My Goodreads Year In Books

Amy and I love to read. For a number of years, I’ve recorded everything I read on Goodreads . When I write a blog post reviewing a book, I usually (but not consistently …) repost it on Goodreads and occasionally remember to post it on Amazon. Regardless, the definitive log of what I’ve read is on my Goodreads Bookshelf . Last year Goodreads started doing a fun compilation of all that a user read in the past year with their Year in Books summary . ...

December 14, 2017 · 2 min · Brad Feld

Some of My Favorite Books in 2016

Amazon is setting up Kindle bookshelves for some people, including me. If you want to see some of my favorite books from 2016 that I read on my Kindle, take a look at my Feld Thoughts 2016 Books. I log all the books I read (Kindle or physical) on my Goodreads page . Interestingly, Goodreads is also owned by Amazon. It’ll be fun to see if / how they ultimately integrate all this stuff.

November 21, 2016 · 1 min · Brad Feld

The Great Boxing Day Data Cleanse of 2014

I just spent around an hour shrinking my Facebook friends list from 1,500+ to 535. I ignored another 2,000 friend requests. I made my entire Facebook feed from the beginning of time private, which eliminated 33,000+ followers (dear Facebook followers – you really meant to follow me on Twitter , that’s where all the public fun is.) I turned off all my email notifications. Hint – if you want to do stuff like this, use the iOS app instead of the web app – it’s so, so, so much faster. Last night I tried to do this on the Facebook web app in front of the TV. It was a total fail – every few unfriends caused the page to refresh and I had to start scrolling all over again. This morning I was pleasantly surprised with how much better / cleaner / faster it was with the iOS app. ...

December 26, 2014 · 2 min · Brad Feld

Book Cover Blurbs Should Die

As we gear up to release Uncommon Stock, our first FG Press book, we just had an internal discussion about book blurbs . The concept of a blurb was apparently invented in 1907. The origin story of the blurb is amusing – according to Wikipedia: “The word blurb originated in 1907. American humorist Gelett Burgess’s short 1906 book Are You a Bromide? was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess’ publisher B. W. Huebsch described it, “the picture of a damsel — languishing, heroic, or coquettish — anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel” In this case the jacket proclaimed “YES, this is a ‘BLURB’!” and the picture was of a (fictitious) young woman “Miss Belinda Blurb” shown calling out, described as “in the act of blurbing.” ...

February 28, 2014 · 4 min · Brad Feld