Books I’ve Been Learning From

I published a list of useful books in the bibliography of my own book. But that was some years ago. I’m impressed with people like Derek Sivers and Pat Collison who keep visitors updated on what books they have been reading.

In the past, I used to order pretty much every book that I came across that was interesting – and so I have a pretty large anti-library. But reading Soenke Ahrens and others switched me on to the danger of the collector’s trap – in which one simply collects containers of knowledge but does not process them. Today I try to do it slightly differently – I’ll first make notes on the book and why it might make sense to read it. Then I might order it later.  It’s all part of my goal of becoming a little more directed in my reading.

Once a book makes it into my library, I may just handle it once,  or I might pick it up and browse or skip through it, And I might give it a thorough read and then hold it back before re-reading. In my view, my library is a bit like a cocktail party: not everyone merits a long and deep friendship.

Rather than try to create some sort of finished list of books, My plan here is simply to post perhaps with comments, some of the books that have been in my hands recently.

This list is not complete or in order. It’s just a conversation starter.

• A Concise Introduction to Pure Mathematics (4th edition) by Martin Liebeck
• The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson
• The Curious Economics of Luxury Fashion by Don Thompson
• Who is Michael Ovitz? by Michael Ovitz
• Freezing Order by Bill Browder
• Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev
• The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
• The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes
• Why Mahler? How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed the World by Norman Lebrecht
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Capitalism and the Jews by Jerry Z Muller
• Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green
• The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
• Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris
• Swiss Made by James Breiding
• 12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson
• Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes by Franz de Waal
• 100 Baggers by Chris Meyer
• Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s insights into China, the United States and the World
• Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies matter in China and the Rest of the World by Bell and Wang
• Pandemic 1918: The Story of the Deadliest Influenza in History by Catharine Arnold
• 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer
• Essays by George Orwell
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer

I am also experimenting with an app called libib – which allows me to track all the books that I physically own. You can see the library here:
gspier.libib.com