Those that I thought were exceptionally great reads are flagged in red.
BOOKS
2021
The Practice: Shipping Creative Work (2020) by Seth Godin
If you are in any kind of creative work - Go buy this book. Here are my highlights.
2020
I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (1999) by Terrence Real
Reading this book helped me find my long lost self-compassion. My highlights.
The John McPhee Reader (1976) by John McPhee
The way McPhee writes non-fiction - he deserves a special writing genre all to himself. What a storyteller! Btw this is a colection of excerpts from his first twelwe books - made me want to read all twelwe of them now.
Homo Ludens : A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1938) by Johan Huizinga
The philosophy of play. Now I understand better why Ido Portal mentions this book so much.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It (2016) by Christopher Voss and Tahl Raz
Hmmm... Okay....🤓
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) by Jordan B. Peterson
I liked this book way better than I expected to. Before picking it up I would advise to anyone to
go on youtube first, and play any of many Jordan's public lectures on Maps Of Meaning. If you
can endure for 15 straight minutes before falling off, only then should you consider reading
it.
This guy is a professional overthinker and hence this book is arguably longer than it should be, but
I guess that is the only way to do it if you are actually trying to make your readers think less in
their own future.
Letters from a Stoic (64) by Seneca, Robin Campbell (Translator)
Damn! It’s loaded with priceless insights! Though I’m not old enough to fully agree with all of his opinions - I'm old enough to know that life is too short and this one deserves a re-read.
Homo Deus (2015) by Yuval Noah Harari
Thought provoking and comprehensive look into the near and distant future. Many ideas and concepts were already well presented in “Sapiens” and that’s probably why I haven’t enjoyed it as much I had expected. Nevertheless the book is clear and engaging. Yuval is hardcore motherfucker!
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985) by Richard P. Feynman
Now I fully understand all the fuss about this book. Of course, I was skeptical at first, and
with a
great feeling of shame must I admit I’ve never heard about this guy in any other context but the
book.
If you have even just a tiny spark of appreciation for human mind, nature or any form of
scientific
work - pick it up! Each chapter is like an adventure. But beware, I was not fully convinced
before
getting half way through. It took me significant time to get used to his way of thinking and
reasoning things, and most of all - dealing with other people. At first he appeared overly
pretentious but after the moment I got in sync with his vibes… it was nothing but awe and love.
Fooled by Randomness (2001) by Nassim N. Taleb
By now I’ve become a Taleb reader, and i feel comfortable sayin that this book I enjoyed the
least.
I give that to the fact that Fooled by Randomness contains the original concepts he expanded
much
more thoroughly in his later work, with more philosophical approach and more intriguing
metaphors.
I’ve never been interested in trading business, and not just that - I have an ever growing
aversion
towards it in my heart - but that’s probably because of recent work and private issues I’ve been
dealing with. As a former trader, Taleb used his vast experience to paint a vivid picture of how
easily we fool ourselves with random acts of success in trading culture, and allows the reader
to
realize that the same irrationalities manifest in every other culture where people are driven by
success and lack some general thinking concepts.
I would suggest to everyone to read Antifragile, Black Swan and (my favorite so far) Skin In The
Game, and then only pick up this one if you just want to enjoy spending time with more of
Taleb’s
mind.
The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World (1983) by Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in
the
public life of the imagination.
The Gift is a brilliant defense of the value of creative labor. Drawing on examples
from folklore and literature, history and tribal customs, economics and modern copyright law,
Hyde
demonstrates how our society — governed by the marketplace — is poorly equipped to determine the
worth of artists’ work. He shows us that another way is possible: the alternative economy of the
gift, which allows creations and ideas to circulate freely, rather than hoarding them as
commodities.
Practical Programming for Strength Training, 3rd Edition (2014) by Mark Rippetoe, Lon Kilgore
Outstanding book. Rippetoe presents the logical, scientific building blocks of the body's
adaptation
process.
If you are really into strength training, meaning you are not all about aesthetic results,
don't want to burn yourself mentally by overtraining,
can't stand the usual nonsense that you come across online, then this is a book for you.
This guy here.
wrote excellent notes on the book.
Managing Oneself (2007) by Peter F. Drucker
Enjoyable short read. Here are few takeaways:
It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity
than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.
Do not try to change yourself - you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way
you
perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.
Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust. The existence of trust between people
does
not necessarily mean that they like one another. It means that they understand one another.
The Quick and the Dead: Total Training for the Advanced Minimalist (2019) by Pavel Tsatsouline
This book is very good as a stand alone program for those who are already athletic and looking for advantages in fitness. The basic premise of the book is to teach you to efficiently use the body’s energy system. II focuses on two exercises. The power push up and kettlebell swing, through short term bursts of explosive work, followed by adequate rest to recover, then rinse and repeat.
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance (2007) by Josh Waitzkin
Josh Waitzkin is very good at learning to master new skills. He won his first National Chess
Championship at the age of nine and later became a World Champion of Tai Chi Push Hands. He
is a
black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Now, in his forties, he is working hard at becoming a
world
class
foil surfer. This guy is really an amazing high performing human!
I want to highlight one passage from his book:
“The fact is that when there is intense competition, those who succeed have slightly more
honed
skills than the rest. It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but
rather
a
profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set. Depth beats breadth any day of the
week,
because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our
hidden
potential.”
Also, I found exhaustive notes on the book by this guy here.
Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (2008) by Scott Berkun
My professional growth in the last years was all about maintaining focus on the most
important
task
at the time while balancing my attitudes. In order to derive personal satisfaction from work
I
have
to emotionally invest myself in a project. I need to establish emotional connection in order
to
maintain the intensity needed to be effective. That approach is also an open invitation for
my
ego
to fuck up as many small decisions as possible whenever I’m emotionally out of balance and
causes me
to overlook even more important informations along the way.
Scott writes that project management is about making good stuff happen by “using any means
necessary
to increase the probability and speed of positive outcomes”.
What I found most interesting and useful about his book are it’s parts which corespond to
the
“any
means necessary” part. I should stop expecting myself to do the most ethical thing or try to
keep
everybody satisfied or happy in every possible situation in order to make good stuff happen.
I
can
still come out clean if I manage to always fly ahead of my plane and not to confuse any of
the
project goals with my own.
I learned that politics is not a dirty word after-all.
Meditations (180 AD) by Marcus Aurelius, Gregory Hays (Translator)
These are series of challenging spiritual reflections and ideas on Stoic philosophy recorded
as
private notes to himself by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD. My own
experience
of reading this book can be pretty much summed up as follows: read a paragraph for three
minutes
- contemplate the same paragraph for fifteen more minutes. It was a slow-burn process, my
pre-sleep meditation of sorts, because I’ve almost always read it in bed - falling asleep
trying
to imagine the emperor as he struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe.
Wonderful introduction by Gregory Hays. I intend to keep this book close to my bed for the
rest
of
my life.
It is the re-discovery of the obvious as very strange, the given as wonderful and
precious,
before we bend it to our purposes. It is consciously being what we really are - Capacity
for
things - the Space in which each of them is allowed to arrive at its peculiar kind of
perfection. Here, in short, our seeing and our willing merge - not once-and-for-all of
course,
but moment by moment, so long as life lasts. This isn’t for believing but for
testing.
Favorite quote:
There’s no ego-trip to match the spiritual ego-trip! Satan is said to be the most
enlightenment
of all angels: the only spiritual excellence he lacks is humility, self-abandonment.
Situations and
circumstances of our lives don’t determine our mental state of well being. Our ability to
control
the contents of our consciousness does. The book is mostly about this one point - how to
control
your consciousness and point it at the direction of flow. There are many definitions of the
flow
as
the author puts it in different contexts but the one which stuck with me is: Enjoyment which
appears
at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when challenges are just balanced with the
person’s
capacity to act. The state of flow emerges whenever opportunities for action perceived by
the
individual are equal to his or her capabilities. Boredom happens when your skills are far
above
your
challenge. Anxiety happens when they are far bellow.
Attention is what Mihaly calls Psychic Energy. The optimal state of inner experience is one
in
which
there is order in consciousness. This happens when psychic energy - or attention - is
invested
in
realistic goals , and when skills match the opportunities for action. The pursuit of a goal
brings
order in awareness because a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand and
momentarily
forget everything else. These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people
find
to
be the most enjoyable of their lives. A person who has achieved control over psychic energy
and
has
invested it in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex
being.
Favorite quote:
Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set
of
social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it was originally intended to
be.
The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck (2016) by Mark Manson
Catchy beginning, mildly interesting
throughout the middle and pathetic at the end. If I had a chance to read it ten years ago,
when
I
used to validate my success by the number of re-tweets i got, I'd probably enjoyed it and
maybe
even
learned something from it.
The book is about common sense and I know that many would say that common sense isn’t
necessarily
common practice so people have to be constantly reminded how to put sense into practice. I
guess
that’s how books like this get published and become so popular.
What I’ve leaned: Not to pick up any book that is recently published and based on someone's
blog
posts.
2019
Man's Search for Meaning (1946) by Viktor E. Frankl
Draft No. 4 (2013) by John McPhee
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) by Daniel Kahneman
The Black Swan (2007) by Nassim N. Taleb
Antifragile (2012) by Nassim N. Taleb
Skin In The Game (2018) by Nassim N. Taleb
Why We Sleep (2017) by Matthew Walker
On The Road (1976) by Jack Kerouac
Sapiens (2011) by Yuval N. Harari
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018) by Yuval N. Harari
The Inner Game of Tennis (1974) by Timothy Gallwey
My Struggle 4 (2010) by Karl Ove Knausgård
The Great Mental Models Vol. I (2019) by Shane Parrish
Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell
The War of Art (2002) by Steven Pressfield
Contact
strahinja[at]grkinic.com or via Telegram