This is the most insightful book on writing I've read. The author's philosophy is simple: the sentence is the fundamental unit of writing. If you focus on making each sentence great, your writing will be great.

He gives practical tips on how to improve your sentences by eliminating non-essential words and he shares his method for sentence creation.

Beyond the quality of the author's writing philosophy, the book is written with a level of intention and concision I didn't know was possible.

The value density of this book is what all books should aspire to be (and only the best books can compete, like Zero to One).

This book is written as if it were the journal of the mentally challenged Charlie Gordon, who undergoes an experimental surgery to increase his intelligence.

It's a beautiful story, as well as an exploration of the effects of intelligence on the human psyche, but I also especially love the attention to detail in each character's psychology.

It felt like every interaction with each character was written with careful consideration of each indiviuals temperament and motivating functions, allowing the reader to effectively understand their personalities and goals through subtle signals, just like you could in real life.

One of the best philosophy books I've read, especially as an introduction into more nuanced spiritual thinking.

Eckart Tolle is as close to enlightenment as any public spiritual leader. This book is dense with insights on happiness and how to live a peaceful life.

Another concise and high value density book on writing, second only to Several Short Sentences on Writing.

William Zinsser has a minimalist approach to writing that focuses on stripping out everything unnecessary and making sure that every word serves a purpose.

He also has great perspective on the purpose of writing and what writing in your own voice actually means.

Excellent required reading for all ambitious young people that want to build successful careers.

Covers almost all of the classic pitfalls of ego that plight young people - especially those in Gen Z exposed to startups & Silicon Valley at a young age (a group that includes most of my friends and me).

Each chapter is a new powerful lesson on restraint, humility, attitude, and more. The chapter on "The Canvas Method" is especially valuable.

Isaac Asimov said this was his favorite of his own writing, which made me curious to read it.

I don't want to spoil anything, but you should read it right now and then come back. It takes less than 30 minutes to finish. You can find it here. It's worth it. You can click into my notes after.

The bible of starting a massive technology company. Anyone interested in startups needs to read this.

The first principles on (1) what to work on (2) how to work on it to create massive value and (3) how to capture part of the value to build a valuable company.

The definitive book on building habits. I hesitated to read it because I thought it would be like most self-help books with a few simple concepts that are generally intuitive.

I was very wrong. The book is extremely information-dense with useful strategies to effectively build habits. Every new chapter introduces new actionable tips.

Building habits is a critical skill, so reading this book is critical.

Great book on the theory of intelligence, how its created in the brain, and how we could replicate it in machines. Hawkins gives a great intuitive understanding of many different properties of all brain systems that give rise to intelligence.

Amazingly, while the book was written several decades ago (before significant advancements in AI), many of the most game-changing advances in AI have been due to implementations of the same concepts he elaborates in this book.

Anyone who strives to create faces Resistance at some point on their journey. Resistance is what prevents us from achieving what we want to, and it comes in many forms. This book is about how to identify & defeat Resistance.

It presents a unique attitude toward creation that focuses on remembering the nature of Resistance, overcoming it through consistency, and maintaining humility and appreciation for the divinity from which art flows through us.

A concise and tactical guide to fundraising with everything you need to know. Must-read for anyone planning to raise venture capital.

Ryan has formed his intuitions on the topic the hard way through trial-and-error, and has the results to backup his strategies with his company Bolt raising huge venture rounds.

His framework for an ideal pitch is also the perfect minimal narrative to explain any venture-scalable company.

The Mandukya Upanishad is the most concise of the Indian philosophy texts. It's considered an exhaustive overview of Advaita Vedanta, which is basis for non-dualism and has inspired many Western philosophies.

It usually comes with the Karika, which is a short commentary on it written by Swami Gaudapada, one of the famous original thinkers behind Advaita.

It's filled with great analogies for understanding non-dualism, along with several overly religious or complex descriptions that could benefit from simplification.

You can find it here - be warned, it's a challenging read.

A value dense tactical guide on growing a company from initial success to scale.

Many books focus on how to build something customer's want. Many books focus on how to operate a large company. Few explain how to scale from Series A to IPO, since few people have successfully accomplished this.

Useful insights for early founders to develop awareness of problems they'll face later, although most people need to worry about getting to Series A first. I'll come back and read this book again when I'm in this stage of building a company, and I'm sure the advice will resonate even more.

All great nations go through cycles of rise and decline. With this in mind, Ray Dalio develops a framework based on key indicators to evaluate where in its cycle a nation is. Using this framework, he makes the case that the United States is on the decline from it's peak, and that China will be the next dominant global power.

This book is dense with insights about how societies function, how great nations are created, how power dynamics shift over time, etc. I'd consider this essential reading for anyone curious about how the world works.

A creative science fiction, and a unique spin on the contact with alien's theme. It's also nice variety to have the backdrop of the Chinese cultural revolution - an uncharacteristic and unique setting for a typical sci-fi novel.

A perfect introduction to the neuroscience of emotions, taught by one of its most insightful teachers.

Panksepp covers emotional systems from a variety of perspectives, laying out neuroanatomical, neurobiological, and neurochemical foundations, while taking into account relevant psychology an philosophy.

This textbook goes far beyond telling the facts. Panksepp also lays out his thought-provoking personal insights and theories.

He often takes a step back from the facts to offer computational and philosophical theories about the brain, appreciate the beauty behind different aspects of neuroscience, or to offer thoughtful reflections on the nature of emotions.

I went into the book expecting another iteration of self-help or life advice books, but ended up really liking it. The author organizes all of Naval's online advice into a nice structure around achieving happiness and financial freedom in life.

Very high readability, like reading through a series of tweet storms for the entire book, and great boiled down insights on time allocation, what to optimize for, how to be happy, and more.

Seneca has one message here which is quite simple: life is short, but we make it much shorter by spending time on things that are unimportant.

As simple as it is, it's necessary reminder, and Seneca delivers it in a unique way that brings up relevant points and makes you seriously think about how you're spending your time.

A creative non-traditional history book about humanity that explores how stories have our species.

The core concept is that religions, businesses, language and much more are all shared myths. This lens casts a more high-clarity perspective on the world.

The definitive handbook on being a genuine, likeable, influential, and positive-sum person with many practical tips and anecdotes.

It would be great if everyone operated with this philosophy.

This book is the conceptual opposite of The 48 Laws of Power.

A book about the philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology of caring for children written by a grandmother who also runs a cognitive and developmental science lab at Berkeley.

Her sentences are full of wisdom, and her mindset toward raising children is beautiful - "loving children doesn’t give them a destination; it gives them sustenance for the journey."

She presents a full picture of the evolutionary roots of parenting and uses this to inform her advice. She does a good job of exploring the nuances of raising children in each age group, and offers perspective on how we can use the science of parenting to improve the education system.

I scanned the section on Dalio's life and skipped to his principles. The principles are more like meta-principles on how to prioritize.

Most were too broad to extract actionable insights from, but they were all thought-provoking.

The most valuable idea I extracted from the book was the concept of creating an explicit set of personal principles for decision making. Personal principles are usually implicit and come from inuition - making them explicit is valuable.

A few simple ideas on how to turn a good company into a consistently great company, backed by a data-driven study on real companies.

The strategies are all intuitive. This is also more of a correlative study than a causational one, so it's hard to say that the factors Collins choose's to highlight are the exclusive set necessary to succeed.

From the title, I expected that this would be more about manifestation and the psychology of achieving big results. Instead, it's more about emotional regulation and mastery of your mind.

The most valuable concept is the process of neuro-associative conditioning, where Robbins shows you how to control your motivations and actions by conditioning your brain.

The examples are dated now, which made it less engaging, and some of his messages are communicated better in other books, but the core psychological principles are valuable and worth reading.

Lee Kuan Yew accomplished one of the most impressive feats of all time - he turned Singapore from a third-world to first-world country under his leadership alone.

This book is his reflection on how he did it, with insights on everything from leadership and diplomacy to economics and gardening.

I read the first section about the foundations of each major Singaporean department and learned a lot. I skipped over the rest, which covered Singaporean history and diplomacy.

A good overview of the frameworks needed to build a high performing organization.

Mostly focused on building out hiring pipelines and attracting talent, leading effectively and strategic planning, and effective execution at a team level.

The first half was good, then it got repetitive toward the end.

Loved this book in middle school so I decided to read it again. It still has the same dark and uneasy tone, along with the bittersweet inevitability of how Bod's life will need to end up that makes it a nice read.

I didn't like it as much as when I was younger - but maybe because it's easier to appreciate closer to the age and mentality of Bod.

About how to hack your memory, and the world of memory competitions.

You learn the strategy that all professional memory competitors use to memorize long lists, called "the memory palace." The method uses a hack in how your brain prioritizes spatial information and is surprisingly effective.

A broad introduction to what the future of AI and general intelligence could hold for humanity, and the ethical consierations that should be taken into account as we move forward.

The thought experiment in the introduction is a cool imagination of what general intelligence could look like.

The book has become slighlty outdated with the recent developments in AI.

Grant lays out three styles of building interpersonal relationships: givers, takers, and matchers.

He goes over how each strategy plays out, and tries to figure out what the optimal style is over different time horizons (I won't spoil the conclusion).

The framework of thinking about relationships in this way is useful, and highlights the importance of positive-sum people.

He attempts to position the book as if the ideas come from research and data, which I find to be over-conclusive, but his intuitions seem correct to me.

More like how fossil fuels underlie core systems that the world depends on. A climate book on how technologists overestimate how easy it is for technology to displace current fossil fuel dependence.

It shows why the energy, materials, and food production systems will likely depend on fossil fuels for longer than we expect.

Vaclav Smil has a purist writing approach. He believes in only writing facts without injecting opinion or his own thoughts.

It makes the book unbiased but also lacking in narrative or insight, making it hard to get through. I appreciated (but didn't fully agree with) his opposition toward techno-optimism since it's a less common perspective in my environments.

A breakdown of the Upanishads by Parthasarthy. A decent analysis of the texts and explains some concepts well.

When it comes to the more difficult Upanishads, especially those covering non-dualism, Parthasarthy gives an unnecessarilyy flowery and poetic explanation in a way that wouldn't be helpful for people new to the concepts.

Generally good just because the Upanishads themselves have a lot of wisdom within them.

Seth Godin presents an unconventionally personal and holistic view of marketing.

He provides lots of useful frameworks to think about howto approach marketing for your own business, and what it takes to market a product well.

The book didn't resonate as much with me on my first read, but when I read it again, I suspect that I'll get more out of it and my rating will increase.

After reading Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None I got accustomed to the levels of creativity in those mysteries, which are widely considered to be Agathie Christie's best books.

This one felt more like a regular mystery book - still entertaining and enjoyable, but not at the same level as those books.

A memoir by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at 36. The book is a reflection on his life and his experiences with death. The letter to his daughter at the end was beautiful.

The author, who has been a palliative care nurse for many years, shares what she's learned about life from the most common regrets of her dying patients.

The regrets are a good reminder for everyone - although they aren't anything unexpected.

The core concept of this book is important, but it could've been better explained in a 5 page blog post than in this 300 page book.

The idea that you should start with the "why" of your business before doing anything else is valuable.

Unfortunately, the book spends hundreds of pages explaining to you why "starting with why" is the correct approach with the same examples.

Instead, I wanted to see more explanation about how to actually start with why. The book also missed out on how relevant it's philosophy is to personal decisions.

A highly readable philosophy book about the beliefs and psychology of Alfred Adler, a lesser known rival and equal to Freud and Jung. Told in the format of a young skeptical student debating with a wise old philosopher in Japan, which was a very creative and digestable way to teach philosophy.

The philosophy has some novel ideas, but it plays too much in extremes (like saying that "all problems are interpersonal relationship problems" or "true freedom is the ability to be disliked", which both offer nuggets of wisdom, but lack nuance).

The student-teacher dialogue could also use improvement. The student should have been directing his questions at debunking the teacher's arguments, but instead he just rejects every statement the teacher says. Most of the ideas are covered better in other books.

A crazy story about grit and the limits of the human will.

It follows the famous crew assembled by Ernest Shackleton to try to make the first succesful expedition across Antarctica - except their boat gets trapped in ice near the beginning of their voyage, and they're forced to survive the brutal Arctic winter.

Stories like these are always a gratitude shock - they put things into perspective for how bad things could be. The book got very slow at points, but still an interesting read.

From the blurb, I expected a first principled breakdown of charisma and what creates it, and some insightful and actionable steps to increase it. Instead, there are some decent generic tips on how to increase your confidence, but nothing really new or groundbreaking.

For people interested in the topic, I would consider How to Win Friends And Influence People and The Art of Mingling to be better books within the same category.

The history of our universe, but with too much unmotivated technical detail and not enough context.

I love technical details when they're explained well, but Hawking often dives into details without ever framing them with why they're relevant.

The readability wasn't great either - I was hoping for a narrative about the history of the universes creation with technical details to fill in the gaps, but instead it was several losely strung together technical details without any broader narrative.

An interesting new theory for thinking about how brain systems operate at a high-level. Hawkins argues for the significance of independent cortical-columns in the brain as individual functional units to synthesize information.

The theory seems plausible but unlikely to capture the full picture, which can describe most theories.

I wish the book went into more technical detail on the theory itself and it's implications, but instead only the first third of the book is dedicated to it.

The next two-thirds of the book are Hawkins talking about his theories on AI and the future of humanity, which are unrelated and also a bit incongruous.

Accounts from the father of American psychedelic research on the nature of DMT experiences as observed during the first ever clinical trials of the drug.

An interesting book for anyone curious about psychedelics. The book has many patient trip stories which is useful at first, but can get repetitive.

My rating here is an unpopular opinion, given that Feynman is one of the best physics teachers of all time, and this series is typically considered excellent.

I think I expected more perspective-shifting insight on how to intuitively understand different principles of physics in unique ways, which I found at times, but there was also a substantial amount repetition from standard high-school physics, with similar pedagogical approaches.

My rating is mainly motivated by my expectation of more unique insight characteristic of Feynman, which I didn't find much of in this book. Still a good explanation of the relevant physics.

A controversial but thought-provoking book on how men should act toward women. Many interesting ideas, mixed with Deida's unjustified claims stated as if they were apparent fact.

I gave it a low rating because there are many arbitrary/unjustified ideas that are somewhat destructive to spread - but I actually do like how unconventional Deida's ideas are and he has many good tactical tips around maintaining attraction and sexual polarity in relationships.

I was excited at the concept of a book about generalists and why being a generalist is useful. Was expecting some insight on how to be a generalist effectively and some of the potential downsides.

Instead it basically just turned into one of the classic "story -> lesson -> repeat" books, with lots of stories that don't add much to the book, all boiling back down to the same baisc idea. I was pretty dissapointed in the end, with such an interesting topic, but very little actual value or insight delivered.