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The Forgotten Highlander – Alistair Urquhart
Date Read: March 16, 2024. Rating: 9 / 10This book absolutely blew my mind. It's the story of a British soldier that was captured by the Japanese during WWII. I read this book during a stressful period in my life but reading this made made my day struggles seem miniscule. Highly recommend reading this but not for the faint of heart.
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Slow Productivity – Cal Newport
Date Read: March 15, 2024. Rating: 8 / 10Cal's latest book is the answer to the hustle culture. Main takeaway is to focus on doing less and improving your output quality. Lots of interesting stories of artists that balanced out had a 'slow' approach to their projects and the resulting benefits they observed with their output.
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7 Rules of Power – Jeffrey Pfeffer
Date Read: January 27, 2024. Rating: 8 / 10A great fundamental book on power. I love his writing style and the blend of stories to convey the principles laid out in this book. My goal was to subconsciously be aware of this core aspect of our human nature.
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Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad
Date Read: February 12, 2024. Rating: 7 / 10I picked this book up right before my first trip to Japan. It's a witty and fun read on a Britisher’s experience living all across Japan. Made me appreciate the culture reading this throughout the trip.
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Same As Ever – Morgan Housel
Date Read: January 15, 2024. Rating: 9 / 10Morgan Housel's first book Psychology of Money is one of my favorite books and I didn't think this one could top that but it did. Morgan's perspective on focusing on things around us that have remained the same over the long time horizon is one that I will think of often. Please read.
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Art of Gathering – Priya Parker
Date Read: December 28, 2023. Rating: 9 / 10A book that truly changed my perspective on the topic of gathering. We often gather on auto-pilot without being mindful. After reading this book, I have a heightened sense of gatherings large and small. There is a ton of actionable advice that I took away.
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Feel-Good Productivity – Ali Abdaal
Date Read: December 27, 2023. Rating: 5 / 10I finished this book in 2 days but didn't find a lot of value in it. This book is a mesh of ideas and research from other productivity related books that didn't present any new ideas for me personally. Still its a worthwhile read if you're new to this space.
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Win Every Argument – Mehdi Hasan
Date Read: November 30, 2023. Rating: 8 / 10I think Mehdi Hasan undersells his work through the title of this book. He has managed to blend in a ton of actionable advice with memorable stories and research to craft a compelling message. I highly recommend the audible version of this book since Mehdi has actual recordings of debates (including some very interesting past presidential debates) in the audiobook version.
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Clear Thinking – Shane Parrish
Date Read: October 20, 2023. Rating: 8 / 10I've enjoyed reading Shane's Farnam Street blog over the years, and I was eager to grab this book. It had a slow start, but the ending was powerful. I particularly liked the parts about challenging our default behaviors and creating safeguards. The concept of making the invisible visible through writing was intriguing. I highly recommend reading the last few chapters.
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Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson
Date Read: October 02, 2023. Rating: 8 / 10There are aspects of this book that are thoroughly inspiring and other parts skippable. Inspiring parts – Musk's strong focus on first principles thinking to build products from 0>1, his 'algorithm' to build products, the idiot index to optimize resources and finally his ability to take massive risks to achieve a grandiose vision. Highly recommend reading the first half of this book. Anyone who is interested in business/product strategy, should pick this one up.
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Outlive – Peter Attia
Date Read: September 05, 2023. Rating: 9 / 10I learnt so much from this book. It's a great (and long) read on how to improve your overall health span – an objective that Peter lays out for Medicine 3.0. I took away lot of fundamental knowledge on improving my health from this book and loved the sections at the end emphasizing care for emotional health.
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Good Strategy Bad Strategy – Richard Rumelt
Date Read: April 24, 2022. Rating: 8 / 10A classic strategy book. Easy to read and this would be my first recommendation for someone who wants to build a strong base in strategic thinking. This book is covered with a plethora of examples where organizations failed at their strategy, and where some excelled.
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Understanding Michael Porter – Joan Magretta
Date Read: July 14, 2022. Rating: 8 / 10Absolutely loved this book. I came in looking to understand Porter's Five Forces better, and I left with spending more time on his fundamental ideas on strategy.
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Inspired – Marty Cagan
Date Read: July 21, 2021. Rating: 9 / 10If you're new to the field of product management in tech – read this book! You can thank Marty later for all the time that he saved you in helping you build right product, picking the right companies to build at and much much more. Some of the advice may be hard to implement in the real world but it's good to be aware of it subconciously.
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Nonviolent Communication – Marhsall B. Rosenberg
Date Read: January 31, 2021. Rating: 8 / 10Title comes across as strong but this book has many gems in how to communicate that can not only help in personal relationships but also professional.
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Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel
Date Read: January 03, 2021. Rating: 9 / 10Morgan Housel defines 'Psychology of Money' as "a soft skill where how you behave is more important than what you know." It's been one of my favorite books of 2020. From exploring what wealth/money means to us, to why we make decisions managing our finances. There's a lot of broad wisdom shared in this book and the principles can definitely help people reading it improve their behaviors/outlook on personal finance.