Diamonds in the Rough: Corporate Paternalism and African Professionalism on the Mines of Colonial Angola, 1917-1975
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"This meticulous study is a must read for scholars and graduate students interested in African labor...
Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination
Mary E. Kite and Bernard E. Whitley
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The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination provides a comprehensive and compelling overview of...
500 Portraits: 25 Years of the BP Portrait Award
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The National Portrait Gallerys painted portrait Award, one of Britain's most prestigious art prizes,...
The Silo Effect: Why Every Organisation Needs to Disrupt Itself to Survive
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Ever since civilised society began, we have felt the need to classify, categorise and specialise. It...
Practical Information Security Management: A Complete Guide to Planning and Implementation
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Create appropriate, security-focused business propositions that consider the balance between cost,...
How to Vex a Vampire
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Finn Getting into the vampire-only detective unit was the easy part; what’s going to be more...
ClareR (6106 KP) rated The Startup Wife in Books
Mar 20, 2022
Computer scientist Asha, meets up with her high school crush, Cyrus, they fall in love and get married. Along with Cyrus’ friend Jules, Asha develops an app based on Cyrus’ beliefs. And the app really takes off - which is where the second part of the book kicks in.
Cyrus goes from reluctant participant in the venture, to being a guru who enthrals thousands of subscribers each day with his motivational webcasts. He IS the face of WAI, and Asha’s role is almost forgotten. Even when it becomes something of a phenomenon, Asha’s development and programming expertise is pushed aside to make way for her clearly more charismatic husband. The problem is, and this is what really started to put me off his character, Cyrus buys into his own charisma. He thinks he and the app are capable of doing far more than they realistically can do, and disaster awaits. If only they’d listened to Asha.
Asha is the loyal wife, but faced with being constantly undermined at work, and not being supported by Cyrus, things are bound to come to a head. And they certainly do! Everything that can go wrong, does!
I really liked the way that the author looked at how social media and apps should have a responsibility towards their users. People get carried away online, thinking that anything is possible, and social media can reinforce this.
I also think that the way that Asha was pushed out and her role trivialised was representative of many women in the workplace. In particular, the way that their investor ignored Asha in meetings, directing technical questions (her job) to the male partners.
Parts of this book really made me laugh, other parts showed the online world as trivial and shallow. It portrayed the dangers of trusting a programme with no human perception of situations. It’s a great book which not only entertained me, but really got me thinking.
Acanthea Grimscythe (300 KP) rated The Grip of It in Books
May 12, 2018
The characters of The Grip of It are millennials, and apparently, we do not worry about our jobs. What I mean by this is that Julie and James, our main characters, are stereotypes to a fault and this bothers me. It bothers me because their behavior, in response to their house’s issues, does not reflect proportionately upon my generation. James more or less walks out of his job and doesn’t bother getting another one, whilst Julie shows up at her workplace inappropriately. I suppose this isn’t something that should bother me so much and might have slipped past my radar entirely if it weren’t for the blurb on the back cover of the book. If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’ll know I abhor stereotypes. Especially those that do not truly represent a group of people. /rant over
The story itself isn’t horrible, but it’s not really anything new either. Most of it is driven by the style of writing. For instance, you can clearly feel the differences in Julie and James’s personalities. Julie’s point-of-view contains lots of run-on sentences and has a high-anxiety feel to it–which is the opposite of many of her actions, oddly enough. James, on the other hand, has a lackadaisical feel. As for the haunting? Little is truly revealed as to its origins and very few questions are asked, leaving this book to focus primarily on the characters and how events affect them, rather than the reality of what’s going on. In fact, one might argue that the couple is simply going mad.
I was so excited to get my hands on this books, and just as disappointed and underwhelmed when I finished reading it. I devoured each page waiting eagerly for something to really happen, but in the end I’m left with unanswered questions. This isn’t always a bad thing, but when you’re questioning the book as a whole… well that says something.
Sharing the Work: What My Family and Career Taught Me About Breaking Through (and Holding the Door Open for Others)
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"Myra Strober's Sharing the Work is the memoir of a woman who has learned that 'having it all' is...