Books

Whenever I finish a book, I make myself write a summary of it here. These are usually meant for myself or for sending people book recommendations.

Since I consume all the books on Kindle, this serves as my digital “home library” to show off that I indeed, sometimes read books.

I expanded on my use of Kindle and why I make those summaries here.

  • Books: The Happy Sleeper

    My notes from “The Happy Sleeper” on how to help a toddler getting to sleep.

  • Book: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

    Four Thousand Weeks is a book about our relationship with time. There is something wrong there and we need help.

  • Book: A short history of nearly everything

    My summary of “The short history of nearly everything” by Bill Bryson – a multivitamin of natural sciences.

  • Book: The Scientist in The Crib

    “The Scientist in the Crib” explores how children explore the world using scientific methods or – the scientific method is built on the framework that children use to explore the world.

  • Book: Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez

    The truth is we know little about the wolf. What we know a good deal more about is what we imagine the wolf to be. This was a very sad book to read. Humanity has dealt the wolves great injustice, blaming them for everything under the sun (and the moon), and then some more. BarryContinue…

  • All about the trees on the Internet

    Trees can teach us a lot about the compounding nature of success, the perseverance, and how Internet rewards taking multiple shots. All about the trees on the Internet in the 24th edition of Deliberate Internet.

  • Book: On Writing by Stephen King

    Part autobiography – part writing manual, „on writing” is a deep dive into Stephen King’s writing process. Damn, this guy can write!

  • Book: The End is Always Near by Dan Carlin

    I love Dan Carlin’s „Hardcore History” podcast. The stories of mundane concerns during wars, plagues, and other terrible events in human history are somehow deeply informative of the human spirit. I am very grateful that Dan spares the gory details, but he keeps in the weight of the event and pulls lessons from the historyContinue…

  • Book: Elon Musk – Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

    “ELON MUSK IS A BODY THAT REMAINS VERY MUCH IN MOTION.” Elon Musk needs no introductions. His biography is not only an analysis of his way of thinking but also a treasure trove of exciting Silicon Valley history and current trivia. While investigating the life of Elon, we learn about PayPal, Tesla, Solar City, andContinue…

  • Book: The Clock Of The Long Now: Time and Responsibility

    “How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare?” – Clock of the long now is a fantastic project focused on getting the humanity interested in thinking in the long-term.

  • Book: Brain Rules by John Medina

    „The brain appears to be designed to (1) solve problems (2) related to surviving (3) in an unstable outdoor environment, and (4) to do so in nearly constant motion. I call this the brain’s performance envelope.” We tend to perceive the human brain as a magical box that does its own thing regardless of theContinue…

  • Captivate: the science of succeeding with people by Vanessa Van Edwards

    “Don’t impress people; engage them.” This is a note to self. It comes up over and over again in every book about interpersonal communication. People want to hear about themselves, not you. The quickest way for them to open up and like you is is to LISTEN. Which, coincidentally Vanessa had to do when sheContinue…

  • Book: Homo Deus – a history of Tomorrow

    Homo Deus is a book about the possible paths for humanity. Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens takes his insightful analysis of our species history and maps the trends and technological advances to present us with a possible future. I find this analysis highly accurate and agree with him on the direction we are facing.

  • Book: Whiplash – How to survive our faster future.

    Whiplash is a book about thriving in a world that is only gaining speed. Joi Ito was a director of now-famous MIT Media Lab and Jeff Howe is a veteran Wired author. Together, they dissect the most important scientific advances of history to discover what makes them tick. Amazon link. They distill it into fewContinue…

  • Book: Innovators by Walter Isaacson

    “How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution” Walter Isaacson’s journey over the past few years adopted a particular theme: He wrote biographies of famous inventors and in the result – he learned a lot about how innovation happens. He started with Benjamin Franklin, later continued on with Einstein, Steve Jobs,Continue…

  • Book: Loonshots

    “How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries” This book is essentially about innovation and how to sustain it. It draws parallels between the physics of phase transition and the innovation management theory. The business realities are pulling big businesses/corporations in the direction of franchise improvements – producing moreContinue…

  • Book: How to talk to anyone

    This book is a practical translation of Dale Carnegie’s „How Win friends and influence people„. However, the advice here is more tactical and updated compared to the original version. Amazon Link I picked up this book because I am getting married in 3 weeks and I want to avoid the faux-pas during the party. IContinue…

  • Book: Thanks a Thousand

    I have issues with focusing on here and now. I tend to be very future-oriented, rapidly jumping from goal to goal. This makes focusing on the present moment a bit difficult and something that I have to put conscious effort into. AJ Jacobs has a similar problem, so in this charming book,  he resolved to thankContinue…

  • Book: Freakonomics

    Freakonomics explores quirky consequences of economic realities. If you ever wondered how realtor’s commission structure is impacting your house sale price or if crack dealing is a steady source of income – this book will be of interest to you. Presented is the most practical version of the economy – one that works, shapes theContinue…

  • Book: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

    Yes, this is the book in which Malcolm Gladwell wrote that you basically need 10 000 hours of practice to get world class at something. Many more people have heard about 10 000 hours concept than the book itself. They may be even surprised to learn that this number is NOT a core concept. ItContinue…

  • Book: Four Tendencies

    Upholders ask: “Should I do this?” • Questioners ask: “Does this make sense?” • Obligers ask: “Does this matter to anyone else?” • Rebels ask: “Is this the person I want to be?” In this book, Gretchen Rubin introduces another framework to categorize people. I know, the idea of boxing in folks is flawed, butContinue…

  • Book: Power of full engagement

    “Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.” The core tenet of the book is that you have to manage your energy if you want to achieve anything. The best way to manage your energy is to balance spending with replenishing. This is in line with what Tony Robbins is saying. The bookContinue…

  • Book: Hard Thing about Hard Things

    “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.” Some people call this book the most important book about startups. Shane Parish from Farnam Street Blog has been singing praises about this book asContinue…

  • Book: Factfulness by Hans Rosling

    Oh my, how I do love Hans Rosling! His “magic washing machine” TED talk may be my favorite of all time. „Factfulness” is a culmination of his life work. He literally wrote the book on his deathbed. It provides a framework for thinking about wealth distribution around the world, thinking about help and differentiating factContinue…

  • Book: Unshakeable by Tony Robbins

    This book is an excerpt and a summary of „Money: Master the game” also by Tony Robbins. I highly recommend any Tony Robbins book and this one is no exception. This one may be better for you than „Money”, since that is a tough one to read – but very valuable. Seemingly a book aboutContinue…

  • Book: Essentialism – the disciplined pursuit of less

    This is such an easy concept to grasp, but so hard to implement. The core premise is „You must do and only do what is essential”. Intuitively we all know it – we have to focus our efforts and do important stuff instead of paddling on the river of constant unimportant thingies. But interruptions areContinue…

  • Book: Skin in the Game

    Only those, who have skin in the game know what they are talking about, because they cannot afford cheap talk. In the modern world, very often we have situation where one side has much more risk than the other. It is baffling that usually the side that has almost no risk advises the side thatContinue…

  • Book: Purple Cow: Transform your business by being remarkable

    This book is about what I perceive as marketing: creating products that really resonate with the core audience and designing / packaging them in a way that the customers cannot help themselves but to tell their friends. Are you wondering why “purple cow?”. Because its stands out among black and white! Trying to make stuffContinue…

  • Book: Remote – Office not required

    „Remote” by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) and Jason Fried is a book about (you guessed it) remote work. Both DHH and Jason are huge advocates of the distributed setup as they should – they run a company called Basecamp that hires remotely. And so am I – I work in one of the biggest distributedContinue…

  • Book: Born to run

    This book is not a manual how to run. It is however, a gripping tale of how a group of western world’s best endurance athletes came together to race an ultra marathon with fabled Mexican tribesmen called Tarahumara. If it was was fiction, it would not be believable. Yeah, but what about actual running? TheContinue…

  • Book: Tribe of Mentors

    “Short life advice from the best in the world” is a very fitting subtitle. Tim Ferriss has indeed contacted best in the world and asked them a roster of specially designed questions. They came back with surprising, wise and quirky answers. The array of personalities presented on these pages is immensely diverse and that makesContinue…

  • Book: Life Principles

    Ray Dalio is one of the most successful investors in the world. Tony Robbins and Tim Ferris call him the Steve Jobs of investing. He argues that there most of the hard problems in life are „another one of those”. Situation is somewhat similar to a pattern recognized before and the real trick is toContinue…

  • Leonardo Da Vinci

    Leonardo Da Vinci has an Uberman fame. He painted the most acclaimed painting in history, designed war machines, perfect cities, airplanes, submarines and bridges. He discovered how human aortic valve really worked, authored one of the best medical illustrations in history, fathered modern map making… The list goes on and introducing him is not reallyContinue…

  • Book: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

    Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.   You don’t need to formally be a leader, nobody had to put you in that position, but you still can own the situation. No excuses, no bullshitting, just ownership. Extreme ownership gives you power. Power to own every situation, toContinue…

  • Book: Walden by Henry David Thoreau

    “Walden” is a history of 1 year of Henry David Thoreau’s life when he decided to practice minimalism and live in a cabin that he has built by his own hands. It was an extreme case of practicing what he preached and he preached ( in 1800s ) that constant struggle to keep up withContinue…

  • Book: Rising Strong: by Brené Brown

    It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; whoContinue…

  • Book: Fahrenheit 451

    Surprisingly, the book feels very modern. Contrary to what many people remember from it, the burning of books was not issued by a totalitarian government, but by people themselves.They just didn’t like being offended. Amazon Link The artifitial chatter created by “walls” and “families” is very reminiscent about modern society. We dont like uncomfortable ideasContinue…

  • Book: Moonshots in Education: Blended Learning in the Classroom by Esther Wojcicki

    I met Esther Wojcicki during EU Hackathon devoted to education (which I kinda won). She is a most amazing person, the most decorated highschool teacher in US, mother the founder of personal genetic sequencing company , ceo of youtube and mother in law of this guy. Amazon Link „Moonshots in Education” is a handbook for improvingContinue…

  • Book: The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World

    To say Thomas Edison is an iconic figure is an understatement. His image is so deeply entrenched within culture that its hard to separate what is truth and what is fiction and what constitutes a fact. Amazon Link The image of genius who just cant stop innovating was appealing and convenient for journalists of theContinue…

  • Book: How Proust Can Change Your Life: by Alain de Botton

    What I understood from the book was, that it really is important to stop and marvel at everyday life, which can be very profound. Ultimately, the goal is to see the world through artists eyes and particular object of the art is not very important. It is the perception, the noticing of the details inContinue…

  • Book: Tools of Titans – Wise

    “Tools of Titans” is a summary of Tim Ferris’s amazingly popular podcast. The caliber of people presented there is spectacular and the depth of knowledge amazing. I let myself split my book summary similarly to how TF has split it: Healthy Wealthy Wise „Wise” part is pretty cohesive with „Wealthy”. Honestly, only after reviewing these notesContinue…

  • Book: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

    War of Art is a book about creative struggle. Pressfield writes about Resistance as the ultimate nemesis of creativity, a Darth Vader of any creative endeavour. It applies to enterpreneurs, poets, moviemakers and writers alike. If you want to make something worthwhile, you will be harassed by resistance. Even if you are trying to looseContinue…

  • Book: Tools of Titans – Wealthy

    “Tools of Titans” is a summary of Tim Ferris’s amazingly popular podcast. The caliber of people presented there is spectacular and the depth of knowledge amazing. I let myself split my book summary similarly to how TF has split it: Healthy Wealthy Wise I wouldn’t say “Wealthy” part is about amassing capital – it’s rather aboutContinue…

  • Book: Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World

    The world we live in is ripe with exponential possibilities. “World’s biggest challenges are also world’s biggest business opportunities” Exponential technologies are the ones that can be adopted at a rate of Moore’s law. The digitalization of technologies frees them from physical limits and moves them to Moore’s law limits. Amazon Link Exponential tools

  • Book: Obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday

    Dont panic. It will be ok. One foot at a time. This book is ultimately about perseverance. Ryan gives examples about how we can use stoic philosophy to deal with current situation and to end victorious.         Keep cool head Observe, dont feel, assess the situation What can you change? How canContinue…

  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

    I was reading this book while my girlfriend was reading “Better Angels of our nature”. We came to the conclusion that the concepts in these 2 books were pretty similar, but sometimes the takeway a bit different. Humans wiped out many species, both humanoid and not. 300 000 years ago there were many humanoids, butContinue…

  • Book: Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday

    Ryan Holliday is very disillusioned by modern media. You could call it Karma, since he made his career as a marketing director for American Apparel – one of the biggest clothing brands in US. He manipulated journalists to pick up his stories, created scandal to make the headlines and got away with it. You canContinue…

  • Book: The Charisma Myth

    How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism by Olivia Fox Cabane Charisma is not something set in stone. It is ultimately a set of habits and we can train ourselves to make them part of our lives. Charisma can be learned and it is powerful tool to influence people. Amazon LinkContinue…

  • Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People

    This classic is a treasure trove of great advice. Initially published in 1936 it is still filled with timeless knowledge. Only small bits are a bit dated almost 100 years later – like “selling the sizzle”, but I suppose only because the marketing world went a little overboard with implementation of these rules.   AmazonContinue…

  • Book: Tools of Titans – Healthy

    “Tools of Titans” is a summary of Tim Ferris’s amazingly popular podcast. The caliber of people presented there is spectacular and the depth of knowledge amazing. I let myself split my book summary similarly to how TF has split it: Healthy Wealthy Wise Basically, this sums up why I focus on Fitness. Health and Strength areContinue…

  • Book: First 20 hours… How to learn anything… fast.

    How to learn anything extremely fast? Well, that book is precisely about that. Josh is a master learner and he chose few skills that he became quite good at within 20 hours. I resolved to learn Colemak after reading this book. Took me longer than 20 hours (keyzen-colemak was quite helpful) Amazon Link My notesContinue…

  • Book: Creativity Inc.

    Ed Catmull is a CEO of Pixar – studio responsible for such amazing movies as Up, Wall-e and Toy Story. He took upon himself to protect the creativity of Pixar and find out what needs to be done to protect and fuel expression. Seeing how successful companies turn into “Beasts that have to be fed”,Continue…

  • Book: Benjamin Franklin, An American Life

    Benjamin Franklin is certainly one of those “Larger than Life” personas. One of the founding fathers whose face is forever immortalized in a $100 bill. Apart from the United States, he is also a first founding father of self-improvement. His “moral improvement project” was well publicized then and now and his peers were quite impressedContinue…

  • Book: An Astronauts guide to live on earth

    This is an autobiography of Christopher Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut that had served as a commander of expedition 35 to the International Space Station. He is an all around cool dude and he started sharing bits and tidbits about living in space. Hadfield has been described by Forbes as “perhaps the most social media savvy astronautContinue…