Tag: books
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Book: It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single
It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single (Amazon) is a series of essays and anecdotes around themes. The themes are the things that you tell yourself, or that people tell you, about why it is you’re still alone. Mostly I found it… reassuring. The thoughts of “oh I’m inadequate” or “I need to do X, Y…
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Things That Annoy Me When Reading Novels
I’ve been reading a lot of novels lately (oh hai, lurgy). And I enjoy the escapism but often find myself exclaiming WHAT WHY WHAT NO. Some of the things that cause that… Drippy protagonists who want nothing other than a relationship, or put up with a terrible relationship for a long time. First kiss to…
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Book: Self Promotion for Introverts
I didn’t really enjoy Self-Promotion for Introverts (Amazon), but I think that is probably not just about the book, and also about my general negative feelings towards self-promotion. However my biggest peeve was that it is not formatted properly for kindle, resulting in some sections of text being cut off. This just seems shoddy (especially…
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Book: The Charisma Myth
I quite enjoyed The Charisma Myth (Amazon), although I’m not sure how much more Charismatic I managed to become from reading it! Charisma is behaviour (not personality!) that can be learned. Marilyn Monroe could turn charisma on and off. A young woman went to dinner with William Gladstone and separately also with Benjamin Disraeli. She said she left…
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Book: 4 Hour Body
I have mixed feelings about Tim Ferriss. I read 4 Hour Work Week, and now 4 Hour Body (both Amazon), and it’s like, yes, good point, but it’s hard for me to imagine having that much control over my time. Penelope Trunk wrote something interesting, about how he works insanely hard but defines it all…
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Book: A Short Guide To A Happy Life
I like Anna Quindlen’s work, it’s beautiful and thoughtful, poetic without being overly flowery. A Short Guide To a Happy Life is from a commencement speech she never gave because it was cancelled by protesters, beautifully illustrated with pictures. It’s short, because really it contains a very simple message: be more than your job, have more in…
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Thoughts on Being Productive
I’ve been reading Manage Your Day to Day (Amazon), which is a nice book on people’s personal approaches to productivity. It’s reminded me of some things, and given me some things to reflect on. I used to be really into productivity, but now I have some things that I keep in mind, and that works…
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Book: The Richer Sex
For women who have complained about modern dating and men being intimidated by the success of women… The Richer Sex is the book to read. Personally I’d kind of thought the problem was dating engineers (common complaint amongst my female peers – how many of them have stay at home wives and the effect that…
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Book: Principle Centered Leadership
I think Principle Centered Leadership (Amazon) was the most annoying, preachy, and useless book I have ever read. Really disappointing as I got a lot out of 7 Habits (Amazon) and thought reading this would similar enough to refresh my thinking, but also something new. Actually I hated it so much, I may never manage to read…