Reading Update — August’18

Aug 23, 2018

I had a great month of reading this time out. I read 4 books last month and 2 of them left me with a lot to think about.

I decided to try to make this happen more this time around. I do not intend to read any more books this month, so, I thought I’d get this post out.

Also, I’m done with my target of 52 books for the year. I’m actually now at 53!

I read 6 books this month:

• 12 Rules for Life — Jordan. B. Peterson
  This is an author who has become quite famous over the past 18 months due to his public appearances. I found him interesting and decided to pick up his book to see what he has to say. I did not find it radically different from an advice perspective, but, how he arrives at the final rules and his interpretation of scenarios and texts is quite interesting in itself.

• The New Evolution Diet — Arthur De Vany
  I picked this up once I saw that Taleb had written an afterword to this book.

It’s an interesting take on dietary and exercise practices and how one should go about it. I haven’t quite begun putting this into practice yet, it sounds different in theory from a lot of the other advice I’ve read on the topic. Will try to do this before the year is out.

• Pitch Anything — Oren Klaff
  A friend gifted this book to me, I’ve decided to read any book that anyone gifts me immediately. Highly recommend the book, I’ve been trying to put this into practice since I finished reading it.

• Wonder Girls — Varsha Adusumilli

An ex-colleague of mine wrote this book. It’s an great collection of stories of young women in India who have taken their own path while facing the pressures that a modern woman in India faces. I think she’s done an excellent job in bringing the stories to light and getting them to open up. I hadn’t heard of several of them prior to reading the book.

• All the Presidents Men — Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
  Written by two journalists who worked for the Washington Post, it’s a beautiful narration of how the Watergate scandal blew up under Nixon. Superb read.

• Self-Help — Samuel Smiles
  Contrary to what the title suggests, this is a book that espouses the greatness in choosing the path of Self-determination and refusing to go down the victimised welfare route. This is a cautionary book against what is now Socialism written when it was seeing its first wave of adoption around the world.

Much like the last month, I ended up reading 2 books from my reading list from last month.

This is what I’m currently reading,

• Ethics — Aristotle

• War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy

• Measure what Matters — John Doerr

• Conversations with Myself — Nelson Mandela

• Thirukkural — Thiruvalluvar