Books

The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.

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36 summaries, page 1 of 2

Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

10x Is Easier Than 2x

A coach and a psychologist argue that a tenfold goal is simpler than doubling, because it forces you to drop the 80 percent of your work that cannot come along.

Money and Career
Mindset
7 min read
Jordan B. Peterson

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

A clinical psychologist's twelve blunt, oddly named rules for carrying responsibility, telling the truth and finding meaning in a life that will include suffering.

Mindset
7 min read
Cal Newport

A World Without Email

Cal Newport argues that the inbox has become a broken way of organising work, and lays out four principles for doing knowledge work without the constant chatter.

Focus and Productivity
Business Strategy
8 min read
James Clear

Atomic Habits

James Clear's case that tiny daily habits, backed by good systems and a new sense of identity, compound into remarkable change.

Habits
Focus and Productivity
8 min read
Robert Mnookin

Bargaining with the Devil

Harvard negotiation professor Robert Mnookin uses Churchill, Mandela, IBM and bitter family fights to show when to make a deal with an enemy and when to refuse.

Business Strategy
Psychology
8 min read
W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Blue Ocean Strategy

INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that the smartest companies stop fighting rivals in crowded markets and create new, uncontested ones instead.

Money and Career
Creativity
5 min read
Pierce Brown

Dark Age

Ten years after the revolution, Darrow's army is besieged on Mercury, the Republic's Senate is torn apart and Mars is overrun in the saga's darkest book.

Science Fiction
Politics and History
8 min read
Cal Newport

Deep Work

Cal Newport argues that undistracted concentration on hard problems is becoming rare and valuable, and gives four rules for building a working life around it.

Focus and Productivity
Habits
9 min read
Bill Perkins

Die With Zero

Bill Perkins argues that money is only worth the experiences it buys, so the goal is to spend it, and give it, while you are alive and able to enjoy it.

Money and Career
8 min read
Nicole LePera

Do the Work

The Holistic Psychologist's guide to why willpower fails, how childhood wires our automatic patterns, and the daily mind-and-body practices that let you choose who you become.

Mental Health
Psychology
9 min read
Greg McKeown

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Greg McKeown's method for finding the few things that truly matter, cutting the rest, and making the vital work almost effortless.

Focus and Productivity
8 min read
Pierce Brown

Golden Son

Darrow, a Red miner remade as a Gold, turns his enemies on each other and carries his secret rebellion from Mars into a war across the solar system.

Science Fiction
Politics and History
8 min read
Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

Ikigai

What the centenarians of an Okinawan village can teach the rest of us about purpose, calm, food, friends and a reason to get up in the morning.

Longevity
Mindset
8 min read
Pierce Brown

Iron Gold

Ten years after the revolution, its hero, its victims and its exiles discover what freedom really costs.

Science Fiction
Dystopia
7 min read
Pierce Brown

Light Bringer

A beaten Darrow crosses the Solar System to find allies while his rival Lysander reaches for a crown.

Science Fiction
Dystopia
8 min read
Robert Greene

Mastery

Robert Greene argues that greatness is a path anyone can walk: find your calling, serve a long apprenticeship, learn from mentors, read people well, and let deep immersion ripen into intuition.

Mindset
Psychology
10 min read
Pierce Brown

Morning Star

Broken by a year in the dark, a slave-born revolutionary rises again to lead a solar-system-wide war against the tyrants who rule it in the finale of the Red Rising trilogy.

Science Fiction
Space Exploration
8 min read
Chris Voss

Never Split the Difference

The FBI's former top kidnapping negotiator shows how listening, labeling emotions and asking the right questions win better deals than compromise.

Business Strategy
Psychology
8 min read
Pierce Brown

Red Rising

A teenage miner on Mars is remade as one of the ruling Golds to bring down the empire that hanged his wife.

Science Fiction
Dystopia
8 min read
Charles Eisenstein

Sacred Economics

Charles Eisenstein argues that our debt-and-interest money system manufactures scarcity and separation, and sketches a gift-based, ecological economy to replace it.

Money and Career
Philosophy
10 min read
Simon Sinek

Start With Why

Simon Sinek argues that the leaders and companies who earn real loyalty all communicate the same way: purpose first, product last.

Money and Career
8 min read
Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington

The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months

Stop planning by the calendar year: treat every twelve weeks as a year of its own and let a near deadline, a weekly plan and an honest score do the work.

Focus and Productivity
8 min read
Robert Greene

The 33 Strategies of War

Robert Greene turns three thousand years of military thinking into 33 strategies for everyday conflict, starting with the war inside your own head.

Business Strategy
Mindset
8 min read
Tim Ferriss

The 4-Hour Chef

Tim Ferriss uses cooking as a training ground for meta-learning, a system for picking up any skill far faster than the conventional route allows.

Education
Focus and Productivity
9 min read