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101-150

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TRIUMPHS OF EXPERIENCE: THE MEN OF THE HARVARD GRANT STUDY

George E. Vaillant

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • Started in 1938, it is the longest study of human development. It followed in extreme detail the lives of 286 men (Harvard and Inner City). 75 years later, it is still going.

Memorable Parts

  • On alcoholism: "the skills that get you out of a hole are likely independent of the forces that got you in."

  • On divorce: "It took sixty-eight years of the study to discover that the single most important factor was alcoholism, 57%"

  • On death: "[he] reflected on the inner peace that came from having paid his dues."

  • On happiness: "There are two pillars. One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X

Alex Haley

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • I am a huge fan of Muhammad Ali and wanted to learn more about their split. This book was dictated to Alex Haley after Malcolm X was expelled from the Nation of Islam. Brutally honest book. I was pleasantly surprised with the level of details that most would have not been shared if he was still the group´s most prominent minister.

Memorable Parts

  • "My mother was taken by the police to the hospital. My father ´s skull, on one side, was crushed in..."

  • "The one thing I didn´t like about history class was that the teacher, Mr. Williams, was a great one for "n***er jokes."

  • "Rioters left a particular store alone where the Chinese owner had a sign that said "Me Colored Too"

  • "Do you now what white racist people call a black PHD? A n***er"

  • "Laura. She tried her best to make something out of me, and look what I started her into - dope and prostitution." 

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AMERICAN TABLOID

James Ellroy

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • I read this book the day my son was born and it some parts are set in Chicago, so I hold it close to my heart. James Ellroy also wrote L.A. Confidential so you can get a sense of the type of novel this is. It follows 3 different characters during the JFK-Hoover-Cuba-Hughes era in the USA. I really enjoyed how he combines "official" police reports, memos and the actual story. Gritty and very entertaining. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Sam Giancana has issued a contract on you. You will be killed unless you repay $12,000 you owe him."

  • "Are Robert Kennedy and the McClellan Committee direct rivals of the Bureau?"

  • "Giancana is a close personal associate of James Riddle Hoffa."

  • "Viva Fidel! Down with the U.S. imperialist insect!"

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MISBEHAVING: THE MAKING OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

Richard H. Thaler

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • Excellent book about the history of behavioral economics. Written by Nobel Prize winner in Economics and University of Chicago professor, Richard Thaler. This man was working side by side from the beginning with the likes of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.

Memorable Parts

  • "Real-life" human beings to do not act in accordance to optimizations of strict economic theory.

  • "There was a joke about a one-item IQ test: the sooner you realized Amos was smarter than you, the smarter you were."

  • We have an internal struggle between the doer (enjoyment) and the planner (risk averse, controlled).

  • Companies need to value manager´s decisions based on information ex-ante, what was available in the moment. Otherwise good decisions will be lost due to fear.

  • Coarse Theorem and "The Problem of Social Cost."

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ENLIGHTENMENT NOW: THE CASE FOR REASON, SCIENCE, HUMANISM AND PROGRESS

Steven Pinker

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • I bought this book back in 2019 and read it before my son was born. With all the bad news circulating it is easy to fall into the trap that things are worse than ever. Pinker makes a strong case of how there is no better time to be alive than now. 

Memorable Parts

  • Two centuries ago only 1% of the population lived under democracies. Today,close to two-thirds are. 

  • Over the course of the 20th century Americans became 96% less likely to be killed by a car accident.

  • "The very traits that put people in the public eye made them worst at prediction. The more famous and closer the event was to their expertise, the less accurate their predictions. People become unusually confident in saying things like "impossible."

  • Racist, sexist and homophobic joke searches on the internet have declined drastically since 2004.

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PANDORA'S BOX: A HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Jorn Leonhard

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • My first book about WW1 so can't compare it to others but it is extremely thorough (when compared to WW2 ones I have read). Ver comprehensive since it did not focus solely on battlefields and combat. I am still impressed how many of today's conflicts (i.e. Ukraine) can still be traced back to this time.

Memorable Parts

  • "Petain's noria strategy â€‹meant that by mid-July 80 out of the 95 divisions had taken part in the Battle of Verdun."

  • "Never had Russia seen so many people in movement. Soldiers got a glimpse of the diversity of the empire but experienced it more as a threat."

  • 90% of soldiers mentioned Religious Impulses at the #1 way to counteract fear. Only 11% mentioned patriotism.

  • "When Russia marched to Kiev, Ukraine signed a separate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary."

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REALITY IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS: THE JOURNEY TO QUANTUM GRAVITY

Carlo Rovelli

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • Very comprehensive (and comprehensible!) history of physics theories. From Newton (space, time and particles) to Einstein 1915 (fields and particles) to Quantum Theory. If you enjoy Physics you will definitively enjoy this book.

Memorable Parts

  • "Poggio had been the secretary for many popes...But his triumph was rediscovering Lucretius."

  • "We are now in 1600 and, for the first time, humanity finds out how to do something better than what was done in Alexandria more than a thousand years ago [Kepler]."

  • "Faraday´s fields were drastically different from the Newtonian notion of a force acting between distant bodies."

  • "Einstein discovered that between the past and the future there exists an intermediate zone / an extended present."

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THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY

Erik Larson

Skip

Summary​

  • Maybe it was the build-up or the hype but I did not find this book that great. This guy had one of the most notorious serial killers in history and failed to great real suspense. I have read other of his books and he tries to do those cliffhanger moments and the end of chapters but they fail to create anticipation or excitement. I would recommend this more to folks who enjoy architectural history since it has lots of details. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Whitechapel Club, named for the London slum in which two years earlier Jack the Ripper had done his killings."

  • "...but one natural object at all distinctively local, which can be regarded as an object of grandeur, beauty or interest. The Lake."

  • "Atwood had a secret opium addiction. But Burnham thought him a genius."

  • "The Spanish infanta declared that under no circumstances would she be received by an innkeeper´s wife [Bertha Palmer]."

  • "Human Zoos were hardly a phenomenon limited to Chicago."

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CONSCIOUS: A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL MISTERY OF THE MIND

Annaka Harris

Recommended

Summary​

  • I started in late 2019 to meditate using the Waking Up app by Sam Harris and that is how I learned about Annaka´s work. This is a short book on: What is consciousness? How does it arise? Why does it exist? It is a short book that serves as a great intro to the topic (key word here is intro.)

Memorable Parts

  • Definition: "An organism is conscious if there is something that it is like to be that organism."

  • "So what role does consciousness play if it is not creating the will to move but merely watching the movement play out..?"

  • "Binding processes present us with the illusion that physical occurrences are perfectly synchronized with  our conscious experience of them in the present moment."

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DO YOU MIND IF I CANCEL? THINGS THAT STILL ANNOY ME

Gary Janetti

Skip

Summary​

  • Gary has a super funny instagram account and that was the main reason I bought this book. I was really looking forward to it but it was kind of disappointing. My mistake was thinking this would be a comedy book (first few chapters are) but it is an autobiography. Nothing wrong with that. Just a case of expectation vs. reality.

Memorable Parts

  • "I would be beloved in the village...bonding over our shared passion helping those in need. Josh would be blond."

  • "What was new, Buenos Aires? I was desperate to find out."

  • "I see him several times throughout the ship. But I don't say anything to him. I don't even look at him."

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DOLLARS AND SENSE: HOW WE MISTHINK MONEY AND HOW TO SPEND SMARTER.

Dan Ariely

Skip

Summary​

  • Skip it. Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational) is scrapping the bottom of the barrel for examples on behavioral economics. This time he partnered with comedian Jeff Kreisler to write this book. I probably found only 1 or 2 examples interesting in the entire book. 

Memorable Parts

  • "George worries about spending for coffee but not gambling. He puts coffee in a different mental account."

  • "In the land of $2,500 shoes, the $500 (discounted one) is King."

  • "The Economist nearly tripled its subscriptions by offering $125 print and web next to a $125 print only."

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COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SUCCEED.

Jared Diamond

Average

Summary​

  • The author provide a solid framework on factors that contribute to the collapse of societies. There is a section on Montana that I thought was unnecessary but other than that the book contains rich detail on famous societies: Maya, Rapa Nui and Greenland. Also contains a great chapter on Haiti vs. Dominican Republic. 

Memorable Parts

  • "China is the world's most forest-poor countries."

  • "Not a single man in his early 20s lived independently of his parents [Rwanda]."

  • [Malthusian]: "Human population growth will outpace food production."

  • "About half of Norway's population died during the Black Death."

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ATLAS: FROM THE STREETS TO THE RING

Teddy Atlas

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • Teddy is a very colorful and entertaining commentator. He is best known as being a prodigee for Cus D´Amato. After reading this book one thing is clear: Teddy talks the talk but walks the walk. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The act of fighting, of facing what you have to face, in reality lasts a few minutes. Otherwise, you have to deal with the consequences forever."

  • [Prison]: "some people travel through here and it changes their lives. Some, it ruins their lives."

  • "Cus got a call...someone said he had a twelve-year-old kid under his charge that he wanted us to look at. The kid´s name was Mike Tyson."

  • "The champions understand that and are truthful with themselves, even when it´s uncomfortable."

  • "I never really had a family. I can be sensitive and compassionate if someone needs help. At the same time, if someone is disloyal, I´ll go to a place of wanting to hurt them."

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THE MERITOCRACY TRAP

Daniel Markovits

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • Aristocracy - wealth inherited via land and capital (shares). Now the elite reach their status via elite education and their labor (work harder than ever before and harder than the rest). This results in a cycle of high incomes $ that fund access to elite education and so on and so forth. The gap in education spending is as drastic as income inequality. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Altruism also directs the rich towards politics; once a person  has bought everything that he wants for himself, it is only natural for him to turn his attentions to others."

  • "A poor child in a poor district might receive $8,000 worth of schooling per year...elite private school might receive $75,000."

  • "Contrary to ordinary goods, when elites buy extravagant education they directly diminish the education of everyone else."

  • "50% of top corporate leaders, 60% of financial leaders and 50% of the highest government officials came from 12 universities."

  • "The single rowers show no exhaustion. The eight-oared rowers disguises the individual contribution. Employers use long hours as a proxy for work."

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GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE

Angel Duckworth

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • As Rocky Balboa said: "it´s about getting hit and keep moving forward." Our potential is one thing but what we do with it is another. 

Memorable Parts

  • "One biographer describes Darwin as someone who kept thinking about the same questions long after others would move on to different - and no doubt - easier problems."

  • "EFFORT COUNTS TWICE. Talent x Effort = Skill. Skill x Effort = Achievement."

  • "Grit = Passion + Perseverance. Passion is not emotional, it is consistency over time. Enthusiasm is common, endurance is rare."

  • "Master of the Mundane." We don´t want to admit that mastery takes years. "We prefer mystery to mundanity."

  • "Interest (passion begins with enjoyment), then Practice (wanting to get better every day), Purpose (this matters) and Hope (rising to the occasion kind of perseverance)."

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HOME GAME: AN ACCIDENTAL GUIDE TO FATHERHOOD

Michael Lewis

Skip

Summary​

  • I read this book before my child was born. Lewis converted his diary entries for each of his 3 children into the book. I get the feeling he did this book more of himself that for the reader (which is fine, but was a bit boring).

Memorable Parts

  • "I get her to school and enjoy a brief feeling of satisfaction: I am coping manfully with a great  mess. I´m preventing my wife from future suffering, I am the good soldier who has leapt on the hand grenade, so others may live.This cheering thought lasts until I get home and find my wife in tears. Often I try to hide, but usually she spots me, and when she does, she will usually say something poignant. "I feel like I am going through this alone."

  • "[Children swimming lessons in Paris] In a pool not bigger than a Jacuzzi frolicked a dozen Frenchmen - two with bright red rashes on their backs and several children with snot running down their faces."

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ADAPTIVE MARKETS: FINANCIAL EVOLUTION AT THE SPEED OF THOUGHT

Andrew W. Lo

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • The Efficient Market Hypothesis is incomplete. There is no such thing as this Homo Economicus that is perfectly rational and markets that truly hold all information. Finance and technology has evolved so rapidly that this theory needs to be revisited. Lo proposes the Adaptive Market Hypothesis. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Stock market are a recent human invention. Homo Sapiens hasn't had time to adjust to the new realities of modern life and that poses challenges and opportunities."

  • "It's no exaggeration to say this letter changed the course of financial history [Savage's letter to Paul A. Samuelson]."

  • "Ellsberg Paradox - two games can have equal odds but if one feels uncertain, fear kicks in and you become irrational."

  • "Risk averse investors process the risk of monetary loss with the same circuit that processes disgust, while risk seeking investors process winnings with the same reward circuits used by drugs like cocaine."

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Sam Harris

Summary​

  • Harris says his life changed after taking an ethics class at Stanford. Your life will be easier. The book includes a short essay, a Q&A with his prof and with readers.

Memorable Parts

  • "Honest people are a refuge: You know they mean what they say; your know they will not say one thing to your face and another behind your back."

  • "...but to truly have integrity, we must not feel the need to lie about our personal lives."

  • "New drugs are often compared with placebos rather than with standard therapies. More egregious still, pharmaceutical companies routinely throw out negative results."

  • "To lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication."

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LYING

Average

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AMERICAN MOONSHOT: JOHN F. KENNEDY AND THE GREAT SPACE RACE

Douglas Brinkley

Highly Recommended

Summary​

  • "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." - JFK

Memorable Parts

  • "Although the connection wasn´t fully understood at the time, Hitler´s commitment to the V-2 advanced the pursuit of a moonshot by perhaps decades."

  • "A skeptic asked Benjamin Franklin what possible use the balloon was to mankind. Franklin answered, "What good is a baby?"

  • "The Mercury Seven, on had to witness the first test of the Atlas rocket, watched as it exploded, prompting Shepard to remark, "Well, I´m glad they got that out of the way."

  • "If we cooperate, it will mean opening up our rocket program to them. We have nothing to hid. We have nothing. And we must hide it." - Krushchev

  • "The convergence of NASA and TV coincided almost precisely. The American people could watch in real time their tax dollars at work."

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FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Skip (?)

Summary​

  • So why the (?) on the  Skip Review? I was enthusiastically looking forward to reading this book but I found very little insights. I think two things  happened: (1) my expectations were too high and (2) this book has been very influential to many people. Ironically, I previously read more books referencing this book that found this original material repetitive. 

Memorable Parts

  • "We grow up believing that what counts the most in our lives is that which will occur in the future."

  • "The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the event of each moment."

  • "Over a lifetime of 70 years and 16 waking hours, the amount of information we will absorb is 185 billion bits." [the mind can only process 126 bits per second].

  • "When a person becomes so dependent on the ability to control an enjoyable activity that he cannot pay attention to anything else [gambling], then he loses the ultimate control: the freedom to determine the content of consciousness."

  • "Unless a person knows how to give order to his thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment. Entropy is the normal state of consciousness - a condition neither useful nor enjoyable."

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THINKING FAST AND SLOW

Daniel Kahneman

Summary​

  • I´ve had this book sitting in my book shelf for many years and was glad I finally got a chance to read it. Brilliant and interesting book by Nobel Prize winner. I really enjoyed his references to his relationship with Amos Tversky. The book tends to get a bit repetitive with so many "which do you prefer, a 10% chance of winning X or ..."  I wonder how many people responded truly after analyzing the questions vs. just saying the first option that came to mind. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Even if the end results are the same, people tend expect a stronger reaction to an outcome based on action than one from inaction."

  • "In a hypothetical example, more psychiatrists refused discharging a patient when probabilities were expressed by frequency (i.e.e 10 in 100) than percentages (10)%."

  • "The answers from the well being survey changed for the group who "found" the dime in the copier."

  • "Early twentieth century physician who often had intuitions about patients who were going to develop typhoid. Unfortunately, he tested by palpitating the patient´s tongue."

  • "System 1 does not keep track of the alternatives it rejects; it requires maintaining incompatible interpretations in the mind at the same time. Uncertainty and doubt are the domain of System 2."

  • "Activities that impose high demands on System 2 require self-control, and the exertion of self-control is depleting."

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Highly Recommended

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HEART OF DARKNESS

Joseph Conrad

Summary​

  • I had this book in my radar because I had read that Apocalypse Now was based on it. This book was releases in 1902. It's a fictional story of a boat crew traveling down the Congo River in search for a man named Kurtz. P.S. I recommend buying this particular edition because the last section provides greater context on some particular events and references. 

Memorable Parts

  • "It is often said that Nazism and Communism were the two great totalitarian systems of the 20th century. But we often ignore a third: European colonialism."

  • "King Leopold of Belgium successfully lobbied the US and all other nations into recognizing the Congo - seventy times the size of Belgium - as belonging to him personally."

  • "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means taking away from those with different complexion..."

  • "They had said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly."

  • "The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future."

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Recommended

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SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS

Carlo Rovelli

Summary​

  • Perhaps too brief. It is difficult to appreciate the concept of spacetime without getting a thought experiment to illustrate the point. The author does a good job of linking the lessons together but I would recommend reading "Reality is not what it seems" instead of this book. Too little detail to either appreciate it (beginners on the topic) or learn something new.

Memorable Parts

  • "In  1905 he sent three articles to the most prestigious scientific journal. Each of these worthy of a Nobel Prize."

  • "Heisenberg imagined that electrons do not always exist. They only exist if someone or something is watches them, or better, when they are interacting with something else."

  • "Each dot [in the Hubble Telescope´s photograph] represents a galaxy containing a hundred billion suns similar to ours."

  • "The difference between past and future only exists when there is  heat. The fundamental phenomenon that distinguishes the future from the past is the fact that heat passes from things that are hotter to things that are colder."

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Skip

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WILLPOWER: REDISCOVERING THE GREATEST HUMAN STRENGTH

Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney

Summary​

  • Very enjoyable book with the right balance of: discussion of scientific experiments, anecdotes and practical advice. You won´t find many new ideas that aren´t already in similar book (like "Atomic Habits") but you will still find it enjoyable. (Sidenote: There was a whole chapter on Heart of Darkness).

Memorable Parts

  • "When psychologists isolate the personal qualities that predict "positive outcomes" in life, they consistently find two traits: intelligence and self-control."

  • "He saw why marriages were going bad just when stress at work was at its worst: People are using up all their willpower on their job."

  • "[On ego-depletion] So if you´d like some advance warning of trouble, look not for a single symptom but rather for a change in the overall intensity of your feelings."

  • "[On Eric Clapton´s alcoholism] He was sustained by one thought: if he killed himself, he would no longer be able to drink."

  • "[On children] Consistency is key. When parents are inconsistent, when they let an infraction slide, they overcompensate the next time."

  • "The body might send pain signals when you exercise, but it doesn´t treat jogging like an existential threat. Dieting is different."

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Recommended

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THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES

Ray Kurzweil

Summary​

  • The first book I read about AI. It provides a detailed overview of the 3 different paths & processes that might be used to develop AI: recursive, neural networks and evolutionary algorithms.

Memorable Parts

  • "Simply having more information does  not necessarily result in a better fit. A superior solution for  a purpose may very well involve less data."

  • "Recursion is a  powerful method of defining a solution in terms of itself. Bertrand Russell and others have used this form of logic."

  • "The initial solution of neural nets will obviously not make sense since the whole system is set up in random fashion."

  • "First, set a million rules for making investment decisions for buying and selling stock. Create "organisms" with a set of rules and see which survive. Then make the survivors compete among themselves until you have a winner. Embed in each evolution "random mutations."

  • "Quantum entanglement: Photons were seven miles apart and they each encountered a plate glass which they could bounce off or pass through. All pairs made the same decision."

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Highly Recommended

A GUIDE TO THE GOOD LIFE

William B. Irvine

Summary​

  • It is important to have a 'philosophy of life.' A sort of framework that will contain your purpose, values and rules of how to make decisions. The ultimate goal in life is joy. Stoicism provides tools to create your philosophy of life and achieve this. 

  • Two things cause suffering: Our insatiability and tendency to worry about things beyond our control. Tools of negative visualization and categorization helps this.

  • Your other self: "It is an evolutionary self that is on autopilot and seeks pleasure and comfort. Lacks discipline and looks for least resistance. He is a coward. He is not your friend. He is the enemy that lives within. Beat him.

Memorable Parts

  • We differ from other animals in one important respect: we have the ability to reason. For this reason we can assert that we were designed to reason." - Zeno

  • "The are of living is more like wrestling than dancing. After a tragedy we should take comfort that, because of our character, we did not become bitter." - Marcus Aurelius

  • Negative visualization: Reflect periodically on the ending of things or a worse scenario.

  • "It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united." - Epictetus

  • Categorizing Situations:

    1. Complete Control​: Concern with these

    2. No Control: Useless to worry about

    3. Some Control: Create internal goals only

  • "Anger. No plague has cost the human race more." - Seneca

  • "Our anger invariably lasts longer than the damage done to us."

  • "We should not live to eat. Rather eat to live." - Socrates

  • "We are social creatures. We will be miserable if we try to cut off contact with other people."

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Highly Recommended

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EGO IS THE ENEMY

Ryan Holiday

Summary​

  • Whether on your way up, your way down or staying stuck: your ego is your enemy. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Comfort keeps ego around. Pursuing great work is often terrifying. Ego soothes that fear. It´s a salve to insecurity."

  • "Each fighter, to become great, needs to have someone better that  they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against."

  • "Man is pushed by drives. But he is pulled by values" - Viktor Frankl

  • "Play for the name on the front of the jersey and they´ll remember the name on the back."

  • "The narcissist lives in an unwalled city." - Epicurus

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Average

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THE STOIC CHALLENGE

William B. Irvine

Summary​

  • The Stoic Test is a way to frame challenges and setbacks. The "Stoic Gods" are putting a challenge in your way in order for your to build character and put your Stoicism to use.

Memorable Parts

  • "A philosophy of life  tells you what in life is worth having and provides you with a strategy for obtaining it."

  • "The Stoic goals is not to remain calm while suffering a setback but rather to experience a setback without thereby suffering."

  • [On Hell] "Satan probably realizes that a hell in which setbacks are possible is more hellish than one in which they aren´t."

  • "Do what you can, with what you´ve got, where you are." - Teddy Roosevelt

  • "Excellence withers without an adversary." - Seneca

  • "If we are set back then we have five seconds to declare the event a Stoic test."

  • [On your lazy self] "Ask yourself whether you really want this lowly creature, who has never accomplished anything worthy of note, running your life."

  • "Last Time Meditation - you acknowledge that  because you are mortal there will be a last time for everything you do."

  • [On life] "Your goal should be to make sure no matter when your 'publisher' decides to ask for your life´s novel that it is complete."

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Recommended

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THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO STOICISM

Matthew J. Van Natta

Summary​

  • So far I found this book the most practical one regarding Stoicism and contained more tools and ideas than other books I have read. It contains a few questions for reflection that I found interesting.

Memorable Parts

  • "This is a misfortune but to bear it worthily is good fortune." - Marcus

  • www.modernstoicism.com

  • "Your mentality when performing tasks should be to always protect your harmony."

  • Disciplines:

    • Desire: only what is in your control. Transfer your affections from things in life to your virtue, how you walk through life. Transfers your affections from things to virtues, how you walk through life.

    • Action: aim to seek healthy, positive relationships without seeking reciprocity. Stop seeking a particular end goal and focus on the best next step.

    • Assent: learn to separate your initial reactions to the world from your final judgements about it. Refuse to walk paths that lead to negative emotions. Overcome misinterpretations and approach life with clarity.

  • Virtues:

    • Wisdom: what ought or ought not to be done

    • Courage: what ought or ought not to be tolerated

    • Justice: what ought or ought not to be distributed

    • Moderation: what ought or ought not to be chosen

  • "If you only desire to be your best (to live with virtue) and if you only avoid moral mistakes (vices), then you will always succeed because these are under your control."

  • "If you don't know to which port your sailing, then no wind is favorable." - Seneca

  • Indifferents: everything that isn't a moral opinion, thought or action.

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Highly Recommended

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HOW TO THINK LIKE A ROMAN EMPEROR: THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY OF MARCUS AURELIUS

Donald Robertson

Summary​

  • I almost did not buy this book because of that picture of Marcus Aurelius wearing headphones. It gave me a first impression of a book that would not go deep into Stoicism but be more accesible. I was wrong. This is one of the best books on Stoicism I have read.

    • "A profound sense of joy and peace of mind from living with wisdom and virtue."

    • "A healthy aversion to vice."

    • "A desire to help ourselves and others."

Memorable Parts

  • "It is not events that upset us but our judgements about events."

  • "In order to feel social anxiety, you have to believe that other people's negative opinions of you are worth getting upset about, that it's really bad if they dislike you and really important to win their approval."

  • [Socrates meeting Xenophon] "Do you know where someone should go if he wants to buy goods? Where, then, should one go in order to learn how to become a better person?"

  • [Decatastrophizing] "When you are stressed, don't exaggerate using vivid emotional word. Think instead objectively and switch from What if? to So What?"

  • [Cognitive Distance] "You are just feeling and not really the thing you claim to represent." - Epictetus Handbook

  • "Each of us is born with two sacks suspended from our necks: one is filled with the faults of others that hangs with our view and one hidden behind our back filled with our own faults." - Aesop

  • [Morning Meditation] "What would the consequences be if I acted as a slave to my passions? How would my day differ if I acted more rationally, exhibiting wisdom and self-discipline? Think of your small space in the cosmos. How will you plan to cope with today's challenges?"

  • [During the Day] "Look for early warnings of habits and desires you want to overcome, catch them early. Gain cognitive distance from your thoughts and refrain from acting on those feelings."

  • [Evening Meditation] "How did you fare in accordance to your values? What will you do differently tomorrow? Try answering this question to an imaginary mentor."

  • [Value Clarification] "What is the most important thing in life? What do you want your life to stand for? What do you want to be remembered after death? What sort of person do you want to be"

  • "But wasn't Hercules's life unpleasant? His life hd something far more satisfying than pleasure: it had purpose."

  • "Nobody before dying has ever said the words: I wish I had watched more television or social media."

  • [On Pain] "Separate your mind from the sensation by cognitive distancing. Describe bodily sensations not as 'I have a horrible headache' but as 'I feel pressure in my forehead' Remind yourself that Nature gave you the capacity to tolerate it."

  • [Stoic Acceptance] "If you grab a snake by the head it won't hurt you."

  • [Emotional Habituation] "Anxiety and other feelings wear off through exposure to the feared scenarios."

  • [The Inner Citadel] "Resilience comes from the ability to regain composure wherever you find yourself at. Physical escape is not something we should demand in life or need as a coping tool - that dependence  just creates its own problems."

  • [ Modeling virtue] "What would a wise person like Socrates or Zeno do in this situation?"

  • [Functional Analysis] "Picture the consequence of following your anger versus following reason and exercising moderation."

​​

Highly Recommended

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THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY

Ryan Holiday

Summary​

  • Good quotes  and stories  but I found it a bit repetitive. Each chapter could be cut at least by half. Enjoyable book overall that mainly focuses on setbacks and challenges. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The Things which hurt, instruct." - Benjamin Franklin

  • "Oh, how blessed young men are who have to struggle for a foundation and beginning in life." - Marcu Aurelius

  • "Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself" - Publilius Syrus

  • "When you worry as yourself, 'What am I choosing not to see right now? What important things are you missing because you chose worry over introspection, alertness or wisdom?" - Gavin de Becker

  • "Real strength lies in the domestication of one´s emotions, not in pretending they don´t exist." - Nassim Taleb

  • "A deer´s breain tells it to run because things are bad. It runs. Sometimes, right into traffic." - Ryan Holiday

​​

Average

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NORMANDY '44: D-DAY AND THE EPIC 77-DAY BATTLE OF FRANCE

James Holland

Summary​

  • Wow. The level of detail in this book is outstanding. The book to end all books regarding D-Day and the Battle for France. The author provides rich detail about battle plans, action and characters. I liked that he focused almost 50/50 between Allies and Germans. The maps and Appendix section are worth reading carefully and enjoying them. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The German Army of the early days had achieved success largely because it had created a way of operating in which both speed of manoeuvre and striking with immense concentrated, coordinated force were key components. That had all gone as the forces found themselves horrendously stretched and with almost all major decisions nor requiring consultation with the Fuhrer. The OKW was merely a mouthpiece."

  • "Only 10% of Germans had front-line experience. By contrast, barely a single Allied had less than two year's training."

  • "Around Monty were a few photographs and a large colour picture of Rommel."

  • "Germany and Japan had vast armies because they had neither the global reach nor industrial muscle to fight any other way."

  • "Service du travail obligatoire - 18-25 French men were compelled to work in Germany for two years, working like slaves."

  • "50% landed within 1-2 miles of target and 75% within 5 miles."

  • "German tank armies in Normandy were unable to abide by the simple tenet that tanks needed maintenance."

​​

Highly Recommended

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THE FIGHT

Norman Mailer

Summary​

  • October 30, 1974. Undefeated heavyweight champion George Foreman fights ex-champion Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa Zaire. Pulitzer price winning author Norman Mailer was sent to cover the fight.

Memorable Parts

  • "It is a rare state of body and mind that allows a Heavyweight to move at top speed for fifteen rounds. That cannot be achieved by an act of will. Ali had been trying. For months he had trained."

  • "Champions were great liars. They had to be. Once you knew what they thought, you could hit them."

  • "He [Foreman] did not just hit hard, he hit in such a way that the nucleus of his opponent´s will was reached. Fission began. Consciousness exploded. The head smote the spine with a lightning bolt and the legs came apart like falling walls."

  • "Let us know bullshit each other. You can leave here and have me killed in half and hour. I can pick up the phone as you leave and have you offed in five minutes." - Don King

​​

Recommended

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THE ART OF STATISTICS: HOW TO LEARN FROM DATA

David Spiegelhalter

Summary​

  • If you have taken a college-level statistics course then 80% of this book will be repetitive. The other 20% is filled with interesting examples of studies and research; most of them repeat throughout the book which makes it tedious. 

Memorable Parts

  • "I was one of a number of statisticians called to give evidence at the public inquiry, which concluded that he had definitively murdered 215 of his patients, and possible 45 more. The question was: could statistics have helped in stopping him sooner?"

  • "After thousands of RTCs (randomized control trial)  it can still come as a surprise to the public that medical decisions about what treatment an individual is recommended is decided by the flip of a coin."

  • "When it comes to the Titanic challenge the naive algorithm of just giving 39% probability to everyone makes no sense."

  • "It is easy to confuse the probability of a positive test, given cancer, with the probability of cancer, given a positive test."

  • "The margin of error (in %) is at most plus or minus 100 divided by the square root of the sample size."

​​

Skip

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INTO THE MAGIC SHOP: A NEUROSURGEON´S QUEST TO DISCOVER THE MYSTERIES OF THE BRAIN AND THE SECRETS OF THE HEART

James R. Doty

Summary​

  • A beautiful and remarkable story. James Doty is the director of Stanford´s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. He had a rough childhood growing up poor, with an alcoholic father and severely depressed mother. Found the secret to mediation and good life in a magic shop, of all places. 

Memorable Parts

  • "When I would come home, I could tell immediately what mood my mother was in as soon as I walked in the door. She didn´t have to say a word. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach."

  • "There are a lot of things in life we can´t control. It´s hard as a child, to feel like you have control over anything. But you can control your body and you can control your mind. It can change everything."

  • "Living in a state of prolonged stress has all sorts of psychological and physiological repercussions - anger, depression, anxiety, headaches, insomnia and suppressed immune system."

  • "She helped me stop reliving the guilt and shame of past events playing on the radio station of my mind."

  • "I knew they loved me as best they could. And that was far different from how I had hoped for so long that they would love me. Yet at that moment, if felt like enough."

  • "Without wisdom and insight (opening the heart) the techniques can result in self-absorption, narcissism and isolation." 

  • "Compassion, Dignity, Equanimity, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Humility, Integrity, Justice, Kindness and Love."

​​

Highly Recommended

WHY BUDDHISM IS TRUE

Robert Wright

Summary​

  • Sarcastic and grinch-like writer discovers the power of meditation and secular buddhism. Great intro book to the non secular aspects of Buddhism. We evolved to spread our genes, not necessarily to be happy.

Memorable Parts

  • "Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them." - Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

  • "Zen is for poets, Tibetan is for artists and Buddhism for psychologists."

  • "Distraction involve thoughts about past and future, involve you and other people."

  • "- the thing you think of as 'your' is thinking thoughts - it's closer to being the case that the thoughts try to capture the thing you think of as you."

  • "Thoughts that intrude almost always have feelings attached to them."

  • "To see less essence-of-jerk in a person is, in a very small measure, emptiness. And to see your anxiety or fear as not being a part of you is to experience a bit of not-self."

​​

Highly Recommended

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IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD: A MONK'S JOURNEY THROUGH THE BARDOS OF LIVING AND DYING

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Summary​

  • Tibetan monk (from prominent Buddhist family) decides to leave one night and roam India for 3 years as a wondering retreat. Most of the books centers on the initial parts of his journey and his near death experience. Good intro to Buddhism but personally di not connect with death and after-death section. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The Tibetan word for meditation (gom) means 'to become familiar' with how the mind works."

  • "The inherit nature of everything is change. It´s our preoccupation with a problem that nails it in place."

  • "Glimpses of pristine awareness are rare. That is why we say short moments, many times."

  • "When we dream we say that is not the real me. When we feel fear and confusion we insist that is the real me."

  • "Having material comfort (urban vs. rural) makes people grasp excessively, as they are most afraid to lose possessions. I now noticed how people in the train were laughing, smiling and holding on to their children."

  • "When you feel yourself moving towards an image, idea, a past event or a future plan, that is what you have to watch out for, not the thoughts themselves. When you get lost in thought, then bring the mind back with the breath."

​​

Average

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HOW THE MIND WORKS

Steve Pinker

Summary​

  • Pulitzer Prize nominee. This book is very challenging but definitively worthwhile. I wish I could turn back time and this be the first book I read about the brain. Must read. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The faculty with which we ponder the world has no ability to peer inside itself. That makes us victims to the illusion of an illusion that our own psychology comes from some divine force."

  • "The eye has so many parts, arranged so precisely, that it appears to have been designed in advanced with the goal of putting together something that sees." 

  • "But the rules of common sense are frustratingly hard to set down: If there´s a bag in your car, and a gallon of milk in the bag then there is a gallon of milk in your car. But if there ´s a person in the car it would be weird to say there is a gallon of blood in your car."

  • "Identical twins that were separated at birth share traits like entering the water backwards and only up to the knees, becoming captain of the volunteer fire department and leaving little notes in the house for their wives."

  • "For 99% of human existence we lived as foragers in small nomadic bands. We are not wired to cope with anonymous crowds, schooling, government, etc."

  • "Inverse optics (what the eye does) is what engineers call an impossible solution. Just as easy as it is to to multiply some numbers to get a product it is impossible to take a product and announce the numbers used to multiply to get it."

  • "The beneficiary of the function has to be the replicator. Otherwise horses would had evolved saddles."

​​

Highly Recommended

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THE LITTLE BOOK OF BEING

Diana Winston

Summary​

  • Classical mindfulness practices is also called focused awareness (breathe, sensations , etc.). This book introduces natural awareness (awareness of awareness itself). Enjoyable book with good tips, quotes and insights. My only feedback is that the author tends to be a bit pessimistic but I guess with the intention of communicating to the reader that you don´t need to aim on getting an A+

Memorable Parts

  • "Set intentions and motivations before meditating."

  • "Bank of the River analogy - leaves, sticks and stones floating on the river are like thoughts and memories in our minds."​

  • "What is here now if there is no problem to solve? What would be here if nothing were wrong?"

  • "Label thoughts as they arise: remembering, worrying, fantasizing, judging, etc..."

  • "Who is aware? At first you might identify a sense of a person looking out at things or noticing your experience, but then what is aware of that looker?"

  • "RAIN: recognize, allow, investigate and not identify."

  • "Monkeys are trapped in coconut cages because they can´t let go of the banana."

  • "Clouds in the Sky analogy."

  • "SHORT GLIMPES, MANY TIMES."

​​

Recommended

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THE SPY AND THE TRAITOR: THE GREATEST ESPIONAGE STORY OF THE COLD WAR

Ben Macintyre

Summary​

  • Oleg Gordievsky was the highest ranking KGB member ever to spy and defect to a Western country. His intel was so valuable that it reached Thatcher directly and was used for many of her interactions (and responses) to the USSR and Gorbachev. There is still a bounty out for his capture and death.

Memorable Parts

  • "The KGB ran two distinct spies in foreign countries. The first worked under formal cover. By contrast, an "illegal" spy had no official status and travelled under fake names."

  • "Pavel Sudoplatov, one of Stalin´s spymasters, had this advice for officers trying to recruit spies: look for those who are hurt by fate or nature - the ugly, those suffering from an inferiority complex, craving power and influence."

  • "Lenin is credited with coining the term 'useful idiot' - meaning one who can be used to spread propaganda without being aware of it."

  • "Thatcher was 'The Iron Lady' - a nickname intended as an insult by Soviet army news."

  • "'When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, but in battallions.' - Hamlet."
     

Highly Recommended

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THE WAY OF EFFORTLESS MINDFULNESS: A REVOLUTIONARY GUIDE FOR LIVING AN AWAKENED LIFE

Loch Kelly

Summary​

  • Comprehensive guide of effortless mindfulness - Suta Mahamudra (as opposed to deliberate mindfulness - Theravada o Zen were you focus on a specific object like the breath). Probably Loch Kelly is one of the best teachers I have heard in podcasts but I this average because it contains phrases like "be aware of aware awareness that is aware of itself."

Memorable Parts

  • "Thought-based knowing is what I call our small mind."

  • "If you think, "I will never get this" in some ways you are correct because the 'I' that is trying to 'get it' can't."

  • "Feel the awareness that is not tired."

  • "I notice how identification with a thought collapsed my thinking into a narrow perception."

  • "Lenses of Consciousness: Mind (how we know), Self (our sense of identity) and Awareness (how we perceive)."

  • "Feel the magnetic pull forward to the future, the pull back to the past and the pull to try to hold on to the present."

  • Don´t recall (past), anticipate (future), think (present), examine (analyze) or control. Rest (now)."

​​

Average

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LIVES OF THE STOICS: THE ART OF LIVING FROM ZENO TO MARCUS AURELIUS

Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Summary​

  • Each chapter focuses on a famous stoics. Starting from Zeno (334 BC) and ending with Marcus Aurelius (180 AD). I definitively think this book was missing in Stoicism in order to have a clear picture of the chronology of the philosophy and how it evolved.

Memorable Parts

  • "The Choice of Heracles: one life of virtuous hard work, the other of laziness."

  • "When things to be persisted: wisdom; things endured: fortitude; when about worthiness: justice; and when about choosing or refusing: temperance."

  • [On Cicero] "He invited enmity with a greater spirit than he fought it."

  • "Most strong-willed leaders have a temper. It´s the truly great ones who manage to conquer it with the same courage with which they deal with all of life´s obstacles."

  • [On few statues of Cato] "His great-grandfather had once said that it was better to have people ask why there wasn´t a statue in your honor."

  • "Suffer and endure toward virtue." - Musonius Rufus

  • "If a person gave away your body to someone you would be furious yet we easily hand our mind over to other people." - Epictetus

  • "The worst faults: lack of endurance (endure wrongs) and lack of self-restraint (restrain ourselves)."

​​

Average

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THE CRAVING MIND: FROM CIGARETTES TO SMARTPHONES TO LOVE - WHY WE GET HOOKED & HOW WE CAN BREAK BAD HABITS.

Judson Brewer

Summary​

  • Another book about habits (with same framework of cue - behavior - reward) but this book brought Mindfulness into the equation. Would recommend to those into mindfulness meditation (and smokers!)

Memorable Parts

  • "All of this comes with a sense of self and a sense of that 'self' having a mind! And much of this suffering, this out-of-jointness, comes from feeling as if something is still missing."

  • "When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal."

  • "The part of the brain best able to regulate behavior, the prefrontal cortex, is the first to go offline when we get stressed."

  • "The feedback (social media) reassures us that we are connected, being paid attention to."

  • "The couldn't predict when mom or dad would come home looking to hug or hit them. Someone with BDP may not have developed a stable sense of self because there were no rules of engagement. The brains were constantly in simulation overdrive, trying to figure out how to consistently feel loved or at least alive."

  • "A human mind is a wandering mind and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."

  • "Pleasant and unpleasant fantasies, when we are mindful, produce the same feelings."

​​

Recommended

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY: TIMELESS LESONS ON WEALTH, GREEND AND HAPPINESS

Morgan Housel

Summary​

  • Time (compounding) is your ally. The biggest mistakes people make are: comparing themselves to others, thinking that buying things will get them respect and admiration and finally failing to realize that making money and keeping your money require different skills. Growth is driven by compounding while destruction by a single point of failure."

Memorable Parts

  • "History never repeats itself; man always does."

  • "Happiness is just results minus expectations."

  • "Making money requires risks, being optimistic and putting yourself out there. Keeping money requires the opposite of risk. It requires humility and fear."

  • [Rockefeller] "He just sits back and lets everyone else talk."

  • "You might want that expensive car but you don´t. What you want is respect and admiration but you won´t get it - especially from the people you want it from."

  • "The Germans had the most sophisticated equipment in the world. Yet there they were, defeated by mice [expect the unexpected]."

  • "We might not have different styles. We´re just playing a different game [young lawyer needing to maintain an appearance will spend more than an entrepreneur]."

  • "Optimism sounds like a sales pitch. Pessimism sounds like someone is trying to help you."

  • "Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don´t see."

​​

Recommended

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BLINDBOY IN 15 SHORT STORIES

Blindboy Boatclub

Summary​

  • Funny and dark stories by Irish comedian / satirist. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The Cork accent was highly irritating to the brains of birds."

  • "I feel like I've just stood up to a bully. That's what anxiety is, it's a bully, it's the bully in your head that knows exactly how to hurt you the most."

  • "Sam Neill produces a wooden slingshot from his back pocket, just like Bart Simpson."

  • "De Valera stumbled forward and whispered the next phrase into Collin's tired face."

  • "How many million pricks have died from the Mayan's discovery of cocaine, cigarette and chocolates."

​​

Recommended

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RAPT: ATTENTION AND THE FOCUSED LIFE

Winifred Gallagher

Summary​

  • We are what we pay attention to. After a cancer diagnosis, the author set out to understand how to live a more fulfilling life.

Memorable Parts

  • "The idle mind is in fact the devil's workshop."

  • "When you focus you are spending limited cognitive currency that should be invested wisely."

  • "A child might briefly tune in on a returning [from work] mother but over 80% of the time, however, fathers were ignored."

  • "About 20% of people flow once or more each day, about 15%, never, and the rest only occasionally."

  • "Sunday noon - the unhappiest hour in America. It's such and unfocused and unproductive time because nothing was planned beforehand."

  • "Men grew visibly younger when placed in a 1959 setting for seven days."

  • "Anxious people have an uncontrollable fixation on fears."

​​

Average

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LEARNED OPTIMISM: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND AND YOUR LIFE

Martin P. Seligman

Summary​

  • Depression is troubling on the rise in America. The author suggests it's because of the rise of individualism and decrease in the common good. Learned optimism can happen if the trend is reserved and we acknowledge that our thoughts, regarding adversity, creates our feelings (adversity -> beliefs -> consequences). Optimists bounce back faster and use it as a tool to achieve their goals.

Memorable Parts

  • "Pessimists interpret setbacks as personal, permanent and pervasive."

  • "Test subjects had learned they were helpless to turn off the noise so they didn't even try."

  • "Emotions come directly from what we think. Think 'I am in danger' and you feel anxiety."

  • "Once the parents get impatient and stop answering the never-ending why questions, children get their answers in other ways."

  • "For pessimists a defeat in one battle is the loss of the war. Optimists bounce back faster."

  • "We must teach children to move forward despite setbacks and not feel helpless."

  • "George Bush beat Michael Dukakis by 8.2 percent."

​​

Recommended

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JUDAS

Jeff Loveness and Jakub Rebelka

Summary​

  • For a religion based on forgiveness, the Judas Iscariot is a paradoxical character. For the story of Jesus Christ to work "we need a villain." In a sense he could not escape this fate. 

Memorable Parts

  • Comic Book

​​

Recommended

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ON HAVING NO HEAD

D.E Harding

Summary​

  • I heard about this book in Sam Harris' app Waking Up. D.E. Harding provides an exercise you can use to complement your meditation practice. I recommend it for those struggling with the instruction of "on having no head."

Memorable Parts

  • "And what I found was khaki trouserlegs terminating downwards in a pair of brown shoes."

  • 'It is only at this terminus, this moment and place of all arrivals at the Grand Central Station of my Here-Now."

  • "Instead of being present and together with the stars - and all things under the stars - we have shrunk away and withdrawn from them."

  • "In appearance I'm thing moving about in Space. In reality I'm that unmoving Space Itself."

​​

Skip

THE MAN WHO SOLVED THE MARKET: HOW JIM SIMONS LAUNCHED THE QUANT REVOLUTION

Gregory Zuckerman

Summary​

  • Renaissance´s Medallion fund has generated average annual gains, before fees, of about 66% since 1998. This book is the story of how that was achieved and a remarkable work given how secretive RenTec and its employee are.

Memorable Parts

  • "What´s the difference between a PhD in mathematics and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four."

  • "It would make us stronger to rebuild Watts than it would to bomb Hanoi."

  • "What you´re really modeling is  human behavior. Human´s are most predictable in times of high stress - they act instinctively and panic."

  • "A one day data-entry error cause the fund to purchase five-times as many wheat future contracts as intended, pushing prices higher. The Wall Street Journal, the next day, attributed the price to fears of a poor harvest."

  • "Rather  that wait for agricultural figures, quants examine sales of farm equipment or satellite images of crops. Bills of landings for cargo containers give a sense of global shifts. Traders get cell phone data on which aisles or even shelves consumers are pausing in stores."

​​

Recommended

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