Books of 2008: Good Reading
This are some list of books that I purchased, or I read by, through the year of 2008. These are not a big list, as I didn’t have enough time to spent for reading. But yes, don’t be surprised, programmer (and sure the designer) does read too. A novel one. Or biography. Or financial books. And of course, I read some programming books and designing too. Any books is goods. Reading books is also a nice activity of choice when you are in waiting, while traveling, or just an in-between activity to kill boring and enhance moods. I usually take book while going outside, and I think I will spend many time in waiting. Books kill the time, and you get something from whatever your book of choices.
This installment will covers some books that I categorized as good reading. These list will not contain any web development and web design topics. Please note that links to the books will take you to Amazon website and it may contains affiliate links.
Good Reading
I like Jhumpa Lahiri’s work since her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies. May be it is because the Asian soul. May be because the cross-culture background of her story. This one is her first novel, and I found it is very interesting to read. She is definitely a superb-storyteller. A story of Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. To say short, this is Gogol encounter to find what his name means, and found a wisdom of it.
This is the second Lahiri’s book I read this year. The Unaccustomed Earth is her second short story collection. Yes, it is cross-culture background, still Indian-America family on the stage. But yet, I still found it is very powerful. Now, Lahiri doesn’t only take us into the mind of Indian, but also in account of some American mind. Very interesting. Through the eight stories, separated in two chapters which told different story, their story are connected to one big thing, you guess it, cross-culture relationship.
I knew this is not a new book. It first published in 2002, but I didn’t read it yet. So when the illustrated edition came out in 2007, and later when it was discounted by 60%, then I bought it. The book right now is priced $9.20, still 60% from current price. It is 336 pages hardcover with great illustration created by Tomislav Torjana. It is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting “religions the way a dog attracts fleas.” Honestly, I still read it at quarter of all pages. Then my wife use the book for his thesis on literature. So I gave up reading :) Good excuse.
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
This is the first biography of famous investor and the richest person in the world, Warren Buffet, and authorized by himself. Written by Schroeder, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley—and hand picked by Buffett to be his biographer—strips away the mystery that has long cloaked the word’s richest man to reveal a life and fortune erected around lucid and inspired business vision and unimaginable personal complexity. It is full of personal life of Buffet from his early ages, how little Buffet like to collects something, younger Buffet hardworking spirit, and showed some fun and unbelieveable stories (yet it is famous) about Buffet’s own vision about money when he became very tight, wise, and sometime like selfish even to his own family. Like he never approved spending which is bizarre or too luxurious, according to him, instead he always tend to spend his spending although how wealthy he is, a very wise. Even some of his staff hardly surprised how he bring all of his belonging by himself he travel with his own private jet, and how his jacket seems the very same from the beginning, or how he still prefer living in his own Omaha based home he bought at 1958 for $31500. You also can find his private story of how complicated relation he and his wife, Susan and Astrid, and surprised the relation of him with the famous Washington Post’s Katherine Graham. And, when it came to the treacherous times of financial crisis, this book is a damn good thing to have. Glad it is published at the right time. From this book, I also knew some of the fact about Buffet relationship with my investing spiritual leader, Ben Graham. From this book, I knew that a succesful investor is not about good strategy, or connection, or wealthy background. You can even become a succesfull investor by living it, in Graham’s words, intelligent way.
I bought this book long ago at 2007. But I didn’t read it yet, until the middle of 2008, when the market situation is terrible. So it came in the right place. And I glad I bought the book. One word to say, you should read Ben Graham’s book before you decide to take your first step in investing. Investing, according to Graham is not about how smart you predict the market, or how close you had internal connection to the company, or something you may think before. I knew it because I think they were the case. But investing is about how determination, how diligent, how patient, how discipline every investor taken before deciding to buy some stocks. More he said, there are two kind of people, investor and speculator. More he said, investing is about how you handle your emotional behavior on the course of your investing action. What?! That’s the most important thing as I know. Quoted from Amazon page, “The hallmark of Graham’s philosophy is not profit maximization but loss minimization. In this respect, The Intelligent Investor is a book for true investors, not speculators or day traders. He provides, “in a form suitable for the laymen, guidance in adoption and execution of an investment policy” (1). This policy is inherently for the longer term and requires a commitment of effort. Where the speculator follows market trends, the investor uses discipline, research, and his analytical ability to make unpopular but sound investments in bargains relative to current asset value. Graham coaches the investor to develop a rational plan for buying stocks and bonds, and he argues that this plan must be a bulwark against emotional behavior that will always be tempting during abrupt bull and bear markets.” Tough the book first published in 1949, and revised in 1973, the course he has put still relevance until the day. Even Warren E. Buffet himself put the book as “the best book on investing ever written.” The edition I read is the latest edition, with commentary by Jason Zweig.
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company. Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover? I found this book is very inspiring, and it told lots of good story to fill you up ready for the start up challenge.
Merriam-Webster’s Visual Dictionary
It is the latest published visual dictionary available on Amazon, and I found this dictionary was very helpful to my daily exploration of everything, and to write in this very blog. By knowing visual description, it much easier to find the words. From the description: More than 20,000 clear and concise terms – 6,000 full-colour, highly detailed illustrations – 17 chapters outlining subjects from astronomy to sports – Ideal for teachers, parents, translators, and students. You can find everything visually from the beginning of the world through the making of human world. It’s very nice to have a way to access vocabulary like this. In addition, I found later that I and Sofia, my two year old daughter have a great activities learning some objects and words through the pages of the visual dictionaries. I didn’t think or plan it before. It happened when we received and I opened it at first time, daughter suspected me, and she is very ineterested to know what is drawn on every pages. Now, I can spent whole evening with her, flipping page by pages and tell her what does it mean. Our family learnt a lot from this dictionary.
Southeast Asia: On a Shoestring
Okay this is a travel reference, not regular good reading thing. But I later found out by using this Lonely Planet edition, I can discovered some interesting thing from my own country. It covers 11 countries in South Asia, and has some deep details on cities. I bought the book as my preparation before taking my own backpacking adventure on next half the year. Worth to buy if you plan to travel to the area. Please note, the travel advice this book has put through are based on budget travel, not the luxurious one.
Final Notes
Okay, that’s all what I categorized as good reading. Next installment I will put my effort to some books related to web design and web development. I am glad my reading activity has been come back not far as years ago, and this felt great. More over, two books on my list also at marked as Top 10 Best Books of 2008 by New York Times as well as Time Magazine best fiction books, and the Buffet’s Snowball also listed as Time non-fiction best book of 2008. Glad I picked the best one.
UPDATE: Later I found out I still have some books that I still not listed here and it related to good reading category. Please revisit the page as I will update soon.
UPDATE 23/1: Added Founder at Work.
Share: 
— Ucok · 20/01/09 03:47 PM · #
Mas beli bukunya dimana?
pengen nyari Effective Java karangan Joshua Bloch
trims.
ucok@sewelas
— Arif Widianto · 23/01/09 06:39 AM · #
Ucok, as written above, I bought them via Amazon.
— Andy · 28/01/09 04:57 PM · #
I found a biography of Warren Buffet in comic at Gramedia. You might interested :-)
— farida · 18/02/09 09:49 AM · #
i’m always wondering, how could you read book, spend most your time with gadget and not wearing any glasses… hehhe..
thanks for sharing
— Arif Widianto · 18/02/09 11:10 AM · #
@Andy: Yep, I knew it. Thanks.
@Farida: You’re welcome mbak. I think it was a gift :)
— bikien · 19/02/09 07:19 PM · #
yang pake bahasa indonesia ada nggak om..
www.bikien.com thank atas sharenya, tapi bagus tuch
— Arif Widianto · 22/02/09 10:02 AM · #
@bikien: The Namesake sudah ada terjemahan Indonesianya. Begitu pula Intelligent Investor. Buku lain tunggu aja, pasti diterjemahkan mengingat bukunya memang bagus dan menarik. Kecuali tiga buku terakhir. Berharap aja ada yang menerjemahkan :) Kalau tidak, yang edisi bahasa Inggris aja deh.