top of page

551-600

551 - 600
the vory.png

THE VORY: RUSSIA'S SUPER MAFIA

Mark Galeotti

Summary​

  • Will reading about narcos help you understand everything you need to know about Mexico? Obviously no but it does help you understand a little it's culture, politics and government. That is the reason why I wanted to read this book about the vory v zakone and Russia. 

Memorable Parts

  • "One can hardly be surprised when skirmishes against Ukranian forces are started for no reason beyond providing an excuse to burn off, say, 10,000 rounds of ammunitation while claiming to have used twice as much. Moscow replaces 20,000 that appear in the Donbas, the excess can neatly be dumped onto the black market for profit."

  • "The local Chechen security forces are known as Kadyrovsty, 'Kadyrovites', for the personal oath they swear to him."

  • "You don't mess with Chechens. If you challenge them, even if they know they will lose, they will fight, and they'll summon their brothers and their cousins and their uncles and keep fighting. Even if they are going to lose, they'll fight just to bring you down, too."

  • "The tattoos were the mark of a vor, the Russian word for 'thief', but a general term for a member of the Soviet underworld, the so-called 'thieves' world or vorovskoi mir, and life in the Gulag labour camp system."

  • "Legend has it that Tsar Nicholas I todl his son, 'I believe you and I are the only people in Russia who don't steal.'"

​

Recommended

lost at school.png

LOST AT SCHOOL: WHY OUR KIDS WITH BEHAVIORAL CHALLENGES ARE FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS AND HOW WE CAN HELP THEM?

Ross W. Greene

Summary​

  • What we usually forget is that most of the times than children misbehave (or not do what we tell them to do) is not because they want to be 'bad'. Rather, it is because they do not have the skills to do what we expect. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The premise of this book is that kids with behavioral challenges lack important thinking skills, an idea supported by research in the neurosciences over the past thirty years."

  • "And while this may be hard to believe, most challenging kids already want to behave the right way. they don't need us to continue giving them stickers, depriving them of recess, or suspending them from school; they're alread motivated. They need something else from us."

  • "The philosophy that serves as the foundation of this book is the title of this chapter: 'kids de well if they can.'"

  • "The 'kids do well if they can' philosophy carries the assumption that if a kid could do well he would do well. Doing well is always preferable to not doing well, but only if a kid has the skills to do well in the first place."

  • "We've witnessed a disturbing trend in recent years: the almost automatic inclination to use medication to treat kids who have difficulty regulation their emotions. Pills Don't Teach Skills."

​

Highly Recommended

high functiion.png

HIGH FUNCTIONING: OVERCOME YOUR HIDDEN DEPRESSION AND RECLAIM YOUR JOY

Dr. Judith Joseph

Summary​

  • I did not find this book interesting at all. The advice given is very basic and common sense. I felt that not only each chapter but paragraphs withing a chapter were not cohesive. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The pressure that he feels has caused him to pick angry fights with his wife and drink more than he knows he should. But he doesn't think he's depressed. He thinks he just needs to manage his anger better. He brings his wife flowers and gifts because he loves her and because he secretly doesn't thin he's worthy of her affection."

  • "But instead of acknowleding trauma, we run from it. We keep pushing ourselves toward the next accomplishment, the next win, the next promotion, the next big event."

  • "Someone with High-Functioning Depression reacts to these situations by thinking, 'I have to do better' or 'I can never his rock bottomg ever again.'"

  • "Not only was I overextended, but I signed by grade-school daughter up for so many activties (ballet, swimming, soccer) that she was overextended as well."

  • "They're surprised to learn from me that their anger could be a manifestation of their unidentified anxiety. The're in that dark room swinging at the air and hitting their direct reports and co-workers with angry comments because they're worried about Q4 earnings."

​

Skip

the war.png

THE WAR: HAGLER-HEARNS AND THREE ROUNDS FOR THE AGES

Don Stradley

Summary​

  • I do not want to ruin the book by talking about the fight (for those how have not seen it). Great book to get even more from a legendary fight. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Each year a classroom at Stony Brook University watches Hagler-Hearns on a large screen. The class: Journalism 336 Sports Reporting. The instructor, Wallace Mathews, uses the fight as an excercise in deadline writing. Three decades and a half later, the fight still leaves viewers awestruck."

  • "Hagler's reasons for turning professional were strictly financial. He already had children to support. 'I can't eat trophies.'"

  • "To fight Hagler was more like deatg by a thousand cuts. Nevertheless, we have rarely had such a hard-working, disciplined champion, or perhaps any who fought with such disdain for opponents. His surliness was accompanied by a kind of wizardy, swtiching smoothly from left-handed to right-handed and back..."

  • "I April of 1983 Hagler went to Plymout Probate Court in Massachusetts to have his name legally changed to 'Marvelous Marvin Hagler.'"

  • "It was a bit like an old Hollywood movie studie, with a leading man (Leonard), a suave, aristocratic type (Alexis Arguello), a brooding gunslinger (Hearns), some matinee idols (Mancini, Sean O'Grady) and plenty of eccentric types."

​​​

Recommended

Screenshot 2025-07-18 162439.png

LA LUCHA TEMPLA EL ESPÍRITU: IDEOLOGIA Y RESISTENCIA EN MONTERREY

Aldo Salazar

Summary​

  • Un libro que nos hace cuestionar y reflexionar sobre los mitos, valores e historias que nos contamos en Monterrey. Asumimos que las narraciones y valores se crean orgánicamente pero, siempre hay grupos e intenciones detrás de ellas. Algo asi como: la historia la escribe los que ganan. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Además de la masacre de 1903, a manos del gobierno del estado, en 1936 tuvo lugar otra matanza en la Plaza Zaragoza, y más delante hubo una tercera en 1976. La del 29 de julio de 1936 fue especial, ya que no fue la policia ni el ejército quien disparó, sino los guaruras de los empresarios."

  • "El municipio de Pesquería (antes Pesquería Chica), por ejemplo, se llama así no porque la pesca de mojarra haya sido buena en el rio, sino porque eera un punto de captura de los esclavos indígenas. Lo mismo la Villa de Garcia, antes Pesquería Grande."

  • "¿De qué otra forma se explica el total desconocimiento de la esclavitud africana en el territorio? Luis de Carvajal, fundador del Nuevo Reino de León, era un esclavista experimentado en la trata transatlántica cuando llegó a tierras novohispanas."

  • "La historia que estamos acostumbrados a escuchar comienza en 1596, cuando Diego de Montemayor redacta el acta de fundacio´n definitiva o, a veces, en 1577, cuando Luis de Carvajal funda el Nuevo Reino de León."

  • "Con datos del Registro Público de Derechos de Agua de la Conagua, el Frente Nuevo León denunció que quince fábricas consumen 43 veces más agua que toda la población de seis millones de personas. Únicamente Ternium consume más de catorce veces el agua de toda la ciudadanía."

​

Recomendad

SCHOOL OF LIFE.png

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE: AN EMOTIONAL EDUCATION

Alain de Botton

Summary​

  • A $10 find at my local bookstore. I will write exactly what appears in the back cover of the book: 'this is a book about everything you were never taight at school.' Divided in 5 parts: self, others, relationships, work and culture. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Much anxiety surrounds the question of how good the next generation will be at maths; very little arond their abilities at marriage or kindness. We devote inordinate hours to learning about tectonic plates and cloud formations, and relatively few fathoming shame and rage."

  • "Symptoms of our self-ignorance abound. We are irritable or sad, guilty or furious, without any reliable sense of the origins of our discord. We destroy a relationship that might have been workabel under a compulsion we cannot accoutn for."

  • "The always jokey and slightly manic way of being that we evolved so as to keep our depressed, listless mother engaged becomes our second nature."

  • "These works, which hung in private homes and in municipal buildings around the Dutch Republic, had an explicitly therapeutic purpose: they were delivering a moral to their viewers, who lived in a nation critically dependent on maritime trade, about the confidence in seafaring and life more broadly [Warships in a Heavy Storm]."

  • "A good internal voice is rather like (and just as important as) a genuinely decent judge; someone who can separate good from bad but who will always be merciful, fair, accurate in understanding what's going on and interested in helping us deal with our problems."

​​

Recomended

SOUL OF DISCI.png

THE SOUL OF DISCIPLINE: THE SIMPLICITY PARENTING APPROACH TO WARM., FIRM AND CALM GUIDANCE - FROM TODDLERS TO TEENS.

Kim John Payne, M.Ed.

Summary​

  • This is the second book I have read from the author (Simplicity Pareting was the first). The book provides a good framework on how we should change our pareting style as our kids get older.

Memorable Parts

  • "The Governor oversees the early years - helping a child feeel safe, control impulses, and learn to follow direction by showing him who is in charge."

  • "Just about every parenting expert expounds on how we must stay calm in the face of bad behavior. Good advice, but how? Because unless we have a foothold on the 'how', the cycle of self-blame will lead us right back to taking it personally."

  • "When we tell our kids, 'In our family we don't speak to each other like that; we just don't,' it helps settle them. First, we're orienting them. And second, we're creating a family-values pillar arond which they can orbit."

  • "At this tender age, children need to hear us think out loud ourselves while at the same time signaling to them that we will help them do what is needed and accepted in the family."

  • "Birth to 8: I will decide. 9 - 13: I will listed and decide. Ages 14 - 19: We will decide."

​​

Recomended

covering home.png

COVERING HOME: LESSONS ON THE ART OF FATHERING FROM THE GAME OF BASEBALL

Jack Petrash

Summary​

  • You'd be surprised how few books about fathering are out there that do not have a religious undertone. Regardless of your affinity to baseball, this book has great advice and analogies for all fathers. 

Memorable Parts

  • "If that is the reason you opened this book, take heart. You probably meet the most important requirement for being a good father: willingness to change."

  • "It is only a recent development that fathers are not active around the home. For the great expanse of human history, men worked at home. Our children long for us to do things in their presence."

  • "I gave him the look. I couldn't see my face, but I knew that it was the very same look my dad used to give me. It was mine now. Not because I wanted it, but just because so often what we see as children we become, like it or not."

  • "By standing firmly for what we believe, we give young people something to push against. The more we clarify our beliefs through conversation and discussion, the more our children can develop theirs by resisting ours."

  • "We must come to see that what we call misbehavior on the part of our children is often connected to our own shortcomings. When we encounter our child's most intractable behavior, there is a good chance it has come from us.

​​

Highly Recomended

AMERICAN.png

AMERICAN PREDATOR: THE HUNT FOR THE MOST METICULOUS SERIAL KILLER OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Maureen Callahan

Summary​

  • Spoiler alert ahead...The book starts pretty much with this apprehension. The rest of the book is about the police and prosecutors´ interviews with the killer. I thought that structured made the book lose all of its suspense.

Memorable Parts

  • "Psychopathic sadists such as Keyes have pushed their emotions down so deep only extreme acts evoke any feeling whatsoever. It's why their crimes, horrific even in the beginning, must escalate."

  • "There was no precedent for a serial killer with this MO: no victim type, no fixed location for hunting, caches burried all over the United States."

  • "'You don't have to buy real hair to get real hair,' Keyes said. He laughed."

  • "Keyes carried a backpack of supplies, some brought from home, some, like the portable camping stove and zip ties, newly purchased at Lowe's. He'd unearthed supplies earlier that afternoon from a cache he'd burried in Vermont two years before. He had more burried all over the country."

  • "Keep your voice low and steady, they told him. Don't be afraid of silence. Let it hang. Don't rush in to talk. Silence makes people uncomfortable, and yuou want this subject takling as much as possible."

​​

Skip

CHILDHOODS END.png

CHILDHOOD'S END

Arthur C. Clarke

Summary​

  • I remember as a child watching a Discovery marathon called 'Phenomathon' that was hosted by Arthur C. Clarke from Sri Lanka. What a great weekend! I wanted to read one of his novels and found this one bland. 

Memorable Parts

  • "'I didn't know what to do, and I could hear the wave coming closer. Then the voice said, 'Close your eyes, Jeffrey, and put your hand in front of your face.'"

  • "A society consists of human beings whose behavior as individuals is unpredictable. But if one takes enough of the basic units, then certain laws begin to appear - as was discovered long ago by life insurance companies."

  • "Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels?"

  • "He was going into a realm of nightmare creatures, preying upon each other in a darkness undisturbed since the world began."

  • "The Last Man! Jan found it very hard to think of himself as that."

​​

Skip

PATH TO.png

THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON: THE PATH TO POWER

Robert A. Caro

Summary​

  • My second large biography by Caro and he absolutely delivers. You wouldn't guess that a 750+ page biography about a US president would not be entertaining but you are mistaken. The more I read these types of books, the more I understand that 'success' is earned. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Knowing Lyndon Banes Johnson - understanding the character of the thirty-sixth President of the United States - is essential to understanding the history of the United States in the twentieth century."

  • "'Sam Johnson,' he would said, 'is too smart to work, and not smart enough to make a living without working.'"

  • "Cotton, as William Humphrey has written, 'is a man-killing crop.'" 

  • "To listen to him tak is to hear a man who is fully aware that that during his sixteenth year, he surrendered - for life - his own personality to a stronger personality. To listen to him takl is to hear a man who is fully aware that he has been used as a tool."

  • "'I'd sit on the fence and wish to God that somebody would ride by'. Terrible as were the toil and poverty, the loneliness was worse. Poverty, he was to say, only 'tries men's souls'; it is loneliness that 'breaks the heart. Loneliness consumes people.'"

  • "Years later, when someone mentioned that Rayburn's father had not left him much of an inheritance, Rayburn quickly corrected him - his father, he said, 'gave me my untarnished name.' In Austin, there was first heard a saying that men would be repeating for fifty years: 'No one can buy Sam Rayburn.'"

​​

Highly Recommended

NON VIOLENT.png

NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION: A LANGUAGE OF LIFE

Marshall B. Rosenberg

Summary​

  • The title of the book might off-putting. 'I am not violent when I communicate with people. Why should I read this?.' I think the author might have exaggerated with the 'violent' aspect. The book is very valuable for all types of relationships and personalities. 

Memorable Parts

  • "'Aggression is built into the ego system, which totally focuses on 'I, me, and mine'. Society pays lip service to saints and their vow to serve God instead of themselves, but there's a huge gap between the values we espouse and the way we actually live."

  • "The four components of NVC: observation, feelings, needs and requests."

  • "We all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs not out of a desire to give from the heart, but out of fear, guilt, and shame. They, too, pay emotionally, for they are likely to feel resentment and decreased self-esteem when they respond to us out of fear,  guilt, or shame."

  • "It would be in the interest of kings, czars, nobles, and so forth that the masses be educated in a way that renders them slavelike in mentality. The language of wrongness, should, and have to is perfectly suited for this purspose: the more people are trained in moralistic judgements, the more they are trained to look to outside authorities."

  • "When we combine observation with evaluation, we decrease the likelihood that others will hear our intended message."

​​

Highly Recommended

thinketh.png

AS A MAN THINKETH

James Allen

Summary​

  • The book was written by Allen (born in 1864). The book is short but with a very clear messaage: we are and become what we think.

Memorable Parts

  • "In this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that, 'He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened;' for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge."

  • "Man's mind is likened to a garden...If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind."

  • "Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstances does not make the man; it reveals him to himself."

  • "Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance."

  • "His condition is also his own, and not another man's. His suffering and his happiness are evolved from within. As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains."

​​

Average

GOOD ENOUGH.png

THE GOOD ENOUGH PARENT

The School of Life

Summary​

  • My second book from The School of Life series. Nothing in this book will be new information BUT that does not mean it is not worthwhile to read. Perhaps when we are struggling the most is when we need to remind ourselves of the basics of pareting. Too much random information is out there.

Memorable Parts

  • "But equal damage can be done by parents who lend a child an eerie impression that they play too great a role in their emotional lives and are the subject of excessive admiration and interest, leaving the child with a guilty sense that they might be being disloyal to the parent if they eventually built a secure relationshi with someone else."

  • "The implication is that grounds for confidence are primarily derived from being clever, talented, beautiful and deserving. Yet by equating confidence with wondrousnesss, the child is being burdened with a forbidding picture of what success looks like."

  • "Our lives would be nothing if we had not learnt the art of discipline, but nor are these lives worth enduring if we do not sometimes place our own pleasures at the center of our plans."

  • "He isn't 'antisocial', but it does find a small circle of familiar people especially soothing. This capacity for imaginative, kindly explanations will go on to mould the workings of the child's own conscience; it will learn the art of self-forgiveness."

  • "Strangely, and rather inconveniently, it seems no human being can really grow up entirely well balanced unless it has been loved very deeply by someone for a number of years in its early life."

​​

Recommended

HAPPINESS.png

THE HAPPINESS FILES: INSIGHTS ON WORK AND LIFE

Arthur C. Brooks

Summary​

  • A classic airport purchase, lol. This book is a 'curated collection from The Atlantic's 'How To Build a Life' column. They are 3-4 pages max each so not a lot of substance there. Most of them you can find for free online with a simple search. 

Memorable Parts

  • "I came to a realization about my son: I didn't actually care very much about his grades. What I wanted was for him to grow up to become a responsible, ethical, faithfull, well-adjusted man. From that day forward, I stopped talking about his grades and started talking about values. It was a relief for both of us."

  • "Nelson Mandela once said, 'I learned that courage was not the abscence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.'"

  • "Neuroscientists have determined that people can by sight decide consistently in as little as 39 milliseconds whether someone is a threat or not. Close behind in speed, at 100 milliseconds, comes a consistent estimation of trustworthiness."

  • "One survey of 76 companies found that productivity was 71 percent higher when meetings were reduced by 40 percent."

  • "The man is 'employed on the building of a house' but 'may be quite ignorant of its general design.' 

​​

Skip

ON MANAGING.png

ON MANAGING YOURSELF

Various Authors

Summary​

  • Most of the articles will serve as a precursor to reading the author's  full book. However, even as a intro, there are definitively actionable insights to be found. Also, I kind of like finding book from the early 2000s that still hold up. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Allocation chouices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended. When people who have a high need for achievement have an extra half hour of time, they'll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments (i.e. career) instead of family, relationshiphs, health, etc."

  • "The lesson I learned from this is that it's easier to hold your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give up 'just this once', you'll regret where you end up."

  • "The explanation is that writers do not, as a rule, learn by listening or reading. They learn by writing. Because schools do not allow them to learn this way, they get poor grades."

  • "The ambassador is reported to have said, 'I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave.'"

  • "Let us analyze what just happened. Before the two of them met, on whose back was the 'monkey'? The subordinate's. After they parted, on whose back was it? The manager's."

​​​

Recommended

8 keys.png

8 KEYS TO PARENTING CHILDREN WITH ADHD

Cindy Goldrich

Summary​

  • With the rise of tablet, smartphones, Netflix with algorithms, etc... kids are obviously struggling to pay attention for long periods of time. Books like these provide parents and teachers with actionable strategies.

Memorable Parts

  • "Among a wealth of wisdom herein, Goldrich's overarching mantra is 'parent the child you have.'"

  • "As a result of lower levels of dopamine, there is understimulation in the reward and motivation centers in the brain. The prefrontal cortex is thinner and matures more slowly. This does not imply any deficit in intelligence or ability to succeed."

  • "To be diagnosed with ADHD, at least 6 of 0 inattentive and/or hyperactive-impulsive symptoms listed in the DSM-5 must be evident in two or more settings and must be present prior to age 12. These symptoms must be present for at least 6 months."

  • "Be the change you want to see in your child: Be CALM. Instead of focusing first on shaping and changing your child's behavior, you will need to focus instead on shaping and changing your own behavior."

  • "'I was a success because you believed in me.' - Ulysses S. Grat in a letter to Abraham Lincoln

​​​

Recommended

COUNTDOWN TO .png

COUNTDOWN TO PEARL HARBOR: THE TWELVE DAYS TO THE ATTACK

Steve Twomey

Summary​

  • Most people don't know that the US had succesful broken the Japanese code prior to Pearl Harbor (named Magic). With all of that information, how come they were not able to stop the attack? Read this book and you'll find you can draw parallels to so many business issues. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The cylinders of American industry would begin to fire. ''You will be unable to make up your losses,' Stark had told Nomura, 'while we, on the other hand, will not only make up our losses, but will grow stronger as time goes by. It is inevitable that we will crush you and break your empire before we are through.'"

  • "By now, Tokyo saw itself not as an aggressor whose actions had provoked responses, but as a victim. Attacking China had been a mistake, Japan agreed, but America was making it difficult to get out. It was fortifying Chinese armies, and refusing to understand how Japan could not instantly withdraw without losing honor."

  • "By 'defensive deployment,' the three authors never imagined that Kimmel would interpret that as anything but a command to assume - in Tommy Hart's words - 'dispositions such as to minimize the danger.'"

  • "As with many siblings, the army and the navy had never reflexively gotten along in Hawaii, or anywhere for that matter. They were so unsynced that no direct phone line linked Pearl Harbor to Fort Shafter."

  • "The journalist, who had observed Japanese soldiers in action inRussia, enlightened the doubters. 'The answer is simple. They would all be dead. There would be no question how they would act in a losing game, for they would not lose and live."

​​​

Recommended

DOPAMINE NATION.png

DOPAMINE NATION: FINDING BALANCE IN THE AGE OF INDULGENCE

Anna Lembke, M.D.

Summary​

  • The back of the book states: 'we're living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli...' And as another article that I read yesterday stated: 'At least half of the 8 largest companies in the world rely on some sort of addiction via a screen.' Dopamine is the molecule that hooks us. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Perhaps you are repulsed by Jacob's masturbation machine, as I was. But if we do that, you and I, we miss an opportunity to appreciate something crucial about the way we live now: We are all, of a sort, engaged in our own masturbation machines."

  • "The more our balance tips, and the faster it tips, the more pleasure we feel. But here's the important thing about the balance: It wants to remain level, that is, in equilibrium. It does not want to be tipped for very long to one side or another."

  • "'A week would be good, but in my experience, a month is usually the miminum amount of time it takes to reset the brain's reward pathway. If you don't feel better after four weeks of abstaining, that's also useful data. That means the cannabis isn't driving this..."

  • "Muhammad was smart. So why coudn't he figure out that every time he smoked, he wouldn't be able to stick to his self-imposed time limits? Because once he started using cannabis, he wasn't governed by reason."

  • "Today, I'm finally okay with being somewhat anxious, slightly depressed skeptic. In medicating ourselves to adapt to the world, what kind of world are we settling for? 

​​​

Highly Recommended

BORN TO RUN.png

BORN TO RUN

Bruce Springsteen

Summary​

  • I cant' quiet recall how I ended up reading this book. My guess it was recommended as a semi father-son and mother-son story (which it is). It's another book that reminds us that succesful people didn't just end up there by luck. There is blood, toil, tears and sweat behind all that. 

Memorable Parts

  • "In all pyschological wars, it's never over, there's just this day, this time, and a hesitant belief in your own ability to change. It is not an arena where the unsure should go looking for absolutes and there are no permanent victories."

  • "In my dream, I am a young and unburdened by the original sins of my tribe. It's a sad dream. I have often brought the weight down, hard, on this little boy. I've take oven my father's cruelest work and often done it  too well."

  • "My sisters and I grew up in blue-collar neighborhoods, somewhat integrated, filled with factory workers, cops, firemen, long-distance truck drivers. I never saw a man leave a house in a jacket and tie unless it was Sunday or he was in trouble. If you came knocking at our door with a suit on, you were immediately under suspicion."

  • "My experience with my father's drinking had been enough. The terrifying, all-engulfing presence he became when he drank convinced me to never go there. He lost who he was. The goodness and kindness in his heart were erased in a flood of self-piying rage."

  • "There in the window of the toolbooth stood the famous 'No Pennies' sign. Pennies were all I had. I handed a dollar's worth, my last dollar, to the attendant, who said, 'I can't take these.'"

​​​

Recommended

THE AI EDGE.png

THE AI EDGE: SALES STRATEGIES FOR UNLEASHING THE POWER OF AI...

Jeb Blount & Anthony Iannarino

Summary​

  • AI is moving so fast that it is hard to find a book that is not outdated. I found this book to still be very relevant because it focuses more on strategies to incorporate AI into the sales system rather than specific tools to use. 

Memorable Parts

  • "AI-powered conversational intelligence can analyze evolving vocal cues and behavioral signals to recommend optimal sales psychology techniques, objection handling and negotiation angles in the moment."

  • "Close-ended questions become habitual because they're easy. They give you the illusion of control, and require little intellectual effort and even less emotional investment."

  • "Take a moment to set up your prompt engineering library. Ther are applications like Maigcal that will store your prompt library and allow you to build shortcuts to automate AI prompt entry, saving you even more time."

  • "When we look at ultra-high performers in sales, a consistent pattern emerges. The highest earners have an acute awareness of how every minute of their day is utilized. Their superpower is clock-mastering, not clock watching."

  • "Robots get paid to give you more time to sell more. But robots cannot choose how you invest your limited time, control your attention, or be intentional or disciplined for you."

​​​

Recommended

WATCHING BASEBALL SMARTER.png

WATCHING BASEBALL SMARTER: A PROFESSIONAL FAN'S GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS...

Zack Hample

Summary​

  • You will definitively get nice tidbits of information and trivia to impress people while watching a game. I rated the book skip for two main reasons: It is actually better to watch a youtube video about the topic and there are squences of paragraphs in the book that have no connection between them - making the reading slow and abrupt.

Memorable Parts

  • "You must have an opinion on the designated hitter; you either love that it created more offense by replacing weak-hitting pitchers with full-time sluggers or you hate it because it eliminates the late-inning strategy of dealing with those pitchers."

  • "Sometimes the angle of the sun or the position of the stadium's light casts a shadow on the catcher's crouch in the hitter's direction. This means that if the catcher sets up too soon, he reveals the intended pitch loation."

  • "When suggesting a pitch, the catcher usually starts with a fastball. Knowing this, the hitter looks for something offspeed when he sees the pitcher shake his head. Knowing thst the hitter knows this, the pitcher might shake off a nonexistent sign to trick him."

  • "The only time the pitcher intentionally grooves the ball [middle of strikezone] is when he's behind in the count and absolutely needs a strike."

  • "Over the course of a season, the first few hitters in the lineup come to bat about 100 times more than those at the end. Therefore, the manager carefully fills each slot with the player whose unique skills fir the situation he is likely to face."

​​​

Skip

no country.png

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Cormac McCarthy

Summary​

  • The movie was so good and Javier Bardem's performance so iconic that we are tempted to not even bother reading the book. Don't fall for that mistake! Regardless of your toughts on the movie, this book is fantastic. 

Memorable Parts

  • "I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every on a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is deawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you?"

  • "My daddy always told me to just do the best you knew how and tell the truth. He said there was nothin' to set a man's mind at ease like waking up in the morning and not havin to decide who you were. And if you done something wrong just stand up and say you done it and say you're sorry and get on with it."

  • "I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up something that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did."

  • "You're not listening. You need to pay attention. This man wont stop looking for you. Even if he gets the money back. It wont make a difference to him. Even if you went to him and gave him the money he would still kill you. Just for having inconvenienced him."

  • "Well, I guess in all honestly I would have to say that I never knew nor did I ever hear of anybody that money didn't change. I'd have to say he'd be the first."

​​​

Recommended

SELLING IN.png

SELLING IN A CRISIS

Jeb Blount

Summary​

  • Tarrifs, inflation, AI-driven unemployment, dot-com bubble re-visited. We are living in turbulent times and need to re-thing and boost our sales efforts. This book will keep you motivated in dark times. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The key to outselling a crisis is action. The strong look forward, not backward. Those who quickly adapt and innovate thrive. The determined and persistent win. The rainmakers find a way to make it rain."​​

  • "'Only when the tide goes out do we get to see who has been swimming naked.'" - Warren Buffett

  • "'Look, I really don't have time to talk right now. You see this big pile of horse poop? I've got to get to the bottom of it fast because there's a pony in here somewhere.'"

  • "There is a simple truth: The more people you talk with, the more you will sell. Even in the deep, dark depths of a financial meltdown, there are always companies and people who are purchasing. To find them, you've just got to sift through the ones who aren't."

  • "Once, when Sutton was asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, he replied, 'Because that's where the money is.' Sutton's law became: when diagnosing a problem, you should choose the most obvious answer first."

​

Recommended

sales mangement.png

SALES MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK: HOW TO LEAD HIGH-PERFORMING SALES TEAMS

Prabhakant Sinha

Summary​

  • ZS is the gold standard for me in terms of Sales Force consulting. BUY this book. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The sales organization is part of a sales system of decisions, processes, and resources that connect company stratey to customers, thus driving results."

  • "Chains are formed by liking causes to effects. For example, and idea to increase upselling (an outcome) is connected to spending too much time on customer support (a behavior), which is connected to considering a new customer success role (structure)."

  • "No matter where the opportunities are, solutions are in the 'sales decisiones, processes, and resources' link - the part that sales leaders control to drive the outcomes."

  • "Financial services firm Plante Moran had a 're-recruiting' program. Managers envisioned what they would do if valued employees were to announce they were leaving. Then, managers did exactly that, without waiting for such announcements."

  • "Three-quarters of B2B sales forces have annual turnover rates between 25 and 50 percent, when you include promotions and reassignments in addition to voluntary and involuntary departures."

​​

Highly Recommended

CALENDAR.png

A CALENDAR OF WISDOM

Leo Tolstoy

Summary​

  • If I recall correctly, this should be my fifth book of the type 'read a page a day for an entire year.' It contains a lot of quotes and thoughts by Tolstoy but I thought it had too many pages focusing on religion.

Memorable Parts

  • "There are thousands of ways which lead to deception, and there is only one way which leads to the truth." - Jean Jacques Rosseau

  • "It is great happiness to have what you desire; but it is an even greater happiness not to want mroe than you already have." - Mendemus

  • "...Stopping the creation of your own thoughts to give room for the thoughts from other books reminds me of Shakespeare's remark about his contemporaries who sold their land in order to see other countries."  Arthur Schopenhauer

  • "When you appeared in this world, you cried, and all the people around you rejoiced. You have to live a life in such a way that when you leave this world, you will rejoice, and all the people around you will cry." - Indian wisdom

  • "Conque rage with humility, conquer evil with goodness, conquer greed with generosity, conquer lies with truth." - Dhammapada

​​

Average

ADHD.png

TAKING CHARGE OF ADHD

Russel A. Barkley

Summary​

  • Information doesn't hurt. The term ADHD is so widely used now but perhaps it's a reflection of the times we live now were everything needs to happen fast and we can't focus anymore. 

Memorable Parts

  • "'Margaret, the children who need love the most will always ask for it in the most unloving ways.'"

  • "Take responsibility for your own behavior as a parent and for the interactions and relationship with your child. Take the initiative to change what you do not like in the way you act toward yoru child."

  • "You are the case manager of your child's life, and you must be a proactive executive prepared to take charge - and to keep going in this role longer than most parents must."

  • "Thinking about the past and contrasting it with our present also enables us to create what Dr. Bronowski called hypothetical futures."

  • "Psychologists have called the ability to use language to control behavior rule-governed behavior. When we develop plans for the future, set goals for ourselves, and then act according to those plans and goals, we are often using self-speech." 

​​

Average

ANARCHY.png

THE ANARCHY

William Dalrymple

Summary​

  • I was very excited to read this book and learn about the East India Company. The book is close to 500 pages and I highlighted probably 8 sentences. It felt dull to read and most of the battles and conflicts lacked the drama that hooks you to the story.  

Memorable Parts

  • "One of the very first Indian words to enter the English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: loot. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word was rarely heard outside the plains of north India untile the late eighteenth century, when it suddenly became a common term across Britain."

  • "There are more Mughlad artefacts staked in this private house in the Welsh countryside than are on display in any one place in India - even the National Museum in Dehli."

  • "Before long the EIC was straddling the globe. Almost single-handedly it reversed the balance of trade, which from Roman times on had led to a continual drain of Western bullion eastwards."

  • "Indeed, one of the principal fears of the American Patriots in the run-up to the war was that Parliament would unleash the East India Company in the Americas to loot there as it had done in India."

  • "'I came alone and I go as a stranger. The instant which has passed in power has left only sorrow behind it. I have not been the guardian and protector of the Empire...'." - Aurangzeb (1707)

​​

Skip

INNER EXC.png

INNER EXCELLENCE 

Jim Murphy

Summary​

  • I can't recall in what podast did I hear about this book and it's author. It's probably one of the best life planning books I have ever read. 

Memorable Parts

  • "The quality of your life is based on three elements: your inner world of thoughts and feelings, your mindset from which you see the world and your relationships."

  • "We don't climb mountains to get to the top - we climb to see who we can become in trying to get there."

  • "We are shaped most not by what we think, not by what we do, but by what we love. For when we ask whether somebody is a good person, we are not asking what he believes or hopes for, but what he loves."

  • "The ego is the greatest opponent you will face. Life moves from learning and growing, giving and receiving, to self-preserving, hoarding and grasping."

  • "Love is fearless, wisdom creates the best long-term decisions and courage does it all with boldness and grade under pressure. These three virtues are the foundation for fullness of life."

​​

Highly Recommended

PRODIGAL SON.png

THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON: A STORY OF HOMECOMING

Henri J.M. Nouwen

Summary​

  • The author was quoted in another book I read and I wanted to learn more about the painting. The book focuses more on the author's relationship with it and it is a deeply moving one. 

Memorable Parts

  • "I came to understand how from his brush there emerged the figure of a nearly blind old man holding his son in a gesture of all-forgiving compassion. One must have died many deaths and cried many tears to hace painted a portrait of God in such humility."

  • "But there are many voices, voices that are loud, full of promises and very seductive. There voices say, 'Go out and prove that you are worth something.' Soon after Jesus had heard the voice calling him the Beloved, he was led to the desert to hear those other voices."

  • "There are many ifs hidden in the world's love. These ifs enslave me. The world's love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain hooked to the world - tring, failing, and trying again."

  • "I start looking for validations of my distrust. And wherever I go, I see them and say: 'No one can be trusted'. And then I wonder whether anyone ever really loved me. The world around me becomes dark. My heart grows heavy."

  • "The lostness of the elder son, however, is much harder to identify. After all, he did all the right thins. But when confronted by his father's joy at the return of this younger brother, a dark power erupts in him and boils to the surface."

​​

Recommended

CLEAR THINKING.png

CLEAR THINKING

Shane Parish

Summary​

  • Listen to his podcast 'The Knowledge Project' rather than reading this book. He goes over concepts very superficially. 

Memorable Parts

  • "While there are many instincts, four stand out to me as the most prominent...the emotion default, the ego defaul, the social default and the intertia default."

  • "To be succesful, it's not enough to do something different; you also need to be right. To do something different, you need to think different. and that means you will stand out."

  • "As the Roman slave Publilius Syrus once said, 'Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.'"

  • "When you play games where other people have the aptitude and you don't, you're going to lose. You have to figure out where you have an edge."

  • "Alcoholics Anonymous has a helpful safeguard for its members. They call it HALT - an acronym that stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired."

​​​

Skip

RUNNING GROUND.png

THE RUNNING GROUND

Nicholas Thompson

Summary​

  • A book that combines a hobby and my passion: running and how to be a great father. Good fatherhood books are few and far between. 

Memorable Parts

  • "As the apostle Paul wrote, 'We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.'"

  • "'The only advantage for a child in having an alcoholic parents is that you acquire, prematurely, quite a bit of valuable data.'" - Gore Videl

  • "One starts with life expanding - rather I started - with life expanding more or less continuously until my twenties...Then it all began narrowing down as the reality of my lack of control and the reality of my inability to fulfil my needs and ambitions...And all could be solved relatively rapidly if I could stop drinking."

  • "He had already taken the pills. His death, he wrote, 'will give all of you a sigh of relief, one in particular.' I called my father and then paid the hotel bill. Soon everything was fine, and he was sending cheerful emails again."

  • "Tim Noakes has called this phenomenon 'the Central Governor Model.' The title of his highly influential paper laying out this theory begins: 'Fatigue is a brain-derived emotion.'"

​​

Recommended

FRIENDS FOREVER.png

FRIENDS FOREVER

Fred Frankel

Summary​

  • The book has good strategies to help our kids make friends (i.e. take a toy that can be shared to a playground) but I found many of the suggested conversations to have with kids too idealistic. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Activities to drop: Teams or scouts with poor adult supervision benefit no one. Your child is better off at home than being yelled at by a coach or left to his own devices."

  • "As with all other icebreakers, it's not enough for Roberto to have the toy. He must know how to use it, or the children will not like playing with him. The spongy football helps the boys get to know each other because the toy is easy to share."

  • "'Hi, I´m Joan - Tommy's mom. My son is always talking about how much he likes to play with your son at school, so I thought I'd introduce myself."

  • "You will amost never see a child meet new children by introducing himself and shaking hands. Children make new acquaintances by joining others who are playing."

  • "Imagine that another family invites you to their house at dinner. They have delicious-looking appetizers but they don't offer you any. It's the same with a child guest who is shown an enticing toy and is told by the host child that he can't touch it."

​​​

Skip

NEW MARRIAGE CLINIC.png

THE NEW MARRIAGE CLINIC

John Gottman & Julie Schwartz Gottman

Summary​

  • I get a lot of shit / jokes for reading books to improve your marriage. Why wouldn't my or anyone else not want to be a better partner?! Beats me. 

Memorable Parts

  • "All seven emotional command systems are central to building friendship and intimacy in our couples therapy: the sentry, nest builder, explorer, commander-in-chief, sensualist, jester and the energy czar."

  • "Only 31% of couples' conflicts ever get solved. A full 69% of couples' conflicts never at all reached a resolution. We called these 'perpetual conflicts' that never faded away. We discovered over the years that every relationship has thes conflicts."

  • "The important dramatic thing to notice is that Ron never asked Jan open-ended questions abouth her weekend. He was content with her brief summary, and then happy to have the conversation focus on his week."

  • "Here's what emotion dismissing pople were like: they say they're hardly ever sad, viewed negative affects as toxings, prefer a cheerful partner and child, impatient with the negativity of others and sometimes reprimanded a child for being angry even if there was no misbehavior."​​

  • "Meta-emotion refers to our feelings about emotions. We discovered that this one variable, a match or mismatch between partners, predicted stability or divorce with 80% accuracy over a 6-year period for a sample couple with young children."

​

Recommended

80_20.png

THE 80/20 CEO

Henri J.M. Nouwen

Summary​

  • Reads like 'The First 90 Days.' The authoer is a Booth MBA alumni and has a strong backgroun in Private Equity. The book has a PE angle to the approach the authors lays out.

Memorable Parts

  • "When I arrived at Phoenix, I went on a 'Three L Tour': listening, learning and leveraging."

  • "Do everything militarily possible, no matter how little, by establishing a base in Australia. 'The people of China, of Philippines, and of the Dutch East Indies will be watching us. They may excuse failure, but they will not  excuse abandonment.'"

  • "Defining success must produce and understanding of your purpose...your purpose must guide intention...only after success,  purpose and intention are defined can strategy be built...to be succesful, that strategy, contains the means of execution."

  • "Rather (to continue the fruit metaphor), it is all about identifying those products in the portfolio and those customers in the whole customer base who possess sufficient juice to make the squeeze worthwhile."

  • "Perform a thougth experiment. What if your only customers were the 20 percent who generated 80 percent of your revenue? Imagine that. Imagine that your only customers were your top customers in quadrants 1 and 2."

​​

Average

RIGOR OF ANGEL.jpg

THE RIGOR OF ANGELS: BORGES, HEISENBERG, KANT, AND THE ULTIMATE NATURE OF REALITY

William Egginton

Summary​

  • An excellent book that challenges us to think about how the findings of quantum physics (space and time) change our perception of what we think is real. 

Memorable Parts

  • "By turning their gazes toward the deepest recesses of the past to understand the very origins of existence, cosmologists opened a Pandora's box of philosophical enigmas. Among these, one stands out: had the laws of nature diverged from their actual values by even vanishingly small degrees, the universe would not have evolved to sustain life."

  • "'true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father'. This Nicene Creed emerged from the conferece called by Constantine in 325, but Augustine was drawn to it primarily because it solved the fundamental mystery of human existence."

  • "Kant had decided to do away with the fundamental presuposition common to all attempts to describe how humans come to know the world: namely, that what we are trying to understand is the world iteself. What we are really trying to understand, he now saw, is our picture of the world."

  • "As the Nobel laureate and creator of the field of quantum electrodynamics Richard Feynman once wrote, 'The 'paradox' is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality 'ought to be'."

  • "Einstein's c and Plack's h, turn out to be fundamental limits built into the fabric of our observed reality: on the one hand, a speed limit at which time comes to a standstill; on the other, a size limit on how closely we can focus on the warp and weft of space-time."

​​

Highly Recommended

ATTITUDE.jpg

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING: CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE, CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

Jeff Keller

Summary​

  • A decent book with the obvious but often forgotten truth: our quality of our life is dictated by our thoughts (negative of positive). Contains several quotes that I enjoyed a lot.

Memorable Parts

  • "At the age of six, we knew we had to fall off the bike and get back on to learn a new skill. Falling off the bike wasn't a bad thing. But as we get older, we started to perceive falling off as a bad thing - rather than an essential part of the process of achieving our goal."

  • "'A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he choses.' - The Living Bible, Proverbs 27

  • "'One person with a commitment is worth more than 100 people who have only an interest.' - Mary Crowley

  • "Everyone starts with a clean mental window. Our windows then get splattered by criticism from parents and teachers. Smudged by ridicule from peers. Smeared by rejection. Soiled by dissapointments. Clouded by doubt. The problem is the dirt keeps building but most people do nothing about it. They continue through life with a filthy window."

​​

Average

BUSINESS.jpg

BUSINESS ADVENTURES: TWELVE CLASSIC TALES FROM THE WORL OF WALL STREET

John Brooks

Summary​

  • I know it has superb reviews on Amazon but I just did not get it. It definitively has interesting business history from the 60s and 70s but it´s 400 pages long. I just could not keep the motivation. 

Memorable Parts

  • "When they find out the Edsel has four wheels and one engine, just like the next car, they're liable to dissapointment."

  • "What the market research folks failed to tell their clients...is that only the psychotic and the gravely neurotic act out their irrationalities and their compensatory fantasies."

  • "Nathan Rothschild's judicious use of advance news of Wellington's victory at Waterloo was the chief basis of the Rothschild fortune in England, and no Royal commission or enraged public rose to protest..."

  • "As Joseph C. Wilson, the chief executive of Xerox, pointed out, this growth rate was such that if maintained for a couple of decades, Xerox sales would be larger than the gross national product of the United States."

  • "Usually it is not until there is evidence that the employee has not lived up to his contract, expressed or implied, to maintain secrecy, that the former employer can take action. In the law of torts there is the maxim: Every dog has one free bit. A dog cannot be presumed to be vicious until he has proved that he is biting someone."

​​

Skip

HOW TO RAISE.jpg

HOW TO RAISE KIDS WHO AREN'T ASSHOLES: SCIENCE-BASED STRATEGIES FOR BETTER PARENTING - FROM TOTS TO TEENS

Melinda Wenner Mayer

Summary​

  • The type of pareting book I like - references actual research! The book covers all basic areas of raising tots and teens. Great starting point if you want to improve your parenting skills and/or are feeling confused.

Memorable Parts

  • "...there are essentially two types of people: those who think humans are basically good but need guidance and nurturing in order to fare well; and those who think humans are bad, who need to be controlled and beated down in order to stay in line."

  • "Ultimately, the use of psychological control coerces children into feeling thay they need to change themselves, which undermines their sense of autonomy and self."

  • "When a sexist scenario shows up on the TV, bring it up right then and there. Why do you think they're only showing boys going on adventures? Do you think that is fair?"

  • "Discussing emotions with a boy - especially a tween or teen - might seem akward at first, but you might be surprised at how hungry he is to make the emotional connection."

  • "The 5 year olds tended to believe the 'really, really smart' character was someone of their own gender. But the study found that the hierarchies start to shift in girls' minds around the age of six. This is when girls begin to internalize the idea that they're not as smart or capable as boys."

​​

Recommended

SURRENDE.jpg

THE SURRENDER EXPERIMENT: MY JOURNEY INTO LIFE'S PERFECTION

Michael A. Singer

Summary​

  • The first chapters were great and I was intrigued by the authors teen journey. It then felt almost like he was showing off how easy he started to make money. It just read like a condensed summary of his life just working out perfectly but omiting, for example, the hard work, long hours, etc...

Memorable Parts

  • "Am I better off making up an alternate reality in my mind and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the smae forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me?"

  • "Why does the voice have to tell me that I see it and how I feel about it? 'Here come Mary and I don't feel like seeing here today'. I know what I see and I know what I feel. Why does it have to get vocalized in my mind? Another question that arose was who am I who keeps noticing all this mental activity?"

  • "The thoughts then pass right by without disturbing me. Letting the thoughts go became a game to me. All of life was a lighter experience thatn before. My personal melodrama would still come up, but it could not pull me down into it."

  • "I decided to just stop listening to all the chatter about my personal preferences, and instead, start the willful practice of accepting what the flow of life was presenting me."

  • "Clearly, these were uncharted waters for me. Where would I end up? If my preferences were not leading me, what would happen to me?"

​​

Skip

ADD.jpg

HEALING ADD: THE BREAKTHROUGH PROGRAM THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SEE AND HEAL THE 7 TYPES OF ADD

Daniel G. Amen

Summary​

  • I get a bunch of Amen's videos on Instagram so I was curious of learning more because I have a hunch I might have some form of ADD. Note: I did some research and his methodology (brain imaging) has strong criticism from other doctors. 

Memorable Parts

  • "Have you ever seen children on little yellow leashes in the mall? After having Kaitlyn I believed in little yellow leashers beacause she was trying to always get away from me."

  • "I changed his diet, increased his excercise, gave him EPA omega-3 fatty acids and a brain-directed multiple vitamin, talked with the school on effective classroom management techniques, and his parents attend a pareting group."

  • "Often, people with ADD can pay attention perfectly well to things that are new, novel, highly stimulating, interesting, or freightening. These things provide enough of their own intrinsic stimulation."

  • "As far as excess television is concerned, the research is compelling: Kids who watch the most TV do the worst in school."

  • "Detailed clinical assessments should include: biological, psychological, social and spiritual."

​​

Skip

©2020

bottom of page