What are your favorite (non-finance) books?
Been reading more lately and wanted to get some recommendations from here. Not really looking for anything finance related so no need for the college monkeys to recommend The Intelligent Investor. Bonus points if you include a brief description. Thanks all.
Comments (32)
I feel like we have this thread at least once a month.
Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
Ah, couldn't find one through all the COVID/China/Trump threads.
I have a couple of them saved, I'll update this comment with some links to previous ones.
Edit:
Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
We have a lot of book threads on this site. Personally don't mind one every few months because you get new recommendations from the books people have read since the last thread. Favorite non finance books, "Cancer Ward" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I won't tell you too much about it, other than it's a semi-autobiography and has some very interesting themes throughout. My favorite book of the year. Second favorite was "Lions of Al-Rassan" by Guy Gavriel Kay, this is a fantasy book and it's very good, has some cool characters and the setting is a fantasy version Moorish Spain. I know these are two very different recommendations, but I enjoyed both and didn't want to give you two of of the same type of book.
James Martin
The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life
https://www.amazon.com/Jesuit-Guide-Almost-Everything-Spirituality/dp/0061432695
My Life with the Saints
https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Saints-10th-Anniversary/dp/0829444521/ref=pd_aw_fbt_img_2/144-9328507-1089220?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0829444521&pd_rd_r=d2ec4827-f420-4447-b0f6-4de0f511b493&pd_rd_w=0vydU&pd_rd_wg=CcSJr&pf_rd_p=8ad921d8-8b3b-4c8e-be01-c425a146feba&pf_rd_r=01ETX4M0PS9R7EHE3HSR&psc=1&refRID=01ETX4M0PS9R7EHE3HSR
David Goggins - Can't hurt Me
https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Clean/dp/1544507852/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=cant+hurt+me+david+goggins&qid=1607467697&sprefix=cant+hurt+&sr=8-3
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
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Learn moreI'm going to assume that we're looking for fiction here. I'm going to throw one serious book out here and a few popcorn fiction ones.
Thanks for the recommendation, Redeployment is on my wishlist for Christmas
Array
Wow great recs here – major +1 for Fr. James Martin and Phil Klay.
Jesus by Fr. James Martin is another suggestion – a great read for even a non-Catholic (to include non-Christian). Phil Klay's new Missionaries another must if you like Redeployment (not exactly the same but if you're going to start with one, read Redeployment first).
Adding Matthew Thomas' We Are Not Ourselves, any Aldous Huxley and DFW's Infinite Jest as well.
The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley, this is my go-to, must read book when anyone asks for a book reco... It's about the actual paths people took to get wealthy in the US, how they found niche careers, invested, and behaved out of the "normal". Note, this book is a bit old now, but still very relevant. It is also not a personal finance or finance book (the author wrote other more famous personal fin books, like The Millionaire Next Door, good for what it is, but the Millionaire Mind is 100x better and stand alone IMHO).
Some other non-finance (because reading a finance book seems boring AF to me) that I will throw out, but you can go to Amazon to figure out what it is about
The Incerto (all books within it) by Nassim Taleb (Antifragile is the best/most important) (sure, some are sorta finance, but not the point at all)
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
The Way, The Enemy, and The Key (three book box set) by Ryan Holiday (and any/every book by Ryan Holiday, or his mentor Robert Greene, or Tucker Max who he worked for)... This guys is amazing author and is very young and just getting going!
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (this was basically the "original" success book, you can read it, and never read another of its genre and do just fine)
Now some really good non-fiction authors that I would buy just about any book they publish at this point (not to say all their past works are equal, they are not)..
Malcolm Gladwell
Seth Godin
Jon Acuff
Adam Grant
Peter Diamandis (Abundance is amazing, a bit dated, but should be a must read for anyone in business/politics)
Cal Newport
Dale Carnegie
Michael Lewis (not just his finance ones, I mean if your on WSO you read The Big Short a long time ago)
Keith Ferrazi (Never Eat Alone is best book on networking ever)
Chris Guillebeau
For fiction, I only have a few authors I like enough to recommend their whole catalogs without hesitation (and sadly both are dead)
Tom Clancy
Michael Crichton
Guns, Germs, & Steel by Jared Diamond.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
Two of my favorite books unrelated to finance
I haven't read Guns Germs & Steel, but CGP Grey has some really great videos based on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
Thanks for sharing these videos. Just watched them, and it's crazy to think about how disgusting these cities must've been hundreds of years ago. Animals everywhere, dumping human/animal feces into the same places where water is collected for drinking, etc. Even only 100 years ago cities were probably disgusting. Wonder what the people of the future will think about the cleanliness of our cities today.... Probably the same thing we are thinking about cities in the past.
Also fascinating to think about how random the course of history is. Imagine if these domesticable species happened to be in the Americas instead of Eurasia. If the Americas had horses, pigs, cows, etc. we would've most likely seen the exact opposite happen in terms of the European conquest of the Americas.
A few books that I've read this year:
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan - it's a deep dive on the history of psychedelic drugs, the neuroscience behind how they affect the brain, and how they're now being explored as a potential treatment for mental illnesses and terminal cancer patients.
Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu/Robinson - economic history and theory on why some countries successfully develop like the US/UK/Japan while other become impoverished wastelands like sub-saharan Africa.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari - basically a history of the human species, from the cognitive revolution millions of years ago, to the agricultural revolution, to the industrial revolution, to today, plus a look into the future of humanity.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - a dystopian fiction novel along the lines of 1984 but a little different
Brave New World is great. But I liked the later book Ape and Essence better because it has a happy ending for the protagonists
Array
I've heard a lot about why Nations Fail, and I'm definitely considering giving it a read. How was the writing style and the quality of information given? Also, did you think it was a good read in terms of significance and enjoyment?
I’m a fun guy. Obviously I love the game of basketball. I mean there’s more questions you have to ask me in order for me to tell you about myself. I'm not just gonna give you a whole spill... I mean, I don't even know where you're sitting at
It's incredibly well-researched and thorough, but also written in a way that is easy to understand for all readers. It's not a technical book at all, and you don't need any knowledge of economics to understand it
Shogun James clavell
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky is awesome. Super long, but considered by many to be the best novel ever written and I really enjoyed it as well.
Titan by Chernow (anything written by Chernow or McCullough really) is a great biography on Rockefeller. Also wrote House of Morgan which is also interesting.
Enders Game series by Orson Scott Card. Dunno why but I loved reading these a few years ago.
Love the symbolism in C&P; Dostoevsky is an incredible author. The Brothers Karamazov also left a huge impression on me even now, 6 years later.
Everything Dostoevsky. Might have spelled his name incorrectly, but love this guy's writing.
Gifted Hands
Money can purchase freedom, if you have the guts to buy it
Antifragile by Taleb
This is one of the best fiction books I've ever read: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (https://www.amazon.com/Homegoing-Yaa-Gyasi/dp/1101971061)
I was about to post this one!!! so GOOD!!!
Array
just finished & enjoyed Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan. interesting take on human desires and how those are shown in our interaction with 4 plants (apples, weed, tulips, potatoes)
The Art of Not Giving a MonkeySh*t
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