What I loved most about the book was how it conveys the complexity of life and the absurdity of historical analysis and the focus on "Great Men" against such complexity, which he compares to physicists trying to understand macro-phenomenon without taking into account the micro-phenomenon that add up to the macro effect. The whole books is an illustration of this through the many lives it follows in the major historical events taking place around them.
The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus <- Changed the way I think about inner workings of the government. But at the same time, many claims are hard to verify.
The life changing magic of cleaning up by Marie Kondo <- not life changing but decent and a quick, 2-3 day read.
Nassim Taleb books, pretty sure everyone on here read it or plans to so, don't need my description.
Halfway through The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis at the moment, it's pretty good, a joint biography of Kahneman and Tversky (of the "Thinking, Fast and Slow", which I guess is another HN classic).
I found a similar title perusing the local library's stacks last year. Sort of a "zen of cleaning" that goes way beyond merely cleaning your sailboat...
Quick & Easy Boat Maintenance: 1001 Time-Saving Tips
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1179767.Quick_and_Easy_B...
It's a scientific look at cleaning your house, it's great :-)
I cannot recommend this book enough -- I'm halfway through it and it's a very accessible overview of work done in moral development psychology that (for me) shed light on how people come to believe the things they do so strongly. It's increasingly relevant today, and was a bit of an eye-opener for me.
Has anyone else checked it out? Curious to get your thoughts -- I'm not done yet and once I finish, I'm doing to dug through the primary sources he cites.
Using a series of personal anecdotes, stories, observations from sociological & psychological research, the book assisted me in developing a perspective & framework to understand what my priorities are & perhaps could / should be, helping me get a better sense of what I could / should do with my time. I found it very useful, given where I am in life.
While I normally plough through books, this was one book where I found myself iterating(?) through the book. I'd read a few chapters, put the book away, come back after a few days, read from the start, perhaps ending at a further chapter, and then back to start.
To add, I found his observations about hygiene factors (salary, well laid out work environment, etc) vs factors that can motivate you (good team, ambitious objectives, etc) very very "aha" and insightful. I'm building a team, and I now consider these at every major decision..
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13425570-how-will-you-me...
I found it through the excellent Reply All episode on the same subject. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/86-man-of-the-people/ The episode is great, but it naturally has to leave out a lot of details and subplots that really come to life in the book. I would gladly read anything else written by Pope Brock. I think his writing is amazing.
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins was a great read too. A bit of a slog in some places but otherwise brilliant and insightful.
Also by following publishers you can be more efficiently connected "upstream" to the flows of knowledge.
Most of the University Press's are pretty good, I was at Cambridge University Press Bookshop earlier today in the U.K. and it was amazing seeing their whole catalog.
Other good presses are:
- anything by MIT Press
- Princeton and Duke Press
- Polity Press if you're interested in sociology
The author is a good writer, but occasionally delves into minute historical details that I sometimes don't care for. Still, it's very enlightening.
The Mandibles recently. It was okay. The economic ideas were interesting, but the story dragged.
The Accusation by Bandi was good if you like North Korea stuff.
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O - Was decent for a Stephenson novel, but definitely niche sci-fi/fantasy.
The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. Didn't like it. Really didn't like the ending.
Not always accurate in the details, and somewhat biased in its conclusions. Nonetheless it made me rethink the underpinnings of our financial system.
- Venture Deals 3rd Ed by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson (must read for startup founders raising)
But I was sort of left hanging by the references to 'bluebills' and 'whitecaps' that appear in the last part. And so I googled them up and spent the hour or two after I finished the novel reading various results. And for me, it made the work pop with a "Wow!"
Of course, as a McCarthy fan I'm probably predisposed to such a response. Having lived in the south, it sort of hit closer to home than it might have for someone else. It took me longer to appreciate McCarthy's earlier works because the frontier in the American east is less an ordinary idea than the frontier in the American west. But those parts of Tennessee where wild an unsettled just fifty years before the American West was mostly settled.