Unguarded by Scottie Pippen (with Michael Arkush)

Competent, readable, co-written bio of a great basketball player who was both blessed and cursed to live in Michael Jordan's shadow. For better, more insightful bios I recommend others: Andre Iguodala's book The Sixth Man or Andre Agassi's absolute page-turner, Open.

The book is full of mixed emotions. Pippen wants to be traded, then was grateful he wasn't. He's happy with, but later deeply disappointed in, coach Phil Jackson. He's angry at Jerry Krause (the Chicago Bulls general manager) for underpaying him and treating him with disrespect, but then he's grateful to him for other reasons. He's angry at Michael Jordan for being a cruel and condescending narcissist, but then grateful to him for all the positive things that being a teammate with Michael Jordan would later lead to.

One gets the impression that Pippen is still trying to work out how exactly he feels about his experiences across his basketball career, that he's unsettled about it and doesn't really know what he thinks about it all. I think I see where he's coming from. In some ways I feel the same about my (far less decorated!) professional career; I don't know what it all means, and I have my own tangled mix of emotions about it.

A couple of final comments. This book will teach you to be deeply cynical about the media--not that we need the reminder of course, especially in this era. And finally, Pippen constantly gripes about being underpaid, but it's worth noting that he made a decision to sign a long-term contract at a certain wage rate, and his team fulfilled that contract to the dollar. During his contract, however, the economics changed for NBA players as the league grew in popularity and profitability. But this is the risk you take when you lock in a long term deal! Pippen chose a long term contract over the risks of a shorter term contract with potential upside, and the bet didn't work out for him.

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne

This book is a praxis: a set of real-world practices for navigating reality as it is, rather than how we wish it to be. The language is clear and direct, and the book aggregates into a highly robust and coherent work of practical, livable philosophy. Author Harry Browne developed this philosophy over the course of many years, and it's inspiring to hear him talk about his mistakes, his refinements in thinking over time, and the surprising and often liberating benefits that came his way as he followed his own practices. This author eats his own cooking, and the result is a generous gift to readers. This does not mean you'll agree with everything the author writes! In fact, Browne encourages readers to disagree with him as we sort out our specific values, rules and boundaries. He wants volitional readers, not readers looking to be told what to think and do. We'll come back to this idea. [A quick affiliate link to Amazon for those readers who would like to support my wor...

The Art of War in the Middle Ages by Charles Oman

A wonderful, information-dense book surveying the evolution of warfare across the Middle Ages, and a glorious starting point for readers to contextualize an enormous amount of European history. There's a great deal of historical knowledge here that author Charles Oman assumes in his readers. And so the very act of reading this book (and looking up the author's near-constant historical references) equates to a semester or two--at least--of upper-level undergrad European history. Read this book and spend some time looking things up. Then read several more books like this [1]. Pretty soon, enough osmosis happens such that the various battles and historical figures this author mentions casually will be things you start mentioning casually: Cannae, Adrianople, Brunanburh, Hastings, Robert Guiscard, Durazzo, Tours, Crecy, Agincourt, Arnold von Winkelried, Albrecht von Wallenstein, and so on. (This will be an inner monologue of course, because we all know how much every...

H.R. by Edwin Lefevre

I wouldn't recommend this odd book for its story. But H.R. is interesting for its social and psychological commentary on early 20th century New York society, as the Gilded Age gave way to the so-called Progressive Era. Edwin Lefevre is the author of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator , the famous (at least among investors) pseudobiography of Jesse Livermore. This book, in stark contrast, is a forgotten and comparatively forgettable work. But not totally forgettable. The reader watches the life arc of a young man who catapults himself across several caste barriers, starting as a frustrated New York City bank clerk who quits and, implausibly, starts a union of sandwich-board advertisers. He then uses this sandwich board advertising platform (you could think of it as an early 1900s "new media" platform) to gain influence throughout the city, ultimately parlaying his way into joining New York's social and economic elite. At its heart, this book is about power and influ...

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