Billions And Billions - by Carl Sagan

A journey into Carl Sagan’s “shower thoughts”. A compilation of his opinions on multiple subjects, from the origin of the universe, life, the human being, society and mostly on our permanent shortsightedness on our future as a species. I found intriguing his ability to abstract the usually complex scientific knowledge into understandable and relatable text, in which we can realize how insignificant human life is when compared to Earth’s history, let alone the universe’s. “Human beings have just arrived here, barely a few million years ago.” The last chapter and epilogue is the sad but hopeful last note of a truly remarkable human: his final journey into the unknown.

Into Thin Air - by John Krakauer

Just like a mountain climber attempting the Everest summit, this book builds on tension as you progress deeper into it. It has build-up, creating a composition of emotions that would be similar to the experiences of those who faced the 1996 tragedy. Krakauer makes what I consider is a valid argument on the fact that the story is not something out of the ordinary for the average Everest climbing seasons. People die every year while trying to reach the top. It also explicitly states how dangerous the attempt is for amateurs and professionals alike, every year, and it implies that other deaths carry a similar set of causes. It is something I found realistic, accurate, and quite enjoyed from Krakauer’s writing style.

Confessions Of An Economic Hitman - by John Perkins

I’m not 100% bought on the veracity of the facts detailed in this book, which may be due to the narrative, but these are definitely deep insights about modern imperialism in the form of confessions. Which end up making more sense than expected. Worth a read for those that are skeptic of intentions behind ‘good acts’.

Masters Of Doom - by David Kushner

Fast-paced and never boring. Romero and Carmack, as like other duos that have transformed industries and made history, these guys rose via innovation and technical genius only to let the extremes of their eccentricities take over and bring down the companies (and drive) they had created.

The Phoenix Project - by Gene Kim

This is not a how-to guide on DevOps and does not portray a realistic timeline for business change. What it is, is a great resource to understand how the DevOps practices and areas impact business performance, by turning the complex terminology and concepts into a narrative. Basically, if you are in a business that heavily relies on information technologies, operations and development, this is a great book for you.

Just For Fun - By Linus Torvalds

I used to think of Linus Torvalds as a mystical genius that single handedly built a whole revolutionary operating system. It just turns out to be one of the most grounded and simple-philosophy minded, remarkable people, who just worked with passion on something to solve what he saw problems for him. The success of Linux is just a side effect of him trying to fix holes in the road. And what for me is the major side effect of his way of thinking in practice: the rise of open source. Fun story, although it reaches his history to around 2000’s. It would be great to have his continuation of the more recent decade, with the prominence of his other major creation: Git.

Astrophysics For People In A Hurry - by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Not only for people in a hurry, it’s also astrophysics for mortals. “The cosmic perspective”, a concept that we as a species have yet to internalize if we want to perpetuate our kind as part of this universe. The book itself is a great introduction to an exciting -and fundamental- science.

Caracas Muerde - by Héctor Torres

A realistic and entertaining compilation of short stories which describe what people living in Caracas experience almost daily. Each story is portrayed with the city’s colloquialism and with the moral background that constantly threatens to tear the citizens apart. It’s done in a concise way, without unnecessary adjectives. Citizens of Caracas will relate with the overwhelming stories of violence, which are a part of a distorted culture. Recommended read in Spanish.

Man's Search For Meaning - by Viktor E. Frankl

Very little can be argued against Frankl’s viewpoint as it comes validated from 3 years endured at the Auschwitz concentration camp. It’s what the entire first part of the book is about, with an emphasis on the psychological impact and, more importantly, the ways of psychological endurance. Before this book, everything I’d read or seen related to the holocaust had been ultimately superficial. Even after reading Man’s Search For Meaning I realize there’s many layers to it that cannot ever be grasped by most single individuals in modern circumstances. We can only learn, reflect and loosely, clumsily connect dots. The detailed retelling of camp life is a solid base for Frankl’s logotherapy theories. Even one of the most horrific situations that any person has endured, where all traits of personality, individuality, achievement, personal space, and even the most basic needs for survival, even after suffering the psychology of shared and individual loss, there’s still joy to be found by controlling what’s truly and always in our control: thoughts. We’re an infinitely malleable entity if we so want it, if learn how to. On the one side, we’re limited by the capacities of our physical body. If we manage to avoid dying from a violation of a truly physical limitation, the other limit is —quite simply— our mind.