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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46 summaries, page 2 of 2

Rebecca Yarros

Book Summary | Onyx Storm

Violet Sorrengail leaves the war college behind for a dragon-back quest across unknown isles, racing to save her kingdom's defences and the man she loves from the darkness inside him.

8 min read
C.S. Lewis

Book Summary | Out of the Silent Planet

A Cambridge philologist is kidnapped and flown to Mars, where he finds a world without sin that looks back at fallen Earth with pity.

Faith and Spirituality
Philosophy
9 min read
C.S. Lewis

Book Summary | Perelandra

C.S. Lewis sends Elwin Ransom to an unfallen Venus, where a new Eve faces a tempter and the fate of a world rests on one reluctant man.

Faith and Spirituality
Philosophy
10 min read
Pierce Brown

Book Summary | 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
Michael J. Sullivan

Book Summary | Rise of Empire

Thief Royce and swordsman Hadrian are pulled into a war for the soul of Elan as a puppet empress, a church-run empire and a rebel army compete for power.

Politics and History
Relationships
9 min read
C.S. Lewis

Book Summary | That Hideous Strength

C.S. Lewis closes his Space Trilogy on Earth, where a sinister scientific institute, a fraying young marriage and a sleeping Merlin collide in a battle for England's soul.

Faith and Spirituality
Philosophy
9 min read
Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington

Book Summary | 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

Book Summary | 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

Book Summary | 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
Robin Sharma

Book Summary | The 5AM Club

Robin Sharma's fable of a burned-out entrepreneur, a stuck artist and an eccentric billionaire makes the case that owning your first hour can transform your whole life.

Habits
Focus and Productivity
6 min read
Todd Herman

Book Summary | The Alter Ego Effect

Performance coach Todd Herman shows how a deliberately built 'secret identity' can bring your best self out in the moments that matter most.

Mindset
Psychology
9 min read
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Book Summary | The Brothers Karamazov

Dostoevsky's final masterpiece: a murder in a provincial Russian family becomes a battle over God, freedom, suffering and love.

Philosophy
Faith and Spirituality
9 min read
Mel Robbins

Book Summary | The High 5 Habit

Mel Robbins argues that high-fiving your own reflection every morning can quiet self-criticism and teach you to back yourself the way you back everyone else.

Habits
Mindset
9 min read
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Book Summary | The Idiot

A gentle prince returns to Russia and tests whether pure goodness can survive money, pride and obsessive love.

Philosophy
Faith and Spirituality
8 min read
Mel Robbins

Book Summary | The Let Them Theory

Mel Robbins argues that two words, Let Them, free you from managing other people, and two more, Let Me, put your energy back into the only thing you control: yourself.

Mindset
Relationships
7 min read
Homer

Book Summary | The Odyssey

The cunning king of Ithaca fights monsters, gods and his own pride for ten years to get home, while his wife and son hold off a house full of suitors.

7 min read
Rhonda Byrne

Book Summary | The Secret

Rhonda Byrne's blockbuster guide to the law of attraction, which teaches that your thoughts and feelings draw matching experiences into your life, and offers ask, believe, receive as the way to use it.

Mindset
Faith and Spirituality
6 min read
Steven Pressfield

Book Summary | The War of Art

Steven Pressfield names the inner enemy that keeps us from our real work, Resistance, and shows how to beat it by turning pro and showing up every day.

Creativity
Mindset
10 min read
Michael J. Sullivan

Book Summary | Theft of Swords

Two mismatched rogues take a too-good-to-be-true job to steal a sword, get framed for a king's murder, and stumble into a conspiracy and an ancient war that could reshape their world.

Epic Fantasy
Friendship
9 min read
Harper Lee

Book Summary | To Kill a Mockingbird

In Depression-era Alabama, a tomboy named Scout watches her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch, defend a Black man falsely accused of rape while a hidden neighbor watches over her.

7 min read
Jon Kabat-Zinn

Book Summary | Wherever You Go, There You Are

Jon Kabat-Zinn's gentle classic on mindfulness: how to stop living on autopilot and pay attention to the only moment you have, on the cushion and at the kitchen sink.

Mental Health
Stress
8 min read
Shiv Khera

Book Summary | You Can Win

Shiv Khera's step-by-step case that success is learned: begin with attitude, then build self-esteem, people skills, habits, goals and values on top of it.

Mindset
8 min read

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