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.

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.

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.

The compelling history of humankind that explores how the power of stories has shaped the past and the present of our species.

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

I would consider this a non-traditional history book, and one of the best history books I've read.

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.

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 principles to make decision by. Personal principles are usually implicit and come from inuition - making them explicit is certainly valuable.

A few simple but true principles on whats needed to turn an already good company into a consistently great company, backed by a data-driven study on real companies.

The strategies are all simple and 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 own motivations and make it easy to do what yourself to by conditioning your brain.

The examples are very dated now, which made it a bit tougher to get through, and I think some of his messages are communicated better in other books now, but the core psychological principles are very valuable and worth reading.

Lee Kuan Yew turned Singapore from a third world country into a first world country under his leadership, one of the most impressive feats anyone has ever accomplished.

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.

Grood 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 a bit repetitive toward the end.

Reread this classic after reading it in middle school and really liking it. It still has the same dark and uneasy tone, along with a somewhat bittersweet truth and inevitability of how Bod's life will need to end up in the end 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 at a younger age, 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 profession memory competitors use to memorize long lists, called "the memory palace." The method 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 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 may be over-conclusive and leading, 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 his opposition toward techno-optimism though since a less common perspective in SF.

A breakdown of the Upanishads by Parthasarthy. Mostly an okay analysis of the texts and explains the concepts well.

But when it comes to some of the more difficult Upanishads, specifically covering non-dualism, Parthasarthy gives an unnecessary 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 shows us a much more personal and holistic view of marketing then is conventionally propagated. He gives lots of useful frameworks to think about how you should be approaching 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 I suspect that if I come back and read it again, 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 creativity level of those mysteries, which are widely considered to be among Agathie Christie's best books.

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

A memoir by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36. The book is a reflection on his life and his experiences with death. I particularly loved his letter to his daughter, which I thought was beautiful.

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

The book can be a bit bleak at times, but the regrets are certainly a good reminder for everyone - although they aren't anything unexpected.

This core concept of this book is important, but it could've been better defended 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 would have rather seen more explanation of 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 I thought was a very creative and digestable way to teach philosophy.

The philosophy has some novel ideas worth reading for, although 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 aren't fully true). Also, I found that the the student/teacher dialogue could use a lot of improvement - ideally the student should be directing his questions at trying to pick apart the teacher's arguments, but instead he just blanketly rejects everything 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 story of 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 the gaps, but instead it was mostly several losely strung together technical details without much broader context.

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. T

Then the next two-thirds of the book are Hawkins talking about his theories on AI and the future of humanity, which are largely 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 definitely an unpopular opinion, given that Feynman is definitely 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. I think my rating is mainly motivated by my expectation of more unique insight characteristic of Feynman, which I didn't find as much of in this book.

A controversial but thought-provoking book on how men ought to act toward/with women. Many interesting ideas, mixed with Deida's largely unjustified claims stated as if they were apparent fact. I think there are many concepts in here which I don't currently agree with, which I could see myself being plausibly convinced of.

I gave it a low rating because there are many arbitrary/unjustified ideas that are somewhat destructive to spread - but I actually to quite like how unconventional Deida's ideas are and suspect that if I read this again in the future and spend more time thinking about what he has to say, my rating could improve.

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.