It is the time of the year when we all start to think that we shall go on a journey of self-improvement.... Good luck.
Anyway I thought I would share some of my recent reading in the hope that others will find them relevant, interesting or just entertaining.
Procurement:
- Well the Procurement Act 2023, obviously. Many of us will be reading it a lot this year!
- Peter Smith is a former CIPS President who is now working on Procurement with Purpose which I think laudable. His newsletters are always interesting too - not least because of the new music discussion involved. Speaking of which, MY favourite new band in 2023 were Pale Blue Eyes - Shoegaze is BACK I tell you. Back! And the Slowdive album (everything is alive) was great too, though my favourite album was Fuse by Everything But the Girl.
General Non-fiction:
- Material World by Ed Conway, a consideration of 6 essential materials. Ok, I am a former materials scientist working in supply chain, so I guess I AM the target market. BTW I also want to read a book about the end of ICI. In his references he suggests a free PDF Sustainable Materials: With Both Eyes Open from Cambridge University, which I also heartily recommend.
- I do not Black Holes; the key to understanding the universe by Profs Brian Cox and Jeff Folshaw unless you already have some understanding. But if you do, it is super.
- How Big Things Get Done by Bynt Flyberg is brilliant about projects and project management and I shall be wittering on about it at every opportunity in 2024.
- What If 2 by Randall Munroe adds some much needed whimsy to the big questions.
- I'd never actually read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Much shorter than I imagined. Things have changed in 150 years, but maybe not as much as you would expect.
- Death comes to us all, and All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell is an intriguing exploration of something most of us care to avoid thinking about. Incidentally her dad Eddie Campbell wrote and drew From Hell with Alan Moore.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann tells us that we have 2 modes (fast and slow) and how that changes our decision making processes, and our decisions. TLDR Fast is the fight/flight/freeze type response, and until we can move beyond that we cannot make rational choices. Helps explain a lot. You may not need the whole book...
And finally Dollar Street from Hans Rosling's foundation helps us to really see what life is like for people around the world, rather than the perceptions we gain from TV. Invaluable. Take some of their quiz and see for yourself how you have an overly pessimistic view of the world. (or at least most people do - and there is still MUCH room for improvement).
Fiction:
- Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway was a great melding of SF and noir crime fiction. He is a friend of William Gibson, and the son of John Le Carre.
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