We recently asked our Members to recommend a single summer read, and why, and thought we might share some of their recommendations with you. Here are their choices and their reasoning:
***
Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd
“I would add Different to the list – unique insight into marketing and strategy tactics that have worked in highly competitive industries.”
“I’m currently madly in love with Alain De Botton’s newest book, The Course of Love. It’s a novel with interludes of philosophy that have really helped me to understand relationships (of all kinds) and nurse a little more empathy for others.”
“Some of my favorite books act like a mirror and force me to examine my own life. When Breath Becomes Air is one of those. While there are sections in the book that are not well written, and some that seem out of place, you forgive that as a reader because you know the author passed away while writing the book. While, and after, reading the book, I kept on asking myself the most important questions: what do I want out of life? What is worth doing with my time? What is the right balance between achieving and spending time with loved ones?”
“There is a reason why it has been in print since 1978.”
All I Want to Know is Where I’m Going to Die So I’ll Never Go There
“Peter Bevelin’s new book is an interesting set of dialogues between A Seeker, the Librarian, Munger and Buffett. I’m not finished yet but it’s an interesting construction of Buffett and Munger’s wisdom. There are a few spots that are heavy on the adulation and a couple places that could have been better edited but on the whole I’m a fan.”
Paper Promises: Debt, Money, and the New World Order / The Last Vote: The Threats to Western Democracy
“I find two books from Philip Coggan who writes the Buttonwood column at The Economist very interesting and very topical in these days.”
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
“My choice would be Peak. Because it is by far the best book covering deliberate practice. Could be life changing to anyone new to the field.”
Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
“It’s not the ‘best’ book out there (though it’s very far from the worst). It’s not the most enjoyable read. It’s not the top of the ‘page for page most full of wisdom’ list. But it *is* the one that, were everyone to read it, would have the best chance of making the world a better place (and quite possibly the collective lives of the individuals that read it too).”
“A German classic not so well known in the english-speaking world about an engineer who is exposed to a number of freak events “fooled by randomness”-style which completely changes his intuition about probability.”
Peripheral Visions: Learning along the Way
“A really fantastic book based on Mary Catherine Bateson’s work in foreign cultures. Tough to describe in a nutshell, but the title comes from her encouragement to seek more answers from the periphery, versus what we often find in front of us. She talks a lot about lifelong learning and many of the values we’d talk about here. But it’s from a slightly different perspective, and we frankly don’t get enough women authors recommended.“
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
“I would recommend Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. A bit on the side of science/physics but a nice small read that simplifies the broad concepts in physics.”
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
“Really enjoyed The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly, a more balanced, even optimistic vision of the future than many are currently presenting. For example, Kevin isn’t worried about AI destroying all Human Life, he believes that in the same way that in the past we electrified existing Mechanical items, we will take those items again, and this time add AI to them.
Looking back from 2050 to today, we will marvel that the internet was ‘just getting started’, and that the internet we use today wasn’t really ‘The Internet’, for example in the future we will have Time Sliders, so taking a webcam in Time Square, you could rewind from 2050 to see the New Years’ celebration in 2035.
Balancing this is the admission that negatives such as Mass Surveillance aren’t going away, and that because of the network effect, cloud AI will be limited to a few large companies.
A great book for speculating about the future.”
***
Want More? Try 5 books that just might change your life, or the list of books that have changed ours.