Book Review: If you meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!

The highly disturbing title of the book got my attention few years ago. I added the book to my "want to read" books long time ago, but still I wasn't really sure about reading it. When it started to come back as a reference on some books and articles, I just had to go and read: If you meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!

Book was written already at 1974 by Sheldon Kopp. Sheldon was a psychotherapist in US and had been working with variety of patients. He reveals quite much about himself in the book and that made the book more human and bit easier to grasp.

Overall the book was strange in a good way. Once in a while Sheldon Kopp tells ages old stories with a learning's and then he jumps back to quite instructive and sometimes disturbing stories about the patients he have met. He does get his message through via all of this.

The whole message of the book is: the solution to most of the problems are within oneself. There are no guides, no people or no ideologies that in itself can guide one to happiness, good life or just out of the troubling things in one's mind.

The book raised lot's of thoughts and ideas. For a long time this was a book I made most notes from. It's not by any means an easy one to read, but it is important. It's not easy and fun like many self-help books, but I believe that's the reason it's so powerful.

I really enjoyed the book and recommend to the people who want to learn to understand themselves better. It's not easy, but well worth the trying.


Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Kirja-arvostelu: Henkka Hyppönen Pelon hinta

Sorry for the English speaking readers this review is in Finnish. Reason is that this book hasn't been published in any other languages than in Finnish.

Henkka Hyppösen Pelon hinta tuli minulle lukuun pienen kirjakerhomme kautta. Ollakseni täysin rehellinen, en usko, että olisi kirjaa muuten lukenut. Pidän kyllä Henkka Hyppösestä ja hänen tavastaan esiintyä, mutta oli vaikea nähdä häntä tiedekirjailijana.

Tämä ajatus Henkka Hyppösestä kirjan kirjoittajana, kummitteli mielessäni koko kirjan alkuosan. Olen myös lukenut tosi vähän suomenkielistä kirjallisuutta viimeiseen kymmeneen vuoteen, niin meni pitkään päästä sisälle koko kirjaan.

Aihe sinänsä oli mielenkiintoinen ja siellä oli muutamia tosi hyviä tarinoita pelosta. Lisäksi aihetta käsiteltiin monesta eri näkökulmasta ja tuotiin hyvinkin erilaisia tutkimuksia esiin.

Jossain kirjan puolivälissä alkoi jo tuntua, että Henkka Hyppönen oli halunnut laittaa kaikki hyvät tarinat ja tutkimukset samaan kirjaan ja välillä yhteys pelkoon oli jo aika kaukaa haettua. Tämä vaivasi koko lopputeosta, kaikesta yritettiin tehdä pelkoa ja pelolle koitettiin löytää hintansa. Esimerkkinä laskelma siitä kuinka monta yritystä Suomessa jää perustamatta pelon takia, se laskelma oli jo aika kaukaa haettua.

Sinänsä kirja oli soljuva ja helposti luettava. Tekisi mieli suositella kirjaa monille, mutta toisaalta taas aihepiiristä on varmasti parempiakin kirjoja. Jos Henkka Hyppösestä pitää TV tai radio-ohjelmien perusteella, niin ehkä tähänkin opukseen kannatta tutustua.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win

I didn't book Soccernomics to read, only because of soccer. I wanted to read it to understand the power of data analytics. It turned out to be interesting also from soccer point of view.

Book looked soccer from all the different angles. It explained the economics of soccer, how money does mean a lot in soccer. Also it explained why some team are better on their transfers. But it does talk also quite much about what's happening in the field.

The whole idea of the book is to analyze countries and their enthusiasm towards soccer. Then based on many different data select, which are countries that will in the future dominate soccer.

I liked the book very much. It was just the season of Leicester winning the Premier league, which kind of destroyed some of the thoughts of the book. Most probably Leicester was a one season wonder and can be explained as a statistical bias. Still for the sake of soccer, I wish the thoughts in the book don't happen exactly as they predict.

It was an interesting book and I recommend to read it. Statistics and statistical analysis is field that will grow all the time, when more and more data becomes available. This is a good start to understand it more.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design

I can't remember who recommended the book Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design to me, but I'm glad someone did. It's an excellent book about happiness and how our homes, neighborhoods and commuting affect to our lives.

Book introduces really many interesting facts about how other people and the neighborhood affect to our happiness. Happiness have always been interesting topic for me, so I was keen on reading more about the subject. I've always had a hunch about how important your neighbors and the contacts with them are, but this really gave some good statistics about it.

Happy City goes through data and experiments around the world on how cities and streets affect to us. For almost 100 years cities have been build to run by cars and with current population, it has actually made us less free. Many people spend enormous amount of times in cars and are unhappy because of that.

Book also discusses a lot about cars versus other ways to commute. Maybe on that end, book is bit US centric, but many of the things affect to everyone around the world. Commuting affects to us a lot, the way you commute, how long you commute and with whom you commute affect in numerous ways. Book introduces many interesting studies about the subject. One example was a study that said that commuting to work over 45 minutes raises a risk of divorce by 40%. Book is full on nice anecdotes and studies like this.

As with any other book, it's good to have critical eye on the studies and ideas, but those definitely will raise thoughts for everyone. It's an excellent book and quite easy to read. I recommend the book to everyone.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Talk like Ted by Carmine Gallo

I've recently been more and more involved in public speaking events. Eventhough I've read other books about the subject, I wanted to give Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds a try.

As you could expect, book was made interesting to read. It covered variety of topics related to speaking via TED talks. Some of the TED talks were familiar to in advance, but some I had to watch right away to get more understanding about those.

The book is divided to three main categories: Emotional, Novel and Memorable. Under these topic book goes through all the important parts of creating a great speech. Book backs up the ideas with proper research and still keeps ideas easy and understandable.

Ideas as such were mainly familiar to me, but it still was interesting to read more about those. Storytelling and emotionally appealing to the audience is difficult, but works really well. Keeping audience focused is always difficult and this book introduced some good ideas for myself for that purpose.

As a Finn and European, I have to say that book is quite American. Having some experience on presenting in different countries, all the things don't work as well in different countries as they do in US. That's just a good to keep in mind, still the ideas are great and you need to find ways how to benefit those with your audience.

Overall I really liked the book. It's easy and enjoyable to read. It's full of great ideas and gives good tips for all presenters. I highly recommend to read this book,. Everyone will benefit from it.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

I recently read The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson. It'a a book about shipping containers, the big metallic boxes you see everywhere. The book tells the history of the containers and also discusses about how it changed the economical laws of the world.

The topic was really interesting at least to me. I've always been interested about the big economic systems and how those get changed. Shipping containers have seriously changed the world and could be seen as one of the latest industry revolutions before the internet.

The topics in the book vary from unions to ship buildings to urban development to the actual shipping containers. So it covers a lot of topics which belong together via the containers.

Unfortunately the book was bit longish to read, even thought it was interesting. There are quite a few people introduced and it was bit difficult to follow all of those. Also all the different parts covering union wars and strikes were bit boring. I believe the book could have been even 100 pages shorter with good editing.

I still recommend this book to everyone. These kind of books explaining the world and the big economic systems there are, are important. People usually are terrible at understanding these systems and this book explains those in quite an interesting way.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall

I had high expectations to Christopher McDougall's new book Natural Born Heroes. His previous book was really enjoyable journey to endurance athletes and especially to ultrarunning world. I thought this book would be natural continuation to that one.

The book tells stories about human abilities that go beyond our thought of normal human abilities. So it tells stories about heroes. Heroes and especially endurance heroes looked like an interesting topic to read about.

Quite early in the book I noticed that it isn't as easy to read that I would have hoped to. The challenge with the book was that it was filled with so many stories, that it becomes almost impossible to follow all of those.

Main stories were about Greece, but even there the stories jumped from mythologies, to World War II to McDougall's own experience from there. In addition to these Greece stories, book jumped once in a while to stories from former China, UK and US. Many of the stories connected to each other, but there were so many characters in the book that it was laborious to keep track on whom was whom.

As such I liked the book and it thought some good things about humans and endurance overall. In that sense it was enjoyable. With better planning and organization the book would have been excellent. At least for my type of reading, I kept loosing track which story was being told at which time.

It is bit hard to give recommendations about the book. At least if World War II interests, then I recommend to read it. If you want something lighter about endurance once in a while, then it would be good option look into. If you expect clearly structured fact based book about endurance, then maybe there are other choices to consider.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux

Over year ago I saw the presentation from Frederic Laloux about the new kind of organizational models. I've read and listened his thought many times since. The book Reinventing Organizations have been in my book shelf for a year, but now I finally can say that I have read it from cover to cover.

Reinventing Organizations is important book discussing about future of workplaces. It goes through via history and via good examples different kind of organizational models. Most importantly it introduces the Teal organization thinking.

Best part of the book is the case studies and examples from organizations like Buutzorg, FAVI, Morning Star, Sun Hydraulics and some others. Those show that self organization and new kind of management is possible and has been possible for years already. Those are examples that every person interested in developing companies further should read.

Contents and the ideas in the book were really interesting and valuable. The style and structure of the book made it laborious for me to read. It could have been almost 100 pages shorted with better plan on the structure. That is the only criticism that I can say about the book.

It is important book and I really recommend to read it. Teal type of organizations will be something that will be in discussion in the near future in many different industries. This is a book that will help everyone to understand better what future might look like.

The least everyone should do, it to check the video that has been made based on the Laloux model (link to the video). It is no where near as extensive as the book, but it will give the basic idea.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: It's Not All About "Me" by Robin Dreeke

Robin Dreeke is former FBI Agent from the FBI Behavioral Unit. He writes in his It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Rapport - book about how to build trust and connect with people.

The book is written well and it's easy to understand. Techniques as such are not magic, but something that everyone can take in to use if they wish. I've previously read about nonviolent communication and I think there are many similarities to the things Robin is teaching.

As the title already says, the main message is to concentrate to the other person. The key is to get rid of need to answer to other, but to concentrate on what the other one is saying. It sound so easy, but you can easily notice in everyday discussions the need to bring your own views and your ego to the discussions. NVC book already thought me about this skill few years ago, but I still find it very difficult to master.

Of course there are some other things to take in to account. For example there are tricks that help you make the person you want to approach, to feel safe and comfortable to open up. These skills are important for everyone in their personal and work life's.

In top of being interesting and easy to read, the book is also very compact and fast to read. I highly recommend everyone to read this book. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't benefit of the skills presented in this book.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick

For once I read something else than work, sports or self development books. I wanted to read something entertaining, fact based and hopefully interesting. I got my hands to Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick.

Kevin Mitnick is a hacker who for a reason or another became one of the most wanted hackers in the world. He claims that he hasn't done many of the things he was accused on, but I guess that's what he has to say to avoid further jail time.

Book definitely was interesting. It starts from the days that calling was actually done by wired telephones. Kevin learned to control the technical environment quite early, but I guess his social hacking skills helped him to raise to the whole new level. It was amazing to read how easy social hacking had been and I believe it might still be in some occasions. People are helpful by nature and that security vulnerability Kevin shamelessly used to exploit to many companies networks. Of course social hacking needs superb technical skills to complete the hackings.

For a trusty person as myself, I still feel bit disturbed by the book. Kevin of course brings himself up as good guy with noble purposes, but I'm not sure how noble he really is (or at least was). As a trusty person again, I would like to believe him, but I haven't heard the story from the other side.

At least how he was handled in the US court system was unbelievable. He was handled similarly as a serial killers, or even worse, almost without decent ways to communicate to outside world. He would have earned a better trial, but hacking was so new on that time, that caused some of the mix-ups.

All in all, I definitely got what I wanted. Book was really interesting and even though it was bit longish, it went really rapidly. I recommend the book to any one interested about hacking, security or history of IT and SW.


Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

I almost feel ashamed that I had missed this book for so long. Peopleware (3rd ed.) from Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is a book about soft side of product development and creative work overall. It goes through using many studies and examples why it is so important to take good care on people.

Book explains Human Resources, office environment, recruitment, growing productive teams, taking care of people and most importantly having fun at work. It's impossible to highlight all the important things they raise in the book, because there are so many. The main message is that people are the most important asset of many companies and too often people are not given good enough support and office spaces to get all the benefits from them.

I especially liked the office environment part. I've worked and seen so many bad offices where there are too much noise, too little light, too many interruptions and inadequate space and time for getting to the flow state. Most often there are stupid policies that prevent on creating workplaces that would actually suit to the needs of the workers. And then in worst cases there are some guys proud of saving money on small office. That's just sad.

But the book is not only about working environment. It discusses lot about teams and how to form great teams and what are the common ways to ruin good teams. Team development is something I've been interested for a long time, but still they were able to provide good new information and ideas to myself.

I honestly am bit ashamed that I didn't read the book earlier. When reading books, I always mark down parts that I will come back later and this book got most markings ever. It's a great great book and even really easy and fun to read.

This book is a gem and every manager and knowledge worker should read this. It gives lot of ideas and background information for building better teams and workplaces. I highly recommend this book.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Run Less Run Faster

I try to read couple of sports books every year. I've heard from couple of different sources that Run Less Run Faster is an excellent book for busy runners wanting to develop their run.

Idea in Run Less Run Faster is easy, concentrate on your key runs and make sure you stay healthy. Book advises to get rid of junk miles, meaning the runs without specific purpose. Also it explains that three runs in a week is enough when it's supported with proper supporting training.

I do agree with the thinking in the book. I've run maximum of three runs in past years and I've been able to run much faster than previously. I've also discovered that key to improvement is different kind of runs and pushing yourself to the limits. So I do think book is good and valuable for many people.

Book also gives quite good exercises for runs and strength training. It is a good source for knowing what speeds to use in different exercises and what should be the amount of rest in different intervals. Also for strength and flexibility training it explains the basics.

What I worry with this kind of guidance to training is that it kills the joy of training. When every exercise have specific meaning and you need to watch you clock all the time, you easily lose the joy you can get from exercises. Everyone, including myself, should once in a while remember why they are training, for themselves or for some other reason.

The book in itself is easy and enjoyable. Especially for the runners who don't do enough different kind of exercises, this is a must read. For the people who already have wide range of training in their program, this might not be be worth of reading.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: The Lean Startup

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries was a book I had heard about so many times that I had to read it myself. I had heard about Lean Startup methodology and read about it in many blog posts, but I hadn't read the book. In a way the topic was familiar even before starting, but still there were learning to gain from the book.

Ideology of Lean Startup is really valuable. I believe there's some truth behind what Eric Ries is talking about. The main idea of Lean Startup is that is valuable to measure the ideas in the market and be willing to learn from the results and pivot the course if needed.

I especially liked what Eric wrote about what actually is an MVP. In my own believes I often seen MVP to be much less than companies are themselves thinking it to be. Also validated learning, innovation accounting and the whole build-measure-learn loop were valuable parts of the book.

What I didn't like was that the book wasn't anywhere close to minimum viable book. It was utterly too long and once in a while even boring. I believe the ideas of the subject could have been delivered in 100 pages. That would have proven the value of the thinking. Now it was as any other ordinary book, lengthened to almost 300 pages in order to seem as a "normal" book. I just hate that approach. When there isn't that much to say, why to waste so many pages on it.

I feel bit bad to criticize the book since, I think that everyone should learn about the Lean Startup methodology. It is valuable and would help many companies and startups to succeed. I believe the book just isn't the best way to learn about the subject.


Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: The Sports Gene

David Epstein's The Sports Gene was exciting read for me. I follow many different sports and I've been intrigued about how much success is about nature (genes) and how much about nurture (training, etc). This was the first time I got some concrete facts about the subject.

David Epstein isn't a scientist, but a sports journalist, who has made a long learning journey to be able to write about so technical subject. I believe this book is better, when it's written by a journalist and not by a scientist. Book goes quite deep into the genes and biology, so it's better when it's written in bit more understandable way.

Book tells stories and facts about athletics, basketball, sprint running, long distance running, cross country skiing, baseball and many others. It really tries to look for patterns behind athletes and their genes. For certain sports there are definitely genetic differences that make some athletes to have a superior change to succeed to others. Still success always needs lots of training.

In one way book is depressing for some sports. As an example, with current conditions in the world Kalenjin Kenyans will rule the marathon and long distance running field for some time. But actually not that long ago, Finnish people used to rule the long distance world (Hannes Kolehmainen, Paavo Nurmi, Lasse Viren) , before we got richer and didn't run that much anymore. So in a way we Finns still might have the genes for it, but our environment and training doesn't support those anymore. The same might happen to the Kenyans at some in the future.

The whole book bounces between nature and nurture. What is certain is that there are no genetically perfect athletes, because no one doesn't have any good ideas what genes actually are needed for which sports. There are some genes found which might prevent success in some sports and some genes that are common with the elite athletes in that sport. Most often still, the genes of elite athletes can be found from thousands of other who still are not elite. So there is no one answer for nature vs nurture debate.

One other thing that interested me was the trainability of people. Different genes actually mean that people develop differently. Populist journalism often tells that training like this and that will only give results. The fact is, people acquire skills differently. The famous 10 000 hour rule, isn't exactly true, but then on the other hand it gives an idea of the ball park people need to train. People need to train the way their body and mind adapts. That's the most important lesson of the book.

I highly recommend this book the everyone interested about sport training or coaching. It felt bit longish at some point, but reading this is time well invested.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Organize for Complexity

I got book Organize for Complexity when I was at Dare Festival in Belgium about a month ago. Author Niels Pflaeging did also give a speech at the conference. The contents of the speech and the book (or perhaps booklet) were mainly the same, so this review is a bit about both of those.

Topic of the book interests me a lot. I've recently had many thoughts, writings and discussions about how organizations should be organized in the future, to be able to suit the markets of the future and the needs of next generation workforce.

This short book is a good first step to the new organizational thinking. It gives some initial ideas why the organizations should change and it gives one simple view to the challenge. It is not a book as such, more of a booklet with few paragraphs and illustrative pictures. It gives basic ideas well and raises some thoughts, but it lacks all critical thinking and discussion about the subject.

I liked the ideas what Niels seems to have, but I don't think this book really brings those forward. It's almost as powerpoint slides would have been transferred to book format. It isn't really a proper book, but it has some powerful thoughts.

If you want to have a simple touch on the organizations of the future, this book might be for you. The contents are valuable, the format of the book wasn't just to my taste.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People

Presenting, selling ideas to people and training has been part of my job for the past few years. Presenting as such is something I've always been comfortable with, but I know I could be much better. That's the reason I read 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People by Susan M. Weinschenk.

The author has Ph.D. in Psychology and has a strong background on behavioral psychology. This shows a lot in the book. I originally had different thought what the book would have inside. I wasn't expecting that much science and actual proof behind the things that presenters need to know. So the surprise was positive and made the subject more interesting.

The idea in the book is to explain and benefit from the behavioral psychology. Maybe it was because I had read quite a lot about behavioral psychology in the past years, that the psychology parts as such weren't that new to me. Some of the ideas how to use those in presentations where the ones that brought me the value.

Book is well structured. It was fun to read. It worked especially well for bus or train trips which I use when I visit our offices in Helsinki central. Like the title tells it has 100 of things that every presenter needs to know. Those things are short and backed up with a proper research. I have to admit that book would have been at least good enough with 91 or 93 things, but maybe 100 is just much more effective. Few of the things were there just to fill the hundred.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to understand people's behavior in presentation situations. If you are presenter, you facilitate meetings or meet people for sales, this is a good book for you. It also reminds about many important psychological studies from the past decades. It's a good book and quite easy and enjoyable to read.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman

Wow, wow, wow. That was the feeling I got from reading the book. Nobel Prize winner from Economics Paul Krugman, gives in the book his view what should be done to End This Depression Now! His view is quite contradictory to the politics that have been ongoing. He rates himself to be New Keynesian and he brings many views from old Keynesian macroeconomics.

First of all, as the best influencers, he knows his stuff well and has the ability to explain those entertainingly and easily. Book about macroeconomics and recession doesn't sound like the most interesting topic, but I wasn't bored even once with this book. He uses examples well and still backs up his stories with hard cold facts.

I don't even think that I would be capable of arguing against any of the ideas he presents in the book. His main idea is that markets do not work perfectly and increasing government spending would help economy (at least US) out from depression.  He brings lot of historical and scientific proof that solution could be so simple.

Other than recession, book is an excellent source to get more understanding about macroeconomics. He is such a good to explain things, that I at least had couple of aha! moments reading the book. It increased my understanding of macroeconomics.

Book is concentrates to US, but is has few chapters to Europe also. I admit being quite supportive for our common currency Euro, but Krugman was able to explain what has been so risky on it. Also he explains why Euro has been one of the main reasons for the recession in Europe and also in Finland where I live. Still he doesn't recommend of getting rid of Euro, but believes that bit higher inflation and few different moves from European Central Bank should do differently to get us out from recession.

I'm so glad I read this book. Few previous books I've read have been good, but this was an eye-opener. These are the feeling you get with best books. You feel that your thinking has changed after reading it. I highly recommend the book to everyone. It's essential book about essential subject.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders by Jurgen Appelo was one of the books that I've planned to read for a long time. The positive thing about reading it now and not earlier, is that I was much more ready to understand the book than I was few years ago.

Management 3.0 is an excellent book. Even though the name might promise a one more management model to learn, Jurgen Appelo tells that there isn't a model that would suit all. To be more precise, Jurgen tells that all models have their flaws. He does say that models are important, but we need to remember that all companies, products, people and environment are different in every case.

Jurgen does give his view on what is important in Management in the future. His model has six major themes, which start from energizing people and go all the way to improve everything. He goes all his themes through with very extensive walk-through of underlying knowledge on each of the areas. He explains things thoroughly, but still interestingly.

I really liked the book. It was excellent reading and widened my view of the importance of people in companies. It does discuss about many of the same issues that other Agile books, but it does add lot of new ideas to the discussion.

I recommend this book to managers in product development companies and others who are interested on how the whole companies should be organized. It's a great book and I promise you won't be disappointed.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: The Fifth Discipline

This time I had in my reading list one of the business literature classics The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge. It's a book that introduces systems thinking as we know it know.

Book is well written, but even more importantly the contents of it are really valuable. I had read about systems thinking before and I had been given so many recommendations about this book, that I had high hopes for the book. Luckily it matched my expectations.

The idea of the book is that organizations should become learning organizations to stay in business and have a good future. The book introduced a fresh way of seeing organizations as whole systems. It gives lot of value to personal development and human values ensuring that organizations learn to improve themselves in the long run.

Book introduces five disciplines of learning organization. Also it introduces eleven learning disabilities that prevents learning organizations to form. It has a lot good examples and it is easy to learn with this book.

I highly recommend this book to everyone working in organizations, small or big ones. So this would be a good book for almost anyone. It's a bit longish with over 400 pages. That's a pity, since it might scare few potential readers away from it.

It's great and important book. Many people have read it, but still only few organizations live to the values of the book. Learning needs understanding. Hopefully many more will read the book, understand the teachings and share the knowledge.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book Review: All The Devils are Here by McLean and Nocera

For some time I've wanted to understand more about the reasons of 2008 financial crisis. I did know the basics of the housing bubble, but not much more. That's the reason I got All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera.

I was enthused to read the book. I had positive thoughts about the book and I really tried to like it. But I didn't. Book did explain why the crisis happened and introduced all the players who had played major role creating the housing bubble. The problem for me was, that the authors focused to people and companies so much that the actual problem was hidden behind all the blaming.

Authors Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are both journalists and full time writers. This unfortunately shows in a bad way. The book would have worked in 40 separate articles, but it didn't work as long book. The full story wasn't well taken in to account with the separate twists to it.

I didn't like the blaming culture there was in the book. Most of the bankers and people mentioned in the book must have been money graving idiots, who made millions and millions with screwing others, but I don't still think blaming them gets us anywhere. This book wasn't only about blaming, it did discuss about the system a bit, but it focused too much on the individuals who had been creating the system.

I believe blaming culture actually creates the basis for the macho culture to exist. Then the macho culture creates these idiots who play the systems and create their own rules. So in a way I believe these kind of books doesn't solve the problem, but actually are part of the system that cause them.

Maybe it was my fault, that I didn't understand the book from the title. It really talks about the devils, not about global systems that created the devils. Still the book I would like to read, would search to understand the system. This wasn't the book I was hoping for.

I do believe there are people who like these kind of books. They are the people who like blaming others, I don't. I don't recommend this book to anyone. I didn't like it and I found it quite boring to read.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen