I discovered Danny Gregory this summer in Alaska when I read Everyday Matters.

I bought all of his books and tossed them in the to read pile. Today I read Change Your Underwear Twice a Week: Lessons from the Golden Age of Classroom Filmstrip. Remember filmstrips? I do. They sucked. I remember taking off my glasses in elementry and junior high school to make it “harder” to see them since they were so incredibly dull and banal.

Gregory goes deep in his analysis of filmstrips in this beautifully illustrated book. He concentrates mostly on filmstrips from the late 1940’s to the early 1950’s. The actual filmstrip frames form the core of the story with Gregory’s narration of each section dripping with sarcasm as well as insight into the way our government was programming the minds of our youth through the filmstrips they funded for public education.

Cynical, sarcastic, and beautifully illustrated – this is a must read for anyone that ever had to run the filmstrip projector as their punishment for being an overachiever.

I finished Florence of Arabia by Christopher Buckley an hour ago. I am still laughing about it. It’s by far the funniest thing I’ve experienced in October – even better than the Jon Stewart Crossfire episode.

If you desire a “middle eastern comedy” written by a satircal god, you’ll enjoy this one.

If you are a Neal Stephenson fan, there’s a great interview with him up on Slashdot.

Snow Crash remains one of my all time favorite books and losing myself in The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon was the only way I survived a two week safari in Africa (the seminal moment of the trip was captured on video tape by my brother – I was sitting in a chair looking sunburned, dirty, tired, and generally miserable at which point I said “if I ever talk about going to Africa again, show me this video.”)

I’ve been holding off tackling the The Baroque Cycle trilogy (Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1), The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2), The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3)), but as someone once said, “I yield to superior firepower.”

Amy and I spent the weekend in New Hampshire. We stayed at a Stepping Stones – a bed and breakfast we used to stay at regularly when we lived in Boston – and hung out, read, slept, and looked at leaves.

Once we crossed the New Hampshire border (from Boston – where we spent the night at XV Beacon – one of my favorite hotels in the world), we saw plenty of pumkins, corn, and leaves (yellow, orange, and red). However, my Sidekick immediately stopped working since apparently New Hampshire doesn’t have any cell phone towers (according to the locals.) Our B&B didn’t have high speed Internet either, so I decided to punt on email for the long weekend and read instead.

I had started Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir so I gobbled that one down first. It was intense – it reminded me of a book I read this summer called Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars : A Memoir. Both are books about homelessness, written by children (Joy: daughter; Bullshit: son) of chronically homeless parents (Joy: mother; Bullshit: father). Bullshit was much more abrassive – in addition to being homeless, the father was portrayed as a generally unpleasant human (compared to the mother in Joy – she had her problems, but at least she seemed to try.) Both authors struggled to figure out their lives and these books were clearly a reflection on their experiences while simultaneously being a catharsis of sorts for them. Bullshit knocked me out – the author Nick Flynn is an awesome writer and – when I was done – I needed something very different.

Rich Karlgaard’s Life 2.0 : How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness was next. I don’t know Rich, but I fondly read his Forbes column (he’s the publisher and rates a nice column at the front.) The first section of Life 2.0 is delightful – Rich pilots his own small plane across America (in Richard Bach-like fashion) and meets with entrepreneurs and executives who are reshaping their lives by fleeing the big coastal cities (San Francisco, Boston, NY) to find a more rewarding life in small town America. I identified with many of these stories – which are fun and inspiring – since I left Boston ten (yes 10) years ago to move to Boulder. While I still spend plenty of time on the coasts, I try to live my life in Boulder and Homer, Alaska – two places that definitely fit in the small town category. In the second section of the book, Rich tries to – in his words – “pull together the meaning of these individual portraits of people and places and to examine the long-term economic, technological, and spiritual implications of the move to a saner style of life.” He does an ok (not great) job here – it feels more like the obligatory “I just told some stories – now – here are my conclusions” section. The third section is a fun list of 150 “cheap cities” which I think is a misnomer – they are 150 “small cities worth paying attention to and knowing about” – along with Rich’s commentary. Overall, a very worthwhile read if you are stuck on either coast and wondering why you’re (a) struggling to make ends meet and (b) frustrated with big city life. Of course, if you love big city life, don’t bother with this book.

Next – Term Sheets & Valuations – A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations. Yeah – I know – pretty dry. I grabbed this book hoping I could recommend it to you. I can’t – I was really disappointed. While it’s an ok primer for anyone faced with a VC term sheet, it’s very shallow, somewhat disorganized, and lacking in clear anecdotes and examples. I was intrigued by the publisher – Aspatore – which has a whole series of VC books – and claims that this one was the best selling venture capital book of 2003. Egads.

I finished with Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture. Amy and I had the honor of having dinner with Daniel Libeskind on Wednesday night with a small group of folks from the Denver Art Museum (I’m on the technology advisory board for the museum and we are long time supporters.) Daniel is an amazing person – if you don’t know of him – he’s the master plan architecture for the World Trade Center Reconstruction Site. He’s also the architect for the extension to the Denver Art Museum – which will be his first constructed building in the United States. Amy and I love architecture – we’ve done a few designs with Coleman Coker (the “eldorado canyon” project is one of them) – and jumped at the opportunity to have dinner with Daniel. Amy fell in love with him (she got to sit next to him in the seat of honor) – I had to remind her on our way home that he was already married. His book exceeded my expectations – it’s beautifully written, tells an incredible story, and blends his philosophy, vision, life history, and architectural journey in a very accessible way.

Now – back to work.

If you follow my Read Recently list, you know that I plowed through a lot of books this summer.  However, I’ve been stuck on What Einstein Told His Cook for two weeks.  It’s not a bad book (in fact, if you are a foodie, it’s a very interesting book.)  However, as I’ve been crushed with work the past two weeks, I haven’t been reading much and the book hasn’t pulled me in to escape from the world.

When I was a teenager (and reading a ton – remember the “bookworm” – ok – that was me) I decided that it was ok to simply stop reading a book when I wasn’t getting through it.  I know a lot of folks that seem to be unable to bail on a book – I’ve never completely understood this as I think it feels liberating to decide that a book wasn’t meant to be finished.

On to the next one – Blue Mountain: Turning Dreams into Reality – Susan Polis’ story of how she, her husband Stephen, and her son Jared created a greeting card giant that spun off Bluemountain.com – one of the most financially successful Internet bubble-era exits.

Everyday Matters is a remarkable book. If you live in New York; have a family member who has had a tragic accident or a crippling disease; or are subject to bouts of depression, you must read this book.

I came across the book while I was browsing in my local bookstore in Homer. The cover caught my eye but the excerpt on the back captured my attention. It was a drawing of the eight stages of an apple being eaten with the quote “Two years before I started drawing, my wife was run over by a subway training and nearly killed. Well, this book is about how art and New York City saved my life.”

Danny Gregory has created a beautiful book with his words, drawings, and ideas. Thankfully he has a blog so I can get a dose of him on a regular basis.

I bought the book ‘Your marketing sucks” because of the title. While I didn’t expect much from it, it was worth reading. It’s a quick and easy read that I recommend it to any CEO who thinks marketing isn’t working as well as it could for his company.

I’m the second guy to admit that I don’t really know jack about marketing (Steve Bayle is the first – he’ll readily admit that I don’t have a clue.) I came to this realization in the middle of the Internet bubble. I was sitting at my desk in Colorado one day when I received a giant overnight package from one of my investments that I’ll refer to as YACOTWTF (“Yet Another Company On The Way to Failing”). It was an unusually large overnight package and I wasn’t expecting anything, so I was curious. When I opened the package, inside was a giant picture frame with a note taped to it. The note said “Congrats on the great ad we’ve placed in Red Herring Magazine.” I looked at the picture and it was a giant (poster sized) framed (in glass) replica of the ad. My first thought was “why the fuck did they send this to me?” I read the ad. My second thought was “what a shitty ad – it doesn’t say anything about what YACOTWTF does.” My third thought quickly followed, “What did we pay for this?” You can see where this was going. “Did I approve the marketing budget”, “Who is the VP Marketing again”, “I better call the CEO to fire the guy.”

After this ran its course, I called up my doctor, made an appointment at a special top secret medical facility for entrepreneurs and venture capitalist (there are two separate buildings but the dining hall and gym are shared), and had an operation that replaced the phrase “marketing” with the phrase “demand creation” in my brain. Oh – and the ad campaign – which cost $2 million in total (unfortunately, Red Herring wasn’t the only place a full page ad was run) – generated ONE lead and ZERO customers. The company went out of business about a year later. If YACOTWTF was the only company on the planet that did something as dumb as this it’d be one thing, but they had plenty of company as many of the Internet bubble companies spend grotesquely more than $2m on “marketing” that had zero return.

It should be no surprise to you that I didn’t hang the ad on my wall in my office. Our building is two stories high – glass makes a neat scatter pattern when dropped from that height (although it was a pain in the ass to clean up.)

This book reinforced a lot of messages around using that thing that I refer to as demand creation to generate value in your business. I knew I’d at least enjoy the book (even if it wasn’t good) when the first chapter started out with the rule that “Marketing is not about spending money on such things as advertising, direct mail, and P.R. Those are just tools. Marketing is about growing your business – its revenues, profit, and valuation.” Ok – well – duh – but it’s often overlooked. When the author started the next chapter with “Most companies make salesmanship the last step in the marketing process. Most companies are wrong: Salesmanship should have come first” I was hooked – at least for the hour it took me to read the book.

While the book has all the flaws of today’s typical business book (author platitudes followed up by mediocre and often self-serving examples, desperate need of a better editor, and reader fatigue after about 150 pages), it’s still a worthwhile book for a CEO struggling with demand creation (I mean marketing).

Amy and I go to a different foreign city every year on her birthday. Last year it was Rome; this year it will be Tokyo.

Even though I spent six years working with or affiliated with Softbank, I never managed to make it to Japan. So – this will be our first trip. Once we decided to go, I emailed Jenny Lawton and asked her to send me a typical stack of Tokyo tourist books.

She included a couple of gems, including a book by Rick Kennedy of Tokyoq called Little Adventures in Tokyo: 39 Thrills for the Urban Explorer. I’ve gobbled this one down (ignoring the several other “here’s what to see and do in Tokyo books” – I’ll leave those for Amy to look at.) Instead, I’ve learned about kohdo (incense cerimony), kyudo (archery), tea in temples, the Shinjuku Station Rush Hour, pachinko, hydroplane races, retro Tokyo, banana splits, skiing inside, miniature formula-1 racing, and a bunch of other off the beaten path things to do.

I expect this will be a weird trip.

If you recognize that, you probably have at least a basic interest in mathematics. If so, Count Down : Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World’s Toughest Math Competition is for you.

This is a fascinating book that combines the story of the American team for the 42nd International Mathematics Olympiad in 2001 with a set of well-written essays on human intelligence, creativity, talent, and competitiveness. Olson does a great job of combining the story of the Olympiad with basic math theory; math education in America; the emotional, intellectual, and social issues these kids face; and a few very clever math jokes.

In junior high and high school I was pretty good at math. The math club I belonged to was nerdily called Mu Alpha Theta; we competed in state wide math contests, and I remember proudly taking home the first place trophy for the Algebra section at a state wide competition at Rice University in Houston my junior year (that was the best I ever did.)

When I went to college at MIT, one of my friends suggested I take some serious math classes. In the first semester of my sophomore year, I took a course called 18.701 – Algebra 1. I figured – hey Algebra – how hard could it be. This was not the algebra of my high school – I knew I was in trouble when the professor would write a bunch of geometric equations on the board and then ask, “Now, pretend you were standing on the other side of the board, what would happen to …?” I was completely lost and had the typical humbling experience that most MIT students have at some point where they realize they aren’t going to make it in the class. After getting a 4 on my second test (yes – a FOUR out of 100 – that would be failing, even when graded on a curve – I must have gotten some credit for getting the course number correct), I dropped the class and decided that I wasn’t quite so good at math.

Fortunately, this book brought back mostly good math memories. Today, the most complex math I do is adding up a column of numbers or occassionally having to multiply two numbers together, so it was fun to puzzle through the problems (which I could at least understand, although I had no clue how to begin to solve them.)