Reading Recap: February 2025

I didn’t get to as many Black History Month books as I was hoping. I am trying to let my reading choices wander a bit more than in the past. All good though, and I have some books I meant to get to this month underway for March.

🏀The Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant.

I was impressed by how Kobe was willing to analyze his game and use self-criticism to get better. He clearly recognizes commitment to craft weather, it’s in basketball, personal training, or even taping fingers. I appreciated that he recognized all the others that made his work possible even as he led from the front.

🤵🏾Lumumba – Africa’s Lost Leader by Leo Zeilig.

I knew nothing of the Congo’s story of Belgin colonialism and its subsequent independence under Patrice Lumumba. So, this book was first and foremost very educational. I was also reminded of sheer brutality and odds required to be beaten to escape colonialism in Africa.

😁How to be a Happier Parent by KJ Dell’Antonia

My parent journey has shifted from keeping little ones physically alive to more of a mental game. The central message of “you can be happy even if you kids are not” was one I needed this month. It’s helpful to know you aren’t alone in your struggles and also helpful to be reminded of the many areas that you have it easy.

🗣️Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

I can’t really do this book justice with a summary. Suffice it to say it’s full of twisted and dry humor of the best sort.

🪳Not with a Bug but with a Sticker by Ram Shankar and Hyrum Anderson

Insights into adversarial attacks on machine learning. It’s really fascinating how difficult it is to hide information about a model from potential wrongdoers. AI systems can be quite brittle and break much more easily than you might expect with the right conditions. I also fund it insightful to learn about how properties of one type of model will transfer to other different models and how that can be used to test exploits offline.