📚5 Books for the Mind🧠
Wisdom Letter #68
Hello and welcome to The Wisdom Project — your weekly dose of human curated wisdom in a world full of algorithmic noise.
Reading is a superpower.
Its the most effective way of downloading new software for your brain, to upgrade your mind and to learn from other people’s experiences.
It might take an author 5 years of research to write one book, but you can absorb all of his knowledge and wisdom in less than 5 hours.
Now, there ain’t an app for that!
It’s the time of the year when the internet is flooded with book lists and recommendations.
Many a recommendations can get overwhelming, as they often represent the taste and state of mind of the person giving out the recommendations, not so much the people following them.
I find this true for someone like Bill Gates.
He recommends 5 books every year. But it takes me an entire year to read and understand any one of them.
Today we join the recommendations bandwagon, but we have tried to be very careful with what we put out.
This is a list of 5 books that stand true on the following parameters:-
Add great value to the reader (kind of obvious!)
Easy to read and digest. — You won’t need a dictionary when reading the book.
Interesting to read — You want to get to the next chapter as soon as you finish current one. Unputdownable!
Respects your shrinking attention span — No long chapters and convoluted arguments. Quick to get to the point.
Also, this is a list of books that will help you expand your mind. Next week will be about 5 books for the heart.
#1
The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel
Personal Finance is very Personal.
And this book addresses that more than anything.
Its written in a simple language with very interesting anecdotes and insights that keep you hooked.
Ultimately, it brilliantly explains how managing our money is so much about managing our own mind.
#2
SuperThinking — Gabriel Weinberg & Lauren McCann
There are many books of mental models and cognitive biases out there. But none more comprehensive and fun to read than SuperThinking.
This is literally an upgrade for your mind.
And written in such simple, lucid style. It almost feels like the book should never end the the writers should just keep explaining new topics all the time.
#3
How to fail at almost everything and still win big — Scott Adams.
This is a part memoir, part advice from the guy who writes Dilbert.
Scott Adams isn’t an expert on anything, he isn’t a master storyteller or comic, neither is he a master illustrator, nor is he great at business.
He is at best average at all these skills.
But he is the best in the world at the unique intersection of these skills. His ‘talent stack’ as he calls it, is unique to only him, and he has found the perfect way to leverage it through his blockbuster comic strip.
There are many lessons in this book, and all of them feel like jokes.
The Audiobook with Adams’ own narration is fantastic, never a dull moment.
#4
It doesn’t have to be crazy at work — Jason Fried & DHH
The world is going crazy about work. Especially in times of COVID, people’s personal and professional lives are merging into a single ball of mess.
This book from the founders of basecamp from a couple of years ago is more relevant today than it was back then.
With byte sized chapters that tackle one issue at a time, this one’s a breezy read.
They methodically break down all rationale behind our toxic work culture and show the way to the rest of the world of how to build a happy company.
#5
Navalmanack — The Alamanck of Naval Ravikant — Eric Jorgenson
Naval Ravikant’s wisdom is unparalleled and often expressed in pithy one liners that he puts out on Twitter.
But a lot of his knowledge is spread across many podcasts and blog posts and tweet storms.
Eric Jorgenson has done a great job of collating all of this knowledge into a single book.
Every chapter focused on one idea and goes into Naval’s philosophy around it. Almost every page is thought provoking and highlight-worthy.
Signing off for the week, here’s a quote worth pondering —
In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time.
None, Zero.
— Charlie Munger
If you don’t have a reading habit, these books will help you form one while also expanding your mind.
Hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
Thank you for reading.
Don’t miss next week’s post, its about 5 books for the heart❤
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ICYMI: Last week we wrote about the steps of self improvement and becoming the best version of ourselves—>
Building My Best Self | Wisdom Letter #67
This was Wisdom Letter #68. In case you want to revisit any of the previous 67 letters, checkout our entire archive.
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Love,
Aditi & Ayush