Three Things - Dec. 15, 2020 First thing: I just recently finished reading a wonderful little book from 1903 entitled Letters from a Self-made Merchant to His Son. It is the wittiest, smartest, most entertaining thing I've read in a while--I regularly found myself full-on laughing while reading...
First thing: This past week I received a $100 charity 'gift card' from Ray Dalio (if you haven't read Dalio, his book, Principles, was life-changing for me.) I was able to personally select who would receive Ray's $100 donation from several dozen non-profits in my local area--pretty cool idea, right? He...
November was a fun reading month for me with a nice variety of philosophy, history, and politics. Definitely the most fun book I read this month was Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son. This is a fictional work written in the form of periodic...
First thing: The following quote from Book I of Cicero's The Republic has struck a cord with me this week: "One cannot embark on a thing of such importance when one's program of work is full and one's mind is already occupied. Two things are needed: freedom from work and...
This book was fantastic--I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I purchased this, and honestly I'm not even sure where I first heard about the book. Written in 1903, the author (George Horace Lorimer) takes the voice of a 'self-made merchant'--owner...
The electoral process in the United States is surprisingly efficient. Most years, ballots are cast, votes are tallied, and we are told--usually within 24 hours--the results of the election. Even when considering the entire electoral process from the beginning--ballot access and primary campaigns--to the end, with...
The 'Tao Te Ching" or the "Lao Tzu" was surprisingly relevant. Written sometime in either the 4th or 3rd Century BC, a lot of circumstantial information about the book and its author has been lost to history, and even the accuracy of the text itself...
This was a different kind of book for me to read, one that is perhaps less academic and more politically biased. Twilight of Democracy takes the form of an extended 'Op-ed', attempting to persuade the reader of her views about our current political environment. What interested...
Immanuel Kant's work here represents his most read and most influential philosophical writing. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is often considered the seminal philosophy book of modern philosophy, and whether or not it is still relevant in the current world, it is universally recognized as...
Apparently October was a busy month for me! I got through 9 books as well as a few audiobooks. Probably the most inspiring, exciting book that I read was Genome by Matt Ridley. Not only does Ridley have an incredible mastery of the English language, but...