Target of 50 proved too ambitious. The 39 excludes travel books (mostly) and those I lost interest in midway through. It includes some books I skimmed parts of (anything below a 3 rating).

1. Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
2. Give and Take by Adam Grant
3. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
4. Spare by Harry
5. How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil
6. Onward by Howard Schultz
7. Grief Trip by Stuart
8. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
9. Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
10. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
11. How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan
12. The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
13. Einstein by Walter Isaacson
14. Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas
15. Open by Andre Agassi
16. Stay True by Hua Hau
17. More Myself by Alicia Keys
18. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
19. Outlive by Peter Attia
20. The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee
21. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman|
22. 100 tips for visiting Iceland by Eric Newman
23. Seven brief lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
24. Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
25. Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
26. Best American Travel Writing 2016 by Bill Bryson
27. Atomic Habits by Peter Clear
28. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
29. At Home by Bill Bryson
30. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
31. One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
32. Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka
33. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
34. David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
35. Joy of Costco by David and Susan Schwartz
36. The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs
37. BTS Biography by University Press
38. Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer
39. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Eleven VR Table Tennis has become my goto for fitness and fun. An hour or two, one charge cycle, the need to meet daily Move goals. Stay muted usually, don’t need to talk all the time. Using gestures is good enough. Played someone in China today, was fun to chat, both our English accents notwithstanding. The app needs a restart every other day when flicker gets too high. Can tell if the ball bounces too high on serve. Just one crash in a full year of playing. It’s straightforward to get started, just put on the controllers and headset, do a few warmup knocks with the AI and then jump into multiplayer. Takes a few seconds to find a match.

At $1500, the Meta Quest Pro is pretty much DOA, as in dead on arrival, the apparent reason for the price point being Apple’s foray into VR expected early next year. The enterprise tie-in is a joke. Productivity and creativity are going to be a tiny niche. Face it - this is for gamers and for fitness. And for that, the $300 Quest 2 is more than adequate.

This was an eye-opening book for me. I was not familiar with US politics prior to Reagan. A lot to take in and digest. A few things stand out.

Up until the 1960s, being a Democrat or Republican did not imply a clear set of values, the left and the right we hear about now. Voters habitually split their vote for President and Congress between parties. Parties tended to dominate for decades and politicians got used to making deals with the other side to get things done. Now, they just wait for their turn. Reagan and Bush Senior raised taxes - that would be an anathema today in the Republican party. Clinton came into office on a tough-on-crime platform. That would be just as out of place in the Democratic party today.

From a fellow MoveOn volunteer, here are 100 reasons to vote for Joe Biden for President:

1. $15 federal minimum wage

2. Reinstate DACA – allowing new applicants to apply

3. 12 Weeks federal paid family leave

4. Universal Pre-Kindergarten/Childcare for ages 3 and 4

5. Tuition free college for those with household income less than $125,000.00

Once I started reading 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, I couldn’t put it down. Written as a fictional story, it had me fully engrossed. In two hours, I was done and wondering why I had not come across this gem of a book earlier, now almost 2 decades old. This should be mandatory reading for every manager.

I highly recommend Kim Scott’s Radical Candor to every manager and non-manager alike. It talks about a culture and a framework of empathy and providing frequent positive and critical feedback that Kim developed over her years of working at Google and Apple and as a CEO coach. The first part of the book focuses on the philosophy and the second part has practical tools and techniques you can apply in your day-to-day work life.