Books read 2020

1. Lean customer development- Cindy Alvarez

My first completed book of the year was very useful. I’ve read a fair amount in this area (the book references the Lean Startup and Steve Blank), but this was a useful addition to the canon. The best thing about this book was the  practical /tactical method it was written in. It taught you the theory, but then it shows you exact methods on how to implement your customer learning process and how to quantify and use your learnings. There is immediate practical value I am taking from it to use in my process.

2. The big nowhere- James Ellroy

I have read (and watched) LA Confidential and am a big Raymon Carver fan, so I was prepared for the hard-boiled cop fiction. It is quite unrelenting however; brutal murders, wolverines, communists, crime bosses. It doesn’t let up for 400 odd pages and goes through numerous twists and turns. The heroes aren’t really apparent and the main characters all have their own struggles. However it is definitely worth a read, the perspective on marijuana and homosexuality in the 40’s s especially interesting knowing how in modern day California they aren’t even an issue.

3. Grace Jones- I’ll never write my memoirs

Thought this isn’t the cover, its hard to talk about Grace Jones without talking about her image (and my favourite of her images are the ones she created with Jean-Paul Goude, he talks about this one here).

I am a big Grace Jones fan; I listen to her music, I watched her documentary so this was interesting to hear straight from the horse’s mouth. Some of it was a little repetitive; pushing against the vagaries of the established music system for 40 years must be challenging, but can also be much of the same. There were flashes of her personality that came out that sound amazing and tiring (if you had to behold them). A perspective of a unique artist.