Lindsay Hunt

Avid Reader. Product Manager. Penn Alumnae. Coloradan. Life-long learner. Love road bikes, skiing, mountains, snow, coffee, microbrews, technology, Denver Broncos, music, knitting.

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The Innovators

I don’t give many books a 5 out of 5 rating. My 5 star fiction books include classics like Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejudice. It’s slightly easier for non-fiction books to earn 5 stars, but the standard is pretty high.

The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson, is my first 5 star rating of 2015. It has all the qualities I look for in a good non-fiction book. It is well-written, well-organized, educational and interesting. Perhaps I was especially inclined to like it since it’s very applicable to the industry in which I work.

The book follows a linear timeline of the development of technology from Ada Lovelace to the creation of modern tech companies like Google. Isaacson outlines the details of the lives of those who contributed towards the development of hardware, semiconductors, software, the Internet, personal computers and everything in...

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It’s Not All About Me by Robin Dreeke

Robin Dreeke, a former Marine Corps officer and FBI special agent, writes about how to build quick rapport and have meaningful conversations with anyone you meet in It’s Not All About Me.

This short book is packed with many tips for conversing with strangers, co-workers and family members. Dreeke admits that many of his tips are not novel or groundbreaking. It’s amazing how many people are incapable of following even a few of these tips and carry on meaningful conversations.

I have little patience for people who can’t carry on good conversations. Braggers, uninteresting people, small-talkers who never get beyond conversations about the weather and worst of all, monologuers.

Monologuers never stop talking. Mainly, they never stop talking about themselves. They repeat stories, don’t ask questions and fill every moment of silence with talking.

Dreeke’s main principle behind his 10...

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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Before I get into my thoughts about All The Light We Cannot See, I need to share a disclaimer. I love all stories, fiction and nonfiction, that involve World War II. It’s by far my favorite historical era. There are so many interesting stories and perspectives. I cried when I read The Book Thief. Same with Unbroken. I was glued to the screen for all 7 parts of the Ken Burns documentary, The War.

Given my love for all things World War II, it’s no surprise that I really enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See.

The heroine of the story is Marie-Laure, a French girl who loses her sight at the age of 6. Her father goes to great lengths to help her cope with her blindness. He builds her models of her Paris neighborhood and teaches her to navigate the streets, read Braille, etc.

When the war reaches Paris, Marie-Laure and her father are forced to flee to the town of Saint-Malo, where...

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The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

Rose Baker is a plain, uninteresting, naive typist who lives in New York City in the 1920s. An orphan with few friends, Rose learns to focus on her skills and doesn’t care much about being liked by those in her school or her office.

From the beginning of Rose’s narrative, she hints that bad things are going to happen. Eventually, she reveals that she’s writing from an asylum under the supervision of a psychiatrist. This fact alone keeps readers interested. You know the train is going to wreck, you just don’t know exactly how.

Rose’s issues start when she meets Odalie, the polar opposite of Rose. Odalie is attractive, cunning, worldly and manipulative. Rose develops an obsession with Odalie because she shows an interest in Rose and develops a friendship with her. Odalie leads Rose further and further into her life of underground crime, speakeasies and other shady activities.

As the...

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The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth Silver

My first read of 2015 was a bit of a dud. It kept me interested enough to read while I was awake in the middle of the night dealing with symptoms of a parasite I picked up in Costa Rica. But it’s one of those books where you can’t root for any of the characters. They’re all horrible.

In some ways, that’s kind of the point. Noa P. Singleton is an inmate on death row for murder. The book is written from Noa’s perspective and tells her life story, leading up to the point where she killed her father’s girlfriend.

Noa has a troubled childhood, but nothing about her makes you feel sympathy or root for her. And all the other characters in the book are just as unlikeable. The book ends when she is put to death for her crime, but leaves the reader with little hope or any other depth.

Finished: January 7, 2015
Rating: 2 out of 3

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