Rezensionen und Kommentare

An interesting book. Manson tells a lot of stories and dives deep into philosophical questions. I would have given 5 stars if there wouldn't be a historic flaw. In the first chapter he tells the story of Witold Pilecki, a polish man that sneaked into the Auschwitz contentration camp during World War 2 and spied against the Nazis. And then you read "How did you build you own transistor radio out of spare parts and stolen batteries, Mac-Gyver style, and then successfully transmit plans for an attack on the prison camp to the Secret Polish Army in Warsaw?". The problem I see is that the "official birth date" of the transistor is December 21, 1947, so two and a half year after the war was over.
Besides that inaccuracy its a book worth reading. You learn about the basic concepts of religions and you learn, that even capitalsim and whatever drives the world is a sort of religion. Then you visit great philosophers like Nietzsche or Kant. And at the end you learn about the disruption that artificial intelligence is introducing to our daily life. That AI might be the next god.

Lots of pages, but at the end I'm still thinking "WTF?! What is the message of this book?" Honestly, I can't see it. Yes, there is that black swan which is very rare, but what is the takeaway from this conclusion?

I was reading the german translation, so even in my mother tongue I'm not able to get the message, if there is any. The only thing I understood so far is that the author does not like Gauss and his bell curve for normal distributions. The funny part of his "evidence that Gauss is wrong" seems to be the idea that according to Gauss a crash of the finance market should happen only once in whatever million years and since we had several of those crashes in the past this proves that Gauss is wrong. Problem with this is, that Gauss is looking at random events. Finance markets are not random events but driven by greed. So if you misbehave, then you get the bill for it. If I'm daily speeding on the road and get my daily speeding tiket I can't blame Gauss for that because according to Gauss it would be a very low probability to get speeding tickets for 28 days in a row.

One of the books that was painful to read for me.

Ein interessantes Buch das leicht zu "verdauen" ist. Jedes Kapitel hat genau drei Seiten. Kann man locker nebenbei lesen, ist aber deswegen nicht oberflächlich sondern durchaus informativ.

An interesting book. Hardy is telling you, that willpower alone won't do the job. The key seems to be to shape your environment so that you're less distracted, more focussed and things just fit in place. But at the end its nothing new, it is practically the same advice as "leave toxic environments" and after all, the first step is always to collect enough willpower to initiate the change. Nevertheless, this book can be recommended, if offers some special insights on the "if you really want it, you can achieve everything" mantra.

A great book about capitalism and economy. I had some lectures in economy during my time at the University and didn't understand much about what they were telling me. Reading this book now (years later of course, so I might have gotten some lifetime experiene) makes it very clear.
The book is comprehensive and easy to read, because the author is explaining the topics in a way that also a teenager can understand. You learn why Britain colonized Australia and not vice versa. And you learn the important difference between "experiencal value" and "commodity value". You learn how money is created out of nothing and how markets function. And at the end you learn why democracy and regulation of the markets is so important. Quick read with very interesting knowledge, highly recommended for everyone who is interested in how our economy works.

Pros: Some parts are quite entertaining. And it has some good advices, like "learn Java" and don't run after every new beauty like "Kotlin".

Cons: The author is probably a gifted Android developer, but his teaching skills are far from being perfect. I wish the book had more illustrations and instead of lots of pages with program code that are difficult to read with the page format used I would have appreciated a dowload address for the examples discussed in the book. So at the end the book is a not so deep overview on the basic concepts of Android programming, but at the end you just find out that you still don't know enough to start real Android development.

A quite interesting book. We all face our daily fears, but Ruth Soukup tells you that you still can do whatever you want to do, just do it scared. There is a self assesment available on her web site, so you can learn what archetye you are. Important lesson is that having fear is not a negative thing, everyone has fears. The big lesson is that you need to accept that you have no control on what happens to you in your life, but you have full control on how to respond to the things that happen to you. Once you understood this you can go on living your dreams.
The book is easy to read, some nice stories, even if I'm still thinking if all those success stories are just biased, because people that gave up still scared won't make it to the success stories part of the book. Nevertheless, Ruth herself is a perfect example of taking control over her situation, she was broken, depressed, had several attempts to commit suicide and then transformed into a caring person and is practically writing down her life experiences in this book. So she really knows the dark side, the monsters that hide under your bed and she learnt to successfully overcome her own fears.
I've heard about that book first on the "Beyond the ToDo list" podcast and decided to give it a try after hearing Ruth's story. Yes, it was worth reading and I take away some intersting new ideas on how to keep going once you're started.

I've heard about the book recently on the Beyond-the-ToDo-List podcast and it sounded interesting, so I got it on my eBook reader. The author is telling you two stories, one about the history of that book of mistakes back some 200 years ago and the other one with the protagonist David that is facing the lose of his job, struggling with finances and having no plan for his life. Until that day he meets an old man that starts telling him about the 9 mistakes that we all do...

If I had to pick my 3 "favorite" mistakes then they would be:

a) "Let other people define your value". This is currently one of the most important things I have to remember, because my life is in a transformation phase as well, my company will do layoffs within the next 12 months and we all lose our jobs. So its more important than ever that we all know our value and don't let others define them.

b) "Think that success is limited". Yes, always remember that success is unlimited, don't be envious on others that are successful but keep learning from them and work on your own goals.

c) "Think you have unlimied time". At my current age of 58 this proves to be true. When I look at my teenage kids, they still think they have plenty of time and waste their days, but its part of their development process. I realized that my remaining time on that planet is limited, so I value time much more than my kids do.

Its a great book. Not that Prichard is telling something new, but he has a good story wrapped around the lessons that we all need to keep in mind every day. Highly recommended reading.

What can you expect from a book that was started when the author was just a 19 year old teenager? If you don't expect much you will be surprised by this book. People that know my readings habits will probably be surprised too by the fact that I read the whole book within just three days. But I tell you, its a book that you can't put away.
Alex Banayan is telling you the story of his mission to interview the most successful people. You will read about a lot of rejections, a lot about luck and meeting the right people, a lot about mentoring and helping others to grow. You see how the young author is transforming from a teenager with a vision to a man who learns to achieve his goals.
There are lots of lessons to take away from that book.Great stuff to read, but schedule a weekend for doing this. A real page turner.
Special thanks to my friend Aleksandra who pointed me to this book.

It was so far the most expensive book that I bought this year, but it is really worth the money. Michael Hyatt gives you clear instructions how you learn to find your desire zone and how you can get rid of the tasks that are not in your desire zone. The goal is not to do more, but to do the right things.

*Expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing. Choose well. "
I choosed to read that book. Usually I'm reading one chapter of a book before going to bed. I finished the book within two days. And it has more than just two chapters...
A really catching story with some references to Ebenizer Scrooge. Entertaining when reading, but full of wisdom.

Difficult to read. Since the book was written in 1976 its like visiting my childhood. Fromm is looking at the political situation in those days, there was cold war and the Soviet Union was still existing.
What I take from the book is that mankind should focus more on being and less on having. Well, history of capitalism since 1976 turns out to prove the opposite, we are a society of "having" and just a few people are mindful enough to focus on being.