Trust - Hernan Diaz --------------- 2.5 Stars

Sometimes people's opinions are really different. This is a good example. Released in 2022, Trust went on to be in one of the most critically acclaimed books that year. Besides making numerous top 10 list,s including the New York Times and Barack Obama, it also received the Pulitzer Prize. Well, let's take a look at why I had a different viewpoint.

Let's start with the positives. This book was incredibly well written and the author has a meticulous way to describe scenes, characters, situations. The level of detail is tremendous and you can really get a great feel for situation's and motivations of people throughout the novel. I also really enjoy the ending as I was not quite sure how the book was going to turn out and even felt like giving up on a couple of times (more information below). Finally, it was nice having most of the book be about female protagonists and their impacts in a variety of situations.

With that being said, I really struggled with numerous aspects of the book. While book does, indeed, have a great amount of detail, it was clearly too much for me as I found much of it distracting and overwhelming. Again, very well written, I did find many of the scenes overdone with superfluous information offered. The next challenge that I found was the structure of the novel. I actually found the plot to be fairly interesting, as it was about a Wall Street tycoon in the 1920s and his eccentric wife. And while the structure was novel, at least to me, I don't feel like it it reach the high expectations that I held for it. Basically, the story was told four times over with different narrators and/or in different ways. Certainly creative, I did find the repetitiveness of certain parts frustrating and didn't find enough differentiation between the stories to fully enjoy the book.

Based on the very strong reviews on Amazon and in many other places, clearly I'm in the minority on my opinion of this book. I would suggest you read it yourself though and make your own opinion. If nothing else, I'd be surprised if it didn't at least evoke some strong views about how much you enjoy it.

 

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It - Chris Voss ------------- 3 Stars

While I didn't really think I did a lot of negotiating in life, this book was recommended to me. And, even with an awfully serious title - Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It , the author actually makes the point that much of life is a negotiation. Really, any time you want something, you are taking part in a negotiation. Oh, yeah, and he did negotiate for people's lives a lot,

so he certainly seemed to know his stuff.

I say "he" as, Chris Voss, the author, is an important part of the book. There are many autobiographical parts, and he shares his credentials and experience often to make you feel he's authentic and trustworthy (it definitely worked for me). In addition, the book includes many stories from his negotiations as part of the FBI along with his support of many students on the business side of things. It all works out to make you believe fully in his messaging.

The book has about a dozen chapters and each offers a different suggestion to help you negotiate better. What I found most useful in the book was how much it resonated to my experience and sense of what works best; namely, it's all about connection and empathy. The old view of being a "tough guy" and creating and adversarial and dominating relationship does not work. Throughout the 200+ pages, I really felt like Voss was providing great examples and actually usable suggestions.  

While I have tried a couple of his suggestions, I am finding that they are not as applicable as I would have hoped. While I guess I negotiate multiple times a day, it's so low stakes that the tools he suggested really don't seem to make a difference. I am looking forward to trying some of his strategies in a real negotiation soon.