Books Recommended by Bobby Voicu

"I just read the first 4 chapters (I’m writing this email on my flight back from Greece). It’s a Science Fiction book about a crew of misfits that makes, by mistake, Earth’s first interstellar flight. I bought it from one of BookBub’s promotions and it had good reviews. So I thought, why not? :)

Later edit: As I was reading it, I understood that the chapters are actually short stories related to the same characters and the same world. It allows for great character development and I have to say I've become a little bit attached to the misfits. I'm still reading it (I have about 80 pages left), but I thoroughly enjoyed it."

In I, Asimov I’ve discovered a genuine happy person, someone that did what he loved his entire life. I discovered that one of the biggest authors of Science Fiction actually stopped writing fiction novels almost completely for 20 years. I discovered that he enjoyed writing mystery short stories a lot. And this shouldn’t surprise me since most of the books in his SF series are, actually, mysteries. Especially the Robots ones.

His autobiography reads like the archive of a blog, with anecdotes and short stories of the author’s life. It made me smile so often, I didn’t believe it. I was reading in bed and I would read out loud to my fiancée something that made me laugh loudly.

Besides the laughs, I also appreciated the power of Asimov’s convictions. I’m taking example, as well, since sometimes I forget to support my opinions as strongly as I should. If you enjoyed Asimov's books, you're gonna love this one.

On the non-fiction front, I love A.G. Riddle's works and I just finished his last book in the The Long Winter trilogy: The Lost Colony. I wanted to read it so much that I preordered the book and I put the day of launch in my calendar, 5-6 months ago, after reading the second book. The entire trilogy is an interesting take on time travel, actually, but it only makes sense in the final book, this one.

Ben Horowitz recently published another book called "What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture".

When we were starting MavenHut, company culture was one of the things I struggled with.

I mean, I worked 70 hours/week, should my employees do the same (no, of course not!). My business parteners were working weekends as well during the early days of the company, I didn't want to. But people say that the leaders of the company should be part of the culture. So?

I just found out about the book so I only read the first few chapters, but it goes some ways I didn't think about.

The first part of the book is about the slave rebellion that created, in the end, Haiti. What is so interesting about this? Well, it's apparently the only slave rebellion in the world that was successful in creating a new country. How is it connected to company culture? I have no idea yet. 

There's, apparently, another chapter on a prison gang. And another on Genghis Khan. 

If you are confused, you're not the only one. But since I trust the author, I'm sure it will make sense at some point.