What book are you reading? Right now. Post up!

[SSimz]

I'm currently reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser

 

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[Ubermensch]

I've got a stack of books by my bed that I'm working through:

Awaken the Giant Within - Tony Robbins (read it before, but recently started reading it again).

An Introduction to Psychology (can't remember by whom, but its the university type handbooks, so it often succeeds in putting me asleep - the theory bits that is).

How life imitates chess - Gary Kasparov (I'm about halfway through this one - was wondering how to become great in chess/life, and this book seemed like a fit).

What are you reading?

I am reading Bold.

I added this into my rotation a few months ago.

The book opens up like this:

“Go back some 66 billion years, and life on Earth was a little different.”

A page-long history lesson unfolds, right up to the evolution and development of the human being, the most dominant life form on the planet.

 

[Kevin Peter]

What Is Marketing?
by Alvin J. Silk

 

[JaxAttacks]

So much to read, so little time! I am ADDICTED to learning and reading. I constantly find myself in the middle of at least a handful of books. Right now I'm purposefully reading TMF slowly to digest it properly. Also in the middle of Ca$hvertising, On Writing Well, The War Of Art, and I'm reading my favorite fantasy series (The Sword Of Truth series by Terry Goodkind) to my wife. (We alternate reading something to each other every night which is cool because we get exposed to material we wouldn't pick up on our own.)

These are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure I have a few more that I'm working on. I'm such a bibliophile, this thread makes me happy.

 

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[Gsuz]

How Google Works by Eric Schmidt. Full of amazing insight into company strategy, product building, customer satisfaction, marketing. Great book!

 

[Andy Black]

How Google Works by Eric Schmidt. Full of amazing insight into company strategy, product building, customer satisfaction, marketing. Great book!

Interesting. I keep seeing it in the bookstores, but figured it would brainwash me about doing no evil. I'll consider it now you recommend it @Gsuz

I finished Zero to One when on holiday. Easy read. Great stuff. Can't remember any of it now though.

Currently reading The Obstacle is The Way. Great book. Love the little historical stories/fables in it too. I will remember lots from this book. I hope to apply it throughout the rest of my life too.

 

[Gsuz]

Interesting. I keep seeing it in the bookstores, but figures it would brainwash me about doing no evil. I'll consider it now you recommend it @Gsuz

I finished Zero to One when on holiday. Easy read. Great stuff. Can't remember any of it now though.

Currently reading The Obstacle is The Way. Great book. Love the little historical stories/fables in it too. I will remember lots from this book. I hope to apply it throughout the rest of my life too.

It is, mainly due to being written by Googlers, a bit heavy on the "glorifying Google" side from time to time, but on the other hand you can't really argue with the results. It's filled with little anecdotes and a nice mix of entertainment and insights. It also has some really great advice on recruiting. Let me know how you like it in case you decide to pick it up.

"Passionate people don't wear their passion on their sleeves, they have it in their hearts. They live it."

 

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[Grok]

Currently reading three simple steps by Trevor Blake. About ways of using the mind in life and business.

 

[Tyehaakon]

Just finished reading:

The Miracle Morning! Really Great book. Would definitely recommend it, especially if you're REALLY into getting things done and being productive.

Who Moved My Cheese!! Also, really great. A very short, quick read. Excellent book!

Currently on the remaining chapters of TMFL - One of the Absolute Best books I have EVER read in my life. Well done MJ, Well done!!

Just started the Lean Startup!! I'm hooked!

 

[JaxAttacks]

Interesting. I keep seeing it in the bookstores, but figured it would brainwash me about doing no evil. I'll consider it now you recommend it @Gsuz

I finished Zero to One when on holiday. Easy read. Great stuff. Can't remember any of it now though.

Currently reading The Obstacle is The Way. Great book. Love the little historical stories/fables in it too. I will remember lots from this book. I hope to apply it throughout the rest of my life too.

The Obstacle is The Way is on my to-read list for sure. Have you read any of his (Ryan Holiday) other stuff? Have you read/studied stoicism before? I've been meaning to re-read some Seneca and read some Marcus Aurelius for the first time, but I may just start with TOITW.

 

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[eliquid]

Just finished Problem Solving 101. i thought it would be more than what was actually in it ( I already knew all the techniques personally ), but it's good for those that don't know them.

Currently reading a book by James Altcuher I didn't know he had, "Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth". You have to buy it off his site.

There is some overlap with the reg. "Choose Yourself" book, but still a good read.

Also, I am starting into, "The Thinker's Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving"


I like to theme my reading into chunks so I can learn a whole theme at once... My theme right now was problem solving, but the James Alt. book just kinda slid in.

 

[Kingmaker]

The Obstacle is The Way is on my to-read list for sure. Have you read any of his (Ryan Holiday) other stuff? Have you read/studied stoicism before? I've been meaning to re-read some Seneca and read some Marcus Aurelius for the first time, but I may just start with TOITW.

TOITW is all you really need, it's a great intro/summary of Stoicism. If you want something extra these quotes are like the "best of" from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marcus_aurelius.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/epictetus.html

 

[NVious]

My book list for the year

Four Hour Chef (first half is great if you want to learn how to learn, 2nd half if you actually want to cook)
Four Hour Work Week (LOVED this book, the resources alone make it worth it)
80/20 Sales And Marketing (80/20=GOD)
80/20 Living (1st half is good, 2nd half=take care of your relationships)
80/20 Principle (See above)
Here are my favorite parts from the 80/20 principle: http://imgur.com/a/N7Pmq
Pitch Anything (Good info, although a bit long)
Compound Effect (Motivational, although info can be summed up as progressively overload your life)
Slight Edge (See Above)
E-Myth (Very good stuff, although long relative to how useful the info really was)
Blue Ocean Strategy (Good info, although a bit too long with the stories)
Top 10 Distinctions Between Middle Class And Wealthy (TRUTH, that is all)
100 Days Of Growth (100 unique things to try out with all businesses, great book, highly recommenced it)

Decent amount of actual cover to cover (or full listen) books, probably have heard 500+ summaries (100+ Ebooks, some of them are hella small though), will be getting a membership at some other cliffnote type website besides TBS for more business/leadership/communication/psychology books.

 

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[Grok]

Now reading:

miracle morning-hal elrod
delivering happiness-tony hsich, ceo zappos.com
the freaks shall inherit the earth-chris brogan

all very thought provoking.

 

[H. Palmer]

Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger. This book is so good I'll actually gonna take a month to finish it, 20 slow pages a day.

 

[DST]

Currently finishing up "Brain Rules". Also recently started "To Sell is Human" (about 50 pages in) which I currently can't recommend because all the author has done up till now is to try to convince me how everybody is selling in some way with lots of different statistics and numbers.


One of my recent readings was "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis, pretty good overall but I loved the ending "What the world needs is an anti-self-help book. A book that tells people how hard it is to be a great manager or great anything. About how hard it is to get rich."
"They'd never buy it. People buy dreams, they don't buy reality. They want it made easy. They want a promise a fool could keep".

 

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[AustinS28]

I've been reading the Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords By Perry Marshall. Solid book for a person like me with little experience with SEO, PPC advertising and really how to use google to my businesses advantage.

 

[LifeTransformer]

Just finished reading "The Dip and Tribes - We Need You To Lead Us"
Currently reading "All Marketers are Liars"

Love reading Seth's books, they're normally short and easy to read, but massively eye opening.

 

[LifeTransformer]

Finished All Marketers are Liars (Tell Stories).
Finished 99 cows by Seth Godin too (it's free! You just need to find it) so need to get a copy of Purple Cows now, although I think I know what the book is going to tell me already after reading 99 cows, and his other newer works. Meatball Sundae is in the post, looking forward to getting that!

Just read "Who Moved my Cheese" thanks @Tyehaakon for that one! Very quick read and well worth it.

Now reading "As a Man Thinketh" and "The one Thing".

 

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[LeDV03]

Previous: The Millionaire Fastlane
Currently: The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
Next: The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan

- Reading leads to Knowledge which leads to Wealth

 

[hellolin]

Finished reading "The hard things about hard things", two of Dr. Ben Carson's earlier books when he is talking about his medical career. Now I am reading his most recent book "One nation". Also trying to read the textbook of Edx's opensource "introducing programming in Python" since I am in that course.

 

[LifeTransformer]

Anyone got any suggestions for some shorter reads? Trying to finish my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge by Sunday by reading a book a day (tough to do when most of the stuff in my library is 150+ pages) so I can say I've done it, then concentrate the rest of my reading this year on re-reading the books I found the most value in (will be doing a post on that when finished).

Currently reading "The One Thing" - very useful, and one of those books you can actually apply to your life.

 

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[Daniel A]

I'm curious about your thoughts on this book (and it's claim)...

Heal Your Body by Louise Hay

"Heal Your Body is a fresh and easy step-by-step guide. Just look up your specific health challenge and you will find the probable cause for this health issue and the information you need to overcome it by creating a new thought pattern. Louise Hay, bestselling author, is an internationally known leader in the self-help field. Her key message: "If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed." The author has a great deal of experience and firsthand information to share about healing—including how she cured herself after having been diagnosed with cancer."

So she cured herself of cancer? I'm becoming more of a sceptic as I get older...

I almost had to get a root canal in one of my teeth recently, but the antibiotics and mouthwash I'm using now seem to be working. I'd rather have a live tooth instead of a dead tooth in my mouth so I'm interesting in 'healing my body' haha.

The book is $0.99 right now -- cheap. But do you think it's worth the time investment?

EDIT: Almost forgot! Here's the link if you want to check it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Heal-Your-Body-Louise-Hay-ebook/dp/B00DW7VLS8/

 

[Tyehaakon]

Anyone got any suggestions for some shorter reads? Trying to finish my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge by Sunday by reading a book a day (tough to do when most of the stuff in my library is 150+ pages) so I can say I've done it, then concentrate the rest of my reading this year on re-reading the books I found the most value in (will be doing a post on that when finished).

Currently reading "The One Thing" - very useful, and one of those books you can actually apply to your life.

Just picked up "The One Thing" - Glad to hear your thoughts on this book, Thanks! Looking forward to reading it!

 

[Esquire]

Qualified Domestic Relations Order Handbook.

I know ... gives me a rock hard woody too.

 

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[DeletedUser394]

Anyone got any suggestions for some shorter reads? Trying to finish my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge by Sunday by reading a book a day (tough to do when most of the stuff in my library is 150+ pages) so I can say I've done it, then concentrate the rest of my reading this year on re-reading the books I found the most value in (will be doing a post on that when finished).

Currently reading "The One Thing" - very useful, and one of those books you can actually apply to your life.

Have you considered the possibility that you may be reading too much and doing too little?

A book a week is excessive and unnecessary. But good luck.

and if you want a short read suggestion. 'Who moved my cheese.' can be read in like 30 minutes. It's a good book.

 

[bradipaus]

not to be pander, but The Millionaire Fastlane has been by far the best book on how to get rich I've ever read.

 

[LifeTransformer]

Have you considered the possibility that you may be reading too much and doing too little?

A book a week is excessive and unnecessary. But good luck.

and if you want a short read suggestion. 'Who moved my cheese.' can be read in like 30 minutes. It's a good book.

I read that one the other day! lol.

And to answer you question; if I didn't do the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge I wouldn't have picked up The ONE thing, which is probably one of the most important books I've read so far, (number 51).

Reading a book a week? Probably not a waste of time, reading one per day like I am at the moment is though. But like I said, if I didn't do it, I wouldn't have picked up The ONE thing, which has given me an idea on what to focus on next and ways on how to focus on it better.

It's also given me some knowledge to give back to the community, which shall be written up and posted this week time permitting.

 

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[DeletedUser394]

I read that one the other day! lol.

And to answer you question; if I didn't do the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge I wouldn't have picked up The ONE thing, which is probably one of the most important books I've read so far, (number 51).

Reading a book a week? Probably not a waste of time, reading one per day like I am at the moment is though. But like I said, if I didn't do it, I wouldn't have picked up The ONE thing, which has given me an idea on what to focus on next and ways on how to focus on it better.

It's also given me some knowledge to give back to the community, which shall be written up and posted this week time permitting.

What have you done in addition to reading 51 books? I'm referring to actual actionable and quantifiable steps. There is no way that reading one book a week is a +EV event unless you can quantify the actions that each book brought about. Even then it hardly makes sense as your time should be of enough value that reading for hours upon hours instead of working on the business detracts from the real goal.

Books should be read to strengthen your core business that you've already got going on. Reading the actual books shouldn't be the core focus.

This happens too often, I've been guilty of it too.

Regarding knowledge: you'd probably learn 10x more.. and a lot more quickly, by setting up a storefront and failing, then by reading 52 books.

I don't care either way, just pointing this out to potentially dissuade anyone that thinks this is a good idea.

 

[LifeTransformer]

What have you done in addition to reading 51 books? I'm referring to actual actionable and quantifiable steps. There is no way that reading one book a week is a +EV event unless you can quantify the actions that each book brought about. Even then it hardly makes sense as your time should be of enough value that reading for hours upon hours instead of working on the business detracts from the real goal.

Books should be read to strengthen your core business that you've already got going on. Reading the actual books shouldn't be the core focus.

This happens too often, I've been guilty of it too.

Regarding knowledge: you'd probably learn 10x more.. and a lot more quickly, by setting up a storefront and failing, then by reading 52 books.

I don't care either way, just pointing this out to potentially dissuade anyone that thinks this is a good idea.

In response to question 1; I've started writing 52 books. Actually, it might be more than that..... I've had more business ideas than I would have had, if I hadn't read anything all year too. But I'm focusing on ONE at the moment.

After doing this 52 in 52 challenge, I think if you can't read 52 books in 52 weeks, then your down time is being wasted. More on that in my post to come though.

In response to the rest of the following spiel, like I mentioned above, "The ONE thing" is a book that has massively helped me figure out where to go, if I didn't do the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge (almost finished however many weeks early, started January 1st) I wouldn't have. It's all well and good saying about moving before learning, picking it up as you go along etc. But I've already done that before, and it failed me.

You shouldn't be dissuading anybody from reading, I think the direction of it is the main thing and that will also be in the post to come.

Stay tuned, it might even make you want to do it! :-D