I can’t believe it’s July already, aka we started a new financial year in Australia and the coldest days of winter are around the corner. The last 6 months have been an interesting ride; I moved to my new apartment, work has kept me busy and I traveled quite a bit earlier this year, but thankfully I’ve found some free time to enjoy these good books:

January 2017: Loitering by Charles D’Ambrosio (2014)
“Self-consciousness has been long in me, so like a lot of writers I not only do a thing, I see myself doing it too – it’s almost like not being alone.”

February 2017: Demystifying Public Speaking by Lara Hogan (2016)
“I want to help you learn about what you bring to public speaking: your expertise, your style, your fears, your strengths.”

March 2017: Just Enough Research by Erika Hall (2013)
“For a design to be successful, it must serve the needs and desires of actual humans. Strangely, simply being human is insufficient for understanding most of our fellows.”

April 2017: Jony Ive by Leander Kahney (2014)
“Reduce and simplify? This wasn’t typical tech industry happy talk. In releasing new products, companies tended to add more bells and whistles, not take them away, but here Jony was saying the opposite. Not that simplifying was a new approach; it’s Design School 101.

May 2017: Don’t Make me Think by Steve Krug (2014)
“Usability is about people and how they understand and use things, not about technology. And while technology often changes quickly, people change very slowly.”

June 2017: The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick (2001)
“Egypt was a country of indiscriminate expressiveness overflowing its own margins. My book does this curious thing: it mimics Egypt itself. That is its strength and its limitation.”

Check out my previous ‘Briefly Noted’ reviews: 2016, 2015, 2014