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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 actuals 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.