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The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The first book of The Interdependency Series. I've read and liked several Scalzi's book, but this didn't really resonate. It's more of a "space-opera" than scifi. There's of course space travel etc. in the background, but the book is mostly about politics and conspiracies. Not planning to read the rest of the series.


Pimeyden sydän by Ilkka Remes

In the book, the main character escapes from prison with the goal of obtaining evidence of his innocence, but ends up in the Congo with Russian and Chinese assassins on his tail. At the same time, Russia seeks to cause panic and damage in Finland as revenge for NATO membership. The pace in the book is such that the reader can hardly keep up.


The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad

The book is an argument against wokeism. Interesting reading. The author defends science and common sense against emotional arguments. I'm sure the author doesn't leave reader with lukewarm feelings - you either like or hate it.


Tornado (Hardcover) by Ilkka Remes

Russia attack to Ukraine, Finland and Sweden considering joining NATO, Iran nuclear threat,  USA & Russia secret negotiations, drug trafficking criminals, Swedish submarine sabotage - and Finland's President is missing. All that tied together at the breathtaking pace.


Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Surprisingly engaging, this biography exceeded my expectations with a fascinating exploration of Elon Musk's life. Musk is intriguing person and his risk loving attitude has made his businesses failure and success about equally probable. So far he has been mostly successful - at least when measured by wealth. The author covers Musk's childhood, family and businesses (Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, Neuralink, Twitter) until April 2023. Given Musk's achievements in just his early fifties, it's plausible that his future endeavors could fill the pages of another biography in the next decade or two.


The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Empathy, teamwork, ethical decisions? Nah. How about manipulation, taking credit for work of others and crushing your enemies?  The book is a compelling yet troubling read, presenting 48 laws that flip today's expected  norms on their head, making for a peculiarly refreshing experience. Each law is backed by historical narratives, making it a recommended read for its thought-provoking content, albeit with a caution against using it as a behavioral blueprint.


The Four Workarounds: Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems by Paulo Savaget

Great book about real world "hacking". The book introduces four workarounds with plenty of examples: piggyback, loophole, roundabout and the next best. It's about solving problems by going around rules being creative. Recommended reading to get ideas how to get things done.


The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman, Michael Bhaskar

An insightful summary of the impact of technological advancement. Regrettably, most of the content wasn't novel to me. The highlight, however, was the exploration of synthetic biology and its identification as a key technology, alongside artificial intelligence, that will drive future changes.


Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things that Seem Impossible Today by Jane McGonigal

The author introduce a scenario-based methodology to imagine a world ten (or more) years from now. The goal is to be better prepared for future changes - both positive and negative. When you take a mental time trip ten years into the future, your brain starts to think with a different point of view - switching your imagination from first-person to third-person perspective.


Aleksi Suomesta by Tuomas Kyrö

A personal profile of a Finn who, after serving in the French Foreign Legion and the Finnish Army, decided to go and defend Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Touching stories from the battlefield, the routines of war, and its impacts on people.


Observer by Robert Lanza, Nancy Kress

A compelling sci-fi tale that uses quantum theory's observer effect to explore multidimensional universes through brain implants. The concept of transitioning between dimensions after death is fascinating. However, the plot's focus on relationships somewhat overshadows the science fiction elements, which I would have preferred more of.


Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success by Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, Rob Wertheimer

Interesting success stories from e.g. GE, Boeing, Stanley Black & Decker, Honeywell and Caterpillar. Strong - or at least visionary - leaders in many cases. Good to read, but not much to learn, really. The authors said it well in the end: "There's more art, and perhaps a bit more luck, to business success than we would like to admit."


AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee, Chen Qiufan

Ten AI-related sci-fi stories by Chen Qiufan which were explained and commented by an AI expert, Kai-Fu Lee. Excellent combination of fiction and science to anyone who likes sci-fi and want to learn about AI - like me. Lots of AI visions were covered, including NLP, deepfakes, VR/AR/MR, smart cities, AI jobs displacement, autonomous weapons and what's the best from my point of view, security, privacy and ethics was discussed as well.


Ope­raatio Na­pa­ket­tu by Helena Immonen

Very topical thriller where Russia wants to get full control of Arctic areas. China and NATO has its own interests. Finland as a new NATO member and Russia neighbor is drawn into scheming and battles.


The CISO Evolution: Business Knowledge for Cybersecurity Executives by Matthew K. Sharp, Kyriakos Lambros

Good reading for all technical cybersecurity professionals or "Chief IT Security Officers" who think about CISO career. If you manage to read the book and grow interested in business financials, communication and negotiation skills, business risks (instead of IT / cybersecurity risks), etc. you may feel comfortable in a CISO role. If you fall in to sleep, continue with your more technical career.


Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World by Mo Gawdat

Great book about both positive and negative possible outcomes of AI and how to boost the positive. The author says that three events are inevitable,regardless of whatever it is that we do or do not do today. (1) AI will happen,there's no stopping it, (2) AI will be smarter than humans and (3) mistakes will be made. The author argues that because there's no way to contain a super-intelligence, we have to teach it to love us humans like its parents. Most of the book was really interesting, but towards the end too much time was spent to talk about happiness and love.


Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey

Expanse serier 9/9. More of the same as with previous books. I enjoyed listening it, but it was the time to end the story.


Security Analysis: A Critical Thinking Approach by Michael W. Collier

I must admit that I didn't properly read the book, but browsed through it so I would know if/when to use it as a reference. The book is more like a textbook for academic studies, althought the author says is to be "for anyone who wants to learn foundational techniques for generating the best answers to complex questions and best solutions to complex problems". The book has a comprehensive explanation of many different techniques for different phases of security analysis critical-thinking framework.

This is an opentext book available here.


The New Leadership Playbook: Being human whilst successfully delivering accelerated results Andrew Bryant

A good, compact guide for both new and experienced leaders. It covers all the main responsibilities of people leader with relevant examples. Many business books have way too much pages which don't give any value for the reader. Here the author had succeeded in balancing the advice, examples and length of the book.


Mahtava moka - uskalla, opi ja menesty by Mika Sutinen, Mikko Kuitunen

The book title in English is "A magnificent mistake - dare, learn and succeed". It encourages people, leaders and organizations to be open about mistakes - as long as something is learned from them. Being transparent doesn't come naturally to us so conscious effort is needed.


Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

You surely have heard about Lord of the Flies, Stanford Prison Experiment, Bystander Effect or other studies/stories which gives a  pessimistic view of people as selfish, untrustworthy and dangerous and therefore we behave towards others with defensiveness and suspicion. The author debunk those studies. The book explains how most people  - deep down - are pretty decent. That's why homo puppy has conquered the world.

Excellent book which makes you think about your own prejudices and behavior. Which is always good even if you wouldn't believe the author.

In the end the author list his 10 Rules To Live By
  1. When in doubt, assume the best
  2. Think in win-win scenarios
  3. Ask more questions
  4. Temper your empathy, train your compassion
  5. Try to understand the other, even if you don’t get where they are coming from
  6. Love your own as others love their own
  7. Avoid the news
  8. Don’t punch Nazis
  9. Come out of the closet: don’t be ashamed to do good
  10. Be realistic

Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke

Good reminder that decision not to change is also an active decision.It's the decision that status quo is better option than the change. Book's examples are from mountain climbing, poker and business. Nothing surprising, but makes you think about basic decision  making biases and sunk cost fallacy.


Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey

Expanse seriers 8/9. James Holden is a prisoner an his crew is scattered around, but the fight against authoritarian regime continues.


Persepolis Rising James by S.A. Corey

Expanse series 7/9. The book made a time jump of thirty years from the last  book.  Must say it didn't show too  much - except an appearance of a new enemy with unexplained powers.


Kill It with Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems by Marianne Bellotti

Good observations about the myths of legacy systems and the challenges of modernizing them. A bit too much discussion about different methods/tools for my needs.


Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey

Expanse series 6/9. I liked this one the least of the series so far. Especially the first half it felt like nothing happened, then it get a lot better towards the end.


Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey

Expanse series 5/9. The crew of Rocinante go to their separate ways to solve some of their own problems. After terrorist attack against the whole Earth, coming back is not given.


A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back by Bruce Schneier

Good book about hackers' mentality and hacking. Note, that hacking IT systems is just a small part of the book. The book discuss hacking financial systems, legal systems, political systems, etc. Possible consequences of artificial intelligence hacking the systems is also discussed. Technical expertise is not needed to read this book.


E. Saarisen ajatuksia elämästä, rakkaudesta ja ajattelun ajattelusta by Esa Saarinen

The author is a famous philosopher, lecturer and even celebrity in Finland.  Quite confusing book, but also kind of expected from the author. Mix of autobiography, memoirs, love story, wisdom of life, tiresome babbling, great insights. Half of the book was interesting, the other half I just wanted to browse quickly. My intention is to watch his popular systems thinking -lectures (systeemiajattelu) from Youtube - hopefully it's better.


The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists Richard P. Rumelt

The authors experiences of helping organizations to create a strategy. It shows that many - even the biggest - organizations mix strategy with goals and tools. In accordance with the author strategy creation is about understanding organization's problems and solving them.


Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

Expanse series 4/9. Fight over alien planet turns more difficult, when the planet tries to kill you.


What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

The book is collection of answers to hypothetical questions the author has collected and answered on his website, https://what-if.xkcd.com/. Weird questions with serious, scientific answers. Interesting and fun reading. As the author said: trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.


Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

Expanse series 3/9. Alien artifact threatens ships of Earth, Mars and the Belt. A plot to destroy Jim Holden leads to huge fights.


Mihin menet suomi? Pelon aika Euroopassa by Mika Aaltola

Finnish expert of geopolitics, who has been very visible expert commentator during Russia-Ukraine War, published his diaries from June 2021 to July 2022. Interesting documentary of the author's thinking before and during crisis. He has  philosophical way of thinking and plays with words, so its enjoyable reading.


Cybersecurity for Business: Organization-Wide Strategies to Ensure Cyber Risk Is Not Just an IT Issue Larry Clinton (Editor)

Good business-level view to cybersecurity and CISO role in business. It was good to read how Board of Directors, HR, General Councel, Risk Management, etc. should contribute to cyber risk management. The book can be recommended to members of Board, Executive Management and CISO's wanting to understand the business perspective of cyber security. Especially if your view of cybersecurity is really outdated and you still think it's just an IT issue.


Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey

Expanse series 2/9. Another missing girl, super-soldiers, interplanetary politics, avoidind fights between starships.


Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Expanse series 1/9. Interesting mix of sci-fi and murder mystery. Missing girl, alien weapon, vomiting zombies, starships. I'm continuing to next book of the series.


Hyvä hallitustyö by Juhani Erma, Tommi Rasila, Olli V. Virtanen

A good introduction to the responsibilities and activities of the company's board of directors. Appendixes include Corporate Governance recommendations.


Operaatio Aavikkokettu by Helena Immonen

Finland is drawn into spy operations and power games between USA and Russia. Both in Finland and Afghanistan. Good, violent story - addictive reading. 


Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl T. Bergstrom

Good book calling for critical thinking. How to read statistics, infographics, academic studies, understand biases,etc. As the author wrote: "Adequate bullshit detection is essential for the survival of liberal democracy." If something is too good - or bad - to be true, it probably isn't.


If It's Smart, It's Vulnerable by Mikko Hypponen

A great book that describes how the Internet became an indispensable part of our lives. The author talks about the history of the Internet and many recent topics, such as cryptocurrency, privacy, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Because of his background, a large part of the book is devoted to the dark side of the Internet - malicious use and cybercrime. Having been online and security industry for about as long as the author, and having had the pleasure of hearing many of his keynotes, there were no surprises for me. However, the book offers interesting and entertaining stories for us old-timers, as well as a good overview of the history, opportunities and dangers of the internet for everyone.


Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow

Third book of Little Brother series. I've read the first, skipped the second, but you can read this book as an independent story. It's about Masha, "superhacker", who on the other hand worked for private, evil companies who sell their surveillance services to authoritarian governments, but also helped her activist friends to fight against surveillance. The book is full of realistic technical info how citizens can be spied on, but also how hard it is to protect against it. The story is about technology, hacking, activism, friendship and how in the end people matter more than technology.


The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth by Amy C. Edmondson

The book is about the meaning and benefit of psychological safety at work. Google - the best known psychological safety advocate - has found that it's the far most important of five factors that helped explain team performance. The four other factors are clear goals, dependable colleagues, personally meaningful work, and a belief that the work has impact.

The author defines psychological safety as the belief that the work environment is safe for interpersonal risk taking.


Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin's Spies by Gordon Corera

Stories of Russian illegals and the never-ending spy vs. spy game.


Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

Technothriller about climate change.  Way too long - especially as an audio book. I didn’t really get inside the story.


Onnen harha by Pekka Sauri

The book seemed to be the author’s stream of consciousness and philosophical contemplation. Difficult to follow and in most parts not very interesting. Got a strong feeling that the author have just wanted to write the book for himself.


Taktinen neuvottelu – Hallitse haastavat kohtaamiset by Harri Gustafsberg, Sami Sallinen

Two experienced policemen who have turned into consultants and coaches share their negotiation experiences from field and studies. Interesting read, but a bit theoretical. Most of the examples being from negotiations or interrogations with criminals didn't help linking the learnings to business environment.


How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News (and Knowing When to Trust Them) by Tom Chivers, David Chivers

Easy to understand guide to statistics - no math skills needed. Helps you to have a critical look at headlines and conclusions made based on statistics. You'll learn what are e.g. Simpson's paradox, prosecutor's fallacy, cherry picking and Texas sharpshooter's fallacy.

Here's the summary of book's advice, https://www.howtoreadnumbers.com/stats-style-guide


Itsenäisyyden elpymisaika - Aikalaiskronikka vuosilta 1990-2020 by Jukka Tarkka

Today Finland announced it will apply to NATO. So, what's better read than near history of how Finland has been gradually distancing itself from Russia and built NATO-compatible defense forces. It was Russia-Ukraine War 2022 which finally turned discussion from having a "NATO-option" to an quick decision to NATO membership application. However, the book gives good background of earlier political maneuvers and decisions which has paved the road to this.


The Death Of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Thomas M. Nichols

Great book about the current times when disagreeing someone is taken as insult and all opinions must be treated equally right. Despite how crazy they are. The author discuss what's wrong with education, why vast amount of information is not making as smarter, problems the increased competition cause to journalism and how people mix democracy with equality of opinions. Experts are not always right either and there's a chapter discussing possible consequences of it.


Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David J. Chalmers

We can't know we're not in a simulation and virtual reality is genuine reality. These were the central thesis of the book, which the author called technophilosophy project. He discussed everything from Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream (300 BCE) to movie Ready Player One. In principle an interesting topic, but way too long and theoretical discussions for my needs.


Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss

I've read quite a lot about behavioral  economics, but it's been mostly quite theoretical and academic studies. This book gives excellent advice how to use that knowledge in practice. Interesting cases varying from negotiating apartment rent to negotiating ransom with kidnappers.


The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff

Interesting topic and book, lots of good facts and history - however, a bit unbalanced view and - way too long.


Puhevalta käyttöön! by Juhana Torkki

The author gives 9 questions which help creating a good presentation or speech. He also advises to use 30 minutes 3 weeks before the presentation to think about these questions - to get your subconscious to work. Must admit that it's too easy to just reuse old slides instead of thinking what would serve the audience best.

He also asks to think hard what's the main message of the presentation. Four criteria to evaluate the message are:
- Is your message simple?
- Is the message unexpected?
- Is the message concrete?
- Is the message believable?

The book is written as a dialogue where the author guides his friend. It was easy to think myself in the place of the friend who was mentored and made the book a fun read.


Psykopaatit ympärilläni by Thomas Erikson

Finnish translation of "Surrounded by Psychopaths". The author estimates that 2-4% of people are psychopaths. He classifies people into four categories according to their characteristics and behavior. The book talks about the ways to manipulate different types of people and how to identify and resist them in private life and in the workplace.


The CISO's Transformation: Security Leadership in a High Threat Landscape by Raj Badhwar

The author made it clear that he has 25 years of IT and cybersecurity experience. Trust me, he wrote. It seems that the book is a collection the author's earlier articles.  I felt that some articles are added just to get enough pages. Some advice I agree, some don't. The only really interesting topic was the author's attempt to define "CISO maturity model".


The Perfect Scorecard: Getting An 'A' in Cybersecurity From Your Board Of Directors by Aleksandr Yampolskiy

The title is a bit misleading - it's not about cybersecurity metrics, KPIs or scorecards. The book is a collection of articles from various CISOs and other experienced leaders discussing how to work with the Board and what's expected from a CISO. The usual stuff, really, understand the business, know the technology, talk about risk - not IT, build relationships, keep learning, etc. Some weird comments as well like "CISOs are at war 24/7". The book is written/collected by the founder of SecurityScorecard company - hence the title.


The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell

An incredible story how one person - the founder and the CEO of the company WeWork - can persuade experienced venture capitalists to invest billions of dollars to the company based on wild promises. He also charmed his employees with his promises and extreme parties. The revenue - and boosting the CEO ego - was all that counted - profit was nothing. When the CEO vision and lifestyle lost all connection to the reality, the downhill was inevitable.


Kremlin nyrkki by Ilkka Remes

Breathtaking action in Remes' style. Russia invades Åland - a demilitarized zone in Finland. However, it seems to be only a decoy and the main target is Estonia and the test of NATO's ability to invoke Article 5 in order to protect its members. When the USA and China get involved as well Finland is really just a pawn on the superpowers' chessboard.


The Death of the Gods by Carl Miller

Despite the name the book is about the power of the internet, technology, algorithms, big tech companies, and both information and misinformation. The author has met and interviewed many interesting people. Many stories and arguments were the same I've read elsewhere, but the author has also found fresh examples and views.


The Delicate Art of Bureaucracy: Digital Transformation with the Monkey, the Razor, and the Sumo Wrestler by Mark Schwartz

The author studies pros and cons of bureaucracy and how to make bureaucracy compatible with lean and agile way of working.


Recursion by Blake Crouch

Science fiction about an invention to travel back in time, which messes up not only the traveler's, but other peoples memories as well. Learning from the book is that traveling back in time to fix those problems which were caused because of you previous travel back in time doesn't work.
 

Salaliittoteorioiden filosofia — Temppeliherroista liskoihmisiin by Juha Räikkä

Philosophy of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are shared not only because there are people believing them, but conspiracy theories are also developed and shared for the sake of humor, for the sake of money, to save their own skin, for the sake of propaganda, to make decision-making difficult, and perhaps to protect real conspiracies. The author discussed thoroughly different reasons for conspiracy theories and ethical questions related to them. It's also good to understand that there *are* conspiracies and differentiate them from conspiracy theories.


Shlomo Zabludowicz – Holokaustin kauhuista salaperäiseksi suomalaismiljardööriksi by Matti Mörttinen

Shlomo Zabludowicz survived 2nd World War concentration camp, ended up to Finland and made a fortune as a arms dealer. Finnish company, Tampella, made e.g. mortars which were sold to Israel. It was interesting to read about Zabludowicz's and Tampella's arms businesses 1950-1980 which were strongly denied at that time.


The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind by Michio Kaku

Mind blown! Excellent and entertaining book discussing what we know about how the brain works, what studies and experiments are done in order to understand brain better, possibilities of re-wiring the brain and then even sci-fi level thinking what may be possible if we could upload our brain to a computer.


Ransomware: Understand. Prevent. Recover.  by Allan Liska

Good book covering ransomware history and ecosystem as well as how ransomware attacks work, how organizations can protect themselves and how to recover in case of becoming a victim of a ransomware criminal group.


Venäjän vakoojaverkosto by Luke Harding

The original title of the book is Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem, and Russia's Attack on the West. The author discusses many cases where Putin & Russia has attacked dissidents and democracy. Poisoning of Skripal and Navalnyi, meddling Brexit and US President elections are the best known examples. The author names Russian spies, influencers and bribers. Breathtaking number of details.


The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything by Michio Kaku

Great history how the fundamental forces of the world - gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces - have been found and proved. Newton, Einstein, Faraday, Schrödingen and many other famous scientist are praised and their findings are explained. Finally, the book discuss the string theory, which would combine these forces into one theory. String theory - not yet proved - predicts a multiverse of universes. Excellent book for us laymen who are interested in the topic.


The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray

An apocalyptic thriller where the earth has stopped turning and only narrow regions are fit for living. The book is about the main character searching a secret which could reveal - something. Weirdly it felt that the strange situation of the world wasn't actually so important to the story. Good reading, though.


Onnellisten saari – Matka täydelliseen yhteiskuntaan by Heikki Aittokoski

The author is a Finn and Finland has been ranked  the happiest country in the world several times in a row. He travels to several countries trying to understand why some nations are happier than others. UK, Bhutan, USA, Costa Rica, Botswana, Denmark and Finland. Interesting to read about  those countries and how people live there. One reason for the happiness seems to be trust. People's trust in institutions (public administration, judiciary) promote economic growth and prosperity, which in turn enables a (happier) welfare state.


This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth

Great book about vulnerabilities of our digitalised world. The author covers many well-know, already thoroughly covered breaches and incidents, but manages to do it in a fresh manner. The book has the best deep dive to the market of software vulnerabilities I've read. It's really worrisome, that governments spend huge amount of money to buy vulnerabilities for offensive or spying purposes instead of investing in better security.


Cybersecurity: The Insights You Need by Harvard Business Review

This book is targeted to leaders who want to understand better why cybersecurity is a must topic for boards and top management of all companies, regardless of industry, region or size. High-level enough for non-security experts to read, although active defense and AI in cybersecurity chapters were bit out of place.


The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley

Excellent book about people behavior during disaster. It's difficult to know beforehand who will be heroic and who will freeze. Your brain and body may fail you in unexpected ways. You may even become temporarily blind because of stress. One thing is known, though. Thinking and rehearsing worst case scenarios beforehand may save your life when things get ugly.


Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein

Quite interesting, but feels like a long appendix to Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. Reasons and effects of noise are quite understandable. I liked that the book also included discussion why noise may  be good in many cases. It's good to understand better human biases and failures in judgement, but I bet that not too many companies are lining up for noise audit.


Perikato by Ilkka Remes

Robert - a Finn working for the CIA - get involved in immigration related Russian information operation which goal is to create discord in Europe.


Kunkku by Tuomas Kyrö

Kalle XIV Penttinen was kind, simple-minded and often bored King of Finland. The monarchy was ended after the King's adventures with women and drugs were revealed. The book tells both the story of Kalle's life as a king and also how he learns to live as a citizen dependent on social welfare. Nice fiction where history of Finland and Sweden has somewhat switched places and you can't help thinking of the real King of Sweden when reading about Kalle's life. Fun book, although sometimes you feel a bit sad for Kalle. It can be tough to be a king.

Crime Dot Com: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global by Geoff White

The book covers many famous cyber attacks. If you haven't followed cybersecurity and cybercrime this would be a good reading. However, for me, it didn't give much.


ZeroZeroZero by Roberto Saviano

A book about drug cartels and cocaine trafficking. Mexico, Columbia, Italy, Russia, Africa. Criminals, mafia, violence, money laundering. Difficult to read - not only because of the topic, but the text would have needed some heavy editing. Using lots of names, nicknames and places also made the text hard to follow.

The title ZeroZeroZero is a play on the Italian grading system for flour, which is rated, 2, 1, 0 or 00 depending on how refined it is (double zero being the highest grade). ZeroZeroZero, or triple Zero, means pure cocaine.


Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

A spy thriller in an alternate 1930s world where living can communicate with dead - and spies are on both sides.


Irtoviiksimies by Timo Liene

Autobiography of a Finnish military intelligence expert who served e.g. in Afganistan and Brussels. Interesting stories both from military and private life. He wrote this book just before dying to cancer at age 47.


Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

About the life of an artificial friend.


No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer

The book explains Netflix workplace principles:
- build up talent density by creating a workforce of high performers
- introduce candor by encouraging loads of feedback
- remove controls such as vacation, travel, and expense policies

It's good that the reasoning behind the rules is explained as well as many mistakes made during the years.  In principle interesting reading, but hard to see how to make a culture change of this magnitude in any larger company. Netflix started building their rules while still a startup. Got a bit bored with all the examples and employee interviews in the end.


We Are Bellingcat: Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News by Eliot Higgins

Interesting story how Eliot Higgins started investigating the Arab Spring and the Libyan Civil War using open source information: Youtube videos, social media postings, etc. He found other people interested in finding out the truth of crimes - so the Bellingcat was founded. The book describes in quite detail how they investigated Skripal poisoning, the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine and several other cases.


Taivas by Piia Leino

Helsinki, Finland, 2058. Real life is poor and grey. People are apathetic and rather spend their time in virtual world called Taivas (Heaven). If they can afford it. This changes for Akseli, who got pills which bring back the real feelings and needs.


A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility by Mark Schwartz

A good and comprehensive introduction how Agile, Lean, and DevOps approaches could/should change the role of IT and CIO in organizations. Good reading even though you would already know those approaches, since the author discuss them especially from IT and business leadership point of view. What's required that CIO would be seen equal to (other) business leaders.


Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

Good spy/terror story. A sleeper agent in Sweden got an order to kill her husband after 30 years of marriage. She does it and goes to a killing spree. Soviet Union and DDR are part of the story, which has enough surprises to keep you reading.


The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Love triangle with a man, his wife and his wife's clone can't end well to all of them, can it?


Operaatio Zuckerberg by Jussi Lehmusvesi

Weird story where a young woman wants to have a baby with good genes. She hears that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will be visiting Finland to promote his new book - Tibetan poems. Perfect father candidate. She creates a plan to meet Mark using false identity and then drug and abuse him. In the end the artificial intelligence developed by Mark has critical role in the story.


Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam M. Grant

Keep learning, be open to new ideas, listen, re-evaluate your beliefs, ask "How do you know?".


Siperia : Suomalaisen perheen ihmeellinen vuosi ikiroudan maassa by Jussi Konttinen

Finnish journalist moved to Siperia, Russia, with his family for a year and wrote this book about his experiences. While at Siperia, he traveled a lot around, so the book is interesting collection of information. Interesting read about life at so different place.


The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore by Michele Wucker

I like the idea about gray rhinos - high threats which are obvious, highly probable, but not so immediate that we tend to ignore them - until it's too late to do anything else than panicky, expensive reaction. Unlike black swans - which we can't predict - gray rhinos we could easily dodge if there would be a will.

Although the idea is good, it was a bit tiresome to listen all the examples and especially the stories about real rhinos. I like business books to keep strictly in business - short and to the point.


The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win by Maria Konnikova

The book is a tale how social psychology PhD went from poker novice to sponsored pro in a year. She wanted to understand if/how her background would help in the game. A year is a short time to go from learning poker hands to play in big tournaments in casinos and therefore she sought help from the best players. Fascinating story not only about poker, but what the game can teach for  life.


Armoton todellisuus by Martin Österdahl

Russia hits Swedish society via Telecom sector. Max Anger's co-worker and girlfriend got into trouble after finding about the plans. Max does whatever is needed in order to save his girlfriend - and Sweden. The book's style reminds me of Finnish author Ilkka Remes' books where Russia often threatens Finland. Nice to read about Sweden being in trouble for a change. Entertaining and easy reading. The book is originally written in Swedish and it's English name is Ask No Mercy.


Who Ate the First Oyster?: The Extraordinary People Behind the Greatest Firsts in History by Cody Cassidy

Interesting stories from the history. Who invented clothing (107,000 years ago), who drank the first beer (15,000 years ago), who performed the first surgery (7,ooo years ago), who discovered soap (4,500 years ago), etc.


Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms by Hannah Fry

The book discuss advantages and disadvantages of using computer algorithms to make decisions. Lots of good examples and studies. Main message being that many algorithms reflect real world biases and shouldn't be trusted blindly. Good to understand human decision making weaknesses also. I guess the trick is to combine strengths of humans and computers.


Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

Sci-fi about techno-terrorists destroying the Internet at a time in future when cities are much "smarter" than today. Book is split between before and after stories. Interesting plot, but the after stories - which were most of the book - were less interesting than the before stories.


The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross

U.S. citizens are under spell which makes them to forget their President. The Prime Minister of Britain sends Mhari - a vampire - and her superhero boyfriend to help. I didn't like this book of Laundry Series as much as the others. Two reasons. First - I missed Bob. Second - I didn't like the voice and style of audible book reader. 


Operaatio Punainen Kettu by Helena Immonen

Sweden decides to join the NATO. Russia doesn't approve and attack Finland in order to get a foothold near to Swedish capital. I'm not a big fan of war literature, but the book mixed nicely fact & fiction and felt realistic enough. Quick read.


Juice puhuu - Kootut muistelmat Vol. 2 by Kal Lipponen et al.

Juice Leskinen is famous Finnish singer-songwriter. The book is based on interviews made on 1989-1990 where Juice analyzes his songs made in 1980s. Juice's songs are familiar to many Finns.


Tarina by Kari Hotakainen

Entertaining fictional stories of people who has moved from countryside to capital city. City is where people live, countryside is a recreational area. People are unequal, but every individual has his/her own story. I enjoy author's special style to use Finnish language.


Death's End by Liu Cixin

Excellent.  Always when I thought that this is it - there's no way out - the author just kept going to the next level. Physics, astronomy, ethics, possible futures, alien civilizations. Scientists working hard in order to avoid annihilation and waiting long-term results in hibernation. I couldn't follow all the advanced physics, but it didn't matter.  I enjoyed the results of imagined science. However, when power of ultimate decisions are given to just one person, anything can happen.


The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin

I liked this even more than the first book of Remembrance of Earth's Past series. What to do when an alien civilization has sent an attack fleet against the Earth - and it will take them four centuries to arrive? Are we capable of long term thinking of our defense. We are are underdogs now, but there are  lots of time to prepare. Our disadvantage is that because of quantum technology the enemy can follow all our communications and block known technology efforts. Four persons are chosen to make up a plan and they are given power and resources to do whatever their want - no questions asked. Humans only only hope is that someone of those four could save us without revealing the actual plan.


Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio García Martínez

Entertaining listening of Silicon Valley startup scene and early days of Facebook's ad business. Very cynical view - may scare you away from your startup dreams.


The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Great sci-fi describing a far away civilization living in a complex, three sun planet which hopes to find a new planet to colonize. Contact is made to the Earth where a group of people disappointed to humanity welcomes the new overlords. Stunning science - can't really estimate how realistic it is - I just marveled the possibilities.


Heaven's River by Dennis E. Taylor

Surpringly Bobiverse trilogy continues with a fourth book. Excellent and entertaining listening as the first 3 books. Sci-fi with amazing technology and humour.


Strategia arkeen OKR-mallilla by Juuso Hämäläinen, Henri Sora

Practical guidance and best practices how to start using Objective and Key Results for strategy implementation. I have read Measure What Matters, but after starting to experiment with OKRs, this book was published just in time. I see OKRs a bit clearer now.


Kiinalainen juttu : 33 Kiina-myyttiä, jotka vaativat kumoamista by Mari Manninen

Debunking 33 China-myths by a Finnish journalist who lived in Peking 2013-2016. Interesting reading of e.g. history, politics, food, product quality and censorship. I stand corrected.


Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

With every book of Laundry Files the challenges of the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from the supernatural, are just getting bigger. Crisis is not big enough word anymore. Actually - now the existence of the Laundry itself is at stake. Very good, entertaining reading, if you don't mind occultism with the flavor of ICT.


Tesla metsässä by Jyrki Lehtola

Collection of essays covering recent topics with an attitude. Some brilliant, some not. I like Jyrki's mean, sarcastic style, but his texts are best in small doses.


Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness by Frederic Laloux

The book had first an interesting introduction to the development of organizational models:
- RED: mafia, street gangs
- AMBER: military, catholic church, most government agencies
- ORANGE: multinational companies
- GREEN: culture driven organizations

The rest of the book describes next possible stage, TEAL, which advocates enabling employee autonomy - end of "management" one could say.

The book describes - with real-life examples - the structures, practices and cultures of TEAL organizations and how they differ from current mainstream. It also explains how to start up a TEAL organization or transform an existing organization. The only make-or-break factors are the worldview held by the top leadership and by the owners/board of the organization.

The book was published 2014, but no worries, it's still very valid. Very few organizations are at the TEAL level yet.


Devops for the Modern Enterprise: Winning Practices to Transform Legacy It Organizations by Mirco Hering

Excellent, compact introduction to agile IT covering both technical and people aspects.


Agile Conversations: Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture by Douglas Squirrel, Jeffrey Fredrick

The book shows a technique to learn and practice trust, fear, why, commitment, and accountability conversations to avoid defensive reasoning mind-set. I agree that honest discussions and debate are important especially in agile way of working and it's difficult to avoid fear, uncertainty and doubt if communications fails. It's just hard to believe that development teams would start focusing improving personal communications. Hope so.


The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle

A book about group dynamics, teamwork, psychological safety, etc. Lots of stories about successful teams and team leaders. In principle interesting topic and important message, but for some reason I didn't get much out of it. Shorter book with less stories and emphasizing practical tips would have been better.


Smiling Security by Mikko Niemelä & Pasi Koistinen

Good overview of CISO - or CSM (Cybersecurity Manager) as the book calls the role -  responsibilities  and challenges.  I especially liked that big part of the book is dedicated to cooperation with other company functions, like HR, Legal, Finance, Facilities and Risk Management. It also has more technical part in the end, but it is high-enough level to be useful for CISO/CSM. A rare cybersecurity book in that sense, that it  doesn't deep dive to  hacking and technical issues, but concentrate on leadership challenges. Nothing new for a seasoned CISO/CSO/CSM, but recommended reading for anyone new in a role. A sign of the times maybe, that the book which describes proper cybersecurity management is called Smiling Security - assuming that success is rare.


Valepoliisi by Jarkko Sipilä

Good, easy summer reading from Sipilä's Helsinki Homicide series. Police investigating a murder which have international links. Fun to read about action happening on familiar places.


Siperian Unia by Taina Haahti

Topical book about a man who ends up working for secretive "storytelling" company because of his unique skills - which unfortunately didn't help him to find proper job elsewhere. His job is to use fake social media profiles to influence opinions of people. Not trolling - they say - since they try to find silver lining from everything. Anyway, in the end they were just promoting whatever their customers wanted to be promoted. They worked with alternative facts - which are not false or lies - but complex social construction or  belief-based thinking. 


The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John Bolton

Interesting insights of working at the White House and with US foreign policy by former National Security Advisor of the US in Trump's administration. The book describes challenges of working with Trump, but mostly it's about US politics with Russia, China, EU, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Middle East, etc. It's like reading someone's detailed diary about meetings including dates, participants, who said what, what was decided or not decided, who was briefed afterwards and how the discussions were interpreted. Too long, too detailed, somewhat numbing, but interesting nevertheless. It came as a pleasant surprise, that last 100 or so pages were just photos, notes and index.


Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story by Roger Daltrey

I have never really actively listened the Who, but of course know the band. Entertaining reading about the band from their lead singer's perspective. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll indeed.


Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare by Thomas Rid

The book covers four waves of disinformation. (1) Early 1920s and 1930s when journalism was transformed by the radio, (2) after World War II when disinformation became professionalized, (3) late 1970s when disinformation became well-resourced and fine-tuned and (4) mid-2010s when new technologies and internet culture reshaped disinformation.


Luonnon Laki by Kari Hotakainen

An entertaining story about self-employed man who got into serious car accident. He has avoided taxes in his business as much as possible and now he is getting excellent hospital care made possible by taxes. Also a story of a nurse who takes care of hospitalized people with minimum wage. I like the way how the author writes and uses language, so actually the story is not so important.


The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross

Alex,  an ex-banker vampire working for Britain’s secret counter-occult agency and Cassie, a student, until she got her brain sucked out and replaced by the consciousness of the head spy of an invading Elven army are an unexpected couple to manage CASE NIGHTMARE RED incident. Great way to reset you brain as are all books in Laundry Files series.


Jäähyväiset uskonnolle - henkisyyden puolustus by Timo Airaksinen

The author is Professor Emeritus of Moral Philosophy and well-known atheists. This popular book is about how people can be spiritual without being religious. Interesting thinking about different religions and Gods, ethics and church.


Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History by Thomas Rid

The book documents how automation and use of computers have developed from the time of  First World War until today. It also tells the history of cyber: cybernation, cyborgs, cyberculture, cyberspace, cyberpunk and cyberwar. Interesting reading, albeit too much details here and there to my taste.


Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen by Rita McGrath

Didn't get much out of it. Basically - try to see the weak signals and predict disruptions in you business. Mostly about changes because of digitalization and examples of companies who succeeded or failed to change.

   
ROAR!: How to tame the bully inside and out by Marilise de Villiers Basson

The author tells a very personal story of workplace bullying, how she got over it and built a better work & personal life for herself. In a process she came to understand reasons for bullying and being a victim. The book offers advice how survive and stop a bully. 


Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom

This book sat on my (virtual) bookshelf for couple of years before I actually read it. I have browsed it several times before and always postponed reading when seeing how much effort it would require. Finally decided to read it and it was just as hard as I expected. I must admit that I really read maybe half of the book and just leafed through the other half. It was too scientific and philosophical for my taste and needs. The topic is fascinating, the book is as relevant as it was when the book was written, it has lots of interesting insights and I understand the importance of pondering all different possibilities, consequences and moral implications. Honestly, it just often went over my head. 


The Singularity Trap by Dennis E. Taylor

Good sci-fi which teaches you to be careful what to touch in the space. Unless you want to turn to AI-controlled metal man with responsibility to save the humankind.


Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham

Good to question some common beliefs and methods at work environment. Like people would care what company their work for and their would need feedback.


The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim

Entertaining, fictional story how a big company transformed its legacy systems and old-fashioned ways of working to modern, digital company.


Leadership Intelligence: The 5Qs for Thriving as a Leader by Andrew Kakabadse, Ali Qassim Jawad

The authors describe five key leadership intelligences: cognitive, emotional, political, resilience and moral intelligence. Why all of them are needed and how their importance varies based on management level.


Strategic Security: Forward Thinking for Successful Executives by Jean Perois

Excellent look at challenges of running security department and practical advice how to tackle them. Strategic thinking, selling,  implementing and measuring security program, awareness building, creative thinking and self development. Recommended reading even for seasoned security practitioners.


Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

The book explains why breadth of knowledge, diverse experience and interdisciplinary thinking are in the long run beneficial for career development and innovation. At the same time organizations are incentivising hyperspecialization. I believe that versatile knowledge and skills - with some areas of specialty - are what organizations need today. Hence I liked the message of the book, but it had too many stories trying to prove the point.


Why Digital Transformations Fail: The Surprising Disciplines of How to Take Off and Stay Ahead by Tony Saldanha

The book was OK describing new tech and digitalisation. Didn't get anything new out of it. Probably pretty good if you haven't read too much about the topic.


The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

Good discussion how many current organizations are shortsighted, thinking about winnings vs. loosing, instead of concentrating on organizations purpose and long game. Don't think only what's good for you, think what's good for the game.

All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor

Bobiverse trilogy is the best science fiction I have read/listened for a while. I liked the narrator very much also. Bobiverse story starts(book #1) 2016 when the Bob dies. He was brought back online as a replicant 2133. This book #3 ends the trilogy at year 2263. Before the end we see more Bobs, more use of androids to explore the physical world and the ultimate fight with the Others - a non-human sentient species which present the greatest threat to the continued existence of humans. 


For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor

Second book in Bobiverse-series. New generations of Bobs are born/built and spread around to explore new frontiers. Life in virtual reality has its limits so first tests with androids are made. Battle between Bobs and the "Others" is inevitable. Excellent mix of sci-fi, humor and adventure.


The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross

Yet another great book from Laundry Files series. Bob and Mo are a couple working for super-secret government agency which deals with magic and demons. This time the book focuses on Mo and her daemon killing half-sentient violin. Superheroes start to appear in increasing pace and Mo is ordered to setup a new government office to deal with them.  The way author mix magic, computer science and government organization's bureaucracy is hilarious to read.


We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

Bob dies just after selling his software company. Good thing was that he had just signed a contract to be cryogenically preserved after his death. He is woken up a century later - unfortunately he is now only an AI without a body. After tough job interviews he is launched (prematurely) to the space in order to find habitable planet. Since he knows how to create backups of himself and new replicas, he will not be travelling alone - and not without enemies he finds out.


Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers by Andy Greenberg

Do these ring a bell? BlackEnergy, NotPetya, Mimikatz, EternalBlue, Shadow Brokers, Fancy Bear, Bad Rabbit, Voodoo Bear? Andy Greenberg investigated hacker group or groups behind cyber attacks to Ukraine, South Korean Winter Olympics and several companies. The evidence points to Russia and GRU, but U.S. and other countries were hesitant to point fingers. Good story with many interviews and examples how cyber arms race has escalated.


The Age of Agile by Stephen Denning

Excellent book about what agile revolution means for organizations at strategic and tactical level. This is not about different agile tools and methods, but how to focus on customers and give power to the teams. Also good discussion why current business and economic models don't help with agile approach.


Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Almost unbelievable story of a startup building medical devices where the founder and CEO couldn't live up to her promises, but chose to exaggerate - even lie - what the device can do and who are the customers. Huge amount of investments were collected with empty promises. Extreme example of tech hype culture gone wrong.


Who Can You Trust?: How Technology is Rewriting the Rules of Human Relationships by Rachel Botsman

What is trust and how it will change with technology?  How an idea once dismissed as preposterous can turn into something strangely familiar? Trust stack, trust leap and distributed trust? Good work at explaining abstract concept "trust" with many real-life examples.


Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust by Gary Marcus and  Ernest Davis

Good discussion why artificial intelligence still has a long way to go in order to be generally useful. Current AI implementations are narrow and creating artificial general intelligence is difficult. The book has many examples where AI is not even close to what even a kid could do. The purpose of the book is not to criticize AI and it's possibilities, but to show the current limitations and set right expectations.  


Putinin trollit : Tositarinoita Venäjän infosodan rintamilta by Jessikka Aro

Jessikka is Finnish journalist who has been harassed, smeared and threatened since she started to report about Russian disinformation campaigns and troll factories. The book tells not only Jessikka's story, but also stories of several other campaigns where Russia tries to discredit and silence journalists and researchers. Important book, interesting reading.


Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

Snowden's life story from childhood until now. Reading about childhood wasn't very interesting, but the story got better with adulthood and different work assignments. The book makes reader to better understand how he came to decision to reveal NSA surveillance secret and how he did it. It wasn't easy decision to become whistleblower and throw his old life away.


Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age by Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne

Microsoft's President and Senior Director of Communications tell interesting insights how Microsoft has answered to legal and ethical challenges like Snowden revelations, customer data requests, surveillance, use of AI, etc. Intersection of technology, government, legal, and ethical issues.


The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly

Good look at technological possibilities and how technology will change us and society.


Technology vs. Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man and Machine by Gerd Leonhard 

The author raises his worries how we keep our humanity when technologies makes so many things easier. Technology capabilities are increasing exponentially and it's easy give up more and more of our work and skills to machines. The author defined digital obesity as a mental and technological condition in which data, information, media, and general digital connectedness are being accumulated to such an extent that they are certain to have a negative effect on health, well-being, happiness, and life in general. We need to be aware and make sure that technological advances will follow certain ethical guidelines and serve humanity.


The Algorithmic Leader: How to Be Smart When Machines Are Smarter Than You by Mike Walsh

Good reading about automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, etc. but the leadership part felt a bit forced.


Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World by Clive Thompson

Code is everywhere, but who are the people writing the software? What makes them tick? This the book tries to answer. Good reading, although the author spent a bit too much time on artificial intelligence and social media implications. Includes interesting history why most coders are nowadays men, although some of the first-ever coders were women.


The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age by Adam Segal

The book is explaining how internet (or cyber if you will) has changed from open and free platform to a field of politics, espionage and information warfare. Interesting, although sometimes a bit dry, history of change from USA point of view. Interesting analysis of USA, China and Russia strategy and tactics in cyberspace.


Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World by Joseph Menn

Good history of well-known hacking group which luckily goes all the way to the present time by telling how the hackers' life and careers have been evolved. Many mentioned nicks and tools were familiar already from the early days of my security career, so it was interesting to read what was happening behind the scenes. The book is not only about the cDc, but many other hacker groups, hacking tools and events are linked to the story.


Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Interesting, unorthodox ideas, if you can get over author's arrogant style - which was amplified by audio book reader's voice. I like people questioning common beliefs, so...


Cloud Native Infrastructure: Patterns for Scalable Infrastructure and Applications in a Dynamic Environment by Justin Garrison and Kris Nova

Short book, but still too much details for my purposes. Anyway, quick read and I got better understanding of cloud native infrastructure.


Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

Easy summer reading. Typical Hiaasen with weird characters and strange events.


21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

Great book. After Sapiens and Homo Deus I've postponed reading "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" since thought it would be kind of summary of previous books. I was wrong (or I have already forgotten what I've read). Many very interesting articles, refreshing thinking, although I couldn't put my mind to some topics.


The Double by George Pelecanos

Pelecanos writes hard-boiled detective stories located in Washington DC. Always good read when you are in the mood for crime.


Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer

Deciphering an alien message may not only connect the humankind to other species, but to make us understand the humanness as a whole.


Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors by Matt Parker

This book is not for everybody, but if you are interested in math and especially math failures both in physical and digital worlds - this is for you. Fun, interesting, educating.


New Solutions for Cybersecurity by (editors) Howard Shrobe,  David L. Shrier and Alex Pentland

The book was a collection of semi-scientific papers. High-level enough to be readable. Most topics weren't very interesting, but some good ones were about bug bounties, fundamental trustworthiness principles and social physics.


64 by Hideo Yokoyama 

A former detective, now a press director, navigates between internal politics of polices forces and media while at the time time worrying about his run away daughter. The old, unsolved murder case becomes the center of political maneuvers. Good reading, interesting glimpses to Japanese culture - a bit hard to keep track to all names, like Mikami, Minako, Mikumo and others.


Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

Good book how people can be gently pushed to make right choices - or someone could say manipulated to make wanted choices. It's all about human behavior and biases. Not much new to me, but good reminders. Authors split people in two categories: econs and humans. Econs has an ability to calculate cost/benefit ratios, estimate risks and make justified choices. Humans can not. Authors introduced the role of "choice architects", who would help with designing human friendly services.


Ihmisoivallus by Mikko Leskelä

Good introduction to human insight when designing services or solving problems. The key is to understand human behavior and culture.


Measure What Matters by John Doerr

Good introduction how to set organization's objectives and key results (OKR) at all levels. Impressive set of references where OKR's have been used e.g. Intel and Google, but also at startups. Makes sense.


Poorly Made In China by Paul Midler

The author spent more than two decades living and working in East Asia, working as a go-between in China manufacturing. He has interesting insights how China factories and their owners work. Especially how they have different tricks in order to make more profit. Gradually decreasing product quality is one of those tricks. Interesting read.


Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The newborn Antichrist, angels from Heaven and Hell, the four horsemen - I mean bikers - of the Apocalypse, War, Famine, Pollution, and Death who were followed by hang-around members Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People. Fun book about the planned Apocalypse - which may or may not happen.
  

Industry of Anonymity: Inside the Business of Cybercrime by Jonathan Lusthaus

A comprehensive study of cybercrime and cybercriminals. A bit dry to listen - no surprises. Good that cybercrime is studied, though.


Unsecurity: Information security is failing. Breaches are epidemic. How can we fix this broken industry? by Evan Franchen


Nicely summarizes problems of information security profession and industry. Issues that infosec / cybersecurity experts complain to each other after couple of beers and issues that they don't complain, because it would require self-examination. Recommend reading, kind of information security self-help book.


Aki Hintsa - Voittamisen Anatomia by Osakari Saari

The book's English title is "The Core - Better Life, Better Performance". This is a story of Finnish F1 coach and doctor and methods he has developed for better performance. Interesting stories - especially about coaching F1 drivers like Häkkinen, Vettel, Räikkönen and Hamilton. Same methods have helped business executives as well. Makes you think about how you exercise, eat and especially sleep.


WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us by Tim O'Reilly

Good discussion of evolving technology and possible changes to society because of new technology. It was more about the history and the current state of technology than the future, though.


Lock In by John Scalzi

Global pandemic has killed millions of people, but also left some victims alive -  without ability to move  ("locked in") and their brain rewired. Those "hadens" can control special androids and hence "live" among other people via proxy. There's crime involving remotely controlled humans with the help of some hadens having even more special skills. FBI agent with her haden partner investigate. First class scifi.


Selviytymisopas by Riku Rantala & Tunna Milonoff

Future survival guide. Discussion about future work, safety, health, politics,etc. Lots of quotes from experts and other books. Written in humorous "Riku & Tunna style". Best parts were practical (?) survival tips like how to farm guinea pigs for food or how to create "cyber makeup" to keep your anonymous under surveillance cameras watch.


The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland

Magic ceased to exist at 28th July 1851 because of technological advancements - which can be like magic, right? What if current technology allows building closed environment where magic can happen again allowing e.g. time travel? Just need special skills like linguistics, sword fighting, quantum mechanics - and witchcraft. What could go wrong? Excellent story although 700+ pages is always a bit of a drag.


Blue Ocean Shift by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne

This book is for those who want practical tips how to implement Blue Ocean strategy. If you just want to understand Blue Ocean concept, the original Blue Ocean Strategy book is better and enough.


Presenting Data by Ed Swires-Hennessy

Good tips how to show data tables and graphs.


Origin by Dan Brown

Dan Brown books are good reading just for fun. Easy language, short sentences, good story. I like how Brown mix fact and fiction. Origin is a good story about the origin of life, evolution and God(s). Science and religion clash again. Of course artificial intelligence is involved also.


Kaiken Käsikirja by Esko Valtaoja

The handbook of everything is written by Finnish professor and astronomer - also a somewhat celebrity. Good overview of human evolution written in a way which is easy and fun to read. He also touches topics like art, religion and society. 


Our final Invention by James Barrat

The book discuss about the possibilities to create AGI and ASI and what that would mean to the mankind. Interesting, but had heard most of it before. Good read if you haven't read about superintelligence and singularity yet.


Click Here to Kill Everybody by Bruce Schneier

Bruce explains why the two colliding security paradigms - real world of dangerous (physical) technologies and the fast-moving, freewheeling, highly complex world of software  - will create security problems to which we currently don't have solutions. Bruce calls this new network of computerized devices Internet+. The book has good discussion of current and future challenges. In Bruce's opinion government regulation is needed to have safe and secure Internet+, since no industry in 100 years has  improved its safety and security without being compelled to do so by government.


Steal the Show by Michael Port

A guide to good presentations, speeches, meetings and other public speaking occasions. Lots of tips. Many of those tips are certainly useful and while I'm trying to remember a few of those, I was left with the feeling that the book is mostly for professional speakers (although it was claimed otherwise).


Transforming NOKIA by Risto Siilasmaa

A fascinating  book how Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft and re-invetend itself told from the Board's point of view. Nokia Board member and later a Chairman of the Board tells a story of Nokia difficulties, changing the Nokia Board's working culture and leading new Nokia strategy development. Siilasmaa has valuable advice to all leaders. He coined the term paranoid optimism, which means combining vigilance and a healthy dose of realistic fear with a positive, forward-looking outlook expressed via scenario-based thinking.


Rethinking The Human Factor by Bruce Hallas

Very good book about a need to focusing more on people secure behavior in order to secure organizations. It requires understanding what drives and motivates people, right communications and leading by example.


Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

An alien shuttle lands outside of Canadian museum and the aliens want to meet a paleontologist. Aliens don't just believe in God, but they know God exists. Several mass extinctions has happened in same time on several planets - including Earth. God clearly has a plan and the aliens are here to find out what it is.Interesting discussions about science, God and everything.


Machine Learning & Security by Clarence Chio,  David Freeman

Machine learning are already used in security products and more opportunities lie ahead. Spam protection, malware detection and intrusion detection to mention a few. The book had lots of code examples and also descriptions of some methods to attack machine learning. This gave a good overview, but I have to admit I skipped the code examples.


Machine Learning is Changing the Rules by Peter Morgan

Very short introduction to machine learning - more of a research paper with lots of references. Good introduction to possibilities, tools and products.


Tuntematon Kimi Räikkönen by Kari Hotakainen

Finnish Formula 1 driver Kimi Räikkönen is famous of his laconic (non)communication style. Kari Hotakainen is a well-know author and verbal acrobat. Excellent combination. The book focused on the person, not the sport. Fun read.


Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Stanley McChrystal

Very interesting experiences how traditional, hierarchical  military organization was changed to a network of empowered individuals and teams. Complex environment requires new way of leading organizations. Modern communication tools, network and data enables that, but not without leader's deliberate efforts to allow and nurture decision making at all levels.
 

Atlas shrugged by Ayn Rand

This a praise to business, mind and logic describing a nightmare scenario what could happen when the government wants to equalize all people - except the government officials. When money, work and well-being are distributed only based on individuals' needs or connections - not based on their abilities. The book  is over 1000 pages and have a couple of painfully long speeches. Most characters are extremes. Interesting reading nevertheless.


Factfulness by Hans Rosling

Excellent. Must read. The book explains why our world view is mostly wrong and how to avoid common misconceptions. The author has made thousands of test asking questions about poverty, education, population growth, income, life-expectancy, etc. It's scary that even highly educated people, business leaders and decision makers don't understand what the world is like today. I didn't either - this was a real eye-opener. The book was fun to read and it's full of the author's personal stories around the world. Teachings of the the book helps to avoid biases and are useful in any decision making.


Empire Games by Charles Stross

Interesting scifi with parallel universes which can be crossed by a few world-walkers. Universes are different "pivots" of the Universe we know.  Some more advanced than the others. The book is about fears and politics of discovering new universes and especially the story of Rita - a women who has a world-walking gene which  is activated by the U.S. Government in order her to spy other worlds. The story continues in the book two of this series - Dark State.


Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

Interesting explanations of a few cutting edge technologies that may really change the world. Difficult topics clearly explained and spiced up with humor. Cheap access to space, asteroid mining, fusion power, programmable matter, robotic construction, augmented reality, synthetic biology, precision medicine, bioprinting and brain-computer interfaces.


Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil

Basic message of the book is that big data analysis creates inequality between the poor and the rich. Decisions affecting us are made by algorithms which are opaque, unfair or even totally wrong.  Lots of examples. The author is a former Wall Street quant so she knows her math.


The Surveillance State - Big Data, Freedom, and You by Paul Rosenzweig, J.D.

Introduction to surveillance spiced up with well-known cases from the past. Pretty up-to-date including discussion about drones, big data and biometrics. Mostly U.S. point of view, some EU privacy regulation (pre-GDPR) included.


Tekoäly - matkaopas johtajalle by Antti Merilehto

Artificial intelligence "travel guide" for leaders. Very practical and comprehensible book about AI explaining terms, applications and current status. Excellent introduction to the topic.


Johtajuuden ristiriidat by Alf Rehn

Great book from professor Rehn about contradictions of leadership. Rehn explains why there's no recipe for being a great leader. Leadership is a paradox and this is not your typical leadership self-improvement book. It gives hope in the sense that there are many different leadership styles which may work - and it challenges you by saying that leadership is really complex.



The Destructives by Matthew De Abatuia

Artificial intelligence emerged and almost destroyed mankind. The emergencies study humans and try to control the raise of other AIs. The humans of course want to find out how AI was "born" in the first place. Interesting techno-thriller.


Superforecasting: The Art & Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner

The authors has run forecasting competition for years where volunteers predict the outcome of difficult questions, like "in next year, will any country withdraw from eurozone?" It's found out that certain people are so called superforecasters - they are correct way more often than average forecasters. They also beat professional analysts. The book explains why forecasting is difficult, what is required to make good predictions and what makes some of us better in forecasting than others. Very interesting reading.


After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley by Rob Reid

Fun, but a bit too long (especially as a audio) book about social media app turned to artificial intelligence. Entrepreneurs and Facebook on steroids.


The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz

Millenium-series #5, second from Lagercrantz. Entertaining story with familiar elements. This time Lisbeth Salander seems to need more of her fighting than hacker skills. 


Kokonaisuuden näkemisen taito by JP Jakonen & Matti Kamppinen

The book is about systems thinking or integral thinking based on theory developed by Ken Wilber. Freely translated the title is "Art of seeing the big picture".  The book compares our different world views to an apartment building where your window view depends where your flat is located. Some live higher than others, some have a free view outside, some see just a next building. In their thinking some people always stay at the same first floor flat, the others move in order to get a different view.  To see the big picture, we need to widen both our horizontal and vertical view of world.


Rauhankone - Tekoälytutkijan testamentti by Timo Honkela

The translated title is Peacemachine. The author is Finnish researcher of artificial intelligence and machine learning. He has especially concentrated in languages. In this book he propose developing AI to help with peace negotiations and conflict solving. A bit too abstract and confusing to my taste, but had some interesting topics.


The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

I read Stieg Larsson's Millenium-trilogy in 2010. Saw the movies. It was interesting to find out how Lagercrantz will continue the saga. I think he did well - all the elements I expected were there. Lots of technospeak, of course. NSA, hacking, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, encryption - the works. All in all very entertaining read.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

Excellent discussion about possible futures with artificial intelligence - or superintelligence. The author discussed 12 possible AI aftermath scenarios from the reversion where we humans prevent the technological progress all the way to the benevolent dictator, where AI runs the society with strict rules. Quite a lot - maybe too much - was discussed about the Universe and extraterrestrial  AI possibility. Nevertheless - great book which makes you wonder where we are going. The ultimate message (I think) was that superintelligence is probably coming, but no one knows if it takes 10 years or 500 years. It's important is that we get it to understand our (human) goals, adapt to those goals and retain them.


Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

This book is about Trump first year as a president and power plays at White House. As much as about Trump, the book is about Steve Bannon and Jarvanka (Jared + Ivanka) and their battle of power. Incompetent people, narcissistic leader, backstabbing, leaking news. The book was good read about  Trump's administration chaos. So sad. I wish it would be fiction.


Tuhansien Mokien Maa - Tunaroinnin Suomen historia by Vesa Sisättö

Finland - A Land of a Thousand Mistakes. The book tell stories about major mistakes made in Finland starting from the days some fools decided to inhabit this cold and dark land ending to the fall of Nokia mobile phones. This was much better than I expected and very interesting reading. It refreshed my memory of many historical events and learned something new as well.
 

Vapauden Risti by Ilkka Remes

Ilkka Remes (pseudonym) is one of the best selling authors in Finland.  This book is fourth and last of Horna-series, which is about Finland struggling in between Russia and Nato-countries. I don't like Remes' writing style too much. It's very simple and everything is spelled out to the reader. On the other hand his books are very topical and I like his way to use lots of facts and mix them with fiction, which make his books very realistic thrillers. Easy and quick read.

This book is about Russian's plans to take Finland under its control and few brave men who decide to fight against it at risk of their lives.  Three members of the Parliament are murdered, people are killed in the attack disguised as made by terrorists, the Government was brought down, Russian oligarch is involved with a conspiracy, Russian trolls are manipulating Finnish voters, Mossad agents have their own agenda and finally even Russia and USA presidents are involved.


The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross

Large investment bank's Data Analytics Support Division has an elite scrum team working with high mathematics - like five-dimensional group isomorphism - and data visualization. They stumble into the field of applied mathematics, called applied computational demonology, which caused the PHANG disease to the whole team. Person of Hemophagic Autocompusting Nocturnal Glamour - because everybody knows that vampires doesn't exist. Sudden appearance of group of newborn vam... - eh PHANGs - doesn't go unnoticed by the secret government agency handling horrors from other dimensions, by means of mathematical tools of course. There will be trouble.


Leijonakuningas by Harri Nykänen

Good Finnish crime novel. Famous strongman and celebrity died. Murder is a possibility and motive is assumed to be a becoming TV-show where he had promised to "tell interesting stories". 


Operation Hail Storm by Brett Arquette

Good techno-scifi thriller about multi-billionaire Marshall Hail who has devoted his life to killing the terrorists who caused the death of his family. After killing a North Korean military officer Hail got the attention of the US White House and a task to blow up a missile warehouse on North Korean soil. Hail uses drones, carrying drones, carrying drones flown by whiz kids. I like these near-future techno thrillers where you have to think hard if we already have the described capabilities or not.

Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson

Good book, but expected more new, thought-provoking ideas. Got a bit tired with all the examples. The authors described (1) how machine learning  complements human minds, (2) how platforms drive the selection, production and distribution of products and services and (3) how on-line crowds increasingly augment the core functions of companies. Liked their conclusion: Technology is a tool. Tools don't decide what happens to people. We decide. While technology creates options, success depends how people take advantage of these options.  


Bubble by Anders de la Motte

HP and his sister are sucked in to the Game again. This time the plane is to eliminate the Game Master.  Read the book in order to finish the Game-trilogy. 


Keisari Aarnio by Minna Passi & Susanna Reinboth

The book is about Finnish police Jari Aarnio. He was selected as the Police of The Year 1987, nominated as Helsinki Police drug squad chief in 1999, arrested 2013 and sentenced in jail for 10 years for drug-smuggling and other offences in 2016. This is really sad and scary story of problems within Finnish police forces and how "Emperor Aarnio" manipulated and played the system. The book proves the point that the officials must be supervised in order made them to toe the line. This great book has been written by two investigative journalist from Finnish Newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, who followed and wrote about the case from the beginning.


How You Decide: The Science of Human Decision Making by Ryan Hamilton

Good course about biases and how people can be motivated/manipulated. I've read several books about the topic, so mostly a  review to me.


Weaponized Lies - How to Think Critically un the Post-Truth Era by Daniel J. Levitin

Great book about evaluating numbers and words and understanding how the scientific method works. Statistics and graphics can really fool you unless you look at them critically. "There are not two sides to a story when one side is a lie."


F**k It Therapy by John C. Parkin

In the very beginning of the book the core advice was given: We need to say F**k It to those things that really don't matter so much, and focus on those that do. I'm a quick learner. After reading about one third of the book I said F**k It, browsed the rest very quickly and that's it. Didn't like the style of the writing although liked the message. Why write 300 pages when you could have managed with 30? Can't recommend.


Homo Deus : A Bried History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

An excellent continuation to Sapiens.  The most interesting part is at the end, where algorithms, robotics and artificial intelligence is discussed. I expected the book to concentrate more on the future than it actually did.  A must read nevertheless.


The Overton Window by Glenn Beck

The Overton Window means the range of ideas the public will accept. The author took some real world news, ideas and events and mix from those an interesting fiction how a powerful group could try to manipulate public opinion for their own benefit. Actually, the groups goal is a new world order.


The Pattern of Fear by Drew Chapman

I thought to get some light summer reading to get my mind out of work, but found the book to be about USA-China cyberwar/hybridwar. Good, realistic ficton. Enjoyed.


The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

Great reading. Interesting explanations from several angles how different cultures affect communication and how to tackle challenges of multicultural teamwork. Lots of examples. Even cultures which seems to be near each other in big picture can have big differences. Like China/ Japan and US/UK.


Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Excellent book about  the history and development of Homo Sapiens. Gives some really interesting background on our culture, behavior and everything. I almost missed this book thinking it would be your typical dull history book, but this was something else. So happy my friend recommended reading it before Homo Deus.  Strongly recommended.


Veikö Moolok Vallan by Tapio Järvenpää & Ilkka Kankare

Translation of the book  name is roughly "Did the Moloch Take the Power". The book describes many examples of hugely failed IT-projects, which swallowed resources like the ancient god Moloch ate sacrificed children. Using entertaining and at the same time horrifying examples of IT project failures, the authors explain how projects could be done differently. In short - go from waterfall to agile. 


Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths

Interesting book how algorithms are and can be used for every day problems. Combines nicely math, computing, psychology and statistics.  


How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk  by Douglas W. Hubbard & Richard Seiersen

The book mostly repeats the message of How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business - now with cybersecurity focus. The authors show how statistical methods help to bring understanding in cybersecurity even when the historical data is not available. Very interesting information and models, which could help in cysbersecurity management. This book makes you seriously doubt current defacto risk analysis frameworks.


How to Hack Like a Pornstar by Sparc FLOW

Interesting, short, step-by-step introduction how hackers can penetrate organization network and what tools they may use. Good reading to remind you how hard it is to protect every corner of the network. In cyber attacker always has an advantage over defender.


Kiirastuli by Ilkka Remes

Very topical thriller about Finland in between of Russia and USA sabre-rattling. Russia is putting pressure on the Finnish Government by spreading false information and letting massive amount of refugees through from Russia to Finland. USA is asked for help and US military troops are allowed on Finnish soil - unfortunately they seem to have they own agenda.


The Peripheral by William Gibson

Flynne thought she was hired to test-fly a drone in an advanced game. She found out that it was not actually a game, but the future, which she can enter via a peripheral. Because of witnessing a murder during her test-fly she got involved in world-changing murder investigation.  Fascinating, technology filled story.


Camille by Pierre Lemaitre

Third book of Verhoeven-series. I haven't read the first two, but it didn't matter. Good story about detective who investigates the violent attack against his lover.


Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Important book. A must read. It helps you to understand your decision making and biases. Kahneman explains the difference with intuition (fast) and effortful (slow) thinking. The effortful part of the brain doesn't "turn on" easily and intuition rules. It helps to know when it's better to deliberately overrule the intuition and think hard.


Trump by Laura Saarikoski and Saska Saarikoski

Interesting book about Donald Trump, who has a good change to be the President of the USA soon. The book explains, why Trump is popular despite his tendency to insult people and lack of political experience. It's not a pretty picture the book draws, but it has good arguments why it may be Trump's time now. Lets hope it's not, though.


Innostus by Pauli Aalto-Setälä & Mikael Saarinen

Book's name translates to "enthusiasm" or "passion".  Authors discuss how important passion is for organizations and how to keep enthusiasm up.


Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott

Excellent, thorough look at possibilities of blockchain technology in e.g. finance, democracy, music distribution and internet of things. Blockchain brings us a distributed trust network, which could replace trusted third parties in many areas. The book discuss not only about blockhain benefits, but also challenges that need to be solved.


Operaatio Troijalainen by Christian Rönnbacka

Reading something in Finnish for a change. Undercover cop, tough men and dry humor. Like it.


Buzz by Anders de la Motte

This second book of the trilogy was better than the first one. Probably because the game was more on the background and main character's (HP) sister got a bigger role in the story. HP ends up working in a troll factory and the book has a good description how trolls may create misinformation or make buzz on certain topic: manipulating search results, creating fake comments on web-sites, blogging on given subject, etc. 


Game by Anders de la Motte

The game starts by following tasks given by the found mobile phone. Pretty soon it's clear that the game is not your typical, innocent adventure - you want out, which is easier said than done. This book is the first of trilogy. Good enough to start the next book.


Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

End of the world, how to prepare for it and what's next. That's the story. Interesting, lots of technical stuff and science - rocket science! Good sci-fi, but with 850 pages a bit too long.


Augmented by Brett King

Good high level overview of huge changes technology will bring us in next couple of decades. Robots, sensors, wearables, AI, VR, self-driving cars, smart cities, bioprinting, etc. Recommended reading if you want to understand what's possible and why the change is happening. Lots of historical background as well.


Service Design for Business by Reason, Løvlie and Flu

Good introduction to service design thinking and related tools. Service design is a hot topic in many organizations right now and it's useful to understand the basics of it. The idea is simple - focus on customer experience and needs instead of organizational goals. The authors also discuss how service design approach can help with innovating new services and building a more agile organization.


Swimming With Shark by Joris Luyendijk

Excellent look at the inside of financial world. The author interviewed circa 200 London City bankers and banking staff for his blog which was a starting point of this book. Among the interviewees were traders, bankers, quants, backoffice workers, HR person. Some happy about their work, some stuck because of huge salary, some resigned or fired. The book gives quite a grim picture of banking world: "It's a cluster of islands in the fog, staffed by mercenaries."  The conclusion is that the root causes behind the 2008 financial crash are not fixed. The driver seat is empty.


Usko, toivo ja huijaus: Rohkaisusta johdattelun kautta psykoterroriin by Hannu Lauerma

The author is well-known Finnish psychiatrist and research professor. In his book "Faith, Hope and  Scam" he explains how people can be misguided, manipulated and cheated. He goes through sensational news, alternative medicines, hypnosis, religious cults, etc. with many real cases as examples. His advice is that we need to understand how easily we can be manipulated in order to protect ourselves.


The Red Web by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan

This book documents the history of Russia's surveillance system development. It starts from the pre-Internet era, explains how the SORM system was developed, describes Russia's attempts to change Internet governance via ITU and ICANN, documents the Sochi Olympics surveillance efforts and didn't forget the story of Snowden getting an asylum at Russia. After reading so much about  US surveillance and espionage efforts it was kind of refreshing and fascinating to read how Russia controls and eavesdrops communications.  


Johtajuus by Matti Alahuhta

Matti Alahuhta is well-known Finnish leader who was the President & CEO of KONE Corporation and former Member of Nokia's Executive Board. In this book he discuss his views about leadership. He emphasizes the importance of measuring and following customer and employee satisfaction. His five important leadership principles are:

1) Clear vision and goals
2)  Frankness
3) Focus
4) Simplicity
5)  Timeliness

Good book explaining why the author has been successful and what he has learned as a leader. Good, simple advice and as usual, the challenge is in the execution.


Bye Bye Banks? by James Haycock with Shane Richmond

Good, short, basic introduction to digital revolution which allows fintech startup to enter banking business and requires traditional banks to transform.


Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Good story how the invention of a steam-powered locomotive (i.e. train) change the imaginary world of trolls, dwarfs, vampires and other species. As always, Pratchett manages nicely to modern world and point out its problems with fantasy.


Jäätyvä Helvetti by Ilkka Remes

Translation of book's name is The Freezing Hell. The hell in this case being Finland where the Russia has cut all electricity during winter using cyber warfare and Spetsnaz forces. Good mix of fact and fiction how vulnerable modern society is against cyber attacks and misinformation. The Finns fight back of course...


Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

There's a 15-year old boy running away from the home, old man who can't read or write, but is able to speak with cats and 50-year old librarian, who haven't recovered from her long lost teenage love. All these will come together, but some sardines will rain from the sky on the way. Interesting, somewhat weird fiction, about literature and life.


The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr

Great discussion how increasing automation and use of technology changes us. Computerization of airplanes is used as one of the examples how less skills are needed to fly a plane and how pilots are less capable to make good decisions in case of emergency or technology failure. On typical passenger flight today the pilot holds the controls circa three minutes in total. The commercial pilot has become a computer operator. The author discuss other problematic areas of automation, like autonomous weapons, ethics and opaque code/algorithms.


They Eat Puppies, Don't They? by Christopher Buckley

Fun novel about lobbyist who get a task to create anti-Chinese public opinion. Media spinning and information warfare 101. As it's said in the book: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."


Infosota by Saara Jantunen

Book is about infowar and the Finnish author is a doctor of Military Science and infowar expert. Interesting and topical book explains infowar and how it has been used in recent conflicts. Especially the author concentrates on Russia's infowar strategy and operations.


How to Fail at Almost everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Author is the creator of super-popular cartoon, Dilbert. The book is about Scott's experiences how to be successful in life. This is not your regular self-improvement book, but very funny and full of practical advice which actually make sense. Scott also wrote about several personal obstacles he has managed to won.

Book tease:


Digitalisaatio: Yritysjohdon käsikirja by Vesa Ilmarinen & Kai Koskela

This book is an introduction of digitalisation for company management. For me it was mostly old news, but certainly useful for many business executives who haven't been following technology development and related new possibilities so closely. If you are unsure about digitalisation, better read this book before it hit your business.


The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

Fourth book in The Laundry Files. Can't help but love this mix of technology, magic, spies, demons and religious cults. What's the genre? Supernatural spy thriller?


The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

The author argues that real teamwork is rare, but building a strong team is possible, although difficult. The five dysfunctions are
  1. Absence of trust
  2. Fear of conflict
  3. Lack of commitment
  4. Avoidance of accountability
  5. Inattention to results
All these dysfunctions are introduced in a form of fictional, stumbling startup company. New CEO is hired to find out and fix the problems.


The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty by Dan Ariely

Interesting experiments and results about dishonesty. Studies show that everyone cheats, but majority of us only so much. Cheating is linked to our self-image and how well we are able to explain cheating to ourselves. Interestingly, it seems that amount of money to be gained and probability of being caught have no effect on cheating. Good reading to understand better why cheating is common and why you also fool yourself.


Redshirts by John Scalzi

I don't know what to say. The story is so weird that I started to question my taste of books. Because I liked it. It's about starships, starship crew, TV shows, actors, time travelling in TV shows, lots of deaths, etc. Read yourself.

BTW, a "redshirt" means stock character in fiction who dies soon after being introduced. The term originates from the original Star Trek in which the red-shirted security personnel frequently die during episodes.


The Circle by Dave Eggers

The Circle is the company who put Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al. out of business. It controls social media and information - and it wants more - total transparency of people's life.  Very good story how collecting, analyzing and using ordinary peoples data can be advocated.  With all the data - including video feeds, location data, health information - there can be better government, healthier people and less crime. This all happens in price of privacy, though. The Circle slogans are "All that happens must be known" and "Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft." Not everyone will accept that level of privacy loss in spite of benefits.


Shokkiaalto by Ilkka Remes

Remes is one of the best known (and best paid) Finnish authors famous of writing entertaining, timely thrillers. This book is about a detective, who got involved to international plot to sabotage a Finnish nuclear plant.


The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin & Eytan Kollin

Story about a world where people don't own themselves, but they are incorporated when born. Parents will get 20% share, government 5% and the rest 75% is yours at the start. However, when a person grows up he needs and wants things and usually gets money for them by selling his shares. So, most people end up owning only minority of themselves as adults. From thereof the goal is to work hard enough to to be able to buy back enough of your own shares in order to get majority and real control of your life. Of course, if you are doing really good, many investors may be interested in buying your share and the price will go up.

This worked fine until shows up one man who owns himself 100% and therefore being free (and famous). This is not acceptable for big corporations and government.

Interesting idea, excellent story. First book of a trilogy, but works as a independent story as well.


The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford

Good fictional story of a large enterprise where Business, Development, IT and Security don't work together and blame each other on IT problems and outages. Critical projects fail, compliance audits fail, business is spiraling downwards. Enter a new VP of IT Operations, who gets some Zen-like guidance how to understand business requirements, IT's role in business and DevOps principles from a new board candidate. So, this is actually introduction to Lean and DevOps principles in a form of fictional story. Fun reading. Teamwork rules!


The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things by Bruce Sterling

Excellent 30 pages essay which makes you think about larger implications of the Internet of things. As the author puts it - it's not about Things on the Internet.


This Is Lean by Niklas Modig & Pär Åhlström

Clear, quick-to-read introduction to Lean concept. Lean is not about tools or methods, it's an operational strategy where high-flow efficiency is prioritized over resource efficiency, but also improving both continuously.


Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier

Another excellent book from Bruce Schneier. Comprehensive,  dispassionate and well justified book about privacy, security and surveillance. Bruce explains problems of mass surveillance - not only political, but also technological problems. He also argues why privacy and security are not trade-offs. He understands the importance of technological advances and growing needs to use data. Solutions are offered both for governments and corporations. The book is written from the US point of view, but it resonates well with non-US readers also.

I really like Bruce Schneier books. He doesn't settle for easy answers, but tries hard to find reasons behind current bad state of security and privacy. And he has solutions to offer, which are not your typical consultant-provided, easy-to buy solutions, but well-thought and tough-problems-need-tough-solutions kind of suggestions.


@War by Shane Harris

The author told the story how NSA fought itself the cyber powers it currently has and what kind of capabilities it and other U.S. authorities have in cyberspace. Many Snowden revelations were put in context helping to understand the big picture. Interestingly the author claims that many private companies are building their own cyber offense capabilities, banks being in the forefront. It's certainly very unsettling development, if private companies start hiring cyber mercenaries and building hack-back capabilities.


The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross

Computational demonologist  Bob  has  to track down  a suspected mole at Laundry - or the world may end.


Johtamispelin voittaminen by Tero J. Kauppinen

Second book of Library of Winning Leadership trilogy.  Good handbook to come back later. Having many co-creators who gave input to book topics makes the book very practical.


The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

Good thinking about changes that may happen because of increasing technology development. The authors argue that we haven't seen nothing yet, since technological progress is exponential, digital and combinatorial. Interesting views and facts, but maybe a bit longish.


Wahlroo$ by Tuomo Pietiläinen et al.

An unofficial biography of Björn Wahlroos, one of the richest men in Finland. Interesting, iIntelligent, impatient and ambitious man. 


Ilta on julma by Karo Hämäläinen

Four childhood friends meet after a long time. There would be enough tensions already without someone planning a murder. Good thriller.


Information Doesn't Want to Be Free by Cory Doctorow

Excellent book about the state of the copyright, why it's important to keep the Internet free and how the Internet changes both the distribution of creative work and the rules of business.

Doctorow's three laws:
  1. Any time someone puts a lock on something that belongs to you, and won't give you a key, they're not doing it for your benefit.
  2. Fame won't make your rich, But you can't get paid without it
  3. Information doesn't want to be free, people do

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Idea of the antifragile is interesting. Antifragile is the opposite of fragile - a system, which grows stronger from disorder and unexpected events. So, antifragile is more than robust or resilient. Makes you think about different systems, especially ICT-systems and information/cyber security in my case.

As with his previous book, Black Swan, Taleb use too many pages referring to ancient history and philosophers, his personal experiences and his dislikes. Very interesting idea is almost buried into too much theory and lecturing.


Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez

Someone is developing autonomous swarming  drones that acquire and destroy targets without direct human intervention. That would be a major revolution in military affairs where anonymity and scalability of cyber war would be combined with the physical violence of kinetic war. Interesting (so far) fictional hich-tech scifi book.


Bank 3.0 by Brett King

This book explains why traditional branch-based banking strategy doesn't work anymore. Even though banks are present online, many still have old-fashioned thinking. Customer behavior is changing rapidly because of new technology. Banks need to change as well - or become insignificant. There are many hungry startups creating innovative solutions to replace banks' offering. Message of the book is that banking is essential, banks are not. Banking is at the high risk of disruption. 


Value Proposition Design by Alex Osterwalder et al.

A toolkit and processes to create products and services.  See strategyzer.com


Hard- Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Calcutec is an individual, whose brain is engineered to encipher data using their subconscious as a blackbox scrambler. Problems start when several subconscious' got mixed up and one of the is the End of the World. First Murakami book I've read - fascinating - will look for an other.


The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi

The final book of the Quantum Thief trilogy. Very interesting book, a bit difficult to grasp sometimes because of all imaginative technology and made-up words. Think about quantum technology, planets, light years, nanotechnology, microseconds, virtual reality and multiple copies of you - and then some really wild ideas.


Lexicon by Max Barry

A fascinating  novel about "Poets", who are trained for people persuasion.  Something goes very wrong, when a bareword, which is kind of shortcut to brain's decision-making process, is found.


The Decline and Fall of IBM by Robert X. Cringely

Interesting analysis of IBM and why its days may be numbered. The book points out many current problems: a feudal culture, focus on billable hours, too many layers of managers, loosing expertise and skills via outsourcing, complex service organization and above all IBM's focus to do anything possible to reach it's 2015 earnings goal of $20 per share. I would have thought that some of the statements in the book are exaggerations unless I had seen many of the problems in practice. Recommended reading to all IBM customers and organizations thinking of making a deal with IBM. It's important to understand your service provider in order to make the most of the relationship. Wouldn't hurt if current IBM employees would read the book, too. The second half of the book is just (mostly IBMers) comments from the author's blog during 2007-2013.


Existence by David Brin

Interesting vision of future technology and first contact of aliens. What to do when the aliens contact us? What if there are many species and they don't agree? Why they have waited to contact us and why they only talk to some individuals? Would the alien technology be a blessing or a cure? Is it possible that modern robot is more human-like than a human enhanced with robotics? Some answers you get from the book, some you have to decide based on story and arguments.


€rottaja by Karo Hämäläinen

Good fictional story about Erottaja, an asset management company, who tries to survive 2008 financial crisis - also by bending the rules. The author know his financial slang and it's very entertaining to read.


The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Excellent book about using lean methods in startups. A startup is defined as a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. A startup can also be a part of large organization, not only a new, small company.  The book explains Build --> Measure --> Learn loop and how to minimize the total time through this feedback loop.

It's important to recognize, that nowadays almost any product that can be imagined can be built. The important question is if it *should* be built. Therefore the following steps should be followed:

1. Do consumers recognize that they have a problem you are trying to solve?
2. If there was a solution, would they buy it?
3. Would they buy it from us?
4. Can we build a solution for that problem?

Many times the product development starts with building the product based on false understanding of customer needs.


No Place To Hide by Glenn Greenwald

Greewald is the journalist who was in the center of reporting Edwad Snowden NSA surveillance revelations. His book has 4 themes: (1) How he found out about Snowden and how they met each other at Hong Kong. (2)  The main NSA revelations by Snowden documents. (3) Importance of the privacy in general. (4) Problem with  journalists who don't want to challenge those in power, but want to get some benefit from them instead. First part was the most interesting one, but the whole book is worth reading.


DRIVE by Daniel H. Pink

The book is about motivation. Science shows that carrots & sticks not only doesn't work, but can actually do harm - still many organizations are using them. DRIVE describes three essential elements for people motivation: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Good book to remind you what make us humans tick.


The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

Second book in The Laundry Files. Fun & weird. IT, games, occultism, spies, zombies. What else would you need?


The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

Fun scifi about technical nerd/hacker working for super-secret government agency. It's not just your typical technical stuff, but include occultism. When the shit hits the fan you better remember your Field Operations Manual For Counter-Occult Operations by heart.
 

Johtamisen PELIKIRJA by Tero J. Kauppinen

Great book about leadership and management. The book is created using crowdsourcing techniques in the sense, that it has 158 co-creators - leaders who attended workshops to give input and ideas for the book. The book is clearly organized and has good graphics to help learning. I'm sure I will use this as a handbook and come back to it when I need ideas and best practices for specific leadership issues.


Mahdoton menestys by Jorma Ollila & Harri Saukkomaa

Nokia CEO's memoir - "An impossible success". Interesting inside story from the CEO. Ollila's career as the leader of Nokia was exceptionally long and triumphant.  It was interesting to read background of strategic decisions and changes we have seen during the years. Ollila also said that besides decisions, luck and turbulence of markets made Nokia succesfull - and that same turbulence also plummeted Nokia's mobile phone business.


Isku ytimeen by Ilkka Remes

Activists, polices, military, international conflicts, secrets - good story again from Remes. Fun and easy reading.


Cyber War Will Not Take Place by Thomas Rid

It was great to read good argumentation, why there haven't been any cyber war yet and why it's a good chance that there won't be any. The author uses von Clausewitz's definition of war, which says that war is violent, goal-driven and has political attribution. The author analyze most best-known examples of cyber-assisted crime, sabotage, espionage and subversion. There's also great discussion about cyber wepons. The author doesn't underestimate  the  cyber threat - it's just not so obvious as you would think - the cyber war is unlikely, though.


The Gamification Revolution by Gabe Zichermann & Joselin Linder

Good introduction to gamification principles. Lots of real-world examples and experiences how to gamify innovation, strategy process, recruitment, training, etc.


Julma by Christian Rönnbacka

Someone is kidnapping young girls. Finnish detective is on the case and have to worry about contract killers after him at the same time. Good story.

Johtajuus murroksessa finanssialalla by Jukka Saksi

The author interviewed 65 senior executives from Finnish financial sector for his doctoral thesis. The book describes what these executives think about leadership, strategy, change magagement and challenges of financial sector.


Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Excellent story how protecting citizens from terrorists can go totally wrong causing more harm than good. 17 year old M1k3y stand up against almighty Department of Homeland Security and organize a fight to keep his freedom and privacy. Great, understandable explanations of Tor network, cryptography, Web of Trust, etc. I'm ashamed of postponing reading the book until now, although it has been on my reading list for years already. Should be every politicians mandatory read.


Vaihdantavallankumous - Finanssipalvelun uusi logiikka by Pekka Puustinen

Doctor and researcher Puustinen explains what's wrong with financial services. In short they are antiquated and not customer-oriented enough. Good wake-up call for traditional financial institutions - if they don't want to loose their business to new, innovative startups.


Dust by Hugh Howey

Third book of Silo series. Excellent, as the previous two. Here you find out if people living in silos are facing doom or salvation. I highly recommend the whole trilogy - best scifi I've read for a while.


Shift by Hugh Howey

Second book of Silo series. This book tells the background why the silos exist and gives another view of events told in the first book. Excellent. Third and final book should be out soon. Cant wait to read how this ends.
 

Järkkärikuvaajan käsikirja by Olli Rinne

Good and clearly written (in Finnish) book about photography. How to use camera, tips & tricks.


Wool by Hugh Howey

Wool is book 1 of Silo series. People have lived in underground silo for generations and just have a glimpse of the contaminated Earth via cameras. Those who are questioning the sense of living in the silo under its strict rules are quickly sent outside to clear the camera lenses - and die. People a led by Mayor, Sheriff and Head of IT. It's not always clear who is really in charge. It requires one brave and stubborn woman to show that everything is not simple as it seems. Excellent story and strongly recommended for  scifi lovers. This was the first Kindle book I have read. Next going to by the sequel.


The Connected Company by Dave Gray

Excellent book. Very clear and convincing arguments why businesses need to focus on services, listening customers and networking instead of products and profits. The author explained required steps to change from hierarchical organization to networked one. He also described possible pitfalls. Besides business, the book also gave ideas which can be applied in security leadership. Recommended reading for leaders who want their business to survive current connected, complicated and fast-paced world.


Imperial Bedrooms by Breat Easton Ellis

Confusing story about relationships and sex at Los Ageles movie scene. 


The Upside of Irrationatility by Dan Ariely

Ariely discusses e.g. what motivates us in the work, not-invented-here bias, our urge to revenge and how our emotions impacts our decision making. As you might expect - there are surprises you may not have known.  First step is  to recognize and understand biases, second step is to make good decicions despite them and finally - you can make use of those biases when trying to influence other people. Arily writing style is humorous and easy-to-read. Book is full of examples and experiments, many drawn from his own life.
 

True Blue by David Baldacci

A female, hard-boiled ex-cop investigates murder which  turns out to be connected to national security issues. Good summer action reading.


Confessions of a yakuza by Junichi Saga

Life story of a yakuza boss. Interesting description of life in Japan before the World War II. Yakuzas had their own rules, hierarchy and illegal businesses.


Smokeheads by Doug Johnstone

Bought this book on sale only because it's about bunch of whisky-nuts going to home islands of Scottish malt. Four friends, who don't have much common anymore, besides love of whisky, get into trouble with local smugglers. Story wasn't so great, but descriptions of whisky tasting and distilleries made it worth reading.


REAMDE by Neal Stephenson

Excellent story mixing MORPG players, Asian hackers, Russian mobsters, Islamic Terrorists, Government agencies and people fighting for their lives. Interesting characters and story really suck you in. Only minus is the length of the book,despite the great story. 1000+ pages just really stretches my concentration nowadays, no matter what.


Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

I started with Dan's Coursera course about "Irrational Behaviour" and decided to get his three books. This was the first one of the set I read.  Dan decribes his studies about how we behave in many situations surpsingly irrationally. Studies are for example about cheating, effects of placebos, using money, relating to free stuff, being influences by other, etc. Interesting and easy reading and makes you think how to make use of this information to make and guide others to make better decisions.


The Fof of Cyber Defense by Tantapelkonen and Salminen (eds.)

This is a collection of articles by Finland's National Defence University. Surprising sensible writings about cyberwar and cyberwarfare. Stimulates thinking and raises lots of questions.


What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

I heard Marshall speak in a conference a while ago and got a signed copy of his book. His live presentation was excellent, so decided to read the book also. Marshall has been coaching many succesfull CEOs and executive, mainly because of their personal flaws like being arrogant, passing judgements, failing to give recognition, not listening, etc. This is good book about importance of people skills and how areas where improvements are needed are seemingly easy, but difficult in practise.

Self improvement could start here: Shut up and listen. Say thank you when you get advice or feedback - no "but" included.


The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Excellent book describing how the Internet change how we get information and think. The Internet actually rewires our brain so, that it changes us and therefore the whole society. The author gave a facinating look to history describing how learning to read and write has changed the society, not to mention the invention of the book.  The author argues that the Internet is a great mind-altering technology, that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. While it's possible to think deeply while surfing the Net,  that's not the type of thinking the technology encourages and rewards. Our dominant type of reading will be skimming through the text and we learn multitasking. At the same time we may weaken our ability to think deeply and creatively.


Ratakatu 12: Suojelupoliisi 1949-2009 by Matti Simola

History of Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Suojelupoliisi or Supo). The title of the book, Ratakatu 12, is the address where Supo head office has always located. The book is an interesting review how responsibilieties and tasks of Supo have changed over time.  Special focus is in relationships with Soviet Union. Typical history book, but written interestingly enough and have some good old "spy stories".


The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi

The book has it moments, but in general the story was a bit confusing. I like the described science & technology possibilities, like virtual inside virtual inside virtual + creating multiple instances of yourself, but still I liked the previous book, The Quantum Thief, more. I bet that Finnish names & words used in the book make it even more hard-to-read for the non-Finns.


BZRK by Michael Grant

Nanotechnology is here. Gifted twitchers run nanobots or biots inside human body - even brain. If you could get into the brain of key world leaders, you will run the world. Good story of nano, where human body is just another battlefield.


Älykäs myynnin ohjaaminen by Mika D. Rubanovitsch & Ville Valorinta

This book is about leading sales in an intelligent manner. Basically it means that an organization must know it customers and choose sales tactics and resources based on different customer types. Very easy and fast to read.


Workbook – The Basics of Office Work Revolution by Saku Tuominen & Pekka Pohjakallio

Office work is mostly mental, but it's still managed and measured as factory work.Book is based on Redesigning 925 project, which studied why office work make people feel exhausted, and at the same time as if they’re not achieving enough that is meaningful and rewarding. Goal of the project was to help people to get more done, and at the same time feel less tired. The books explains the theory and results of the project. It also lists 50 tested, concrete ideas.

I read the Finnish version of the book, you find a short introduction in English at http://925design.fi/en


Rule 34 by Charles Stross

An Internet cop from the Rule 34 Squad got involved in the case of several murders. All the victims had spam-crime related background. There seems to be too many coincidences, which may be explained by social-network-augmented choice architecture...

Rule 34: "If you can imagine it, there's pornography about it on the Internet"


The Tangled Web: A Guide to Securing Modern Web Applications by Michal Zalewski

Excellent source for browser and web application related security features. Underlines the current reality, that web app environment is (too) complex and full of features that are easy to forget, misconfigure or overlook. I must admit that I just browsed parts of the book because of its technicality, but this is a keeper in case I need to check some nitty-gritty details of browser, web protocols, plugins, Javascript, etc.

The book has a chapter of planned new security features, also. It was mentioned that the dream of inventing a brand-new browser security model is strong within the community, but it would require rebuilding the entire web. Therefore the practical work focuses on humble extensions, which unfortunately increases the complexity of the security-critical sections of the browsers code.


Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Where there are policemen there's crime. Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpok City Watch finds this to be very true on his holiday. Crime with lots of goblins involved.


Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Fascinating biography. Jobs was an unstable personality, but still a genius and a visionary, whose first priority was to create great products.


Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear

A starship on its journey lasting several hundred years. One man wakes up and found out that there's something wrong with the ship and himself. Keeping himself alive is a challenge, finding out what's going on is even bigger one. Story was OK, but got too many pages to actually get interesting.


Buried Secrets by Joseph Finder

Break from SciFi and read this thriller instead. Nick Heller is a "private spy" with excellent connections. Nick's old friend's daughter got kidnapped. It turns out that that the kidnappers are not your average criminals and ransom is not just money. Entertaining.


Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge

First book by Vinge I've ever read and it was a good one. Main character, Robert Gu, is a famous poet, who was cured from Alzheimer's disease after many years of illness. After getting his mind and health back, he found out that the world has changed. One, he had lost his ability to write poems. Two, everyone uses wearable computers and augmented reality is everywhere. Struggling with new technology and poetry is not enough, but Robert got involved in high-level conspiracy, too.


Halting State by Charles Stross

Story starts with a bank robbery. It's year 2018 and bank happens to be inside a game and robbers are avatars. Police and insurance company's auditors are in unfamiliar territory and need help from an experienced programmer and gamer. It turns out, that there's more going on than just unusual robbery. Interesting twist was that several nations had kind of crowdsourced spying using gullible citizens via games. 


Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

It's summer vacation and time to relax with some good scifi. Started with Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation, which is a nice story how an independent contractor working for a big corporation accidentally found massive amount of valuable minerals from a far away planet, Zarahustra. He also happened to find intelligent life form from the planet, which clashes the corporations permission to mine the planet. So it's about the choice of getting filthy rich or saving the planet's original inhabitants.


Open Services Innovation by Henry Chesbrough

Good book about importance of services. Companies should not think only about products, but also associated services. Products are only a means to a customers desired end leaving it up to the customer to reach it. Services are not done until the customer's need is fulfilled.


America The Vulnerable by Joel Brenner

The author is the former senior counsel at the NSA. This book is his attempt to raise awareness of cyber threat. Most of the book is stories and examples of different, mostly well-known incidents. Not very interesting if you have followed the scene, but could be an eye-opener for some readers. The problems USA has in its attempts to prepare itself against cyber threat are discussed at the end of the book. The author also has some recommendations to fix those problems. If you are familiar with "cyber" it's enough to read last 50 pages or so.


Scat by Carl Hiaasen

I have read and enjoyed several Hiaasen books, but I didn't know that he has written some for "young readers". Apparently Scat is one of them. I was wondering a bit while reading, but it was fun enough for holiday entertainment. I'm sure that kids would like it too:-)


Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground by Kevin Poulsen

Story of Max Butler aka Max Vision aka Iceman aka Digits aka the Whiz aka Aphex + couple of other aliases. Book is about hacker, who founded Whitehats.com, wrote lots of Snort signatures, created arachNIDS and hacked huge amount of sites. He is best know as founder and admin of Carders Market, which was a market place for stolen credit card data, dumps. Good reading to get a picture how hacking and carding works. Also again a reminder that although for a while you may earn 1000 bucks a day, in the end crime doesn't pay you anything else but jail time


Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive by Bruce Schneier

Schneier's latest book is about trust and different pressures affecting trust. Book studies trust from several angles and have lots of historical examples. Very thorough look at what is trust and what makes us trustworthy.

Interesting finding is that society needs defectors. There just need to be a balance. Important finding also is that advances in technology benefits attackers more than defenders hence creating an increasing security gap.

Fascinating reading. Note that this is not your typical security book. It's about behaviour, human pressures, trust and some security implications on top of that.


After America by John Birmingham

Sequel to Without Warning. Mystical wave which killed most people on US ground is now gone and survivors try to build the nation from scratch. The west is wild again and deserted New York is a war field.


Without Warning by John Birmingham

A massive energy wave destroys most of the life at USA. Alaska, Seattle and Hawaii were saved and of course much of US military were located abroad. What happens, when the balance between countries changes and the world watchdog USA is crippled. Good reading, interesting alternate-history.


CIA: Operation Ajax by Cognito Comics

Historic story how CIA killed Iran's fragile attempt to democracy and put the Shah in power. All this to guarantee oil flow.

I read this as interactive comic on iPad. Great format. Graphics, video clips, sounds.

http://www.cognitocomics.com/operationajax/


Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities by Douglas W. Hubbard

Internet, social media, mobile phones, etc. are giving us a huge amount of public data which can be used to track big-picture trends to help with more accurate and faster decision making. The author coined the term "Pulse" to represent this new macro-trend tracking possibility, which he defines as "the collective, macroscopic trends which can be scientifically inferred by harnessing publicly accessible data from the Internet."

Because of Social Data Revolution, there's public data available: what we surf, whom we friend, what we say, where we go, what we buy and how we play. This is actual data, not based on surveys, where people are known to "sugarcoat" the answers. There are already studies showing, that using data from Internet, we can predict accurately and near real-time flu outbreaks, unemployment, success of the movies, etc.

The author predicts, that the Pulse is not only allowing faster and more accurate decisions, but also will change the basic models of society.


Blackout by Connie Willis

It's 2060 and travelling back in time is possible. It means that historians has possibility to observe history as it happens and this opportunity is eagerly exploited. There's one rule though - don't mess with the history. Main characters are historians, who - you guessed it - manage to break that one rule. The book is not so much about science fiction but more of describing how London, England and especially people there were during World War II. Good story, but the ending was a surprise to me - that is there was no ending. This book is only part I of the story


English as a Second Fucking Language by Sterling Johnson

Guide to effective communication - test included.


Believing Bullshit by Stephen Law

The author introduces eight mechanisms which can be used to suck people in "Intellectual Black Holes". These mechanisms are used by cults, conspiracy theorists, self help industry, religions, politicians, etc.

Mechanisms are: "playing the mystery card", "but it fits", "going nuclear", "moving the semantic goalposts", "I just know", "pseudoprofundity", piling up the anecdotes" and "pressing your buttons".

Understanding these mechanisms helps to immunize you against intellectual snake oil.


DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You by Misha Glenny

Inside look at cyber crime, especially credit card related crime. The book tells good story and gives lots of background information about a few criminal web-sites and hackers running them. It tells also the other side of the story: how law enforcement was working - also undercover - to catch these criminals. If you are a security professional, like me, you probably have read a lot about these events already. This book, however, combines nicely all bits and pieces and goes deep in to the background information and details.


Jokuveli: Elämä ja vaikuttaminen ubiikkiyhteiskunnassa by Mika Mannermaa

Mika Mannermaa is a well known Finnish futurist. This books is an interesting look to ubiquitous society, where wireless data transfer is available for everyone, everywhere and all the time. In contrast to Orwell's Big Brother, Mannermaa introduces Some Brother  (Jokuveli). Instead of totaliarian supervisor as a Big Brother, Some Brother is combination of public sector, companies and citizens. There's no one supervisor, but we all are part of the supervison machine, which knows and remembers all. Everyone is a supervisor and a target of supervision. Everyone is living in a aquarium, both citizens and authorities. Mannermaa's view is that ubiquitous society is complex, risk and trust based society.

The book is written in Finnish, but here's a short report by Mika Mannermaa describing fundamental ideas.


Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! by Douglas Coupland

Interesting biography of McLuhan. If you know nothing of his work, this book is a good way to get an introduction. If you know all of his work, this book gives a great introduction of the man himself.


In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy

Excellent inside look at Google. The author has had an opportunity to follow Google for a long time and the book has many interesting insights. The book tells how Google was founded, how it's managed, how product development works, background of many products, how Page & Brin are leading the way, troubles in China and more.


Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking by Christopher Hadnagy

Pretty good introduction to social engineering. The author actually explained methods and tools. Some other books on the same topic I've read concentrated too much on cases/stories. Social engineering stories are most of the same - you hear a few and you get the picture - no need for more. By the way, the first tools introduced in this book were lock picking tools. What's that? One would think that good social engineer wouldn't need to pick locks, but talks his way to information. This book also strengthened my believe that using publicly available information, smooth talking and malware is an unbeatable combination. You may not even need smooth talking. Even this book had many examples, where sending malicious PDF-file via email did the job.


Security 2020 by Doug Howard and Kevin Prince

This wasn't very useful to me. Too much history and basic technology. Predictions were quite obvious and book concentrated more on risks than mitigation. Had some good cyber threat scenarios and possible information security tipping points, though.


No Fear: Business Leadership for the Digital Age by Pekka A. Viljakainen

Pekka discuss from his first hand experience how he has succeeded and failed in leadership. Especially the book is about change in the workplaces, caused by new generation of workers, mobile revolution and consumer driven economy. The new generation, digicowboys, can't be lead by old-style top-down model. Excellent book - no mgmt consultation bs, but real world experiences.


21st Century Slaves by Lim Kah Beng

Greedy company clone humans illegally in order to profit. Real invention is to use neuro-imaging to give clones intelligence and experiences. Life expectancy of clones is not long, but they can always be used as spare-parts for humans. Journalist & doctor couple spice up their romantic relationship by trying to rescue poor clones. Very naive story.


How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

This is a story of time travel technician, who helps people out of trouble when they try to change their past. Book describes problems and techniques of time travelling and at the same time is the story of problematic father-son relationship. Part of the problem being, that the father has lost somewhere in timespace. The book is clever, funny, interesting and definitely recommended for scifi lovers.


Inside WikiLeaks by Daniel Domscheit-Berg

Interesting inside story of WikiLeaks. How technical infrastructure was built, who were involved, how the famous leaks were handled and especially how Julia Assange leads the organization. According to the book WikiLeaks wasn't as professional organization and not so top of the things as it made itself to seem. The book describes Julian Assange as a brilliant, psychotic and paranoid hacker, who wants to lead WikiLeaks as a dictator. The author was a second to Assange for a long time and now one of the founders of OpenLeaks whistle blower site.


Strategic Cyber Security by Kenneth Geers

Good discussion about current state of cyber security. Especially interesting were analysis how deterrence strategies of conventional war would work in cyberspace and how lessons learned from The Chemical Weapons Conventions could be used if Cyber Weapons Convention would ever be negotiated.

The book is availabe as pdf.


Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan by Robert K. Logan

Marshall McLuhan wrote his famous book Understanding Media: Extensions of Man in 1964 and coined quotes like "We change our tools and then our tools change us" and "The medium is the message". McLuhan also predicted a born of "The Global Village", where electric information moving at the speed of light creates new patterns of communications and social interactions. Sounds a lot like Internet and social media to me.

Robert K. Logan, the author of Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan has written an excellent book where he analyses how new media have impacted McLuhan's predictions. In addition, Logan analyses new media not dealt in McLuhans book, like PC, smart phone,software, Internet, social networks, etc. in a same manner as McLuhan did.

Very interesting reading and somewhat eye-opener too. I had never thought for example guns, money and clothing as a media.


High Crimes by Joseph Finder

Good, easy-to-read thriller about attorney, whose world is shaken when her husband is arrested, accused about murder of 87 civilians and court-martialed. It turns out that her husband has changed identity, but is he guilty as charged? She, as a civilian law attorney, is defending her husband in court-martial, where rules are a bit different."


Zero Day by Mark Russinovich

The book is about cyber-jihad, terrorist cyber-attack against USA and Europe. Lots of tech talk explaining viruses, rootkits, forensics, etc. Many examples of possible consequences of a well-planned, coordinated, malware-based attack. The book is fiction, lets hope it doesn't turn to be a prophecy. I was a bit disappointed, maybe because it was too much like reading current information security news and reports with some spy and sex stuff on the top.


Gurumarkkinointi by Apunen & Parantainen

Book is about human irrational behaviour and how it can be used to sell more stuff. Lots of examples from different studies. Nothing new here, but nice simplified explanations in Finnish. Simplification was the authors primary goal and they succeeded in their task.


Silmät auki sosiaaliseen mediaan by Aaltonen-Ogbeide et al.

Collection of social media related articles covering leadership, self-awareness, infowar, learning, privacy, etc. Interesting reading, since they weren't written by social media bigots. Each article had a SWOT-style approach so it was not all praise, but balanced valuation of pros and cons. Available here (in Finnish).


Logicomix by Doxiadis et al.

Interesting graphic novel about Bertrand Russell. It's also an introduction to foundations of mathematics and logic. Not your typical "comic book", I must say.


The Game by Neil Strauss

The book was a bit different than I thought beforehand. It's about insecure nerds who learn methods and "science" to pickup girls. The author is a New York Times writer, who got an assignment to write about these guys. He got sucked in (no pun intended) to pickup community and became celebrated PUA (pickup artist). Although the book was a bit long, it was fun to read.


The Design of Design by Frederick B. Brooks

Book from famous author, who wrote the legendary "The Mythical Man-Month". Book is collection of essays about design and designers. Interesting discussions about design process, models, collaboration, styles, etc. Examples variy from designing computer to designing house.


The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

Great reading about innovation to understand, why it's hard work. Even though often single person is pointed out as a innovator (Edison, Einstein, Ford, etc.) innovations are born gradually based on many people's hard work. Innovation doesn't just happen. Good ideas are hard to find and easy to kill prematurely.


Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori & Rom Brafman

Good and easy to read introduction why we always (or most of the time) can't think straight. It's too easy to ignore facts and make silly - even deadly - decisions. There are better books to explain reasons for irrational behaviour, but this is great reading if you don't want to go too deep in scientific background.


Mariposa by Greg Bear

Political thriller with lots of advanced technical stuff. I had high expectations, but was disappointed. For some reason it was hard to keep track of all people, happenings and references to earlier book, Quantico.


Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard

A guaranteed Elmore Leonard work. Good characters and fun to read. The author actually brought back three characters from previous (different) books. This book is about world's best bank robber and his prison buddy (road dog). There's also some triangle drama with these two buddies and the latter's wife. Good book to take with you on vacation.


Future Minds by Richard Watson

The book is about how new communications tools and information explosion - spending huge amount time in front of the screen - changes our thinking and ability to compose new ideas. Change is not all good. We'll develop a screenage brain, when we may loose some important capabilities. The author emphasizes the importance of book reading, daydreaming and face-to-face communication. Those all are required to keep new ideas flowing. Good reading to understand the problems with paperless living, too efficient workplaces and focusing too much on efficiency instead of effectiveness.


Check-Raising the Devil by Mike Matusow

Autobiography of professional poker player Mike "The Mouth"€� Matusow. It's said that becoming pro in anything requires not only talent, but also 10.000 hours of practise. Poker seems to be no exception. With Matusow poker was more of obsession, though, with high highs and low lows, including loads of money, drugs, parties, depression and even jail time. Matusow's explanations of some of the most significant poker hands he played were interesting read.


Business Model Generation by Osterwalder & Pigneur

Good book describing business model generation in very visual way. The book gives lots of helpful tools for designing your business model, like the business model canvas with 9 essential building blocks. Lots of recent examples. Fun, easy to read, useful.


The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

The author has a PhD in String Theory and it kind of shows. Book is about master thief, virtual prisons and an escape plan. Great description of world where citizens have control of they privacy - or actually assumed control, since there's always someone who has access to everything. Same technology, which promises privacy haven, can be used to create a panopticon. This novel is Rajaniemi's scifi debut and great one it is. By the way, when Mieli swears in the book, those weird words are actual Finnish curse words. The author is a Finn living abroad. 


Dangerous Ideas by Alf Rehn

Excellent. I really like authors, who question common beliefs and methods - in this case the common idea of creativity. Alf Rehn, who is professor of management and organization, promotes creativity as dangerous, unfitting even disgusting. Thinking out-of-the-box is not enough, since we have *another* box in our mind, which *really* restricts our thinking. Our brains are built in the way, that it rewards us when we don't try to use them too much. If an idea feels good and it's readily accepted - dump it. The author emphasizes also, that organizations must be able to put stop to all creativity at some point and put ideas in real work - that's leadership. I read the Finnish version of the book.


Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez

This is a sequel to Daemon. Network worm has hijacked business data of top corporates and created an augmented reality MMORPG called darknet. People joining the darknet can collect different powers and tag real world objects virtually. Social networks are important and feedback from fellow "players" are given in form of reputation ranking. Your trustworthiness is measured by your powers and ranking. Reason behind the darknet is to give the power back to citizens - create true democracy. Great technothriller with nice extrapolation of current technology and social networking.


Purge (Puhdistus) by Sofi Oksanen

This novel, being originally a theater play, won Finlandia award 2008, but I decided to read it regardless:-) The novel has won many other prizes since then and has been translated to several languages. I read the original, Finnish version. Story is about one Estonian family suffering under communism. Easy to read, depressing story, but I didn't quite get the fuss.


Vanished by Joseph Finder

I have read four novels by Joseph Finder before and everyone of them has been very good or excellent. Vanished is not an exception. Great crime novel, fun tor read, good plot. Nick Heller, who is an ex-Special Forces guy working at a private detective agency, finds his brother vanished. Investigations reveals high-level corporate foul-play involving lots of money and powerful opponents.


Zero History by WIlliam Gibson

Disappointment. This was last book of so called Bigend trilogy. First book, "Pattern Recognition", was OK, but the second, "Spook Country" was not. Trilogy is not scifi. Speculative fiction is one definition I've seen. Well - this book was a drag to read. Gibson's first books, like "Neuromancer" and "Count Zero", have impressed me so much, that I automatically get his new books. Now, when I looked back, I really haven't liked too much his latest work. Hopefully he decides to go back to scifi. Otherwise I have to think carefully about buying his next novel.


Cyber War by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake

One of the authors, Richard Clarke, was the United States' first special adviser to the president for cyber-security. Unlike the current White House Cyber Czar (Howard Schmidt), Clarke is worried about use of weakness in Internet, software and hardware as weapons. The book has good discussion about current weakness and suggestions what should be done to them. The book is US centric and has lots of background information about US politics related to cyber war. Same good examples about former incidents and possible scenarios.


Makers by Cory Doctorow

Nice scifi book about future entrepreneurs who start building weird stuff from scrapped electronics, move to automated, constantly changing, 3d-printed theme-parks and finally opening (hacking) up Disney's proprietary 3d home printing system. It's all about open source and crowdsourcing. Imagine about creating business plan around countersuing Disney, raising VC money and going to IPO on that. Fun reading.


Johda riskejä by Ilmonen et al.

Thorough textbook-like look at risk management. Covers the whole risk management process, includes lots of examples and pitfalls. Good reading, especially if you are new to risk management.


Macrowikinomics by Tapscott & Williams

This is a great continuation to Wikinomics, which presented five principles for organizations and individuals to succeed in new, changed/changing world: collaboration, openness, sharing, integrity and interdependence.  The authors present breathtaking variety of examples, where Wikinomics principles has been put in to the work. Examples include not only business world, but also efforts to help people, environment and the world. The book covers current challenges and possible future of financial services, transportation, science,  media, governments, healthcare, climate change, etc. Especially great is that the authors are able to show real world success stories how companies and individuals has harnessed the power of Internet and collaboration. I recommend this book to anyone, who wants to be prepared in even more connected, faster, data-rich world, where old hierarachies are bypassed by colloborative efforts.


The Principles of Product Development Flow by Donald G. Reinertsen

Good book about principles of lean/agile development. The author discusses 175 principles of lean development. Principles cover topics like improving economic decisions, managing queues, reducing batch sizes and accelerating feedback. The author questions some common beliefs like importance of thorough project planning and high levels of capacity utilization. The book gives lots of great advice how to make your development process more agile. Quick tip: reduce batch sizes and avoid long queues. Surprisingly, at the end the author explains how lean/agile development is very similar to how marines fight.


Glasshouse by Charles Stross

Robin has his memory wiped out and letter from his earlier self explained why. There's a reason for letting some memories to go and he understands why after he enlisted in an experimental recreation of the Dark Ages (1950s-2040). Living in Dark Ages is weird. There's no real privacy, but people live together in so called "families". Lots of weird habits like "cooking" and having to go to special store for clothes. Not to mention, that clothes needs regular cleaning.  It was fun to read Stross' view how future people might see our current way of life.  There's lot more, of course, like figuring out about virus, which infects people traveling through wormhole gates.


Enterprise 2.0 by Andrew McAfee

Good book about how collaborative tools can benefit organizations. Book is not about describing social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. per se, but explaining how to make actual use of them. Book has good real life examples how Web 2.0 tools have been used to solve problems. McAfee also describes typical roadblocks and how to tackle them. Book is not technical, but intended to managerial level.


The Failure of Risk Management by Douglas W. Hubbard

If you are a CRO and don't want to shake your world, don't read this book. However, if you want to get a critical look to current mainstream risk analysis methods, this book is for you. The author argues that popular risk management solutions (e.g. risk matrix, heat map) are worse-than-useless, standard organizations like NIST and PMI are guilty of promoting ineffective, even harmful methods and management consultants are just making things worse.

Author promotes need to really understand probabilities, need to calibrate peoples estimation capabilities and using of Monte-Carlo method. He even proposes replacing title CRO with CPO, Chief Probabilities Officer, which would better describe the role in organization. Key question every CRO should ask is "How I know that risk management is really working?"

Good book, which makes you re-evaluate some "truths". Even though the author claimed otherwise, changing risk management to recommended direction is not easy. Some parts of the book are a bit heavy, especially if you don't have basic understanding of statistics and probabilities.


SuperFreakonomics by Levitt & Dubner

Follow-up of best-seller, Freakonomics. Mind-blowing stories help you to understand that not everything is how it seems and how cheap & simple solutions usually work best. Great book for practising critical thinking and learning about externalities and microeconomics. Read and learn for example why pimp's services are more valuable than real estate agent's, why we may on wrong track with global warming and why doctor's don't want to wash their hands.


The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

Authors did the original "Gorilla Test" 10+ years ago showing how people are blind to unexpected things even when staring right at it. Now they continue with the same, although wider theme.

Book explains many useful things: why using hands-free phone doesn't help us driving safer, why we are poor in multitasking, why eye-witnesses are unreliable, why confidence is unrelated to intelligence, why even expert project managers can't make correct work estimates, why listening Mozart doesn't make you (or your kids) smarter and lots more.

Book explains how to notice groundless claims (even backed up with bad science) and helps to understand some illusions, which may lead to bad decisions.


The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Last and best book of the trilogy. The story starts right there where the previous book ended. Mikael "Kalle" Blomkvist does everything he can to keep Lisbeth "the hacker" Salander out of jail. Kalle and others Lisbeth's friends do all the leg work, but of course Lisbeth's hacking skills are needed for crucial pieces of evidence. At the end, nail gun comes handy too. It's a bit unsettling from my perspective, that the book (or the whole trilogy, actually) presents breaking into computers in positive light. The end justify the means, is the message.

Accelerando by Charles Stross

Great sci-fi about human's way to singularity. Story of four generations - at the end all "living" at the same time in one form or in the other. It may be hard to tell humans, metahumans and augmented humans apart - and it may well be that a newborn is actually his own grand-grand-father born (or simulated) again - or at least one of his forked ghosts may be. It must be weird for someone to meet copy of his parents who are not the ones who actually raised him. Raising kids may be interesting, if you can just restart him again at certain age unless you are satisfied with the result. Confusing? You must read the book.


The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Second book of trilogy. Even better than the first book. It's all about solving two murders connected to both Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is the main suspect and she needs all help she can get (althoug didn't ask for). Her hacking skills are again invaluable, of course.  Lisbeth's disturbing background is opened up more for the readers.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

First book of trilogy. Got the third book as Christmas present, so had to read two previous books first. Main characters are  journalist Mikael  Blomkvist and female misfit/hacker Lisbeth Salander. Good story about solving old murders and missing person case.  Hacking is described believably.

Digitaalinen Jalanjälki by Isokangas & Vassinen

Book "Digital Footprint" is good introduction to social media, Intenet marketing, brand building and creating good network visibility. Lots of useful tips about what works and what not included. 

Yksityisyys by Petteri Järvinen

Petteri Järvinen is one of Finland's best known IT-book authors. Recently he has focused on IT-security and privacy issues. His previous books which I've read haven't been very interesting for IT and security professionals, but this latest book about privacy is surprisingly good. Author has good arguments why privacy is important and how we are gradually loosing it in our society.  He also does good work explaining IT-related privacy risks in simple terms and what everyone can do to protect their personal information.

Management by Sauron by Harri V. Hietikko

Leadership and management characteristics explained with examples from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Main characters from The Lord of the Rings are analyzed by their management style and abilities. These analysis are used to explain power, leadership, hope and doom. Author also found similar styles from real leaders in near history. Fun to read and good summary of management theories, styles and requirements. The book is based on author's doctoral dissertation, http://acta.uta.fi/teos.php?id=11121

How to Measure Anything by Douglas W. Hubbard

Many things seem immeasurable, since we don't really know what it is we want to measure. The point of view is not to get exact numbers, but reduce uncertainty. This books shows you for example how to measure the population of fish in a lake and how much support staff training increases sales. Interesting reading and gives useful advice how to look at measurement problem. Understanding some statistics is helpful when reading the book.

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Pratchett writes excellent fantasy with weird characters (dwarfs, vampires, wizards, etc.) and is able to explain real world peculiarities from a different perspective. This book is all about football: strategy, training, hooligans, etc. Definetely worth reading, even if you don't like football, because, as the author puts it: "The thing about football - the most important thing about football - is that it is never just about football."

The Adventures of an IT Leader by Austin et al.

Jim Barton, business manager, got appointed as a new CIO of the company. This is huge surprise to everybody, not least to Jim, who doesn't know IT. Book tells the tale of Jim's first year as a rookie CIO with strong business background. Book is first and foremost about management, next about IT and thirdly a good story. Jim has to tackle many issues like understanding what he doesn't know, communications to business managers, runaway projects, partner selection and the biggest test for newly appointed CIO is a security incident. The book can be recommended not only to IT managers for a fresh look how to combine IT and business, but also to business managers to better understand challenges and opportunities of IT.
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

When you look like snot, smell like a skunk and are the space alien on top of that, you want to hire a Hollywood agent to help you to make good first impression when introducing yourself to whole mankind. Hilarious and entertaining book. It's hard to believe this was Scalzi's "practise novel", originally published on his web site.

Cloud Application Architectures by George Reese

Good introduction to cloud and especially Amazon solutions. Practical examples and good chapters about security and disaster recovery.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

I don't know if this book is science fiction of fictional science. Fascinating and challenging book, though. Recommended reading only if you are in to scifi and science and fantasy. Book is about fictional planet, with fictional language, where some people are sworn to scientific discipline and dedicate their lives to science, theorems, discourse and debates. Those people are split in different communities (maths) called Unarians, Decenarians, Centenarians and Millenarians based on how often they can communicate to outside world. For example Centenarians are able to contact outsiders only 10 days in every 100 years. Purpose is to keep science "pure". Book is quite long and full of fictional scientific discussions. Not any easy reading, mind you.

Jymäyttämisen Taito by Matti Nojonen

This book is translated from Chinese book, Guidao, which can be translated (I think) as "way of deception". Book is about Chinese strategy thinking and especially, how deception is important part of Chinese strategy. Chinese have richer strategy-related language than Western languages. Their have three main strategy kategories: calculation-based, deception-based and neutral strategy.  Under those kategories you find dozen terms defining different strategies. First third of book was interesting description of Chinese strategical thinking, last two thirds was not so interesting quotes from several Chinese strategists.

Fatal System Error by Joseph Menn

Great inside look at Internet crime and two persons tracking these criminals out. Book tells the stories of Barrett Lyon and Andy Crocker.

Barret was a whiz kid, who fought against numerous DDoS attacks and tried to build a security business of it. Since most DDoS targets were online casinos and betting sites, the book gives also a look at hazy backgrounds of some well-known online poker-sites.

Andy was a seasoned agent from UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, who tracked down several criminals behind DDoS attacks, extortions and identity thefts. Especially interesting was to read about Andy's time at Russia and how he managed to make friends and arrests despite Russian bureaucracy and bribed officials.

The book is about fairly recent history, between 2003 and 2009. You get some background of CarderPlanet, Russian Business Network and other criminal acts you have heard before, if you happen to be in information security. Reader will also get an understanding, how hard it is to fight against Internet crime. Especially when co-operation between states don't work smoothly and some criminals may even be protected by politicians or other high officials. 

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Easy-to-read and entertaining book. If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you'll like this also. I love books that the mix fact and fiction. It was great to read about symbols, artwork, buildings, Mason rituals and explanations/theories built around them. Problem with the book is, that it seems to be written a movie in mind. It felt like reading a screenplay. Plots stay the same, surroundings and symbols change. Probably going to be a nice movie, though. The end was a bit disappointing. It left the question, if all the secrecy and hassle was worth it.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Weird experience. If you just browse through the book it seems good and funny. When I actually read the book, I found myself often thinking something else and skipping paragraphs (even pages). I had to force myself to end the book. Book is about old-hippie, pot-smoking PI doing some detective work. Many times I felt that it was me who was high instead of the main character of the book. Maybe Pynchon have invented some interesting drug, which can be had by reading? Of course I have to only guess how it feels to be high, so I can't be sure...

If this ever get translated to Finnish I may need to test its effect also.

Beyond The Shadows by Brent Weeks

Final book of the Night Angel Trilogy. Kylar is trapped between two women and finally loses his virginity. He also learns that immortality comes with high price. Magical book - literally. I  lost track of hierarchy of different powers: Talented, Mage, Maja, Meister, Vürdmeister. Not to mention kruls, feralis and Titan created to slaughter armies. I guess that if the author creates a whole new world, he needs to write a trilogy with 1800 pages to cover all that. Entertaining, but a bit too much. 

Koljatti by Jari Tervo

Another good book from Tervo. Main character is fictional Primer Minister of Finland, although after following our Prime Minister's adventerous life from media, it's sometimes hard to tell what's fact and what's fiction.  Book is like good caricature of Finnish politicians and politics. I guess that Tervo had deliberately over-exaggerated some parts of the book in order to claim this to be totally work of fiction and avoid  legal actions.
 

Shadow's Edge (Night Angel Trilogy, Book 2) by Brent Weeks

Second book of the Night Angel Trilogy. Good fantasy as was the first book of the series. Kylar begin to understand his immortality and magnitude of his abilities. Brutal violence continues and just when your start thinking that Kylar just may find some happiness, it's getting worse for him. If you expect anyone else but immortal Kylar to survive, don't.

I like fantasy, but this starts to be too much. Kylar's invisibility, magic, ability to change his looks, unnatural strength, etc. actually spoils some surprises, since you know that he survives and kills anything. He may temporarily die in the process, but still.

As the first book, this is also too long, over 600 pages. Two down, one to go. There's no other option than see this to the finish and read the final book also.

 
The Last Colony by John Scalzi, Vincent Chong

Excellent final book to Old Man's War trilogy. John Perry and his wife Jane Sagan are called from their retirement to help colonize a new planet. Problem is that the alien union, Conclave, is set to destroy it in order to teach lesson to humans, who refused to join the other species with common rules for colonization. John and Jane has to choose their side. Defend human politics and risk the colony their lead or accept alien ultimatum and save the colony.


Another Life by Andrew Vachss

This was the final novel in the Burke series. I have read ten Burke novels before and this was not worse or better than the others. Good hard-core crime spiced with inconvenient truths/opinions the author wants to spill out with his characters mouth. Being the last book of the series created added interest.


The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Excellent sequel to Old Man's War. Traitor is on the run, but luckily he left a copy of his consciousness behind. Growing a fresh body and downloading traitor's consciousness on his brain will help to track down the traitor. It's amazing, what a one year old can do, if he has full-grown body, SmartBlood, BrainPal and integrated mind with his squad. 

Gourmet by Tuomas Vimma

Entertaining story about food & drink obsession. Did you know that you should never let an egg to touch frying pan? Egg yolk and white must be cooked separately, preferably using porcelain plates heated on boiling water. Moral of the story is that youd should know the basics of cooking before showing off with (too) fancy dishes. Main character was  also obsessed with sex.

 
Beautiful Security by Andy Oram, John Viega

This book is a collection of 16 essays from different writers. Essays were fairly short and well written. However, I found only about one third of the essays interesting. Especially Mudge's "Psychological Security Traps" and Curphey's "Tomorrow's Security Cogs and Levers" were great. Other topics included for example security metrics, honeyclients, evolution of PGP web of trust and software security. I'm bit disappointed, because so many of essays were either trivial or non-interesting to me, but since the overall quality of texts were good, I'll recommend the book anyway. 

 
The Whole Truth by David Baldacci

Good thriller about filthy-rich owner of defense conglomerate, whose business plan is to make war. In order to do that he needs help from perception management firm, which doesn't just spin the truth, but creates a totally new, customer-specified "truth". Fortunately there're one heart-broken killing-machine from super-secret agency and has-been journalist/recovering alcoholic, who have a change to save the world.

 
The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain

Good discussion about possible problems of closing devices, networking and services. Openness of PC and Internet has made them successful - tethered devices kill creativity. Zittrain also discuss privacy issues. Despite of book's subtitle, half of the book was about history and it didn't tell how to stop the unwanted future.

 
Old Man's War by John Scalzi

You are 75, your wife is dead, your children have life of their own and you wake up four times per night to pee. What to do? Join the army to fight aliens of course. That's what John Perry did. It just required him presumed legally dead, leave earth and promise never to come back. In change he got his body radically upgraded and tuned-up. Downside was a high probability to die soon violently. Excellent scifi. 

 
The Myths of Security: What the Computer Security Industry Doesn't Want You to Know by John Viega

I wanted to be able to recommend this book, but truthfully, it didn't work for me. Viega did a good job discussing some shortcomings of the computer security, but wasn't able to really show anything new. Also, too much time was spent discussing Anti-Virus, which in my mind is nowadays more of the IT management problem than information security problem.

Still, I like that someone even try to shake up the information security beliefs a bit. Book is useful for information security novices to show some problems they will face in their career. Could also work as a reminder for seasoned professionals, who have got lost in work for too long.

 
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Interesting ideas - makes you think differently of financial investment, strategy creation, randomness and...life. Basic idea is that history is shaped by rare, high-impact events (black swans). Things you don't know you don't know can hurt you - or reward you. It depends.

Author seems to be a bit arrogant and used too much pages describing his personal experiences and bashing Nobel-prize winners:-)

 
Terminal by Andrew Vachss

Burke, hard-boiled criminal/con-artists, targets some rich guys who have raped and killed a kid years ago. As usual, Burke and his "family" attack only people "who deserves it". Vachss uses his main character, Burke, to punish criminals, when the Law is not able to do it - or when Burke (or Vachss) thinks that the Law is not written as is should be. Vachss also makes Burke to comment many real world events. Good story - respect. 

 
The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

I really liked Morgan's all five previously published science fiction books and was actually surprised to find out that The Steel Remains is his fantasy book debut. I must say that I didn't like this story as much as his scifi work. Story was OK with good main characters and brutal fighting scenes.

Book is also a first part of the trilogy. Fortunately the book's ending didn't leave any loose ties. Morgan has said on his blog that he tries hard to make each part of trilogy as a self contained novel. I think that it makes reading experience much more enjoyable and possibly I will give a chance to his next book also. 

 
The Way of Shadows (The Night Angel Trilogy) by Brent Weeks

Tolkien's Middle-earth meets Pratchett's Discworld with extra violence. Fantasy world where young, poor kid becomes master assassins apprentice and a real wet boy himself. My only problems with the book are that it's long (+600 pages) and it's just first book of the trilogy. So, over 1000 pages to read in order to finish the series. 

 
Information Security Management Metrics: A Definitive Guide to Effective Security Monitoring and Measurement by W. Krag Brotby 

Comprehensive introduction to metrics and how to evaluate their usefulness. Book mostly introduces available metrics calculations, what studies are out there and how different metrics are needed for different purposes. Book has a theoretical approach and is in that sense a good background reading for anyone who need to measure security.

The common thread of the book is: "Metrics serve only one purpose: decision support. We measure to manage. We manage to meet objectives in order to achieve desired outcomes."

For more practical approach I recommend Security Metrics by Andrew Jaquith. 


The Samurai - The Philosophy Of Victory by Robert T. Samuel

Easy-to-read collection of samurai history and stories. Mostly extracts from other books like Hagakure. Lots of nice pics.

 
Troikka by Tervo Jari

Story about some Reds at Finland's Civil War, who escaped to St Petersburg, but came back to kill White's leader, General Mannerheim. They didn't succeeded, obviously, if you know Finnish history.

I'm not a big fan of history novels, but I enjoy reading Tervo's rich use of Finnish language and his dry, black humour. Make no mistake - this book is not made to make you laugh - it describes with excessive realism many horrible things people are able to do to each other during the War. 

 
Personal Days by Ed Park

Story about group of employees spending their days, not working, but guessing, who will be next to get boot. Most of the book was OK, semi-funny even, but the last chapter was too uncomfortable to read. Literally. Last chapter (+40 pages) was written as *one* sentence. Not funny, really.

 
Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World by Don Tapscott

Another excellent book by Don Tapscott. Book discuss how Net Generation (or Generation Y) changes education, marketing, recruiting, management and even family balance. Changes happen with help of Internet, mobile devices, web 2.0 sites and social computing. Especially, because new generation of users are not focused on technology, but on collaboration. Technology is just an enabler, not interesting per se.

This quote from the book may summarize the message:'Eight characteristics or norm, describe typical Net Gener and differentiate them from their [Baby] Boomer parents. They prize freedom and freedom of choice. They want to customize things, make them their own. They're natural collaborators, who enjoy conversation, not lecture. They'll scrutinize you and your organization. They insist on integrity. They want to have fun, even at work and at school. Speed is normal. Innovation is part of life.'"

 
Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Great techno-thriller about MMORPG inventor with IQ over 200, who decides to take-over the Internet after his own death and change the world to a game. Crackers and carders who like virtual world better than the real one are used as pawns to execute the master plan. Daemon is the game engine, who picks the chosen ones among those, who can master FPS games, crack WLAN WPA on-the-fly and take over the servers with SQL injection and other pack of system hacking tricks.

 
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge

Good and insightful book about understanding organizational learning, commitment to personal mastery and how it helps the organization. A bit long, though, but certainly worth reading. 

 
Empire by Orson Scott Card

Entertaining fiction about assassination of US President and Vice President in order to start American civil war. Not really scifi, so don't expect anything like great Enders' series. Good reading, though.

 
Judgment in Managerial Decision Making by Max H. Bazerman, Don A. Moore

Excellent. Also a bit scary. Whose judgement can I trust - certainly not my own. I'm too biased and unable to control my inner self. It seems that most humans are no better.

 
IT Risk: Turning Business Threats into Competitive Advantage by George Westerman, Richard Hunter

Good introduction to IT risk management.

 
Firstborn by Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter

Final book of a Time Odyssey trilogy. You need to read Time's Eye and Sunstorm first. Faiths of real Earth and Firstborn creation, time-sliced experimental Earth called Mir are bound together. Good story, excellent predictions of future science.
 

The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

Pelecanos writes good crime books. Nice and easy reading for holidays.

 
Future Files: The 5 Trends That Will Shape the Next 50 Years by Richard Watson

Interesting and thought-provoking book. Despite it's name, it's not only about 5 most significant trends (ageing, power shift eastwards, global connectivity, GRIN technologies and the environment). Book describes also top 5 trends of society, technology, politics, media, financial services, food, shopping, etc.

If you want to know your past, look at your present conditions. If you want to know your future, look into your present actions. (Buddhist saying).

 
Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner

So you think that you are a man/woman with reason and can carefully estimate risks and act accordingly? Think again. It's more probable that you act based on your Gut and your Head just makes excuses to follow you feelings. This book is a must read for all risk and security professionals. It makes you understand what politicians, advertisers and journalists has known for decades - fear sells and fear hear no reason.

 
Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity by Byron Acohido, Jon Swartz

This book is OK describing how crackheads and criminals are stealing identities and credit card information, how some innocent individuals have suffered because of that crime and how malware has changed during years.

Nothing new in such, but the book is full of names, locations, numbers and other details to show the actual digging of background information the authors have done.

For me the most interesting parts were the history of credit card companies and the arguments why credit card companies may prefer speed more than security, because "the money should not slow you down". 

 
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software by Scott Rosenberg

Great story about Mitch Kapor's Open Source PIM-project named Chandler. Book shows painfully, how far software development is still from being science. It's said in the book that engineering is all about bridging the gulf between art and science. Today the bridge is not even half ready and we hardly can talk about "software engineering". I'm concerned, that critical software we use daily and is running our critical infrastructure is built as "art".

If you have read other (older) great books about software development issues like "The Mythical Man-Month", " Death March" and "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" you start to see that men and tools may change but the problems stay.

 
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr

Excellent arguments in favour of cloud computing. Comparing the history of electrification and computing shows the inevitability of computing as utility in the future.

 
Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter et al.

Typical easy-to-read business book. Good ideas about change management explained in form of the story. If you want to get just the beef, check this one page, http://www.ouricebergismelting.com/html/8step.html. If you have 30 minutes and want to read a nice story around the key messages, read the book. 

 
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Weird, challenging, excellent. Be afraid of the Ludovician, a predator which feeds on human memories.

 
Bon Appetit! by Peter Mayle

Found this on the bookshelf of the summer house we rented at France. Great stories about French food and people.

 
Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software by David Rice

Good reading about software industry and reasons why we have so much bad software - and why it's not getting much better in near future.

 
Next by Michael Crichton

Do you own your genes in the future? Excellent mix of fact & fiction about genealogy. Don't miss Crichton's other books either, especially The State of Fear is a must read.


The Religion War by Scott Adams

As Scott Adams put it: "If God is so smart, why do you fart?"

 
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

A real eye-opener how the Internet made globalization possible.

 
Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems by Ross J. Anderson

The best security book ever written.