Hello there!
Yes, I have been away and away. Trying a new book reading schedule where every few months I'm trying to get some books read. I'll try to list them here and post some bits of which I loved personally. Inspired to do this from Derek Sivers (@sivers) - his is an extensive list which I'm positively jealous of.
So, here we go:
- Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer
This book deals with the author's journey to compete in a memory championship in the US. Pretty much drags in the first half of the book but gains speed with his attempts at practice and preparation for the competition. Few interesting topics discussed in the book:
- Memory Palace System - An elaborate setup to store your memories/ something you want to remember
- P-A-O System - Person - Action - Object. Remembering long strings of numbers. Each number from 00 to 99 can be remembered by a certain PAO and any combinations thereafter can be mixed and merged with the same imagery.
- Skill Acquisition Phases:
- Cognitive Stage
- Associative Stage
- Autonomous Stage - this leads to an OK plateau with no further growth
- Deliberate Practice - leads to mastery - By nature, must be hard (Based on research by Anders Ericcson)
2. Benjamin Franklin - A Biography by Walter Isaacson
This was a monster of a book. Took me ages to complete. Walter Isaacson is renowned for his biographies of Steve Jobs, Henry Kissinger, Leonardo Da Vinci amongst others. This book came highly recommended from Tim Ferriss.
As a Biography usually goes, it starts from his humble origins in 17th Century America when the British still held power in the different states. Isaacson describes the biography by saying that Franklin had 'an American Life'. He goes on to describe the different phases of his life where he is described as an inventor, negotiator, businessman, printer, author, father, postmaster and many more such roles. Frankly (no pun intended) for me, what seemed a stretch was the American history portions which I am pretty much clueless about. This made me lose interest for a bit but was reignited when Isaacson focused again on Franklin's abilities and the way he was able to negotiate and navigate through difficult situations.
Franklin is a fascinating character and I was really impressed with his story of deep thought and work ethic in such early times whereas his philosophy of work still hold true even today.
Good book overall - needs some previous knowledge of American history to put it in context.
3. How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie
Pretty short read on tips and tricks that can be used to communicate better with other people. Light read and has many small actionable items that can be used on a daily basis to improve your connect with others.
Will probably reread it some time soon.
Books being read currently:
- Influence by Robert Cialdini
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Discovery of India - Jawaharlal Nehru
