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What are you reading?

What books and/or long-form articles are you reading? What do you like and dislike about them?


Atomic Habits. Still at the first few pages, so couldn’t tell more at the moment.

HOOKED, by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover. Some new insights for now (I'm on page 80), but not as great as I was expecting. Let's see if this changes!

Update (25/06): I've just finished it now and, actually it did change! It's a great book.

Are those any good though? What's the best one other than those that you've read so far?

How are you finding Principles?

Badass by Kathy Sierra

I like the framework the book build to get wom 💪

Keep Going by Austin Kleon

I'm very very slow to read it because I experiment new ways of reading + taking notes, so basically I already read the first chapters maybe 4 or 5 times :)

For now, my favorite take is about having "boring" routines

Talent is overrated by Geoffrey Colvin

The premise is great. I have not completed it yet. So far, it looks good.

I recently finished The Lessons of History which is a really short summary of what we can learn from history. Split up per topic.

It talks about philosophy, economics, war, religion, etc. All the big topics.

My main take-away is that history repeats itself. Things ebb and flow. An excess of X eventually leads to the opposite. For example ever-increasing capitalism will create such wealth disparity that the poor at some point vastly outnumber the rich. Leading to a more socialistic society. But when things get too socialistic, innovation stalls and the economy will stagnate. Paving the way for more capitalistic endeavours. And round the world goes.

The same is true for war and peace, religion and science, freedom and the rule of law. Etc.

Looks interesting! Added it to the queue :)

Dare to Lead is great - it's the first Brene Brown I've read - very good for improving soft skills and having integrity/values at work - and what this means to implement them.

Now onto Viktor Frankl - Man's search for meaning

Many things at once @___@

I'm trying to understand better the tech+startups ecosystem in Latin America, so I'm following different rabbit holes I keep finding while researching about it (ex. the history of Gran Colombia, dealflow for specific industries in Brazil in the past years...). And I started this book recently: www.amazon.com.br/historias-E…

I'm disagreeing a lot with some of the author's conclusions (ex. he talks about Brazil and Mexico as countries that can have their innovation achievements compared easily, even makes the mistake to casually put Finland as an example we should follow when our challenges and potential growth are completely different, and vary a lot by Latam country). But the plan is to use some of the pieces he put together to help build a new narrative about the region, closer to the industry than to the academia.

I'm on a second listening of Atomic Habits. The audio book format works really well for it.

I picked up "The Happy Body" because I heard that it is good for addressing back and other issues from sitting too much. That's one issue from all of the extra COVID-19 time.

Start reading "Make" by @levelsio (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

I can confirm that it's an entertaining read. 😀

I'm rereading The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.

What's good about it man?

The basic hypothesis of the book is that sudden high-impact events shape the world much more than planned or predicted events. But, as with all good books, I can't tell you in a few words why it's so good.

Walden Two by B.F. Skinner Found it while researching on self sustained communities. It's a reference book for many post-hippie years communities that managed to survive to this day. It's a quick read with few points that stand out and one can think of.

Reading The Fifth Risk. Michael Lewis wrote Liar's Poker, Money Ball, The Big Short, and other finance books. This one is about the Obama-Trump transition and focuses (at least as far as I've read) on the Department of Energy. Super interesting.

Off to be the wizard. A funny fiction book based on a developer finding out he's inside a computer program. Good stuff.

How to Get Rich by Naval Ravikant. Huge explanation of his famous tweetstorm about money, wealth, building, selling, etc.

I'm only halfway through it, but it has changed my life already. I quit a well-paid job and started my endeavor to entrepreneurship.

(I hope the second half doesn't contain a plot twist making my decision useless.)

Currently reading Make by levelsio, if you want a book to kick your ass and find some MOTO, buy it.

Currently jumping between several books:

  1. Working in Public to prep for a journalism class I'm teaching next semester, where I want students to explore how to use open source principles in news gathering.
  2. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big to really study a lot of Scott Adams's ideas on systems vs. goals, affirmations, and the role of irrationality in daily life.
  3. The Two Towers to relax.

Last book I read was 'COVID-19: The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab'. Interesting macro/meta shizzle that is going on. For example, large job loss by automation/AI was expected to take place in 10 years. Because of the pandemic, lot of investor money is going into AI/automation and now we are talking about 5 year span.Going to see some fireworks and IMF is calling for Bretton Woods moment...probably a crypto/UBI to bail out the people and implement some social credit. Data is the new oil...

TLDR: use open source..

Someone read this book? "Finite vs. infinite games", by James P. Carse? I haven't read it but think I understand it a bit. It is about zero-sum games and kind of relates to the world we live in right now. We create these games and try to out compete each other. While, if we work together...stuff really gets interesting. Maybe 'the great reset' will help with the destruction of this mindset. Not sure if I would like it...but we need a healthier GAME.

Currently reading "Crushing It" by Gary Vee. So far, so good!

Best book to date: Almanac of Naval Rivikant - Eric Jorgenson. See my summary on IH here:

www.indiehackers.com/post/if-…

Had the opposite experience while reading the book: jelmerdeboer.nl/naval/ (might need Google Translate, if interested in reading my take)

That’s a shame, I really enjoyed it and got a lot from it. I do agree with your comments on Mark Manson though, I thought his book was full of fluff and very little insight. I enjoyed atomic habits but am amazed at the hype it has received.

Im reading currently:
Deep Work : Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler

Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler