Books I read In December 2019

Into The Woods by John Yorke

I didn’t intend to read this book about scriptwriting and plot structure because of any intent to put it into practice just that I find it interesting to see how stories work. Yorke’s book is excellent - clear, concise, well structured (one would hope so!) and worth a read if you want to understand what makes a plot work and their common structural elements.

Buy Into The Woods

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

I’ve never read any Waugh before. This probably isn't the greatest place to start, being as it is a lighthearted satire on the media. It’s very dated and not very funny, but an interesting period piece.

Buy Scoop

Bad Blood by John Carryrou

I loved this expose of everything that went wrong with Theranos, the briefly multi-billion-dollar valued medical start up and I wrote about it here.

Buy Bad Blood

Lush Life by David Hadzu

Billy Strayhorn was the man behind a great deal of arrangements and compositions for Duke Ellington from their meeting in 1938 through to Strayhorn’s death, at 51, in 1967. He wrote the jazz standard Lush Life, an extraordinary and haunting song, when he was only 17, and is responsible for Ellington’s theme tune, Take The A Train, which he wrote based on Ellington’s instructions on how to get to his house. My favourite piece of his is Chelsea Bridge which is both instantly enjoyable and rewards regular revisiting. A lot is made in jazz circles of how much credit Ellington gave to work created by Strayhorn but this book suggests that he was reasonably happy to be in the background. As well as one of the greatest jazz composers of all time, he was heavily involved in the civil rights movement of the 1950s/60s and was openly gay in New York in the 1940s. This biography is one of the best-written I’ve read and Hadzu has clearly done an extraordinary amount of research. It’s out of print at the moment but it’s available second-hand relatively easily (and is on Kindle) and I’d highly recommend searching it out.

Buy Lush Life by David Hadzu

Absolute Sandman IV by Neil Gaiman

The last of the main series of Sandman in the Absolute series and still as beautiful and affecting as the first time I read it decades ago.

Buy Absolute Sandman IV

The Tiger That Isn’t by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot

Michael Blastland was the previous presenter of the BBC’s More or Less (before the incumbent, Tim Harford) and has spent his journalistic career explaining the importance of understanding statistics and using them correctly. The examples in here are a bit dated and focus on the Blair/Brown years (it was published in 2008) but the lessons are timeless.

Buy The Tiger That Isn’t

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Renowned geochemist and geobiologist Hope Jahren has written a beautiful memoir of her life in academic science in which her deep passion for science shines through on every page. She’s extraordinary and the book is excellent.

Buy Lab Girl the Kindle edition of Lab Girl is only 99p right now

Strange Planet by Nathan W Pyle

This was a very welcome gift from a friend. Although I was vaguely aware of Pyle’s comics, I hadn’t paid them much attention, but they’re funny, touching and often deep. It’s a great read.

Buy Strange Planet

The Annotated Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (and Michael Patrick Hearn)

This is my eighth year re-reading A Christmas Carol over the festive period, so this time I went for a different edition and read this extensively annotated version, which brought to light many aspects of the text I was unaware of, as well as providing an absorbing history of its creation in Hearn’s lengthy introduction. It’s probably only of interest if you know the original text well, but if you do it’s well worth searching out.

Buy The Annotated Christmas Carol

10 Lessons in Management and Investing from John Carreyrou's Bad Blood

I recently read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. It’s a book that charts the rise and fall of the (briefly) multi-billion dollar-valued startup, Theranos. If you’re unfamiliar with the company, it was founded by entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes when she was 19 and purported to be have a machine able to do hundreds of different blood tests from a single drop of blood. When these claims came into contact with reality, however, what emerged was a company with little in the way of real, working technology, and a lot in the way of cover-ups, poor working practices and unkept promises. There’s a good piece to read on Theranos and its decline at Vanity Fair.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of some lessons that can be learned about management, and perhaps even investing, from the book.

1. If things seem bad to you as an employee, you’re probably right

If you’re at a company where things seem chaotic, and management seem to be making poor decisions, even as far as lying to regulators and painting a falsely rosy picture to investors, you may well be right. Poor business practices from senior management are almost always felt by employees.

2. Steve Jobs’s success is a lesson, not a model

A lot of executives seem to believe that Steve Jobs’s abrasive management style was what caused Apple’s success, whereas Steve Jobs was brilliant despite not because of his management style. Indeed, Jobs himself toned down his approach as time went on. He realised that it was often counter-productive. Elizabeth Holmes is a big fan of Steve Jobs (she even copied him by constantly leasing cars so she didn’t have to have a registration plate) and enjoyed comparisons with the Apple founder. A lot of Theranos’s attitude towards secrecy, working hours and micro-management seems to have at least some basis in the worst stories heard from Apple and Jobs.

3. Loyalty is earned

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Theranos’s COO, wanted complete loyalty from employees, which isn’t necessarily unreasonable. However, what both Holmes and Balwani failed to realise is that loyalty is earned, you can’t force it onto employees, especially not through constant micro-management. As such, despite the heavy focus on loyalty (e.g. firing employees who questioned working practices, or for not being ‘team players’), Carreyrou’s book has been pieced together from interviews with many, many ex-employees. Granted, in part this is because the company is now no more, but even earlier ex-employees spoke out despite Non-Disclosure Agreements, and while the company had still a valuation in the billions because they felt mistreated and weren’t prepared to support the company’s practices. In Fred Lee’s If Disney Ran Your Hospital, he says "Being micromanaged by one’s boss is the surest way to lose talented people." And this certainly seems to have played out repeatedly at Theranos.

4. Value comes from shipping a product

Until a company ships a working product, you should consider whether they will ever have a working product. Theranos never made a revolutionary product, but they were valued as though they did. Speculative investors have to make these sorts of decisions, and often have the money to cover the losses of some with the successes of others. Smaller investors shouldn’t take these sorts of risks though. I’m sure that some thought it was less risky than it appeared because of Theranos’s own statements about how they were progressing, but in my view, actually shipping a product is the only evidence that a company is capable of shipping a product.

5. High valuations require firm evidence

Relatedly - you should back-up a company’s rosy outlook on their future with evidence that it’s well-placed. This includes information you have working for the company if you’ve been granted stock as part of your renumeration. If the company seems poorly run, then this is likely to effect your stock and you should get out. The recent WeWork fiasco (which you can read more about here) shows how many of the staff had bought into the WeWork dream. Some, I’m sure, were unaware of problems, but others must have had some belief something wasn’t right and didn’t trust themselves.

6. Talent and intelligence are not all-encompassing

The case of both Adam Neumann of WeWork and Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos show examples of people who are extremely talented in one area (sales) and yet have severe deficiencies in others (ethics, business, decision-making, relating to people). There seems to be a widespread belief that smart people are smart in all areas, but a brief moment of thought will remind you of people you know who are brilliant at some things and ludicrously deficient in others. High-flyers in unicorn start-ups are no different.

7. Just because you’re working with talented people, it doesn’t mean you’ll be successful

A key takeaway from Theranos is that talented people can fail to make a revolutionary product when they’re tasked with something that’s beyond their capabilities (indeed, probably beyond anyone’s capabilities). Noticing that you’re working with brilliant people should not be enough to reassure you that a company will be successful.

8. Leaders that don’t listen to staff, fail

Multiple times, the shortcomings of the technology were raised to senior staff, and indeed to the woefully inadequate board, but this challenge was taken as a sign of someone who was not bought into the company’s vision. They were sidelined, disparaged, silenced and fired by Holmes and Balwani, leaving an organisation of mostly “true believers” which proved absolutely fatal.

9. Most people want to do the right thing

One positive note from Theranos is that there were a lot of people who had severe concerns with the practices of the company. As mentioned above, they were removed, and some contributed to the expose that brought the company down, but there should be some comfort in the fact they were there. Most people are decent and want to do the right thing, even when constantly challenged by inept, bullying managers.

10. Theranos and WeWork aren’t unique

I’m going to finish with a less positive point, though. Throughout the end of Theranos’s existence, the company hired the most expensive of lawyers and used everything in their power (including influence from Obama’s Whitehouse) to keep their failures under wraps. It should strike fear into the heart of any start-up investors that this could well have been successful, at least for a time, especially in a company in which the faults weren’t quite so egregious as Theranos. It’s extremely unlikely the case of Theranos is unique. It’s worth looking at every one of the companies with similar access to legal resources, and political influence, and ask how much other terrible behaviour is being covered up. Chances are there’s an awful lot more than just Theranos and WeWork.

Books I Read In November

Job: A New Translation by Edward L. Greenstein

I’ve been reading quite a lot of the Bible recently in various translations. I enjoyed David Bentley Hart’s New Testament, and Robert Alter’s Genesis, and this is in a similar vein - an attempt to do a translation that captures as much as possible from the original text.

It would be fair to ask “isn’t that what all translations try to do?” but when it comes to the Bible the answer is often “no”. A lot of Christian translations of Job, for example, try to fit the original poem into a structure that makes more Christian theological sense, making Job into a sort of ultimate stoic and a forerunner of Jesus’s suffering, but the text isn’t like that. Job rails against god, and although he doesn’t “curse” god (as is the point of the work) he certainly has his fair share of criticisms. Pretty well-founded ones too.

It’s an odd work, even in a Christian-focused translation, but reading something closer to the original really shows up how odd it is to modern ears. Besides that, it was probably taken from a conquered culture, meaning that it’s not like a lot of other books in the Old Testament theologically.

This translation is good, and Job itself is not a long book so if you’re interested in reading some of the Bible, then it’s worth a shot.

Job on Amazon

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

I listened to the podcast of this on the BBC some time ago, and I’d recommend both. Neil MacGregor used to run the British Museum, and in this he tells snippets of world history by relating it to various items in the museum’s collection. As such, it’s both far-reaching and very specific and is a fascinating read.

A History of the World in 100 Object on Amazon

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

It’s difficult to capture this novel in a short paragraph without it sounding immensely strange. Effectively, it centres around a single character who dies repeatedly, then relives her life, with things changing slightly in each of these different lifetimes.

As well as having a great central plot, which is much more grounded than the above paragraph would suggest, it also becomes a meditation on the effect of contingency in life. It’s beautiful and moving and one of the best novels I’ve read this year.

Life After Life on Amazon

Absolute Sandman vol. 3 by Neil Gaiman

I’ve been re-reading The Sandman recently, with its upcoming arrival on Netflix. A few years ago I bought the Absolute (huge) editions, which remain the nicest way to appreciate the artwork. It’s such a wonderful series and each re-reading I notice more. It remains the greatest comics series.

Absolute Sandman vol. 3 on Amazon

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

You know what you’re going to get with a Bill Bryson book. A well-researched, easily read, book with a charming wit. In this case, Bryson turns his attention to the human body, stepping through the operation of various elements, outlining what we do and don’t know, and how things can go wrong.

The Body on Amazon

Fatalism in American Film Noir by Robert B. Pippin

I’m a fan of Film Noir and this is basically a long essay on the role of fatalism in the genre. A couple of things stood out for me.

Firstly, that Film Noir the regular use of flashbacks and narratives put us in the position of a being like an ancient audience watching tragedy. We’re seeing events unfold fatalistically - they cannot be changed because they’ve already happened.

Secondly, we are misled about our agency in our own lives. We don’t have as much control over our actions as we think we do. Our history, culture, genetics etc shape us dramatically. This impacts the functioning of democracy because we are not the democratic agents we assume ourselves to be. This is something that democratic societies require of us, but we are not able to provide it.

Like a good Film Noir, both these points are rather dark and disturbing. The book has a pretty light touch though and is very readable.

Fatalism in American Film Noir on Amazon

An Autobiography by Agatha Christie

As I’ve posted, I’ve been reading through all of Agatha Christie’s novels recently, and so I thought I’d get some context by reading her autobiography. It’s a long book, and it takes about half of the work to get past her childhood. It’s a charming, meandering book though and if you have any interest in her, or a personal history of the early 20th century, well worth a read.

An Autobiography by Agatha Christie on Amazon

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When I read The Great Gatsby at school, I hated it. Probably because I was made to read it for A Level. I think, though, that I just wasn’t able to appreciate its subtlety and its tragedy as a child. Returning to it, I’ve come to love it almost as much as any novel I’ve read.

I thought, therefore, I’d try some other Fitzgerald. Tender Is The Night is not as succinctly powerful as Gatsby, but it captures the complex lives of rich Americans living abroad, and like his most famous novel, is a deep and moving tragedy.

Tender Is The Night on Amazon

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

I love Murakami, and this is one of my favourites of his. The story is, like most of his novels, magical-realist and captivating. An artist going through a divorce goes to live in the secluded house of his friend’s artist father (who has dementia and is in a hospital).

Like a lot of Murakami, there are oddities outside the magic, not least the fact that a plot point revolves around the development of a 13 year old’s breasts, but it’s a wonderful novel nonetheless.

Killing Commendatore on Amazon

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie

I wrote about this book here.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? on Amazon

Metaphysical Horror by Leszek Kołakowski

I wrote about Kołakowski’s and religion here. The book is pretty academic, with flashes of interest. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that doesn’t have a pretty firm grounding in philosophy, but it’s an interesting read.

Metaphysical Horror on Amazon

Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

I mentioned this in my first post here. It’s a very short book that encourages anyone to share the work they do online. The gist is that if you want to be creative, you should be sharing your work as you go as this improves the work itself, creates communities and aids others. As this blog shows, I found it rather inspiring.

Show Your Work on Amazon

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans by Agatha Christie

In her autobiography, Agatha Christie talks about how she comes by ideas for various books. This one started with the title, which was a phrase she overheard. The fact that Christie worked back from the title is not a surprise since the solution to this novel is not one of her most plausible or ingenious creations, but it’s a pretty enjoyable book nonetheless.

The book’s set in the fictional golf resort of Marchbolt in Wales. Bobby Jones, a vicar’s son, is playing golf when he discovers a man who’s seemingly fallen off a cliff. While Bobby waits with the man, he dies, saying “why didn’t they ask Evans?” Bobby then joins forces with his friend, Lady Frances “Frankie” Derwent to investigate some inconsistencies arising in the coroner’s inquest.

I’ve been reading John Yorke’s Into The Woods, a book about TV and film screenwriting. What I love about detective stories is that they are perfect examples of the sorts of tools and structures Yorke outlines. As he says “Drama demands that characters must change” and as Bobby finds a purpose, and gradually falls in love with Frankie, his change is obvious. His stammering friend, Badger, changes by showing his bravery. Frankie, though doesn’t seem to change a great deal and as such. Her role in the story seems mainly to sweet-talk a series of middle class professionals stunned by her aristocratic credentials. It’s a relatively minor point but it does make her slightly one dimensional.

More problematically, in Milward Kennedy’s review of the book in the Guardian in 1934 he says "The fault which I find is the overimportance of luck" and I agree. Especially towards the end there are a couple of explanations which stray a bit too close to pure fortune and as such are rather unsatisfying. Relying on luck is always a problem in detective stories, and Christie is normally good at avoiding the trap, but here there are a few too many coincidences to countenance.

Minor character and plot gripes aside, this is a solid Christie story. The books without Poirot and Marple often read like they are the ones Christie enjoys writing, and this is no exception. There’s a lightness and momentum that can be missing in some of the later novels featuring her two most famous characters.

I’ve been working through all of Christie’s novels, and having made it this far, I’m yet to find anything I’ve been impressed by as much as the tour de force that is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but this is a perfectly enjoyable yarn.