When I first started doing the book reviews it was because a professor asked me what books I think should be on every Information Security (Information Assurance) student’s bookshelf. One of the books on that original list was Rework by the guys at 37 signals Basecamp. On my bi-annual reading of the book, I noticed they made comment to a previous book called Getting Real. So I ran out and grabbed a copy of it.

It really felt like a draft version of Rework. It was ok. There were some great quotes in the book from people who have used the same frame of thought to make a new company or run a business.

There were parts of the book that countered what I remembered from Rework (remember I read this book every other year), the biggest being how to deal with the competition, and seeing what they do. It felt that the two books were at odds on how to deal with the competition.

I would only recommend this book for the quotes, but think that Rework is the stronger and better of the two books to read.

I recently finished reading Zero Day. Over all I liked the concept. The end was interesting but easy to see coming. The biggest issue I had with the book though was it came off under-researched when it came to the cultures.

The portrayal of foreign cultures in the book were very stereotypical of what we’ve seen from American propaganda, known as television and movies. It doesn’t fit with other books that I’ve read that have taken place in those cultures. Mostly they have been non-fiction and travel books.

Over all the story was pretty good, but the they were not as good as Daniel Saurez‘s books, I’m not sure if I’m going to get the book by Mark Russinovich yet.

I like the fact that we’re seeing more techno-thrillers coming on to the market, especially since they’re written by people that know the technology. They’re good reads, for general mass market reads. It also makes what we do accessible to people outside of our industry.