Books

The Handbook (Enchiridion) alone is worth 10 stars. Epictetus influenced Marcus Aurelius profoundly. I think that fact alone speaks volumes.

Not only is the book very well told — telling the story of Marcus as he grew up — but it is an incredible introduction to putting the stoic principles to action in your own life. Robertson guides one in applying the methods that Marcus used to overcome adversity and live a stoic life. If the Meditations is the theory book, then this book is the practical field-guide.

These letters have had a profound impact on philosophy and can guide all of us lead a better life.

It was quite the experience to dive into the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, and comparing them to the modern ways of thinking and then seeing how true they still stand truly astound me. This is perhaps the book that has influenced me the most, out of those I've read.

Great read. It is interesting to try to follow the arguments presented by the various characters, then seeing whether you agree, disagree, or otherwise have an opinion yourself. Participate in the dialogue.

Probably the only book that I've ever read where I almost shed a tear.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although, some parts felt a bit drawn out — especially those, in which there were drawn parallels to modern life. I prefer when that is done by the reader. However, it is an amazing piece for those who want an introduction to stoicism.

This is the greatest book I've ever read on learning. It has helped me immensely in my Engineering studies.

I loved it. It impacted my ways of thinking very much. I highly recommend it.

I've read this book twice now. There is a lot to be learned from it — and not just about habits. I believe it was this book that taught me about systems thinking, which I have benefited from countless times by now. Although this is a book about habits — and perhaps one of the best on the topic — you'll learn much more than that.

This is the first book I've read on running. It was great. McDougall told a great story. I highly recommend this book if you're into running.

The first time I (tried) to read it, I was instantly put off. The second time, I couldn't put it down. Perhaps I wasn't in the right mindset the first time around. But this book is very interesting. Highly recommended.

A healthy read for productivity-geeks like myself. I whole-heartedly recommend this book. As with any book, it has its flaws, but I enjoyed it very much.

Amazing book densely packed with wisdom. Highly recommended for those who want to learn and understand better.

I did not think this book would be as good as it was. My expectations rose as I saw authors I respect giving it positive reviews. There are some powerful techniques in this book — and every one of those are well-reasoned and explained. Many of them I knew, but didn't know the full power of, until I read this book. I'd recommend checking out my notes on Tiny Habits as well — they have some connecting elements. Highly recommended book.

It's important to learn how our mind works. This books helps you understand why we do the things we do. I highly recommend it - especially if you haven't read anything like it.

Fantastic book. It is a very short and approachable introduction to Stoicism.

Perhaps one of the and most comprehensive yet succinct books on learning I have read. The first many chapters of this book presented learning studies and summarized the latest research on learning.

The very last chapter presents practical strategies for applying optimal learning strategies.

Peter Attia takes a deep dive into the complexities of longevity, healthspan, and how to take proactive steps towards living a better, healthier, and longer life. We're introduced to the concept of Medicine 3.0, which emphasizes prevention over treatment, and stresses the importance of daily lifestyle improvements to prevent chronic diseases. What sets Attia's book apart is his comprehensive approach to tackling health from all angles, providing the reader with an arsenal of information and strategies to increase both lifespan and healthspan. This is a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it.

A fantastic book with an immense amount of wisdom. If you wish to learn the mental models of one of the greatest thinkers of our time, this is the book for you.

It certainly lives up to the name.

I enjoyed reading Shoe Dog.

I generally like Ryan's works. This one was no exception. It was a positive surprise to see stillness examined through other schools of philosophy than Stoicisim, too.

A much needed collection of Naval's wisdom. I learned - and relearned - a lot. Highly recommended. It's not just something you read and forget about. It's something you think about for a very long time. This is a free book. I hope that you read it for yourself.

This is one of the first books I read on Stoicism (and philosophy in general). It has massively influenced me throughout the years. Highly recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a very sobering read. Highly recommended if you want to learn about how we think about money — and better ways to do so.

Amazing speech. Highly recommended. You can also find it on YouTube.

Great book about habits. Somewhat on par, for me, with Atomic Habits. But very different in style.

I loved this book. Especially the first part - about his bodybuilding days. One of the greatest immigrant stories ever told; and it's real.

This is the book to read if you want to learn how to become extraordinary at any skill.

I believe that there is a lot to learn from the book. While the book discusses methods that I don’t particularly agree with; deception, for example, there is still a lot of great and important points within the pages.

This book attempts to help you solve two important problems for entrepreneurs: It wants to help you get more clients and more cash.
The book is short, but very dense in knowledge. I learned a tremendous amount from it. Most of it is probably basics, but I didn't know them, so it was of huge value to me.

Brilliant.

Joy to read. Teaches the reader the fundamentals of programming. Great for beginners.

Fantastic book. I'm excited to read the entire series.

Walter Isaacson is a great writer. I enjoyed this book and noted a some very useful takeaways.

I think that Jocko Willink and Leif Babin nailed this book. The layout of the chapters makes the principles easy to understand and learn from, and also makes the book an enjoyment to read from cover to cover.

Jon wrote a great book. He mixed great advice with humor, which made it both interesting and easy to read. The book provides a new (and better) way of thinking about your goals.

An amazing story told by an expert storyteller. I just had to grab the Audiobook version. Listening to Matthew tell the story was 110% worth it. I read the book while listening.

It's not talent that leads us to achievement. It's persistence (grit).

This is one of the better books I've read on programming. It presents functional programming topics in a very simple way. The downsides are the massive amount of repetition, writing things wrong (sometimes for many pages) before deriving the correct answer, and the lack of depth.

I would recommend this book to any novice programmer, but more intermediate or advanced programmers might find it too simplistic and repetitive.

Practical wisdom in an easy-to-read book. You'll breeze right through and learn a lot in the process.

Dennis has practiced what he's preaching. There's no extras to buy. Just practical advice to implement if you want to become rich. Easier said than done. Getting rich isn't easy. But if you want it, you'll have to work for it.

Great book. The book is straightforward and provides easy-to-follow advice for improving your health.

Want to learn how to attain mastery? This is the book for you.

Discusses the importance of having a growth mindset. You can be better. Your abilities aren't fixed.

I loved the first part (personal principles). I feel as if the second part is just the first part, but for business. Great book nonetheless. Impacted my ways of thinking.

This book, along with Steal Like an Artist, really dispelled a lot of my misbeliefs about being a content creator online. Incredibly helpful. I think that it's a great read.

Great book.

An amazing biography by Isaacson. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the life of Steve Jobs. What a fascinating man.

The Everything Store gives a great insight into Amazon, as well as a peek at Jeff Bezos' mind. Although there are some areas which I wished the book went deeper on (and some I wished it didn't), I highly recommend this book.

Enjoyable read. Style is similar to The Phoenix Project & The Unicorn Project. Lift up and create value for others without expecting anything in return.

Great book on mental models. I like the style of it.

This is a fantastic book. I highly recommend The E-Myth Revisited as well.

Great book. I was unsure if I'd like the format, but it turned out great. There were many lessons packed in the book; some implicit, some explicit. These were paced well throughout the book, making the book enjoyable and instructive.

I really liked this book. I think it tells a great story.

Great read. Absolutely delivers on the promise of explaining why we get fat, and what to do about it. Eye-opening in some ways; though I already have heard of similar accounts.

This is a great biography. I especially loved the audiobooks. It's a well-told story.

This is a terrific book for learning Go. It's very practical and hands-on, while still providing a good amount of theory and background. I bought this book because I wanted to learn Go, and perhaps pick up some best practices and fill in gaps about backend web development. I think it did a great job at that.

You don't have to specialize to be the best. Great read.

Not life changing. Nor did it impact me very much. But it was interesting to read nonetheless.

You've probably heard about Simon Sinek. This book discusses the importance of why, and tells us why we should start with asking ourselves 'why'.

I loved this book. But not in the way that someone might enjoy a book based on how good it is. Mostly because what Austin Kleon addresses in it is something I've struggled with myself. It helped me overcome some of those struggles.

An interesting read.

A bit long. Could have been a great article or post-series. But it gives some great points on learning. It feels like an amazing starting point for learning, but it could be built upon with other great strategies that one might discover for themselves.

I quite liked it.

It was a great story. It's easy to get lost in. There were many great lessons in there, too. Miller was about to have a movie done about his life. In the process of (re)writing the story of his life, he realized the importance of stories.

A lot of great lessons on starting a business. Short, fun, easy, and interesting are the four words I'd use to describe this book.

This book is fantastic for those getting into the world of personal knowledge management (PKM). Recommended for any knowledge worker looking to up their game.

The book makes some great points. Highly enlightening. If you are any kind of knowledge-worker — especially a software engineer — you should read it. If not for any other reason than to form your own opinions about the ones presented.

A short book with simple bits of wisdom.

The ways of thinking about the world (and media) presented in this book is great. Being critical of what we see and hear is an important skill to have. Discerning truth from the barrage of misinformation that we're presented with. This book helps gives a few tips on how to do that better.

Great explanations. Good depth. Somewhat narrow in scope, but that’s perfect for this kind of book. If you’ve studied Computer Science, this is a fast read - even with doing the exercises & implementing the algorithms.

It's a fun introduction to various theories, but with limited depth, focusing on breadth instead. The first half or so is great, but it gets slow towards the end.

Completely agree with the message of the book. It did, however, feel a bit dragged out. Other than that; great book.

A bit too political for my tastes, but a lot of it was incredibly interesting.

Lying is a rather short, but good book. Sam Harris makes some good arguments against lying. We all know that it is morally bad to lie, but exactly how much? Are small, white lies fine? According to Sam Harris, the answer is no. Lies are never acceptable.

Overall a great book. Gives a new definition of Software Engineering, and discusses the importance of learning and discovery, and managing complexity.

Timeless wisdom from Seneca.

Beautiful explanation of various theories and concepts. Loved the book. The first few chapters brings you up to speed; from the beginning, and all the way to quantum.

This book is a fantastic introduction to effective running training. I learnt a lot about what is important when training, how to think about training and how to train. It also dispelled some common misconceptions about running. I've transferred the skills I've gained to other physical activities, and that's helped me a lot.

Great description of Scrum. Provides reasoning and background for the elements of Scrum, which I'm a huge fan of.

Great insights into writing online.

Altucher's perspective is interesting. I think that this books has some gems. But also some coal. I haven't read any of his other books (yet), but it felt as if the core message of those books also was the core message of this book.

I have been experimenting with fasting for a long time. I read this book to understand it better. Very simple and approachable. It explains fasting well.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is short and hard to put down. It is a classic. A reminder that we will all die some day. It is like having Ivan's life flashing before your eyes, slowing down upon the moments of his death.

The main ideas of this book are very insightful. I am going to adopt (most of) the principles myself. There are a few things in this book that I do not agree with — as with any book, really — but besides those, I rather enjoyed the book. If you are building a business (or want to learn something about it), I recommend this book.

Great book on mental models. I didn't find this book as interesting as its predecessor, but I think it's a good read.

These principles can be applied to anything. I don't even play Tennis. I still loved the book.

Simple and concise.

This book is a large collection of briefly described models. As it is with such books, every reader will love some parts, like others, and not care about the rest. While that describes my experience with the book, I think it had a good love/uninterested ratio.

I quite liked the book. Learned a lot from those Alex talked to - and it was entertaining to read at the same time.

I did not like Grant's previous book, Originals, very much. So I didn't have very high expectations for this one. Nevertheless, the subject matters to me, and this book has received some good ratings, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It was good. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know. Some things I thought I knew I learned were wrong. This is what I love in good books - they challenge your beliefs. They make you think. Rethink. My critique of this book is that the examples feel too drawn out. This made the book cumbersome to read because I was bored sometimes. It was like a rollercoaster of thinking. Either way, I got through it, and I'm happy I did.

I found it tedious and long to get through. But I can still appreciate it for what it is. It just wasn't for me. Yet I still think that the core content, had it been in shorter book, would have interested me very much. It's a great psychology book. Probably one of the best. But I wasn't interested in all the technical details that this book had to offer, hence the low rating. Still, the core concepts are very interesting and gives great insight into how our mind works.

Great advice given by various people.

The book provides nice insights into how 37Signals build software. There are great lessons to learn about shipping products, fast. It is very opinionated, which helps get the points across. This book is freely available online.

Good book on software design. The book discusses the importance of simplicity and consistency in code design, and argues that the best way to reduce complexity is to modularize code so that each module has a well-defined purpose. It also advocates for taking time to make proactive design improvements, rather than waiting until a system is overwhelmed by complexity.

Eye-opening. Great read. I was a bit surprised about the last chapters. But interesting book nonetheless.

The book was good. I got a 'Law of Attraction' feeling from the book, which I didn't particularly enjoy. There were some great quotes, though.

Great book on copy writing. The cover made me skeptical, but the contents convinced me. It does exactly what it promises.

Teaches the reader great principles for clean coding. A bit too much focus on Java.

Discusses how we often attribute occurrences and the likes to determinism, when it should have been attributed to luck. Also lots of discussion on heuristics and biases - how our mental shortcuts fool us, in relation to randomness. While enjoyable and a book that can teach you a lot, I prefer Taleb's other books.

I enjoyed this book because it wasn't someone with no skin in the game telling me how to study. It's deeply practical. This book is the result of interviews of A-students—it shares what they do in an actionable study approach.

Great book. The introduction is fantastic. I'm fascinated by how Amazon had stayed true to their values; and how well it turned out (so far). In all honesty, you can read 80% of the book for free on Amazon's own site, because the shareholder letters are free to the public.

The book is easily digested. I had just read Peak, so I didn't think that it brought anything new to the table when I read it. Good for those who knows little about mastery.

I like the principles and what they describe the Netflix culture to be. I kind of enjoyed the book, but I found it slightly boring at times due to some of the stories.

The book, in my opinion, was a bit long. It is very easily summarized in the first rule alone. Still, the argument that it makes is solid. You don't 'find' your passion. You create it.

Good book. The authors discuss various mental models and concepts to help people make better decisions and understand the world around them. Low ROI for me as I've already read so much about mental models. If you don't know a ton of them, I'd highly recommend this book as an entry point.

I read the John Minford translation. It was an enjoyable read. I skipped the commentary most of the time, though. I would rather read it myself, and seek commentary if I wanted to expand upon some parts.

This book essentially synthesizes and collects wisdom from other books, and presents the authors take. If you haven't read any of the most popular Personal Development books, this one would be a great start, as it connects many of the dots between them. However, if you have read some of them, there's a lot of repetition.

I enjoyed reading this book quite a bit. Benjamin Franklin is an interesting man—there is a lot to learn from him.

The book starts out as a story, kind of like an autobiography, but then takes experiences from his life and gives advice based on those.

I can appreciate Camus' stance. The work is the reward. The book was interesting, but I was mostly eager to read the last chapter - about the myth and his exposition thereof.

The Richest Man in Babylon is a good book with a solid message. However, I found it to be slightly repetitive and dragged out at times, hence the rating. It is short, accessible, and simple. Recommended for those who wants to learn more about personal finances.

I didn't like the book as much as I thought I would. It felt boring at times. But it does contain some great wisdom on shaping yourself — and what one should aspire to. Below are some of my highlights.

This book probably wasn't for me. I didn't particularly resonate with the sports aspects, which made up ~70% of the book. The rest was great.

Basically; small (positive) actions that add up over time. Your habits compound. While I did enjoy the book at the time, after revisiting it later it seems repetitive and full of platitudes. There definitely is good knowledge in there - the main idea, in my opinion, is solid.

I found the story, as compared to it's predecessor, quite boring. However, I still learned a lot from reading it, so it was worth my while. Good book, but nowhere near as good as The Phoenix Project.

Good book about what being an artist entails and how to overcome the resistance that you inevitably will meet. The first 2/3 was fine. The last 1/3 was confusing and boring. Don't read that part. It's already a short book, but I feel like it could be much shorter.

All right read due to a few interesting points made throughout. One can appreciate Thoreau's enjoyment of nature, however the many details of it can sometimes become a bore.

Here's the guy behind Reddit and Hipmunk who has been in Y Combinator telling you how to do startups. Interesting read.

Good enough book. It got pretty good towards the end. I didn't particularly like the stories, as they seemed to be very filler-like, but were probably important for the analogies. You can easily skip the stories, though.

It was fine. There are lots of good nuggets.

The book expands on what is said in the speech. You can find the speech on YouTube. I'd recommend simply listening to that rather than reading the book, although it is short. The speech is much clearer and conciser.

In some ways, I really enjoyed this book. In others, not so much. I've never been much for storytelling. But that's why I read this book. I think it's an important ability to have. It helps present your point of view and your stories to other people. It helps you become more engaging. That's not a bad quality to have.

I was actually hoping for something different, but I can see why it became what it did. Slightly interesting read.

The framework seems very well thought out and effective.

But I didn't feel like the authors respected my time as they described the same concepts multiple times in different parts of the book. The first ~100 pages were an introduction that introduced every concept, which was then used in the latter half to denote more actionable steps.

At the same time, this also drilled in the ideas—so most readers would probably 'get' the book.

It's fine. A bit too opinionated. Does contain a few great snippets.

Raises some great points. Felt slightly repetetive and dull at times.

Good.

Great tips on acquiring more agency in your life.

An all-right book. It had good parts.

Good book, but felt too drawn out for me.

It's a decent book. I used it for self-reflection and found some value.

OK personal development book. I wouldn't read it again. These short notes suffice as summary.

There is much to be learned from the book. Both religion and veganism was pushed too heavily for me. As (most) books, it's written in accordance with the author's view of the world. That is very clear here.

Has some gems.

The book presents some good ideas on getting your products finished and out there. The book is 125 pages long but can be easily summarized (as seen below). It feels like a collection of ideas for blog posts. I'd probably not recommend you read it — instead, just read my summary or notes on it. I do, however, like the ideas presented. Most of them I already knew very well and use daily. They work.

Fun and easy read. The SEAL, David Goggins, wrote his own book; "Can't Hurt Me". Both books have their merits, but I'd recommend David's book every time - by a landslide.

The book reads like a cookbook of tactics you can employ to get more energy, focus better, and find a daily focus.

This is an example of a book that should have been a blog post. You could probably read my notes and have learned what this book has to offer.

OK book, but wasn't interesting for the first few chapters. I maybe got something out of 20/160 pages. But if you haven't read about learning before, it's fantastic.

While I'm generally a fan of synthesizing ideas into a simple and concise format, that is not what's happening. It feels as if they're taking the great ideas others have had and just... showcasing them, pointing, and saying "look at this". This is a book, not Twitter. The book is too absolute in the advice given. “You need x, you need to do y” and so on. This does not make for a great reading experience. I would not recommend this book.

I liked the core message. To love oneself and to aspire to be better. If you have read any book or article about that, you already know what this book says. I think that my notes summarize the book; even if I didn't try to. There is a lot about 'the source energy' in the book, something which usually would make me put down a book instantly. But this was a gift, so I kept going. It's OK. There's much better books to read. Just read my notes and move on.

I didn't like this book. It felt like a very generic (and formularic) self-help book.

It had some great ideas. Unfortunately, these were all borrowed. This should not have been a book. Not even a blog post. A tweet or two, at best. Not recommended.