https://theleo.zone/books/Recent content in Books on Leo Robinovitch @ The Leo ZoneHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usSun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/lonesome-dove/Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/lonesome-dove/Rating: 🤠 Lonesome Dove is a novel by Larry McMurtry. I absolutely loved this book and would recommend it to anyone wanting an exciting and empathetic old Western about imperfect men achieving imperfect goals. I had heard about Lonesome Dove before, but had never prioritized it on my list. One evening last month, at the top of a hill in San Francisco, I ran into a friend who I hadn’t seen since he returned from his hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.https://theleo.zone/books/on-the-shortness-of-life/Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/on-the-shortness-of-life/Rating:🪨🐮 On the Shortness of Life is an essay by Seneca the Younger. It is quite short and approachable. I found it to be a mixed bag of a few timeless good-sounding ideas and a lot of near-nonsense. Seneca was a stoic philosopher who lived from 4 BCE to 65 CE. He was wealthy and influential, working as a Senator, advisor and tutor to multiple Roman emperors. He lived in exile for a time, returned to power, then died of voluntary suicide after being ordered to do so by Nero.https://theleo.zone/books/harry-potter/Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/harry-potter/Rating: 🪄 Harry Potter is a series by J. K. Rowling, but you already knew that. J. K. Rowling is nowadays a deeply distasteful person with abhorrent and harmful views on trans people (if you have 3 and a half hours, check out Contrapoint’s first and second videos on this). No money was given to her in this Potter re-read process, and that’s all that I’ll say about her here.https://theleo.zone/books/silo-series/Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/silo-series/Rating:🐑 The Silo series is a collection of three books by Hugh Howey: Wool, Shift, and Dust. They collectively form a post-apocalyptic Science Fiction tale of reasonable quality. Spoilers ahead! In the world of Silo, humanity, on the brink of weaponizing evolutionary nano-technology that would likely wipe out most of life on Earth, a few morons in America decide to preemptively murder everyone save about half a million people spread across 50 massive underground silos.https://theleo.zone/books/the-magicians-trilogy/Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-magicians-trilogy/Rating:🔮 The Magicians Trilogy is a series by Lev Grossman. I read the first book about 5 years ago and (re)read all three books this year. Spoilers ahead! The story follows Quentin Coldwater and his school friends from their late teens to early thirties. They undergo a magical education and many adventures. The first book covers the entire 5 years of schooling. Quentin starts an insecure and brooding teenager and ends up a man with reasonable flaws and stable self-knowledge.https://theleo.zone/books/the-grapes-of-wrath/Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-grapes-of-wrath/Rating:💔 The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck about an Oklahoma farming family forced out of their land and questing for steady work in the far away state of California. I loved it, but God, it’s heartbreaking. In the Comedy film Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Steve Martin and John Candy undergo a series of misadventures trying to return home for Thanksgiving. Most of their misfortune is self-inflicted, whether from Martin’s character’s pride or Candy’s character’s carelessness, and in the end, they become closer and everything works out.https://theleo.zone/books/the-power-of-the-strength-of-the-heart/Thu, 08 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-power-of-the-strength-of-the-heart/Rating:🔋💪❤️ The Power of the Strength of the Heart is an audiobook written and read by Bobby Fingers. This one takes a bit of explaining. Bobby Fingers is an artist who has been kinda famous in Ireland for a while as a member of The Rubberbandits. He is a musician, professional prop maker, youtuber, and now, romance novel author. His youtube channel is extremely worth watching. Each video is 20 to 30 minutes of him dryly narrating his own making of a labor intensive diorama depicting a strange situation involving a celebrity.https://theleo.zone/books/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy/Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy/Rating:👍 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a book by Douglas Adams. Honestly, what’s there to say. It’s short, goofy, delightful. Like The Matrix or Zoolander, you’ll find that you probably quote or know quotes from this book even if you’ve never read it or seen the movie. It made me think about what appeals to children - they don’t need subtle character development or intricate scene painting, they just want random stuff to happen, silly names, slick insults and buffoonish aliens.https://theleo.zone/books/do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep/Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep/Rating: 🐑 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a novel by Philip K. Dick. The movie Blade Runner is an adaptation of this book. The book is excellent. It’s the first audiobook that I’ve consumed in a while, and I was engaged throughout the listening experience. Set in a post nuclear fallout (“World War Terminus”) Earth where a fatal dust coats everything, most humans have emigrated to Mars. Mars is sold as a paradise free from the worries of Earth, but the few glimpses you get into life on Mars seems fairly bleak.https://theleo.zone/books/east-of-eden/Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/east-of-eden/Rating: תִּ East of Eden is a book by John Steinbeck. It is an unbelievably good novel. I read it once before in high school and it has been my answer to “what is your favorite book” since then. I recently realized that I remembered very little of the actual plot, so, slightly worried that I’d think poorly of my high school self, I gave it another whirl. After a re-read, I’m happy to keep my answer the same.https://theleo.zone/books/books-i-dnf-2024/Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/books-i-dnf-2024/I spent between a third and a full half of this year “reading” two books. I put reading in quotations because in reality, reading a book that I’m not enjoying ends up with me reading the book less and articles on my phone more. When I’m reading a good book, I get through 10-20 pages a night before falling asleep. I went weeks to months without picking these books up at all.https://theleo.zone/books/how-to-know-a-person/Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/how-to-know-a-person/Rating:👂 How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen is a book by David Brooks. The book is short and dense with insight. I finished it a month or so ago, but have been working on other stuff and am finally getting around to writing about it. It has made me think differently about what being a good friend and making deep connections means.https://theleo.zone/books/the-buried-giant/Sun, 25 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-buried-giant/Rating:😭 The Buried Giant is a Fairy Tale about the value of living memory, the limits of devotion, the contradictions of revenge, and the stories we tell ourselves to feel better about the world. It is equal parts beautiful and devastating, and its author Kazuo Ishiguro is a brilliant, merciless craftsman. Axl and Beatrice live in a small community embedded in an English hilltop. An ambient cruelty hovers all around, seemingly related to the collective inability to recall the past.https://theleo.zone/books/a-philosophy-of-software-design/Sun, 09 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/a-philosophy-of-software-design/Rating:💯 A Philosophy of Software Design is a book by John Ousterhout. I found it extremely worthwhile to read. It distilled certain vague intuitions that I’d built up over time into clear ideas. Reading it immediately impacted my programming style across different dimensions. Ousterhout admits: Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple recipe that will guarantee great software designs. Instead, I will present a collection of higher-level concepts that border on the philosophical…https://theleo.zone/books/the-scout-mindset/Sun, 14 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-scout-mindset/Rating:🧠 The Scout Mindset is a book by Julia Galef. It introduces the concept of “Scout mindset”, contrasted with “Soldier mindset”. A Soldier mindset is present when our unconscious motives affect the conclusions we draw. A Scout seeks to continually align their perceptions closer to reality. If directionally motivated reasoning is like being a soldier fighting off threatening evidence, accuracy motivated reasoning is like being a scout forming a map of the strategic landscape.https://theleo.zone/books/murderbot/Sun, 17 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/murderbot/Rating:🫨 The Murderbot Diaries is a series by Martha Wells. I would say it is in the Sci-Fi genre but also teen angst and also whatever genre the movie Gladiator is in. To preface this review, I have only read the first 3 novels in this series (there are 7 books at the time of this writing). I also read this in an extremely busy period of life where I would read 1-3 pages at a time at night before falling asleep.https://theleo.zone/books/the-mind-body-prescription/Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-mind-body-prescription/Rating: 💊 The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain is a book by John Sarno, a doctor and author who was known for coining Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS), a condition that manifests as many different forms of chronic pain. I had heard the name Sarno in internet conversations around back pain, but he came up again when I was talking with a friend about my typing pain and he mentioned that he had read a kind of wacky book (this one) about pain treatment when he was experiencing the same thing and his pain went away after reading it and he never thinks about it anymore.https://theleo.zone/books/the-devil-in-the-white-city/Sun, 03 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-devil-in-the-white-city/Rating: 👹 The Devil in the White City is a book by Erik Larson about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (“the fair”) in Chicago. It follows two main characters: Daniel Burnham, the fair’s primary architect, and H. H. Holmes, a serial killer who operated during the time of the fair. I’m a bit late to the party on this one. It was big after it came out in 2003, and my mom recommended it to me at least 5 years ago, but 2023 seems like my year of Chicago - watching The Bear, putting together that something like 20% of my friends are from Chicago, and now this book.https://theleo.zone/books/unreasonable-hospitality/Sun, 29 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/unreasonable-hospitality/Rating: 🧑‍🍳💋 Unreasonable Hospitality is a book by Will Guidara about his experience in the restaurant industry. In particular, he writes about managing Eleven Madison Park (EMP) for 11 years, taking it from a “mere” 2 stars to being awarded the prize of best restaurant in the world. Guidara is the first to call out the silliness and practical importance of this award: …it’s absolutely ridiculous to call any restaurant “the best restaurant in the world.https://theleo.zone/books/designing-data-intensive-applications/Sun, 08 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/designing-data-intensive-applications/Rating: 📀 Designing Data Intensive Applications (DDIA) is a book by Martin Kleppmann. How do I review this incredible reference? I’ll first say that if you program professionally, you should read this book. It will introduce you to new ideas and help you clarify and reconceptualize ones you may already be familiar with. You are very likely to find relevance to your work in multiple chapters. You can view my abridged notes in Notion here if you’d like.https://theleo.zone/books/tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow/Thu, 10 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow/Rating:👾 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (T3) is a novel by Gabrielle Zevin. I really enjoyed this book, ripping through it on my flight and subsequent jetlagged morning as I move back from London to the West Coast. Spoilers ahead. Many people I know have read and enjoyed this book in the past months. Zevin mentions some influences in her author’s note at the end, and summarizes that the book is about Work and it is about Love, and that struck me as a good summary.https://theleo.zone/books/the-light-of-all-that-falls/Sun, 06 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-light-of-all-that-falls/Rating:🔦 The Light of All That Falls is the third and final book in The Licanius Trilogy, a fantasy series by James Islington. The book nicely rounds out this excellent series. Spoilers ahead. This series really emphasizes that everyone thinks that they are doing what is best for the world. Aarkein Devaed and the Venerate believed that releasing “El” is the way to grant people freedom of choice and undo the harms of the past.https://theleo.zone/books/an-echo-of-things-to-come/Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/an-echo-of-things-to-come/Rating:🗼 An Echo of Things to Come is the second book in The Licanius Trilogy, a fantasy series by James Islington. I enjoyed the second book here even more than the first. As usual, spoilers ahead. The first book left a large volume of unexplained content, and at first, it seemed like that was just going to grow throughout the second book. I was worried, becausing explaining all of it in the trilogy’s finale would be pretty ambitious.https://theleo.zone/books/the-shadow-of-what-was-lost/Mon, 26 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-shadow-of-what-was-lost/Rating: 🪄 The Shadow of What Was Lost is the first book in The Licanius Trilogy, a fantasy series by James Islington. I really enjoyed this book. As usual, spoilers ahead. The setting in this book feels huge. It’s like a Marvel Movie in High fantasy format, seriously, it’s a super hero book more than a fantasy book. In Brandon Sanderson’s worlds, he introduces a structured magical mechanic that influences physics or physical abilities, like the Allomantic metals in Mistborn or the Stormlight in The Stormlight Archive.https://theleo.zone/books/the-diamond-age/Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-diamond-age/Rating: 👎 Heavily opinionated claims and spoilers ahead. I did not enjoy and do not recommend The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson. It was a particularly disappointing read for me because of how much I enjoyed Snow Crash last month. The Diamond Age should be called The Rough (Unpolished) Diamond, as this could have been a great book. Imagining what a post-scarcity world full of accessible nanotechnology and universal 3D “matter printers” looks like is cool!https://theleo.zone/books/snow-crash/Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/snow-crash/Rating: ❄️📉 My experiences took on a different texture while I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The hyper-privatized, segmented-but-uniform world in which the plot unfolds gave me greater than usual mistrust for every McDonalds, gated community, and Airport shopping corridor. As usual, spoilers ahead. I loved the characters in Snow Crash. A mutant Aleut killer who uses glass knives and has a Hydrogen bomb synced to go off if he’s killed.https://theleo.zone/books/the-scholomance-series/Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-scholomance-series/Rating: 🧙‍♀️ If you enjoyed Harry Potter, The Magicians by Lev Grossman, or Game of Thrones, then you will probably have a great time with The Scholomance Series by Naomi Novik. Warning: spoilers ahead. The trilogy starts with the pedal to the metal. Soul sucking monsters, heroism, and drama in a boarding school for magical teens. At first it felt like I was reading the journal of an overly melodramatic teenage girl, El.https://theleo.zone/books/the-art-of-learning/Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-art-of-learning/Rating: 📈 A self help book usually acts like a manual for achieving above-average levels of success, wealth, positive mental state, etc., told through parables of the author’s life. What qualities do we find distasteful in self help books? taking it as a given that everyone should uncritically strive to dominate and win within a conventional framework of success claims that you, yes you, can dominate, win, and succeed like the author if you just follow these steps encouraging exploitation of others in order to win pushing pseudoscience, a la “Scientists hate this one simple trick” (positive thinking, law of attraction, etc.https://theleo.zone/books/the-code-book/Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://theleo.zone/books/the-code-book/Rating: 🧨 I picked up The Code Book at a used book store in Seattle, honestly expecting it to be a nonstarter. Another book on an interesting technical topic that assumes the reader has a PhD in the field or that they’d shrivel up at the first whiff of math. I am happy to report that I was wrong! This is the best book I’ve read in the last year.