There's no denying the fact that books are best friends. It is no different for me. And like friends you can be selective on who you pick. There are more than a million books released every year and 1000s of them each day. One can only read a handful of them in their lifetime. Hence, it is very important to pick good books to read. Based on the goals and time one have, one can choose the books to read. Being a parent to a very naughty kid and full time employee in a Data Science company, I am quite picky with what I read in my limited time.
I set up goal every new year and keep revising them every quarter. At the start of 2021, I intended to read books on finance and leadership and few famous fictions (award winners mostly). Almost, every book teaches me something new, some more than the others. I have read more than 15 books in the first half of this year. Here are my top 5 (in no particular order).
1. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
 |
| Image from Goodreads |
This is definitely a more than one-time read book.
Few lessons from the book are:
1. Save, save and save
2. Believe in tail events, only few will give you huge returns
3. Luxuries don't impress anyone but yourself
4. Money is what you don't see. Rich people do not spend unnecessarily
5. Keep room for error. There will be times when things go wrong. Be okay with that
6. Be a long term player, make friends with long term outcome instead of short term spikes
7. People respond to their experiences. Don't judge them
8. And for many more - read the book
Few learnings from the book:
1. Instead of specializing, especially early in your career, he says, explore and diversify your interests
2. Don't feel behind -Approach the personal voyage and projects like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, willing to learn and adjust as you go, and even to abandon a previous goal and change directions entirely should the need arise
3. Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you
4. Interleaving - For knowledge to be flexible it should be learned under varied condition
5. Hypercorrection effect – the more confident a learner is of their wrong answer, the better the information sticks when they subsequently learn the right answer. Tolerating big mistakes can create the best learning opportunities
6. His final message is to remember that there is nothing inherently wrong with the specialization
The story is a beautiful tale of love, integrity and hope from one of the most gruesome war of human history. Eva, the protagonist starts forging documents for identification for Jewish in order to save them from the cruelty of German Nazis. As the story unfolds how Eva did what she did to save the people and the support she received from well intended people; we also get to know the love she has for books in general. The story is indeed beautiful and engaging and leaves you with all the more optimism, that can bloom even in the darkest of the times.
Few quotes from the book which I will keep close to my heart:
Getting to this book was not planned. Amazon was giving this in huge discount. Bought it and then read it and did not regret it. The book is easily read within couple of hours but I think it kind of motivated me to be proud of what I do. The book won’t drastically change your life and most of the things it mentions are logical things but it was kind of good to read these things. The book is full of good advice that's to the point and easy to follow.
In today's world everyone is an artist or creator in a sense. Everyone creates something or the other. This book will help you how to bring one's creation out to the world. Austin teaches you how to introduce yourself at a party, how not to be human-spam, to tell good stories, to share something small everyday, to build a mailing list. But then there are good life lessons like being grateful, stepping away from what you are doing, or starting over, teach what you know, think process not product, and so much more. The book uses examples and points and drawings which make it very digestible and fun to read! I Hope I do apply some of the things I learned here.
I really recommend this. If you're looking to boost your output of creativity you'll love this.
 |
| Image from Goodreads |
We have been made to believe that in order to succeed in this competitive world you need to be specialist. David Epstein tries debunk that myth. With enough examples, he showcase his discovery that in most fields - especially those that are complex and unpredictable - generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel.
I have been a fan of being a generalist and this book gives me enough evidence that I wasn't an exception.
1. Instead of specializing, especially early in your career, he says, explore and diversify your interests
2. Don't feel behind -Approach the personal voyage and projects like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, willing to learn and adjust as you go, and even to abandon a previous goal and change directions entirely should the need arise
3. Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you
4. Interleaving - For knowledge to be flexible it should be learned under varied condition
5. Hypercorrection effect – the more confident a learner is of their wrong answer, the better the information sticks when they subsequently learn the right answer. Tolerating big mistakes can create the best learning opportunities
6. His final message is to remember that there is nothing inherently wrong with the specialization
 |
| Image from Goodreads |
Few quotes from the book which I will keep close to my heart:
- We are only responsible for the things we do—or fail to do—ourselves
- I know it's sometimes hard to believe the best. Isn't it better than believing the worst, though?
- He had taught her to love reading, one of the greatest gifts a parent could give a child, and in doing so, he had opened the world to her
- I’ve always thought that it’s those children—the ones who realize that books are magic—who will have the brightest lives
- I know it's sometimes hard to believe the best. Isn't it better than believing the worst, though?
- He had taught her to love reading, one of the greatest gifts a parent could give a child, and in doing so, he had opened the world to her
- I’ve always thought that it’s those children—the ones who realize that books are magic—who will have the brightest lives
 |
| Image from Goodreads |
I was told by my book club colleagues that read anything by Matt Haig. I started with the Midnight library and I wasn't disappointed. This book is sometimes philosophical and tend to repeat the same message again and again at few places. But in general I found it quite intriguing. Nora the protagonist meets a librarian on the day she took her life and then is taken in for a ride.
This is indeed a well written book, which will make anyone contemplate their life choices, regrets, decisions and life in general. Found so many lessons - more importantly to not lose hope under any circumstances:
- Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations . .
- You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it
- Dream big . . . You can be anything you want to be. Because in one life, you are
- Well, that you can choose choices but not outcomes. But I stand by what I said. It was a good choice. It just wasn’t a desired outcome
- She didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want to live any other life than the one that was hers. The one that could be a messy struggle, but it was her messy struggle. A beautiful messy struggle
- You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it
- Dream big . . . You can be anything you want to be. Because in one life, you are
- Well, that you can choose choices but not outcomes. But I stand by what I said. It was a good choice. It just wasn’t a desired outcome
- She didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want to live any other life than the one that was hers. The one that could be a messy struggle, but it was her messy struggle. A beautiful messy struggle
 |
| Image from Goodreads |
In today's world everyone is an artist or creator in a sense. Everyone creates something or the other. This book will help you how to bring one's creation out to the world. Austin teaches you how to introduce yourself at a party, how not to be human-spam, to tell good stories, to share something small everyday, to build a mailing list. But then there are good life lessons like being grateful, stepping away from what you are doing, or starting over, teach what you know, think process not product, and so much more. The book uses examples and points and drawings which make it very digestible and fun to read! I Hope I do apply some of the things I learned here.
I really recommend this. If you're looking to boost your output of creativity you'll love this.
Honorable mentions
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a collection of Naval's wisdom and experience from the last ten years, shared as a curation of his most insightful interviews and poignant reflections. This book is available for free on navalmanack
The Decision Book is a reference book, not a book to read linearly from cover to cover. The book is structured into 4 main categories: 1. How to improve yourself, 2. How to understand yourself better 3. How to understand others better 4. How to improve others
A short, sweet and simple book takes on a huge task of explaining economics in a very lucid way
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
This incredibly wholesome and hopeful book will leave you charmed with uplifting messages
Leadership U: Accelerating Through the Crisis Curve
Leadership starts with starts with 'U' but it's not about 'U.' In Leadership U: Accelerating Through the Crisis Curve, Burnison lays out a framework--his "Six Degrees of Leadership"--to show leaders how to create change: Anticipate, Navigate, Communication, listen, learn and leadLeadership U: Accelerating Through the Crisis Curve
Disclaimer: Clicking on the links for the books will take you to Amazon site for book purchase. If you buy it using that link I will get some commission (as per the affiliate program)
