Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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About Halbs

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I'm left-handed! (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Halbs's Quick Questions interview.)

Halbs's Reviews:

“I’m tired of people dying because of arguments between their leaders.”

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, Book 2) by Brandon Sanderson

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A few months ago I reviewed the first book in the Mistborn trilogy. I mentioned in that review how good the fights were, and how much I enjoyed Sanderson’s world building. He sketches out a complex continent full of history, classes, and intrigue and puts his RPG party of thieves, smooth talkers, and warriors to work. It’s fun! In The Well of Ascension, Sanderson benefits from all of that book one groundwork while also enriching the world’s lore and political machinations. As a political scientist, I […]

Get the Most Out of Working Remote

Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

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Exactly a year ago I changed jobs. I went from a conservative 9-5 workplace where business casual or suits were required to complete freedom. Anywhere with an internet connection was potentially my office. At first, this was overwhelming. I was talking to an office-less friend about it and how he dealt with always being available. He told me a story about one time having to talk with a client while on a cruise. “Instead of looking at it like I’m always on call, I look […]

An OK Thriller from a Very Good Comics Writer

The Oracle Year by Charles Soule

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Charles Soule ranks highly on my list of comics writers because (1) he’s a fellow attorney and (2) he wrote the criminally underrated “She-Hulk” run of a few years ago. I’m not the only Soule fan – Marvel had enough faith in the guy to let him write Wolverine’s death. His creator-owned series “Letter 44” is an interesting blend of politics and sci-fi, sort of like Brian K Vaughan’s genre-bending Ex Machina. A Kindle deal popped up in my inbox with Soule’s book, so of […]

Co-Creating a Better Future Together

Narrative Mediation : A New Approach to Conflict Resolution by John Winslade, Gerald D. Monk

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This book, as the title suggests, is about a kind of mediation. (Mediation can be thought of as facilitated conflict resolution, or facilitated decision making. It’s more informal than court and the parties decide the outcome, unlike having a judge or arbitrator decide for them.) While mediation as a concept isn’t new, the professional development of mediation is pretty new – really around 50 years old. Most mediators are “facilitative” mediators, meaning that they try to facilitate a process in which they get at the […]

Eat Your Vegetables! Also, Relax!

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

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In the last few years, I slowly gained and somewhat rapidly lost a lot of weight (about 50 pounds). While extra weigh certainly did some damage to me physically, the psychic trauma of worrying about everything I was putting into (or not putting into) my body was the worst part of the whole thing. Food just…wasn’t fun. It became terror. I’m sure you’ve been there. In this book, the author mentions a survey in which the French associated with chocolate cake words like celebration , […]

Solid Advice for New Managers and Leaders

HBR Guide to Coaching Employees by Harvard Business Review

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Mitch Hedberg had a great joke about how weird being promoted is. He said that even though he was a comedian, people always wanted him to write. That’s like going to a chef and asking Hey, can you farm? If you’ve been thrust in a management role because you were good at something that wasn’t management, you can probably relate. HBR’s Guide to Coaching Employees is a helpful, accessible read designed to help you understand how to manage people. Some of the most helpful advice for me […]



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