Tag: Audio Review

Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar Animations (along with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) tells about creating winning teams and taking your team to the next level.  Ed takes us behind the scenes of Pixar and shares the inner workings of how they created movies (such as Toy Story 2) by trusting in their teams, striving towards excellence every time but also bringing their teams to a point of trust and support that is unheard of in most companies. 

Pixar has been the name to strive for in animated movies due to this attitude by their lead team of being real with the employees, not separating yourself as a leader as “better” or “above” others and making themselves accessible for ideas lie “braintrust” the team that takes each movie as it begins and breaks it down to what they like and what they do not and repeats this process over and over with the creative team. 

From the wins, to the expensive fails, Et Catmull gives advice from his own experiences and shares ideas to build work teams that become as one, and treats them with the respect that creates long-term relationships.

 

 

I read this (listened to it actually) because I love to work on winning teams.  That may sound like a weird thing to say, but it is true.  If you have worked with a group of people for a job or career, you know what I mean.  There are great teams to work with that feel safe to bounce ideas off each other without being shut down and then there are not so great teams that you feel “thumbed over” watched every move – and creativity….

fails.  There is no room for it.

There is a section towards the end where Ed talks about his working relationship for Steve Jobs.  I loved this as Steve Jobs, while clearly having his faults was a brilliant mind.  Ed said Steve would walk into a meeting, listen, and say something like, “I am not a movie maker, but what if….” and whatever he said would be brilliant advice and then he would walk out and let the team work their magic. 

I really enjoyed this listen and this is one I will look for in book format as well.  What Ed describes here with his working relationship with the teams as well as the co-founders of Pixar is the way to find the right people for the job and how to treat them.

 

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

 

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”  ― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

 

 

Honestly, I strive for this kind of work environment.  I am a creative person and when I am placed with great teams that share ideas and lift each other up instead of pulling them down- I thrive.  In a way I think I feed off their energy and excitement; it is like fuel to my soul.  I find that when I looking for creative outlets I am drawn to the ones that allow me the most freedom to be who I am and create in ways that will inspire others to join in.  I want the teams I work with to do an amazing job and have fun along the way by doing it. 

Creative minds, people in management or Leadership positions that want to build winning teams, this is a great read for you.

When a group of College Frat boys in Montana stumble across an idea from taking their weekly poker game to an online game where people all over the world can play for real stakes, they had no idea what they were about to unleash.

Absolutepoker.com became one of the biggest online poker sites in the world, at one point making nearly a million dollars a day.  The group of misfit college boys took the business to Costa Rica where they lived a high life of booze, women, and cars dodging accusations of the United States of illegal handing of the games and new laws coming in to play for online gambling. 

Nothing that grows that big that fast can stay on top forever….

 

 

 

I wanted to listen to this audio because I really enjoyed and recommend the movie 21, which is based on this same story.  A group of college guys create something they think will be fun and maybe bring them in a little spending money and of course what happens in much bigger than any would have dreamed.

While based on a non fiction take of what happened, many online articles and reviews grumble at the accuracy of this book.  I for one enjoyed the listen, finding it interesting, just as I did with Social Network.  If not for the move 21, and this book, I would know nothing at all of this scandal that all came crashing down in 2007.

Mark Watney was part of an epic win for mankind.  He was one of a group of astronauts that were the first to land on the planet Mars.  Congratulations were short-lived when a dust storm comes up flinging the crew about like sheets of paper.  Mark was struck hard by debris and the team makes an emergency evacuation of Mars feeling certain that Mark is dead.

But Mark is not dead.

He is however left on a planet with no way to communicate to earth that he is alive, and left with a hab that will possibly keep him alive for a month or so, a tent that was left behind, a land rover that may or may nor work and no plans for another team to come to Mars for about 4 years.

Mark is screwed.

For his own sanity he starts a log of what he is doing with his time and how he is making do with what he has for someone many years from now to find and hopefully learn from…. or at least know how Mark lived his last days… or how he died…

whatever.

 

 

 

I knew about ten minutes into this audio book version of The Martian that I was in for something special.  Narrated by R C Bray I found myself laughing at Mark’s quick whit in a bad situation.  He just takes things in stride. 

Narrator R.C Bray engulfs the very soul of Mark Watney.  His snarky tones kept me so engaged.

Our protagonist Mark is like “MacGyver on Mars”.  Using what little supplies he has he discovers ways to stretch his food and water supplies, and finds some entertaining items from the packs that the other crew members left behind in their hurry to evacuate.  ….  it was AWESOME to listen to. 

I want to GUSH all over this one but at the same time I do not want to give anything anyway so I am going to simply encourage you to get your hands on this book or audio and enjoy the ride.  Be ready to hold your breath one minute, and laugh out loud the next…..  you are in for a good GOOD time.

What makes a “Best of 2014” read?  A book / audio book that grabs me from the get go and keeps me engaged all the way through.  A book I would without hesitation recommend to anyone looking for a good read or listen.  ~Sheila

 

Poor Alice.  As a Miami real estate agent, her boss Leslie, could be part of a show called Worst Bosses. He is cruel, inappropriate, and will not release her from her contract of working for him.  She is pretty sure if given the chance, he would behead someone…. “Off with their head!”

In her dreams, Alice feels that if she could just escape Leslie’s grip she could start a new life… meet a man… move on… and not always feel like she fell down a rabbit hole. 

When Alice does meet someone on-line, an Englishman she starts to chat with through emails and on the phone, Alice falls for his accented voice that almost seems to put her in a trance.  With visions of John Cleese in her head, she flies to England to meet Nigel Channing… even his name could melt a hardened heart.

While Nigel isn’t everything she pictured, she finds herself falling for him anyway.  Yet back in Miami things are becoming increasingly strange as her boss takes her court for false accusations involving selling a property and pocketing the down payment… all of which is untrue and Alice swears she can feel herself shrinking away.  Suddenly nothing in her life seems real, Nigel comes with a lot of baggage… A LOT.  And as old enemies try to befriend her, Alice really doesn’t know who she can trust…

Is there such a  thing as Alice in Wonderland syndrome?

 

 

I chose The Secret Diary Of Alice In Wonderland because it had a cute title and eye-catching cover. Perhaps a break down a rabbit hole could be a fun experience…

I however struggled with the strange connections, and found it hard to believe that someone as pretty as Alice would fall for someone the likes of Nigel Channing.  ( I think that love of strong independent women characters kicked in here and I did not like Alice’s inability to find someone right for her) Once author Barbara Silkstone started describing Nigel and all of his quirks and so on and so on, yet Alice stayed interested in him, I lost my belief in the storyline.

I hung in there until the end though as I was curious as to what would happen with Alice and the false accusations of her boss and the shady people who surrounded her…. all in all, the book for me felt way to out there.

Know that I seem to be in the minority on this one.  Reviews on Amazon rate this one high.  If you do like this, Barbara Silkstone has many books with a similar fun theme:

Wendy Darlin – Tomb Raider

Miami Mummies

Wendy And The Lost Boys

Zo White and The Seven Morphs

Just to name a few…

 

Thank you to Author Barbara Silkstone and to Audio Jukebox for allowing me a chance to listen to and review this audio book.

Sophie Diehl is very happy at her pace in a New England Law Firm as a Criminal Law Associate.  And… if she does say so herself, she is a pretty darn good one too.  One weekend when everyone is out of the office either on other business or on vacation, Sophie is tasked with doing an intake interview for divorce proceedings for a daughter of a high-profile client. 

It is just the intake interview, Sophie is assured, but Mia Meiklejohn Durkheim likes Sophie’s “take no prisoner” attitude and decides that Sophie is who she wants to represent her.  So much in fact, that she is willing to pay double to secure her services.  While Sophie does everything she can to politely pass, the partners of the firm assure her that is she is who Mia wants…. then she is who Mia will get.

*gulp*

With the help of a couple of the divorce lawyers in the firm, and facing the wrath of the female partner who is actually a divorce lawyer who would have received this case had she not been on vacation, Fiona McGregor, Sophie struggles through using her skills as a criminal lawyer to create an interesting divorce case.

 

 

 

I have this in book format and I downloaded it on Audible as well.  I went audio due to wanting to get to the book, but not having the time to sit and read. 

At first as I started listening to this audio, I was surprised to pick up on the fact that this book was going to be told in correspondence… IE. emails, letters, post it notes….  (In hindsight I really do not know why I was surprised… after all it is called DIVORCE PAPERS).  😳  I was really hoping that there would be more of the story told out of the context of written communications…

Then…

I got into the rhythm of the book, finding myself looking forward to correspondence with certain people, such as Sophie’s communications with David, her boss who was working on the case as support to her lack of divorce law knowledge. I enjoyed his voice and when I would hear his narration start I would get excited to hear what he had to say.

Yes there is a lot of law speak.  It did become a bit tedious that almost all of  the correspondence started with a date, an address, who the correspondence was too, who it was copied too, and what attachments there were to go along with said correspondence.  For this, I think the audio served me well as I imagine that with all this information I would skim if I had read the book.  For that matter, correspondence that did not interest me I probably would have skimmed as well, and again the audio does not allow for that so I probably did the book more justice by listening to it.

I enjoyed The Divorce Papers.  I actually learned a few things that take place in such proceedings, and the knowledge seeker in me enjoyed that.  To me, the story was a bit over the top with both parties of the divorce either having money at the ready, or high dollar property in their name as well as collections such as paintings…  this however did not dampen my enjoyment of the read. 

 

 

 

West Hall, Vermont has, like many small towns, urban legends.  The towns most notorious story is one a woman named Sarah Harrison Shea who in the early 1900’s was found in a bloody heap, dead, just months after her own young daughter Gertie had tragically died.  Through the years, in the woods that were a part of West Hall, other mysterious deaths and disappearances had taken place, only adding fuel to the legend. The truth of what had happened to Sarah was never discovered but the elaborate stories were ones told around camp fires and during moonless nights….

Now, over 100 years later, 19-year-old Ruthie lives with her mother Alice and her little sister Fawn in the very farmhouse that once belonged to the infamous Sarah.  One morning the girls wake to find their mother Alice missing with no sign of where she may have gone.  As Ruthie explores her mother’s room for clues she finds part of a diary under the floor boards that says it is the secret diary of Sarah Harrison Shea. As Ruthie begins to read the diary she finds it is filled with stories of people called sleepers, those brought back to life from the dead.  Sarah not only believed it was possible, she explained how she did it for her daughter Gertie, and… even more alarming, how to bring anyone back to life.

Sheila’s observation:  Have we learned nothing from Stephen King’s Pet Cemetery?  Bringing people back from the dead is never a good idea…

 

The Winter People brought up reminiscence of The Returned, and yes, Pet Cemetery.  How often have we thought if we only had a second chance with someone who had passed away unexpectedly and/or far too young?  How far would one go to bring that person back if they could?  AND time after time in our literature we have discovered….  they never come back the way they were.  (Walking Dead anyone?  Just not a great time….  😛  )

This opening description might make you think this book is dark, but actually it is not so much dark as it is just a very interesting tale that travels back and forth seamlessly between Sarah’s time of 1908 , and Ruthie’s life of current time.  As you read, Sarah’s story as told through her diary entries and see her life move forward as Ruthie, reading the diary all these years later follows the book back in time to hopefully find a connection to her mother’s disappearance. 

Beautifully narrated by Cassandra Campbell and Kathe Mazur.  I found Winter People to be a familiar tale, but told in a different way that was unique and that made it a decent read.