Book Reviews

Invisible Influence

Humans are social animals and will do or avoid things their peers do and avoid. Invisible Influence mostly discusses how our choices are shaped by our environment which isn't terribly enlightening in my opinion. It did get me thinking about how my actions and choices are shaped by my environment though and the need to actively manage my environment as part of my work. Surround myself with people who do good work and I will be drawn to do good work as well, compete with people at or slightly above my level and I will be inspired reach new levels of performance. I like this kinda meta-gaming of productivity, removing barriers to productivity so that it doesn't require as much willpower to stay on track.

Industries of the Future

Robotics, Artificial Intelligence,Cybersecurity, Cryptocurrencies/Digital Contracts, and biomedical data. These are the industries of the future, according to Alec Ross, distinguished visiting fellow at JHU.

I found this book depressing, which I'd like to explain with an example: In the chapter on Artificial Intelligence, Alec Ross discusses how AI translators can remove language barriers and connect more people to global capitalism. He especially highlights Papa Neu Guinea. The tropical island nation not only has very fertile soil, it is also home to 18% of the world's tuna population. 'Unfortunately' Papa New Guinea is also home to 400 distinct dialects which present an insurmountable obstacle to foreign corporations, seeking to destroy the rainforest for palm oil and finish the job of driving the tuna to extinction. 'Fortunately', so Alec Ross, AI translators will soon allow global capital to properly exploit this area of the globe as well.

All in all, I found the book very shortsighted. Yes, AI and Robotics solve problems. But if they're only looked at through the lense of "how will this generate more capitalism" I'm not inspired.

Dune Messiah

The continuation of the saga of Paul Atreides and the planet Arrakis, Dune Messiah picks up a decade or so after the inaugural title. The planet is no longer the biggest threat but instead the story is one of intrigue and legacies. Compared to the first book this one feels very focused in scope, interestingly picking up long after the first book. There is even a foreword by Frank Herbert's son, explaining that the book was mostly supposed to bridge the first and the third title, so I guess that's where I'll continue next. That said: I liked it. Not as much as the first one, but we'll see if the third title makes up for it.

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World

This book was given to me by a friend as a birthday gift. The card said: " I hope you'll enjoy this really weird book I recommended". Boy was it weird. Hardboiled Wonderland is a mystery, unfortunately without much of a payoff. Things to start clicking together but the puzzle never feels like it's fully assembled by the time the closing sentence comes around. If I had to describe it I'd say it's present day cyberpunk? Futuristic brain tech and some mega corporations are involved. Everything else is pretty standard. There's a weird subplot of a 17 year old girl hitting on the 30+ year old main character. Not sure what to make of it honestly.

Group

Group is Christie Tate's telling of her time in group therapy, a journey she started to work out why she had such a hard time attaching to people. It's an incredibly open book, veering into the TMI territory at least for my taste, and the group is run in a very non-traditional way that I think may set people up for the wrong expectations. But at the end of the day, I enjoyed her journey of self-discovery. There are many aspects that I thought relatable, setting boundaries, making friends, and, most importantly, learning that relationships are stronger than we might think.

I think this is probably more a book for those that have had experience with counseling or are considering group counseling. Just keep in mind that this particular group is run in a very unorthodox manner.

Death's End

The grand finale of the three body problem! Death's End maintains the escalating scale of the first two books, no longer asking itself what conflict between two alien races but between hyper advanced civilizations would look like. It's epic in its vision of the future and a fitting end to the series. Highly recommend it.

On the Clock

A dive back into non-fiction, Emily Guendelsberger's on the clock is about the working conditions of the working poor. For this, she worked a few months as a picker for Amazon, a call center clerk for Convergys and a restaurant employee for McDonalds. The verdict: Minimum wage work, while never expected to be particularly rewarding, has become a Kafkaesque hellscape. A hellscape made possible by the advent of modern computer systems that allow companies to micromanage every second of every employee's time. In the pursuit of maximum profits these companies (though they're definitely not the only ones) have optimized workflows down to the second, affording their employees no down time. At Amazon, for example, employees are expected to stand on their feet for up to 12 hours, walking up to 12 miles a day. Lunch breaks are 30 minutes, and start the minute you leave your station. The company knows it takes 10 minutes just to leave the building but it doesn't care. Every move is tracked, and an unauthorized moment of rest can get you fired in an instant. The company knows this because every employee carries with them a small, GPS enabled, scanner that can immediately report of a picker has fallen behind on their quota.

On top of that, low-wage employers demand extremely flexible schedules from their employees, requiring they come in at the drop of a hat or be fired. Holidays, sickness, family emergencies, burnout, it doesn't matter. This low-control, high-stress environment is perfectly designed to trigger depression and anxiety in people and is a large part of the reason, Emily postulates, why the mental health of this nation has been steadily worsening.

The book was primarily written to explain to the blissfully ignorant how terrible the conditions at the bottom of the American economy have become. I honestly can't do it justice here. Just go read it.

The Dark Forest

The second entry in the "Three Body Problem" series. Naturally, it continues the story from the first book, so I won't go into what happens in the second to avoid spoiling anything. What I love about this series is how seriously it explores the technological progression and the type of technologies that might be feasible in the future. Where a lot of Sci-Fi handwaves the technological progression and places the reader at some point in the far future, the Three Body Problem tackles the transition from present day to that point. The tech tree is explored from two ends, on one end, humans - transitioning from present day into a spacefaring civilization - and on the other hand the Trisolarians - already well ahead and showing their hand on occasion. It's done in broad strokes, but grounded in current day research which gives the whole setting plausibility.

The book also tackles some interesting philosophical questions about how life works on a galactic scale.

If you've read the first book, it's definitely a series worth continuing.

The Three Body Problem

Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem has been recommended to me from all sides recently so I've suspended my dive into the Dune series to start yet another sci-fi series. The Three Body Problem is an immensely clever book, borrowing heavily from astrophysics, mathematics, and other hard sciences to craft its narrative of a mysterious society surrounding a mysterious game. It's grounded enough to seem almost non-fictional while at the same time doing a good job setting up the series with promises of an interstellar conflict. It's pretty short too. Only took me a week to get through. If you enjoy reading about science and space I think you'd enjoy it.

Dune

My interest in Dune was peaked by this TED-Ed video, aptly titled: "Why you should read Dune". A Sci-Fi story, set on a desert planet, sci-fi weapons and supernatural powers, big worms! All of these things enticed me.

Usually I like to do little recaps to remind myself what a book was about but I don't want to spoil the story here. The video does a better job explaining it anyways. So I'll just say: It's fun. I liked it. It's got sci-fi, rich characters, spice and big worms.

The Secret Life of Groceries

Another audio book consumed on a roadtrip, this time about the supply chain feeding our supermarket and subsequently ourselves. The Secret Life of Groceries is a deep dive into supermarket supply chains, following Benjamin Lorr as he embeds himself into this machine to find out just where our food comes from. And at what cost.

The book opens with a history of the evolution of the supermarket, from the old-timey grocer with his counter to the modern Whole Foods with its rows of pre-packaged health foods, and then starts investigating the trucking industry, fishing industry and the obstacle course through which food entrepreneurs bring new foods to our shelves. The verdict? Our grocery stores are deeply unsustainable. Terrible for the environment, the people supplying them, and the people working in them. (Having worked for Walgreens for a year I can vouch for that.)

I am a bit disappointed that Benjamin Lorr doesn't suggest any alternatives but there might just not be any. Our desire for premium goods at bargain prices have created this monster and the only way to slay it seems to be a full re-structuring of our diet.

Which, I've sworn off shrimp and fish following this book. The fishing industry runs on slave labor (not in a figurative sense), and commercial shrimp factories are killing our oceans.

I'm going to send this book to some people for Christmas. You should read it too.

The Day the World Stops Shopping

The Day the World Stops Shopping is a thought experiment in what would happen if global consumption were to permanently drop 25%. What would we still be buying? What would a post-consumer economy look like? What would the effects on the planet be?

It is undeniable that our current levels of consumption are unsustainable, yet reducing them would leave millions without a livelyhood. J.B. Mackinnon runs through this scenario for us, primarily based on our experience with the coronavirus pandemic, mapping the shift from a buy-and-trash culture to one that seeks to minimize our ecological footprint. To live simply, so that others may simply live.

I love the premise of this book and the stories it tells of people that have found ways to do more with less. The author does have a habit of mentioning interviewees for one or two quotes and interjecting unecessary clauses into their sentences, which does detract from the flow at times, but I am overall hopeful that we might still be able to turn our economies around before our consumption consumes us.

Atomic Habits

Habits are hard to build. Habits are hard to break. Good habits are the foundation for long term success, while bad ones will sabotage you every step of the way. It is therefore crucial that we build good habits and break down bad ones. But how do we go about doing that?

In Atomic Habits, James Clark dissects our autopilot to help us become aware of entrenched behavior that is not serving our self-image and how to reshape said behavior. The book discusses how our brain automates the decision making process from cue to craving to response and, ultimately, reward and how we can inject ourselves into every step of this process to reinforce a good habit, or dissuade a bad one. It's a very entertaining read, filled with examples and illustrations that help explain the core concepts to the reader.

If you've ever found yourself struggling with long term goals I can highly recommend giving Atomic Habits a read.

Hillbilly Elegy

The second book we listened to on our road trip was J.D. Vance's memoir of growing up as a hillbilly in the Appalachian mountains to eventually graduating from Yale Law School. My reasons for picking this book were primarily anthropological, I am fascinated by the diverse lives that people on this planet live simultaneously. The fact that New York socialites, and indigenous fishermen in the Amazon go about their day in the same 24 hours fascinates me and I often wonder what lives so different from mine must be like. Hillbilly Elegy feeds into that curiosity. Kentucky is a staunchly conservative state, and by understanding the circumstances of the people living there I was hoping to gain a better understanding of the concerns and dreams of these parts of the conservative base. Hillbilly Elegy is primarily written from JDs perspective, talking about the domestic abuse running in his family, his mother's drug addiction and the various exploits of his relatives. I have to admit that I was hoping for big picture socioeconomic discussions and instead got a very small slice of Appalachian life but maybe that's just what I needed. Appalachia's problems might just not be something liberal policy makers can legislate away but something that needs to be addressed at a personal level.

That said, I thought it was alright. Towards the end JD digresses from his discussion of Appalachia and the struggles of the white working class to talk at length about his time at Yale Law school. I was hopeful that he may have pursued law to work on policy that could help improve lives but it seems that he pursued the degree solely to say that he could. It's a good book to understand one perspective of growing up working poor but I was hoping for a little more insight into the mindset of the Appalachian people.

The Year of Less

The Year of Less is, in broad strokes, Cait Flander's year long journey to break her shopping habits, save money and find out what she really values. But then it becomes a little more than that. To my surprise little of the book was about tips and tricks for consuming less and more about the author taking an analytical look at her bad habits. As Cait's life is turned upside down halfway into the challenge she spends much time investigating the source of her addiction to food, alcohol and shopping, ultimately finding how her past experiences have primed her to engage in these behaviors. The Year of Less thus becomes less about cutting up one's credit card but instead thinking about why we want the things we want.

This was one of two audiobooks my girlfriend and I listened to on a recent road trip to California and I picked it because I liked the subject of cutting back on consumption, and in the process finding more sustainable sources of joy in life. This wasn't out of necessity, those that know me already know that I am weary of consumerism by default, but I like reinforcing the idea that we cannnot spend ourselves to happiness. It's a book about habits and their triggers, it's about emotional intelligence and it's about pursuing the things that make you happy.

I really liked it. If the topic of intentional or simple living interests you then this book might be for you as well.

Becoming

I am a big fan of the Obamas. Even though I was disappointed by some of the failures of the Obama administration - ending the war and reigning in Wallstreet for example - I admire them for their sincererity, their integrity and their leadership. Like this moment of then President Obama leading a procession into singing Amazing Grace, after the 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. But this isn't about Barack, 'Becoming' is Michelle's story, tracing her life from the Chicaho South Side to the halls of the White House. I did not know much about her going into this book but coming out of it I feel like I missed out on 50% of the Obama presidency by not following her more closely. Michelle paints the broad strokes for us: her law career and eventual move into public service, her relationship with Barack, the campaigns and ultimately the 8 years in the White House, including the inauguration of the 45th president. I enjoyed hearing her grappling for purpose and finding it in helping people, not padding her bank account, and I also enjoyed hearing about her programs and time in the White House. Much like her husband she has an immensely welcoming writing style that's easy to get wrapped up in, almost like a friend telling you a story.

I'll be looking for Barack's new book next, once it hits a library near me. But in the meantime, I highly recommend that you read Becoming.

Weapons of Math Destruction

That our behavior, especially online browsing habits, are being used by companies to make predictions on our behavior is an idea we have grown comfortable with. But in 'Weapons of Math Destruction' Cathy O'Neil critically examines an industry that is much more far reaching than we anticipate, and much more harmful than we expected. The book explores how bad use of statistics has turned segregated neighborhoods of the past into mortgage application screening algorithms that discriminate against non-whites and the poor, how a lack of feedback has created capricious performance evaluations for workers, or how U.S. News' college rating has played a role in the explosion of tuition costs.

These models are the titular Weapons of Math Destruction and Cathy O'Neil does a great job uncovering these hidden and pernicious decision makers. A fantastic read that I highly recommend.

The Botany of Desire

I came into The Botany of Desire flying high from Michael Pollan's other two books: How to change your mind and The Omnivore's Dillemma. This may have set the bar a little high. The premise of the book is fantastic: Michael's idea that we ought to think of our relationship with plants as a two way road is a unique way of looking at the world and he brings plenty of evidence to back this claim up. The book discusses four common crops: Apples, Tulips, Marijuana and Potatoes, all grown and cultivated for different reasons. By evolving to meet the desires of the human brain these plants have taken advantage of our global dominance to spread their seeds far and wide and thus carved a nice little niche for themselves. So far, so interesting.

There were some chapters, however, that just didn't hold my attention. Michael exhaustively discusses the history of Johnny Appleseed and agricultural advances in potato growing that feel a bit dated 20 years later. The chapter on Marijuana was pretty interesting if only to discuss how the plants have evolved to meet the needs of the prohibition era (smaller, faster blooms). Beyond that the book didn't hold as much attention as the other two on this list.

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood's cult classic about a future dystopia in which women no longer hold power and America is controlled by a totalitarian, theocratic government. Set in this America 'The Handmaid's Tale' is at once terrifying and hopeful. It's about resistance in the most dire of circumstances but also circumstances so dire that we must heed its warning. Margaret Atwood does a fantastic job of not throwing the entire world at you at once but instead leaves the reader to discover it through the eyes of the protagonist, Offel. It's hard to put the book down because at every moment I was left wanting to understand this world more, understand how it got to come to this point, and most importantly: How I might prevent this from ever happening.

This is how I came to hear about it. With the election of Amey Coney Barret, considered by many to be a religous extremist, to the Supreme Court there is a growing concern about the future of womens rights in this country and Margaret Atwood does a fantastic job of painting an image of what a future without them might look like. It underscores the necessity to resist the merging of church and state and to oppose religious extremism in all its forms.

As much a required read, in my mind, as 1984.

Haptics

The most interesting frontier of human-computer interfacing, haptics is the science of touch. Similar to how audio circuits turn electricity and data into music or speech, or monitors turn electricity and data into patterns of light, haptics aims to turn data and energy into kinesthetic and touch feedback. This book is part of MIT's 'Essentials' Series and written by Professor Lynette Jones, a mechanical engineer and senior researcher at MIT with decades of experience in studying how our skin senses its environment.

Haptics is a primer on the subject, covering in rough strokes the resolution of our skin, the various mechanisms by which we sense our phyical environment, and a number of approaches ranging from tactile displays, surface haptics to prosthetics. It's a book I actually picked up on a visit to Boston after having decided to pursue a Masters in this field and I was fascinated by the breadth of approaches and the potential applications discussed.

Haptics is not for everyone though. The book veers into the technical and is more about presenting the science, rather than explaining it to a novice. That said, MIT has an entire essentials series covering everything from Algorithms, Ketamine, Extraterrestrials, Macroeconomics, Cybersecurity... I can highly recommend checking out the series and seeing if maybe there's a subject you're particularly interested in.

Life 3.0

Life 3.0 starts out with a really captivating short story - If a team of researchers managed to build an Artificial General Intelligence, how could they use that intelligence to take over the world? And how would that intelligence ultimately escape their control?

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the holy grail of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The promise? A self-improving machine that can tackle problems of unimaginable complexity with unprecedented vigor. The machine does not sleep nor rest; if it finds that its computing power is not sufficient, it will improve itself until it is. The result? A quantum leap in technological advancements. Poverty, disease, and suffering a thing of the past. Immortality and a place among the stars in our immediate reach.

That is, if we get it just right at the moment of singularity.

In Life 3.0, Mark Tegman outlines the technical challenges and potential pitfalls of artificial general intelligence. We discuss the eponymous paperclip maximizer to underscore the need for AI robustness, talk about possible post-singularity futures, and just what "intelligence" even means.

While the subject is infinitely fascinating in my eyes, the book itself would probably be the most fun to read for those with a background in tech as it draws heavily on terms used in computing.

I, Robot

I have to admit that I never gave much thought to Asimov's I, Robot, thinking that the movie of the same name had done at least a passable job at capturing what the book was about. Now I am here to bow my head in shame because the book is far superior, and as I've come to realize, only shares the name with its cinematic usurper.

The first time I realized that I had been sleeping on this gem was when I read someone online describing the book as "psychotherapy, but for robots" - how could I not be hooked?

"I, Robot" is indeed about psychotherapy (or robopsychology as the book will tell you). It is a collection of short stories, loosely assembled in the larger context of an interview, about the three laws of robotics and the various unintended consequences. In each story, the reader is presented with a new type of robot that appears to be behaving erratically and follows the investigation of the main researchers into determining how its environment, the task at hand, and the three laws of robotics interplay to cause this behavior. What I enjoyed is how much space Asimov gives the reader to work out the solution alongside the main characters. Astute readers may even be able to find the bug before the reveal.

I appreciate the book for three reasons:

1. As an engineer with a background in computer science, I have seen my fair share of unintended interactions and putting the puzzle together until the big "aha!" moment is what I live for.
2. The three laws of robotics (1. Do no harm, 2. Follow orders, 3. Protect yourself) are futurism bedrock, and the question of ethics in robotics and AI becomes more relevant every day.
3. The stories are all brief, varied, interesting, and paint a very vivid picture of a future alongside intelligent automatons.

Educated

Educated is a fascinating window into the life of Tara Westover, who grew up on a remote farm in Idaho in a survivalist family and eventually went on to earn degrees from BYU and Cambridge.

What fascinates me about this book is not only Tara's story of perseverance but the detailed image she paints of her family and their erratic and paranoid patriarch. Stories of burying guns around the property in case the government came to take them, installing a reloading press in the basement in case the family had to fight a prolonged standoff with the army, or canning food for when society ends at the turn of the Millenium.

Between dodging the various industrial hazards at her dad's car salvage yard and the strict religious dogma in her household, however, Tara dreams of experiencing the world beyond the family farm and eventually teaches herself enough to pass the entrance exam to BYU. Tara does a fantastic job illuminating her family's paranoid mindset and her own struggle to integrate with the outside world in a way that I think could also be useful to understand current anti-establishment movements in this country.

I often find myself pondering that my experiences in life are really an infinitesimal slice of the human experience, and Educated is a gripping window into a life very different from my own.

Educated is a fantastic story about endurance, survival, and the freedom to forge one's own destiny. I highly recommend it.

How To Change Your Mind: What the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression and transcendence

In "How To Change Your Mind" Michael Pollan discusses the three 'classic' psychedelics: LSD, Psilocybin, and DMT and talks about their effects, the long history they've had with humanity, and their difficult relationship with western cultures. I heard about this book through a recent interview on NPR's Fresh Air and was intrigued because I had found Michael's Omnivore's Dilemma such an interesting read.

In the interview, Michael Pollan wrily remarked that people belittled this subject, but his interest actually rides on a renewed wave of research with these substances. At Johns Hopkins, terminally ill patients were given doses of psilocybin to ease their existential distress, and so far, the research is suggesting a remarkable potential. True to his form Michael Pollan weaves historical backgrounds with personal experience as he went out to experience each of the three classical psychedelics for himself.

The result is part history book on the discovery and cultural impact of psychedelics and part trip report. I had previously been unaware of this research and the substances involved, but the remarkable descriptions of mystical experiences and the healing potential sound promising, and I do think that it may be time to 'change our minds' again.

The book, much like The Omnivore's Dilemma, is a very insightful read.

I highly recommend it.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I've recently heard about Michael Pollan's newest book "How To Change Your Mind" and Thriftbooks still owed me a free book, which is how I came to read The Omnivores Dilemma. In it, Michael Pollan analyzes the origin of four meals and inherently four vastly different supply chains: Industrial, Organic, Grass-Fed, and Hunter-Gatherer. With his signature eloquence, Michael Pollan takes the reader on a field trip from cornfields and feedlots in Iowa over the rolling hills of a grass-feeding farm to an enthralling afternoon spent hunting wild boards in the woods of Northern California. With each meal, he traces the origins of the food that makes it while providing a steady stream of observations on the ecological, economic, and health implications of a particular food chain. What struck me most is the ease with which Pollan paints the entire picture of a particular piece of food. Corn is no longer corn, but Zea mays, and its field in Iowa the center of a system of economic incentives and innovations that have created the modern monoculture as well as an insurmountable tsunami of corn that is turned into everything from corn syrup to plastics.

Thinking about the origin of our food is a tough subject. I know a few people in my life who understand that something is fishy with a food chain that can sell a pound of beef for $4 but refuse to reflect on this fact. Michael Pollan's book, however, has a charming way of pulling you along to tackle this exact question.

How Democracies Die

An excellent warning from Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Democracy, the bulwark of free expression and antidote to authoritarianism, is eroding. Most jarring to their western audience perhaps is Professor Levitsky and Professor Ziblatt's observation that this erosion isn't happening just in far away backwaters but in our very United States. Years of partisan escalations have led to the election of Donald Trump, a man who openly challenges election results and denounces those opposing him as "human scum." And behind him, a Republican Party bent on subverting democracy to cement their power.

Most Americans place faith in the constitution that will protect this country from succumbing to autocrats, but that faith, as it turns out, is blind. Modern democratic decay is an authoritarian rot that eats the system from the inside in a way that the US constitution does not safeguard against. In this book, Professor Levitsky and Professor Ziblatt discuss the various ways in which democracy has been subverted and how this process can (and is) playing out in the USA.

A must-read to anyone wanting to understand the threat that democracy in the US is currently under if not for a course correction in public discourse and leadership selection.

The Future of Capitalism

In this book, world-renowned economist Paul Collier thoroughly identifies the shortcomings of capitalism and presents, in my opinion, a well-reasoned, pragmatic vision for how to repair them.

A growing urban-rural divide in wealth, growing nationalistic movements, and increasing wealth inequality are just some of the subjects whose origins, causes, and potential remedies are explored in-depth and not a moment too soon. The issues Paul Collier addresses in this book represent a crisis in capitalism that, if left unchecked, risk generating a dystopian future filled with tribalism and insurmountable poverty.

I had been skeptical whether or not capitalism could be changed to address our current issues, but Paul Collier has convinced me of an achievable way forward. A good, albeit somewhat dense read.

Skunk Works

Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works have, to those who know about them, become the embodiment of cutting edge. The name is synonymous with small teams of experts left to conceive and build technology that is two or three generations ahead: a place where 'impossible' has been crossed from the dictionary.

In this highly gripping memoir Ben Rich, former CEO of the Skunk Works, after the great Kelly Johnson himself, details the challenges he and his team faced when designing, building, and testing the F-117A stealth fighter, the U-2, and the SR-71. It is a highly entertaining read about the most interesting aircraft to grace the skies thus far. Filled with larger than life characters, technical wizardry, and an ever-present bureaucracy.

A great read for those with a technical inclination!

The 4-Hour Workweek

I've read the 4-hour body by Timothy Ferris, or scrolled through a few of its chapters at least, and found it very unconventional in some aspects and making outrageous claims in others.

In the 4-Hour Workweek, he does a much better job making his case for living an automated life full of passive income and travel. The book does assume that the reader works an office job of some sort, ideally in the sales or IT field, where no on-site work is required. But even for those who don't, I believe there are a lot of interesting ideas on tasks that could be automated. Did you know companies in India can send birthday cards on your behalf?

A good book for an unconventional perspective, but Tim Ferris remains very unorthodox, and I highly doubt his methods have much merit.

Thanks for the Feedback

In this book, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen make a passionate argument for the value of feedback and, in doing so, have educated me about the undervalued nature of good feedback.

I've come to believe that feedback is generally undervalued because it is often delivered in a sub-par way, but nonetheless, that should not stop us from making the most of it. Through their philosophy, I've been able to change my attitude towards feedback from a reflexive one to a methodical one, which has unlocked a vast amount of learning opportunities.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone!

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

In his most influential book, Covey lays out 7 habits to turn you from a reactive individual to a proactive one, free to pursue the things that matter to you and improve the lives of all those you interact with.

I personally resonated with his thoughts on the proactive mindset, which aims to free your motivation from happenstance, and the win-win mindset, which seeks to identify mutually beneficial solutions.

It's a good book for anyone strongly interested in self-improvement but a bit dense to newcomers.

The Slight Edge

The Slight Edge is a fantastic philosophy that extols the benefits of consistent improvement over quantum-leap efforts.

Incorporating this philosophy into my life has allowed me to tackle bigger projects than I had previously been able to by applying the principle of consistent effort.

As a downside, the book only talks about this idea and, by the end of it, it felt like beating a dead horse. I would recommend finding a SparkNotes version online.

The Start-up of You

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha's book on career development in the 21st century is an excellent guide to anyone in the modern job market.

With plenty of business experience and examples to back up their ideas, Reid and Ben provide fantastic insight on how to cultivate a social network that works for you, capitalize on your assets and make calculated career moves.

Not only did the book inspire me to start thinking about my career in-depth, but I have also recommended it to everyone in my immediate social circle — an absolute must-read.