便利店人間

Book Cover: 便利店人間

每個人都要在社會規範下生活,30歲前結婚、要生小孩組織家庭、要在大學讀書才能找到好工作、在大公司工作才有穩定前途。沒有按照規範生活就是不正常。

對我來說,全部也是垃圾。

如書中所言,現代社會根本和古代沒有分別,公司就是小村落,沒有結婚,沒有生小孩,沒有工作,對村落沒有供獻就要離開村落;

普通人的啫好就是要插手不普通人的生活。

有機會的話,希望可以長期旅居生活,自由自在。

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出版不到半年,銷售突破50萬本。
全球已授出10國版權,陸續增加中。

只有擁有完美生活指南的便利商店,
才能讓我得以成為這世界正常的「零件」。

到底,什麼是所謂的「正常」?
和這社會不一樣,真的不行嗎?

36歲未婚女性古倉惠子,大學畢業後沒有就職,
在便利商店打工已歷經18個年頭,至今未交過男朋友。
從日色町站前的微笑超商開店起,便一直在該店工作,
不斷目送同事更迭,店長也已是第八任了。
每天吃的是便利商店賣的食物,喝的是便利商店的水,
就連睡著都夢到自己在櫃檯收銀,
望著清爽乾淨宛如透明盒子的便利店景象。
「歡迎光臨!」的招呼聲,每天都陪伴著惠子入眠。

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某天,以尋找結婚對象而加入打工行列的男人白羽,
卻對惠子的生活方式提出質疑:
「妳不覺得丟臉嗎?」

從此,惠子向來信奉的價值被徹底顛覆了,
失去基準的她,能找回真正的自我嗎?


其實,你我都是便利店人間。 

一般人在普世社會中,默默被灌輸了既定的觀念,
認為作為一個「人」,該有什麼樣的思想、行為,
因此,對於不同於己的事物會產生排斥。
作者以容易理解且常見的兩個議題,
「工作」與「婚姻」作為全書的主旨,
加上「年齡」與「性別」的框架,
探討所謂「正常」和「異常」的關係,
是一本相當有深度的小說。

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Startups Open Sourced

Book Cover: Startups Open Sourced

The book includes the interviews with the cofounders of the well-known startups. The startups are well-known but the history won't repeat.

You can never copy these experiences and redo them again.

I will suggest a startup cofounder to create his own story and write it into a book.

Just a book to remind you the good old days of Web 2.0 Internet.

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Get inside the minds of today's leading startup founders with the most honest and candid collection of startup founder interviews. Contains interviews with 33 startups discussing the most difficult topics entrepreneurs face: creating and validating ideas, finding cofounders, obtaining users, growing revenue, staying motivated, acquisition process, and more.

Companies interviewed: Grooveshark, reddit, GitHub, foursquare, Airbnb, Weebly, Greplin, AppSumo, Wufoo, Little App Factory, MixPanel, LikeALittle, Djangy, Divvyshot, Justin.TV, Blippy, Bump, WePay, DailyBooth, Gobble, KISSMetrics, Omnisio, Cloudkick, Noteleaf, One Llama, Octopart, Crowdbooster, Listia, Hipmunk, Indinero, OrangeQC, One, Husky Starcraft.

Principles

Book Cover: Principles

The intelligence accumulated by Ray Dalio during his life.

One cannot control his destiny but he can choose how he react to the environment.

Ray also failed at his 30s but he didn't give us his company. Finally, he successfully rebuild BridgeWater Associates into a great company, one of the most successful investment firms in the world.

Good book for life and work. I am not sure if I can apply the principles into my life.

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Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that helped him create unique results in life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to better achieve their goals. Dalio’s original Principleshas been downloaded over three million times, and this expanded and revised edition is the first version available in print.

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

Book Cover: Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

My Review:

The book is quite helpful in service marketing. If you are running a professional service firm, feel free to read it. The book is easy to read.

I find it matching to my personal experience when running my mobile app development agency. Easy to read, business is not rocket science.

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SELLING THE INVISIBLE is a succinct and often entertaining look at the unique characteristics of services and their prospects, and how any service, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage, can turn more prospects into clients and keep them.

SELLING THE INVISIBLE covers service marketing from start to finish. Filled with wonderful insights and written in a roll-up-your-sleeves, jargon-free, accessible style, such as:

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  • Greatness May Get You Nowhere
  • Focus Groups Don'ts
  • The More You Say, the Less People Hear &
  • Seeing the Forest Around the Falling Trees.
COLLAPSE

Damn Good Advice (for people with talent!)

Book Cover: Damn Good Advice (for people with talent!)

I am interested in this book because it's written by George Lois, the rumored prototype for Don Draper in the TV programme Mad Men.

I love Mad Men and the image of the creative director in an advertising agency. Compared to the brainstorming meeting in the show, there are numerous meetings in my daily work.

These meetings are all boring. I can just feel that these meetings are wasting my life.

Looking forward to reading the book.

Publisher: 
Excerpt:

Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!) is a look into the mind of one of America's most legendary creative thinkers, George Lois. Offering indispensle lessons, practical advice, facts, anecdotes and inspiration, this book is a timeless creative bible for all those looking to succeed in life, business and creativity. These are key lessons derived from the incomparle life of 'Master Communicator' George Lois, the original Mad Man of Madison Avenue. Written and compiled by the man The Wall Street Journalcalled "prodigy, enfant terrible, founder of agencies, creator of legends," each step is borne from a passion to succeed and a disdain for the status quo.