Insightful Book Reads

Since 2013 I’ve been mandating non-negotiable visits to the library once a week for at least an hour. Every once in a while during these visits I will find a book that opens me up to a whole new field of insights. And in the dual interests of archival and sharing some of the insights, I’ve decided to post reviews of these books.

What you should expect from my book picks:

• Insights presented don’t give off too much of a sense of ‘feelscraft’, that is, theories based off anecdotal data or inspirational quotes, as these could be unbacked, unanalyzed, and unverified.
• Book content that doesn’t require a whole lot of prior knowledge on the subject matter. Fresh, unknowing minds should be eased in, and the most complex parts require at most a few backtracks to reread and understand.
• Insights or storybites that enrich the reader in their lives and open their perspectives on phenomena happening around them.
• Some books will be imperfect yet still contain valuable insights. For these, critiques will be written down as well.

What you shouldn’t expect from my book picks:

• Comprehensive textbook-like material, loaded with a ton of technical jargon. Leave these to the lecturers teaching their courses.
• Prescriptive content. These would be better suited to videos.

Reviews are posted at least 2 weeks after I’ve read them, sometimes with a couple of re-readings and editing, to allow for more time to reflect and hopefully weed out biases.

To see a listing check the tags below, or visit the bookreads category.