading list.

Previous 1-page cheatsheets include:

Here’s a full list of past books.