Throughout July’24 I have added xx books to my library. Hopefully, you can also find 1 or 2 for your own library!
The selection rules were:
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the book had to be recommended by someone directly or by an article I have read or a podcast I have listened.
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the book should be less than €5 (usually via Kindle -promotions- or 2nd hand).
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The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, Gary Keller
“…YOU WANT LESS.
You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what's the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller pay cheques, fewer promotions-and lots of stress.
AND YOU WANT MORE.
You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.
NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH-LESS AND MORE.
In The ONE Thing, you'll learn to
cut through the clutter
achieve better results in less time
build momentum toward your goal
dial down the stress
overcome that overwhelmed feeling
revive your energy
stay on track
master what matters to you
The ONE Thing is the New York Times bestseller which delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life-work, personal, family, and spiritual.
WHAT'S YOUR ONE THING? …”
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The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
“…One of the very best must-read novels of all time - with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle
'A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again' THE TIMES
'The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin' Roddy Doyle
'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER
'There was a wall. It did not look important - even a child could climb it. But the idea was real. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on...'
Shevek is brilliant scientist who is attempting to find a new theory of time - but there are those who are jealous of his work, and will do anything to block him. So he leaves his homeland, hoping to find a place of more liberty and tolerance. Initially feted, Shevek soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.
With powerful themes of freedom, society and the natural world's influence on competition and co-operation, THE DISPOSSESSED is a true classic of the 20th century. …”
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Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure, Vaclav Smil
“…From the New York Times-bestselling author, a new volume on the history of human ingenuity—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts.
Included in BILL GATES's 2023 Holiday Reading List
Included in Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Included in The Next Big Idea Club’s February 2023 Must-Read Books
"Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception. Even when I disagree with him, I learn a lot from him...he always strengthens my thinking."
—Bill Gates, Gates Notes
The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm.
Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century.
Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality. …”
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A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder, Mark O'Connell
“…A NEW YORK TIMES AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning author comes the gripping tale of one of the most scandalous murderers in modern Irish history, at once a propulsive work of true crime and an act of literary subversion.
“A masterpiece”—The Observer • “Disturbing [and] compelling”—Colm Toíbín • “Superb and unforgettable"—Sally Rooney • “Brilliant”—New York Times Book Review • “A masterly work”—John Banville • “Fascinating”—Emmanuel Carrère • “Morally complex and mesmerizing”—Fintan O'Toole
Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians. The ensuing manhunt, arrest, and conviction amounted to one of the most infamous political scandals in modern Irish history, contributing to the eventual collapse of a government.
Winner of the Wellcome and Rooney Prizes, Mark O'Connell spent countless hours in conversation with Macarthur—interviews that veered from confession to evasion. Through their tense exchanges and O’Connell’s independent reporting, a pair of narratives unspools: a riveting account of Macarthur's crimes and a study of the hazy line between truth and invention. We come to see not only the enormity of the murders but the damage that’s inflicted when a life is rendered into story.
At once propulsive and searching, A Thread of Violence is a hard look at a brutal act, its subterranean origins, and the long shadow it casts. It offers a haunting and insightful examination of the lies we tell ourselves—and the lengths we'll go to preserve them. …”
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Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Murray N. Rothbard
“…New Edition, with new introduction!
Murray N. Rothbard's great treatise Man, Economy, and State and its complementary text Power and Market, are here combined into a single edition as they were written to be. It provides a sweeping presentation of Austrian economic theory, a reconstruction of many aspects of that theory, a rigorous criticism of alternative schools, and an inspiring look at a science of liberty that concerns nearly everything and should concern everyone.
The Mises Institute's new edition of Man Economy, and State, united with its formerly sundered companion volume Power and Market, is a landmark in the history of the Institute. It takes this book out of the category of underground classic and raises it up to its proper status as one of the great economic treatises of all time, a book that is essential for anyone seeking a robust economic education.
The captivating new introduction by Professor Joseph Salerno that frames up the Rothbardian contribution in a completely new way, and reassesses the place of this book in the history of economic thought. In Salerno's view, Rothbard was not attempting to write a distinctively "Austrian" book but rather a comprehensive treatise on economics that eschewed the Keynesian and positivist corruptions. This is what accounts for its extraordinarily logical structure and depth. That it would later be called Austrian is only due to the long-lasting nature of the corruptions of economics that Rothbard tried to correct.
For years, the Mises Institute has kept it in print and sold thousands of copies in a nice paperback version. Then we decided to take a big step and put out an edition worthy of this great treatise. It is the Scholar's Edition of Man, Economy, and State — an edition that immediately became definitive and used throughout the world. The index is huge and comprehensive.
Students have used this book for decades as the intellectual foil for what they have been required to learning from conventional economics classes. In many ways, it has built the Austrian school in the generation that followed Mises. It was Rothbard who polished the Austrian contribution to theory and wove it together with a full-scale philosophy of political ethics that inspired the generation of the Austrian revival, and continues to fuel its growth and development today.
From Rothbard, we learn that economics is the science that deals with the rise and fall of civilization, the advancement and retrenchment of human development, the feeding and healing of the multitudes, and the question of whether human affairs are dominated by cooperation or violence.
Economics in Rothbard's wonderful book emerges as the beautiful logic of that underlies human action in a world of scarcity, the lens on how exchange makes it possible for people to cooperate toward their mutual betterment. We see how money facilitates this, and allows for calculation over time that permits capital to expand and investment to take place. We see how entrepreneurship, based on real judgments and risk taking, is the driving force of the market.
What's striking is how this remarkable book has lived in the shadows for so long. It began as a guide to Human Action, and it swelled into a treatise in its own right. Rothbard worked many years on the book, even as he was completing his PhD at Columbia University….”
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A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
“…A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf: Enter the realm of feminist literature and literary criticism with Virginia Woolf as your guide. In this thought-provoking essay, Woolf explores the role of women in literature and society, emphasizing the importance of financial independence and creative freedom for women writers.
Key Aspects of the Book "A Room of One’s Own":
Feminist Perspective: Woolf offers a feminist critique of the literary canon and discusses the challenges faced by women in pursuing creative endeavors.
Literary Analysis: The book explores the historical absence of women's voices in literature and calls for a shift in societal attitudes.
Independence and Creativity: Woolf advocates for the importance of economic independence and a space of one's own as essential for women's creative expression.
Virginia Woolf, born in 1882, was a renowned English writer and a central figure in the modernist literary movement. Her works, including "A Room of One’s Own," continue to be celebrated for their innovative narrative techniques and feminist perspectives. …”
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Football Clichés, Adam Hurrey
“…'A must-have' - The Telegraph
'Book of the Week' - The Independent
'Hilarious' - Sport Magazine
In what other context do football fans use the words 'aplomb' or 'derisory'? Why don't we use 'rifle' as a verb on the other six days of the week? Why do aggrieved midfielders feel the instinctive need to make a giant ball-shaped gesture with both hands after a mistimed tackle is punished?
The more football Adam Hurrey watched, the more he began to spot the recurring mannerisms, behaviours, opinions and iconography that were mindlessly repeated in the football media.
Some cliches are ridiculous, some are quaintly outdated, some have survived through their sheer indisputability. Here, featuring gloriously pseudo-scientific diagrams and the inimitable writing style that made footballcliches.com a smash hit, they are covered in all their glory. …”
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The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, Tim Alberta
“…Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal.
For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.
Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing.
Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose? …”
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Accidents of an Antiquary's Life, D. G. Hogarth
“…Accidents of an Antiquary's Life by D. G. Hogarth is a captivating exploration of the author's adventures as an archaeologist and traveler. The book chronicles Hogarth's experiences in various locations, including Crete, Lycia, and the Satalian Gulf, amidst conflicts and historical discoveries. Through vivid descriptions and personal anecdotes, readers are immersed in the challenges and triumphs of archaeological work in volatile environments. The narrative offers a glimpse into the complexities of navigating through tumultuous events, interacting with diverse individuals, and uncovering ancient mysteries. …”
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Bartleby and Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener, Gay Talese
“…Literary Legend” (New York) Gay Talese retraces his pioneering career, marked by his fascination with the world's hidden characters.
In the concluding act of this "incomparable" (Air Mail) capstone book, Talese introduces readers to one final unforgettable story: the strange and riveting all new tale of Dr. Nicholas Bartha, who blew up his Manhattan brownstone—and himself—rather than relinquish his claim to the American dream.
“New York is a city of things unnoticed,” a young reporter named Gay Talese wrote sixty years ago. He would spend the rest of his legendary career defying that statement by celebrating the people most reporters overlooked, understanding that it was through these minor characters that the epic story of New York and America unfolded. Inspired by Herman Melville’s great short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” Talese now revisits the unforgettable “nobodies” he has profiled in his celebrated career—from the New York Times’s anonymous obituary writer to Frank Sinatra’s entourage. In the book’s final act, a remarkable piece of original reporting titled “Dr. Bartha’s Brownstone,” Talese presents a new “Bartleby,” an unknown doctor who made his mark on the city one summer day in 2006.
Rising within the city of New York are about one million buildings. These include skyscrapers, apartment buildings, bodegas, schools, churches, and homeless shelters. Also spread through the city are more than 19,000 vacant lots, one of which suddenly appeared some years ago—at 34 East 62nd Street, between Madison and Park Avenues—when the unhappy owner of a brownstone at that address blew it up (with himself in it) rather than sell his cherished nineteenth-century high-stoop Neo-Grecian residence in order to pay the court-ordered sum of $4 million to the woman who had divorced him three years earlier. This man was a physician of sixty-six named Nicholas Bartha. On the morning of July 10, 2006, Dr. Bartha filled his building with gas that he had diverted from a pipe in the basement, and then he set off an explosion that reduced the fivestory premises into a fiery heap that would injure ten firefighters and five passersby and damage the interiors of thirteen apartments that stood to the west of the crumbled brownstone.
Talese has been obsessed with Dr. Bartha’s story and spent the last seventeen years examining this single 20 x 100 foot New York City building lot, its serpentine past, and the unexpected triumphs and disasters encountered by its residents and owners—an unlikely cast featuring society wannabes, striving immigrants, Gilded Age powerbrokers, Russian financiers, and even a turncoat during the War of Independence—just as he has been obsessed with similar “nobodies” throughout his career. Concise, elegant, tragic, and whimsical, Bartleby and Me is the valedictory work of a master journalist….”
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Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
“…Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer es una novela del autor estadounidense Mark Twain publicada en 1876, actualmente considerada una obra maestra de la literatura. Relata las aventuras de la infancia de Tom Sawyer, un niño que crece durante el antebellum del Sur de los Estados Unidos en «St. Petersburg», una población de la costa del río Mississipi inspirada en Hannibal, donde creció el autor.Tom Sawyer vive con su tía Polly y su medio hermano, Sidney. En una pelea callejera, Tom ensucia su ropa y es obligado a pintar la valla al día siguiente como castigo. Tom hábilmente convence a sus amigos para canjearle pequeños tesoros por el privilegio de hacer su trabajo. Luego negocia los pequeños tesoros por boletos de la Escuela Dominical que se reciben, normalmente, cuando se memorizan versículos de la Biblia...”
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Macbeth, William Shakespeare
“…'A supreme theatrical poem that has a language that eats into the soul' Michael Billington, Guardian
Shakeapeare's blood-soaked drama of murder, madness and the uncanny begins as Macbeth is promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by supernatural forces. Spurred on by his wife, he murders the king to ensure his ambitions come true. But he soon learns the meaning of terror - killing once, he must kill again and again, while the dead return to haunt him. Macbeth is an anatomy of fear and a bleak portrayal of what some will do to achieve their desires.
General Introduction by STANLEY WELLS
Edited by GEORGE HUNTER
Introduction by CAROL CHILLINGTON RUTTER …”
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Bartleby, the Scrivener, Herman Melville
“…The narrator, an elderly lawyer who has a very comfortable business helping wealthy men deal with mortgages, title deeds, and bonds, relates the story of the strangest man he has ever known.
The narrator already employs two scriveners, Nippers and Turkey. Nippers suffers from chronic indigestion, and Turkey is a drunk, but the office survives because in the mornings Turkey is sober even though Nippers is irritable, and in the afternoon Nippers has calmed down even though Turkey is drunk. …”
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The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport, Joshua Robinson
“…F1 is now the fastest growing sport in the world; the full story of its unbelievable rise is a riveting saga only hinted at by the likes of Drive to Survive. In this book - the first, definitive account of how F1 came to achieve total global fandom - Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg take us inside a world full of racing obsessives, glamorous settings, petrolheads, engineering geniuses, dashing racers and bitter rivalries.
The story of F1's world dominance is one of near-constant transformation and experimentation. This is a sport where the only way to win championships is to land a series of technical moon shots - and then do it all over again. With fast cars, big money, beautiful people, and glamorous locations from Monaco to Melbourne, The Formula tells the full, epic story of the sport. Starting in 1950s Britain, where six years of wartime engineering laid the foundations for a new type of motorcar racing; to the first global star partnership of Senna and Ecclestone; Spygate; Crashgate and its transition into an entertainment juggernaut. Bringing unique insight and access to F1's most storied teams and personalities - from Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton to Christian Horner and Daniel Ricciardo -The Formula offers a riveting portrait of the drivers, corporations, cars, rivalries, and audacious gambles that have shaped the sport for half a century.
The end result is a high-octane history of how modern F1 racing came to be - the first book to tell the story of the outrageous successes and spectacular crashes that led F1 to this extraordinary yet precarious moment. More than just a sports story, it is the tale of a commercial empire, one built in the 20th century, rendered almost obsolete in the early 21st, and re-emerged world-dominant today; a disrupter that claimed its place in the crowded sports marketplace through cash, personality, and a new understanding of what a sport needs to be in the age of wall-to-wall entertainment….”
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Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict, William Ury
“…Conflict is increasing everywhere, threatening everything we hold dear—from our families to our democracy, from our workplaces to our world. In nearly every area of society, we are fighting more and collaborating less, especially over crucial problems that demand solutions.
With this groundbreaking book, bestselling author and international negotiator William Ury shares a new “path to possible”—time-tested practices that will help readers unlock their power to constructively engage and transform conflict. Part memoir, part manual, part manifesto, Possible offers stories and sage advice from Ury’s nearly 50 years of experience on the front lines of some of the world’s toughest conflicts.
One of the world’s top experts in the field, Ury has worked on conflicts ranging from boardroom battles to labor strikes, from the US partisan divide to family feuds, from wars in the Middle East, Colombia and Ukraine to helping the US and USSR avoid nuclear disaster. Now, in Possible, he helps us tackle the seemingly intransigent problems facing us.
In Possible, Ury argues conflict is natural. In fact, we need more conflict, not less—if we are to grow, change, evolve and solve our problems creatively. While we may not be able to end conflict, we can transform it—unleashing new, unexpected possibilities.
Successfully tested at Harvard University with almost a thousand participants from business, government, academia, and the nonprofit sector, Ury’s “Path to Possible” proved so valuable that Harvard’s Program on Negotiation selected it as its inaugural online daylong in April 2022.
Possible introduces Ury’s methods and makes them available for everyone. Combining accessible frameworks and powerful storytelling and offering dozens of examples, it is an essential guide for anyone looking to break through the toughest conflicts—in their workplace, family, community or the world….”
Happy readings!
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