The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

 

One of my friends recommended The Boys in the Boat at the end of last year. This was essentially my summer read by the pool and down in Delaware. A nice, interesting, slow read.

The Boys in the Boat is about exactly what is on the cover: nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The book focuses on Joe Rantz, who comes from a poor, rural area and develops into a college-educated Olympic rower. It is not just about Rantz though, as it focuses on a number of guys attempting to make the varsity team at the University of Washington and then the Olympics.

The story is cool and has some parallels to Unbroken. My only knock against the book is there is a lot of background. A lot. Like when describing a scene, talking about what is on the radio. I am sure a lot of effort and research went into these kind of details, but at the same time, they are not necessary. However, if/when this gets made into a movie, those little details will save someone else a ton of time and make the scenes much more accurate.

My rating for The Boys in the Boat: 3.5 stars out of 5. Get it here.

Hard Pivot by Apolo Ohno

 

Hard Pivot was the last work book club book I read before the book club disintegrated. I read this on vacation in Myrtle Beach. It was a light, easy read, but it still took too long. It was all fluff. I hate these kind of books, particularly when a celebrity is trying to cash in. I didn't know anything about Apolo Ohno's story besides he was an Olympian skater. That part I found interesting. But the rah-rah change/purpose stuff I found lame.

To make matters worse, I missed the book club discussion. So I didn't even need to read this. Ha! But from another perspective, I did not need to nicely criticize the book with coworkers.

My rating for Hard Pivot: 1 star out of 5. Get it here.

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

 

I saw this book somewhere a while ago, eventually purchased it, and then it sat on my bookshelf for a while. I suggested this for my work book club at the end of last year and it was chosen. However, it took folks quite a while to read. Don't infer this is a hard read - it's not - people were just busy and slow to read.

Never Split the Difference is about negotiation tactics and strategies. The author, Chris Voss, was a former FBI hostage negotiator who started his own consulting firm on negotiating. In the book, he discusses what he learned over the years. It is interesting to see how he, and the FBI, refined and improved their strategies over the years from real world experiences.

The book provides good tips such as mirroring (repeating a statement as a question), paraphrasing, and labeling. Using phrases like "it seems like", "it sounds like", and starting questions with how and what ("how am I supposed to do that"). Another example stuck with me regarding how sometimes no deal is better than a bad deal or compromising - if debating to where black shoes or brown shoes, you compromise and wear one of each.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The stories were very interesting and there are good lessons learned. There are summaries at the end of each chapter, which I always like. I will wrap up by saying I am sharing this book with my dad next.

My rating for Never Split the Difference: 4 stars out of 5. Get it here!