My Perspective I first heard of this book – Atomic Habits – when the author, James Clear, did the Podcast rounds when the book first came out in late 2018 / early 2019 (this podcast episode was a favourite). On the various podcasts I enjoyed, and resonated with, many of his viewpoints on habits, but what convinced me to buy the book and read it in full was how consistently the book was – and still is – being praised…
Introduction There are few more famous American authors than Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau’s name doesn’t look out of place in lists which include the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and J.D. Salinger. Thoreau lived from July 1817 to May 1862, a very interesting period of American history, and has left lasting contributions on natural history, environmentalism and philosophical austerity. I had been wanting to read Thoreau’s most famous book ‘Walden’ and finally managed to do so on…
My Perspective I have no doubt that part of the reason I loved this book so much is because I work in the consultancy industry – I should say technology consultancy and not management consultancy, or even more vilified, strategy consultancy – and therefore several examples included in this book were frustrations or comic situations I’ve experienced. Even when I consider this fact I still feel this is an exceptional book, and in no small part informed my view on…
My Perspective If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll see that ancient philosophy, and Stoicism in particular, re-occurs every so often. The fundamental reason is because we live in a world of so many inputs, one of the biggest being people’s desire to have and do more to keep their social media image suitably maintained. Stoicism reminds us to remember we are all human, that having material wealth is out of our control and should not impact our emotion, and also to equip ourselves for when bad events occur. This is particularly important given the festive excess many…
My Perspective Malcolm Gladwell shot to fame when his first book ‘The Tipping Point’ was released in 2000, and ‘Outliers’ – his third book – is arguably his most famous. The most often quoted part of the book is his view that 10,000 hours is the magic number to achieve mastery of a given skill. This fact is often misquoted and misunderstood, but is nonetheless a core concept in a book focused on explaining why and how we concentrate on…
My Perspective Josh Waitzkin is the child prodigy Junior Chess Champion whose early life formed the book, and later the film, Searching for Bobby Fischer. In his early twenties Waitzkin’s focus moved from chess to martial arts, specifically Tai Chi. He subsequently went on to win several US national medals and become the 2004 world champion in Taiji Push Hands. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of either chess or martial arts so you might…
My Perspective There are few more famous books that Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Mediations’, it was written as a series of spiritual exercises and the common belief was that it would never to be published. For me it is the inner dialogue of an extremely powerful and rich man – the Emperor of Rome – trying to fight the same battles that we all face on a daily basis: how to be a better person, how to show courage, be just, be clever and…
Introduction: This book was gifted to me by a family member around 5 years ago, and although I read it around 3 years ago, I only recently stumbled across my notes. Having this gap between reading the book and reviewing my notes was really interesting, as it provided me with the opportunity to understand what content from the book I’d naturally kept and what I’d forgotten, fortunately more was remembered than I expected! Whilst I am not currently investing in…
‘The Tiger’s Wife’ is the beautiful debut book by Téa Obreht. The setting is across two generations within an unidentified Balkan country before, during & after a civil war. The style of this book reminded me a great deal of the incredible Khaled Hosseini (author of ‘The Kite Runner’ & ‘And the Mountains Echoed’). The book focuses on the life of Natalia Stefanovic and her grandfather, following their lives through different stories and fables. Téa leaves you on the edge…
Steve Case is a huge name in the tech world, having been a founder of AOL, so I was really excited to read his take on where technology is leading us next and what the future of the industry could look like. Overall I was really impressed and riveted by the book, he covers some very interesting topics and touches on the areas that could be next in line to be transformed by technology, namely education and healthcare. This isn’t…