October was, predictably for me this year, slow. Every year seems the same - after Labor Day, time absolutely whizzes by! These past few months have been no different. Before I could blink, September and October had gone by, and I was deep into November. The holidays will, no doubt, hasten this feeling of time slipping through my fingers, so I'm working to be as present as possible.

And on the reading front - it's been a terrible year in terms of reaching my goals, and I'll be lucky if I finish 50 books by the end of the year. I'm starting to think that I'm going about it all wrong. Maybe it's better to just enjoy my reading, rather than choose an arbitrary number of books to reads? As I've dialed back a number of other things in my life, particularly when it comes to "productivity," this may be another area to simplify simplify simplify! If I'm being honest, I would rather have a spirited and enriching reading life than one where I'm focused simply on goals and numbers. This is something I'm going to consider as we move into 2019.

In any case, my favorite read of the month was...


Holy CRAP guys! This book was truly unputdownable. Bad Blood is is a fascinating tell-all about Theranos, the blood testing medical company founded by young startup entrepreneur, Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes founded the company at age 19, after dropping out of Stanford to begin her business. Theranos quickly garnered a cream of the crop list of funders and board members, and Holmes' rise as the queen of Silicon Valley was all but secured. At its height, Theranos was valued at 9 billion dollars. What everyone didn't know was that Theranos was a fraud.

I devoured it in one day, and if I'd not had to go to work in that time I have no doubt that I would've finished it clean in one sitting. It's that good, and such an eye-opening investigation of how charm, confidence, privilege and well-conceived deception can help you get away with almost anything. Highly HIGHLY recommended!

Other books read this month: The Library at Mount Char (Hawkins).