(Last Updated 2020.06.17)
106. The Hard Thing about Hard Things. 90%
105. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups – Daniel Coyle 75%
104. Everything You Need to Ace English Language Arts – Workman Publishing 85%
103. Everything You Need to Know about World History -Workman Publishing 100%
102. Everything You Need to Know about American History – Workman Publishing 100%
101. Beating The Street – Peter Lynch 85%
100. Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy – Isadore Sharp 90%
99. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefevre 90%
98. Fortune’s Formula – William Poundstone 90%
97. The Man Who Solved the Market – Gregory Zuckerman 90%
96. A Man for All Markets – Ed Thorp 90%
95. The Big Short – Michael Lewis 90%
94. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder 90 %
93. The Greatest Trade Ever – Gregory Zuckerman 90%
92. When Genius Failed – Roger Lowenstein 90%
91. Big Debt Crises -Ray Dalio 90%
90. Principles: Life and Work -Ray Dalio 85%
89. Autonomy And Rigid Character – David Shapiro 90%
88. Humans of New York – Brandon Stanthon 95%
87. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Harari 95%
86. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Harari 95%
85. Harry Potter 2,3 -J. K. Rowling 90%
84. The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work – Carol Kinsey Goman 95%
83. Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America’s Eyeballs – Gina Keating 80%
82. The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business – Clayton M. Christensen 70%
81. It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best – Claudio Fernández-Aráoz 75%
80. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon -Brad Stone 90%
A biography of Amazon’s founder. I like the story of Jeff Bezos, not only because it is exciting to figure out how the emperor was built from scratch but also because I am a big fan of Bezos’ long term thinking strategy. To always keep long term goal in mind is the best way to avoid short term crises and build something to last.
79. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything -Joshua Foer 70%
This is a story of the author who became a memorizing champion with a mediocre aptitude by receiving training of memorizing. I admit it is cool have a photographic memory, but I don’t think it worth tons of time and training to get it, because the difference between people and computer is our ability of understanding, analyzing and interacting with other people. Why to spend time trying to be a super calculator or memorizer when it can be simply done by computers. Anyway, it is still fun to know about the story, but that is probably all I get from the book.
78. Sam Walton: Made In America -Sam Walton 95%
An autobiography of Walmart’s founder. What a legend! It, to some extent, explained how and why Sam Walton can build such an emperor. Walton’s wisdom and work ethics are very respectable.
77. The Remains of the Day -Kazuo Ishiguro 85%
A novel about a butter who served a UK Lord before and after WWII. It’s Jeff Bezos’s favorite novel and he said he learned more from this book than any other business book. There is a lot to learn regarding people holding their respect to their profession and royalty.
76. Above the Line: Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season -Urban Meyer 90%
Ohio State Univ football team coach’s book about leadership and incredible story of winning a championship last year. There is no nonsense bullshit. Everything about leadership sounds convincing and testified. I like the book.
75. SuperFreakonomics -Steven Levitt 85%
A sequential book of Freakonomics. A similar way of writing and a really book with some critical insights toward various topics in life and society. The only issue is the stories of some chapters are somewhat cheesy to be put together, but I have to admit it’s super hard to produce high quality writing using the same style and similar content.
74. Freakonomics -Steven Levitt 90%
A best seller of interesting topics and misunderstanding in daily life, including decline of US crime rate in 1990s was caused by the birth control decades before but not growth of economy, how to identify cheating teachers in public school, why some drug dealers had to stay with their parents and how and why the popularity of American first names fluctuate with time. Some critical thinking stuff to understand interesting phenomena.
73. Think like a Freak -Steven Levitt 90%
The same authors of the last book talking about suggestions of doing critical thinking to understand the world and make some use of it. Actually the authors have created a community of fans following their work including 5 millions of followers on podcast. I am not a super fan of the book, because some of arguments were not perfectly supported, but a big fan of the topics.
72. Fast Food Nation -Eric Schlosse 75%
A book talking about how fast food industry shaped American society. Fast food industry started with growth of auto industry and high way constructions in 1950s. It talked about not only the junk food, health issues and life styles, but also the farming industry, food process industry, restaurant industry and their employees and values toward life. A neat slice view of American society.
71. Blue Ocean Strategy -Chan Kim 85%
A business book of a fresh idea: the best way to compete is not to compete by not playing the old competition rules and creating some advantages in the measures not even in the horizon. I like the idea, but many examples fit the model too perfect probably of survival bias – meaning those who use similar strategies but failed can never be known. It might also be just one oversimplified explanation of complicated phenomena. At the same time, I wonder if the idea has any prediction values instead of simply good explanation of the past. Anyway the idea sounds neat and perhaps a new method to do the thinking.
70. Excellent Sheep -William Deresiewicz 85%
A book by a Yale professor contemplating current education system and the students who struggled to figure out their meanings of life. Credentialism pushed students building up things that help them get into schools as good they can or companies that pay as well as possible, even with no ideas the meaning of doing so. Many sharp opinions that make me think.
69. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future -Ashlee Vance 90%
An authorized biography of Elon Musk with detailed story about how Musk evolved into an unprecedented legend and still growing. Really nice read peeping into a iconic figure’s life.
68. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration -Ed Catmull 90%
Ed Catmull is a co-founder and longtime CEO of Pixar, a legendary computer animated film studio. This is Ed’s contemplation of how to build a culture in an organization that can cultivate creativity. This is not such a book that full of perfectly correct nonsense, but full of critically justified insights. Everybody can be creative from time to time. The question is how to deliver controllable and on-demand creativity and creation.
67. Crystal Magnates: Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and the Principles of Dominance -Truman Alexander %80
I’ve been fascinated with college football and stories of star coaches, because they seemed to know how to deliver controllable success. This is a third party’s book about the secrets that behind two current biggest star coaches . Most of told inside the book was not new and sometimes ill supported. But a solid reminder of some principles that made someone different.
66. Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs -Norm Brodsky 85%
A book about fundamental principles of business model and suggestions on non-high tech companies based on the author’s firsthand experience. This book reads sincere and offers quite useful guidance at least for me,
65. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game -Michael Lewis
This book is a best seller concerning a real story of one MBL’s team manager outperforming those with huge budget by using statistics analysis. A movie starred by Tom Cruise was based on this book. An interesting way to interpreting things in an unorthodox manner based on mathematics and modeling, which I am quite interested in understanding my surroundings.
64. The 11 Laws of Likability: Relationship Networking . . . Because People Do Business with People They Like -Michelle Tillis LEDERMAN 70%
I can’t say I Love this book, because I was expecting a thorough scientific research why people tend to like others. Most of the book’s conclusions are either perfectly correct nonsense or way too subjective. However I am inspired by two of the book’s conclusions that people tend to like those who are similar to themselves and those who they are familiar with. Sounds about right.
63. Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way -Richard Branson 85%
This is an autobiography of an unorthodox billionaire starting from scratch. Fun story and quite an adventurer in the sense that he did many cool things such as trying to cross Atlantic on a ball0on carrier. Fun and cool life, even though I am not quite sure what I can get out of this book.
62. Diffusion of innovation -Everett M. Rogers 90%
It’s a mind blowing book and a systematic research report about how and why new ideas, technologies and innovations get accepted or rejected by a community. Many examples dissected why even good innovations are not welcome for some cases. Great book for people who try to understand people, sociology and psychology for future guidance in both career and life.
61. Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time –Howard Schultz 90%
It’s a history about how Starbucks started up and became a huge success worldwide by 1999 written by Starbucks’ founder and CEO. I was fascinated because it recorded how the founder built an emperor basically from scratch. It is inspiring since I am working on my scratch. (The author has another book “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” about how the author saved Starbucks from a series crises at the onset of 21st century, which is less attractive to me simply because I have no emperor to save..)
60. Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There -J. B. Strasser 90%
It’s a history about how Nike started up, beat competitors such as Adidas and Puma and dominated the sport wears in the world from scratch. Quite detailed and exciting stories. I enjoyed it because of the same reason I like last book: The only thing I have now is scratch.
59. Uganda Be Kidding Me -Chelsea Handler 75%
Chelsea Handler is a wild female comedian and TV producer. It’s a travel log of her and her friends in Africa recording many hilarious episodes. This is an awesome book for fun and time-killing. I watched some of her stand-ups on Youtube which are funny and wild.
58. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal -Jim Loehr 95%
This is a great book to improve people’s performance in life and career. The idea is to work in the highest intensity and relax or regain energy to the maxim for life and next round of work. The best performers do not need to know how to exhaust all energy in greatest intensity during work but also how to relax and regain the energy efficiently. It is quite inspiring.
57. How Good Do You Want to Be?: A Champion’s Tips on How to Lead and Succeed at Work and in Life -Nick Saban 80%
Nick Saban is one of the current top two college football coaches. He wrote this book to introduce how and why he became elite in what he was doing. Most inside the book is just common sense, which turned out to be quite convincing because the author’s writing style and credits in his career.
56. Buckeye Rebirth: Urban Meyser, an Inspired Team and a New Era at Ohio State -Bill Rabinowitz 85%
I love following various sports for a number of reasons. One of them is sports basically are a model of life. Both of them are about growth, collaboration, competition, control and influence. How some mediocre players can become super stars and how some supers stars become mediocre and even despised. It’s all happening in real life too. This is a book about Urban Meyser, an outstanding coach of Ohio State college football. I love him because after following his stories and watching him talk and behave, I kinda felt like that someone actually seriously know how to be outstanding, which for most people is a totally random process. This is book about him. I like it.
55. Quiet: The power of Introverts in a world that can’t Stop Talking -Susan Cain 85%
It’s a book explaining how some became introverts physiologically and why introverts should be valued as much as extroverts. To be honest, even though I am able to appear as extrovert as anyone, I am an introvert. I like this book. It helped me to understand myself more.
54. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future -Peter Thiel 95%
This is a must read by Paypal’s cofounder and series investor with great insights about how to evaluate business ideas, gauge their potentials and design the corresponding business strategies.
53. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses -Eric Ries 80%
I like the point which the book was trying to make about starting up: make a basic demo of the product and improve products adaptively to fit the customers’ needs. Obviously it is not the only ideology to succeed compared to what Steve Jobs believe (People don’t really know what they want, until you put the products in front of them; It’s not the customers’ job to know what they want.) But it’s another way to look at things and agrees with what Facebook believes (Finish is better than perfect.)
52. How to Win Friends & Influence People -Dale Carnegie 85%
It’s probably the first self-help book ever written over 60 years ago with millions of copies sold. The author and the book are without question legendary with most of the points made still insightful about how to make others like you.
51. Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader -Brent Schlender 90%
This book is a Steve Jobs’ biography written by an unauthorized author compared to Walter Isaacson. However this book makes me feel like this unauthorized author may deserve more to write about Steve Jobs because of the closeness between him and Jobs. Many more details than the one written by Walter Isaacson. I like it.
50. Open Heart: The Radical Surgeons who Revolutionized Medicine -David Cooper 80%
A book about the development history of open heart surgery. I read it not only because I wanna know more about cardio research status quo in hospital, but also try to understand how innovation takes place under different circumstances. The writer interviews most of the legendary surgeons who pushed cardiac surgeries forward. The book met my expectations.
49. Reinventing American Health Care -Ezekiel Emanuel 85%
A book thoroughly introduced the history and problems of American health care system as well as the introduction to ObamaCare. A little bit over thorough and over detailed to me.
48. Bad Or, the Dumbing of America -Paul Fussell 30%
Recomended by Yonghao Ruo. A big disappointment though. The book listed the dumb and irrational things done by Americans. Full of complaints without any constructive suggestions. Whiners are winners and so much easier to complain than to do something useful. So boring that I could not even finish the book.
47. Liar’s Poker -Michael Lewis 85%
A fun book to read about an insider look about what it’s like to work on Wall Street. The book reads depressing somehow due to the dark side of working on Wall Street depicted by the book, which I am sure about personally.
46. Thinking, Fast and Slow -Daniel Kahneman 95%
A Nobel Prize winner’s book about the author and his collaborator’s work interpreting the brain’s fast working mode and slow working mode as well as many irrationalities people hold in daily life. A must read. Because the book is pretty thorough, it may be somehow wordy. However a summary of the book is also available on http://www.amazon.com.
45. 100 Most Significant Americans Of All Times -Smithsonian 100%
A really awesome book for me to catch up with American History and culture. There is no better and easier way to understand a country’s history and culture than to follow each significant individual’s life. Really nice read and lots of information.
44. Ethnic America -Thomas Sowell 95%
This is a book written in 1980 describing how different ethnics including Irish, Italian, German, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Blacks and South Americans immigrated and developed in America. I love this book for two reasons: a. it did not only explain what happened but also offer deep analysis on how their social, educational and economic values and status quo shaped different ethnics’ development. So much can be learned. b. The wording and description are highly vivid and I can easily picture the information and situation the book was trying to deliver.
Since this book was written almost 35 years ago, while reading, I was trying to figure out what would best summarize the development of all ethnics in American in the past 35 years. Maybe the technology would play a key role in different ethnics’ immigration pattern? Meanwhile I visited the author’s website and became his fan. He is an outstanding and productive writer. I borrowed a bunch of his other books. Hopefully I have time to read them all.
43. David and Gliach -Malcolm Gladwell 85%
The author of this book was the one of Outlier and Blink. This book was written of the same style of the authors’ other books. It was trying to deliver a message that to be a big fish in a small pond can be a better idea and underdogs can beat the favorites in some situations with many inspiring opinions and stories, even though some points made remained vulnerable for arguments from my point of view. It’s a book worthwhile reading anyway.
42. 100 new health discoveries -Time Magazine ??%
I have been super interested in health related topics, not only because I have been paying tons of attention about my health, diet, physical exercise and psychology, but also because I am doing research in biomedical and trying to make a dent in health industry. An interesting book to get a big picture of current status quo about human health research, but not sure about the accuracy of the information delivered by a magazine special issue but not research papers. Anyway, it’s fun to read.
41. Pitching Hacks -Venture Hacks 70%
It’s a book talking about how entrepreneurs should pitch for investment from investors. There is some probably trivially useful information, but the skill of pitching itself means nothing for a successful business in my opinion. The key is to have a good idea and powerful execution. The funding will take care of itself afterwards.
40. King of Hearts -G. Wayne Miller 85%
I read this book because I am doing research in cardiovascular signal processing and hope to get some background in clinics. This book is somehow a biography of Dr. C. Walton Lillehe, a legendary surgeon and pioneer in cardiac surgery, complemented by some development history of cardiac surgeries. I learned a lot about the history, terminology and cardiac pathology.
39. Noise and Signals -Nate Silver 90%
Nate Silver is well known for predicting events in sports and politics. In this book he interpreted predicting as the process of separating signals from noise. I love this topic, because I heavily value the prediction for making my own decisions. I listened to a number of successful entrepreneurs’ speech around 20 years ago visioning the economic and technological situation now (or 20 years later counting from the moment of speech). I was totally amazed by how accurate they were predicting the future, which probably helped them make business decisions and led to their success. I would say this is a good book helping people look at prediction in a correct way even though it offers almost no solution to any of the prediction problem mentioned in the book.
38. My Life in Advertising -Claude Hopkins 90%
Claude Hopkins is a legend in the history of advertising industry. This is an autobiography of his legendary career. He was born in a poor and religion oriented family in late 1800s and contributed tremendously in the advertising of a wide variety of industries. This book exemplifies how to use people’s psychological and mental behavior to advertise and sell stuff. Really inspiring.
37. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg 100%
This book is a must-read. It introduces the form, development and impact of people’s habit with regards to neuroscience, psychology and sociology. The habits of three different entities were discussed: individual, organization and society. What impressed me most is the key habit the book discussed about. Once people developed a key habit, many other habits will come along automatically (such as the key habit of exercise with regard to other habits such as in diet, smoking and work).
36. Founder’s Dilema -Noam Wasserman 90%
This is a report of a thorough research of nearly 10 years on startup companies in USA. It exhibits potential decisions of startup founders have to make using real life examples and data from the very beginning of founding a startup. The only issue is it only exhibits the potential problems, but offers few or too vague suggested solutions. But still, it’s a quite amazing book with invaluable information.
35. Eleven Rings -Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty 95%
Phil Jackson is a legendary NBA basketball coach with 11 champion rings. Michael Jordan and Kobe Brant were his apprentices. This book is his autobiography discussing about his coaching philosophy through his whole basketball career experience. He integrated the concept of Zen and meditation into his coaching in addition to his legendary triangle offense. What impressed me most is his worship for Zen and meditation: relax and focus on the very current situation.
34. My Autobiography -Alex Ferguson 90%
Alex Ferguson is a legendary soccer manager of Manchester United from 1986-2013 and won 49 champion trophies. This is his autobiography. Huge fan. One of the reasons I like to follow all kinds of sports is because I think sport is a really good model of people’s practical life and career. It’s all about resource, competition, learning, building, collaboration, control and management. Something can always be learned from what’s going on in sports and use it to guide my life and career. This book impressed me in the followings aspects,
a. Ferguson’s insight about how people evaluate leaders: “aa. Can he make us winners? bb. Can he make me a better player? cc. Is he loyal to us?” b. the mantra Ferguson sticks to for building the team is pretty similar to Warren Buffet’s investment strategy: everything should be about long term goal and value; c. Many examples and insights about why some players can stay super stars, why some players became mediocre players from super star and why some players became super star from mediocre players –so much can be learned. Highly recommend this book.
33. My Point and I do have one -Ellen Degeneres 50%
Everybody should have heard about Ellen as a legendary comedian. I like her show. But I have to say this book is not for me. The book is narrating story in the way Ellen was hosting her show. I can tell it would be funny if Ellen presents the material in her show, but not in the book. Kinda boring and didn’t reveal why she turned successful after going through really tough times in her earlier career.
32. The Photographers’ Guide to Photoshop -MAGBook 95%
Before this book I have been thinking about upgrading to a full frame DSLR; after this book I realized that’s totally unnecessary based on my needs. This book teaches many techniques through examples in a simple way. I learned a lot about improving the artistic quality of photos.
31. 50 Photo Projects -MAGBook 85%
This book teaches people to carry on 50 interesting photo shooting projects by case study. Fun book to read for learning to take nice photos step by step.
30. Men’s Health Training Guide 2014 -Men’s Health Magazine ??%
To be honest, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best eating and working out routine. But the more I read, the more confused I am about what to do, because there are so many different opinions on the same topic. It is probably just one of those another books…
29. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America -Warren Buffet 85%
I became interested in Warren Buffet as mentioned before (click here for more). This book is a collection of Buffett theory about how he governs the Berkshire Hathaway. (Note: this is not a book about his investment strategy.) Full of pretty good insights about Buffett’s values and decisions toward building companies.
28. The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio: Warren Buffett Stock Picks: Why and When He Is Investing in Them -Mary Buffet 85%
This book is read for the same reasons as mentioned above. This is a book covering the stocks Buffet has picked based on his theory and value. Pretty good case study books to understand Buffet’s theory and values.
27. Tony Northrup’s DSLR Book: How to Create Stunning Digital Photography -Tony Northrup 95%
Amazon’s #1 rated and best-selling digital photography book covering basically all techniques and theory of photography in a really easy way to understand. A beginner can grow to an expert at least in theory with the help of this book. Anybody who finishes the book only needs more practice to grow simply because of the comprehensive coverage of this book. People of all level would benefit from the book.
26. Cardiovascular Physiology Concepts -Richard E. Klabunde 90%
Really good introductory book for cardiovascular system
25. The Science of Keeping It Healthy. (Special Edition 2013) -Time Magazine 90%
A special issue from Time Magazine about daily health from diet, body weight, mood, meditation. I personally guess most of the materials are summarized from research outcome info available for public. (Because I recognized something coming from the free online course of “Positive Psychology” from Yale University). Really useful information and suggestions for daily well being on almost everything. Anyone can learn from this special issue magazine for sure.
24. Mastering The VC Game -Jeffrey Bussgang 85%
This is a book that gives people common sense about how VC forms and functions written by an insider of the VC game. Pretty good information source for people who are unfamiliar with VC like me.
23. Call Me Russell -Russell Peters 80%
Russell Peters is currently among the top 3 most successful standup comedians in North America. I am his big fan and actually gonna watch his show live next weekend. But the book is somehow disappointing covering only what happened in his and his family’s life but no analysis about how these experiences shaped his character and led to his success.
22. The Legends of Cardiac Surgery -Qingchen Li 90%
It’s a concise history of the development of cardiac surgery. I read this book because I did research in cardiovascular signal processing but lack backgrounds in anything other than math and physics. This is a really nice book for me to catch up a little bit.
21. The Taoism of Warren Buffet -Mary Buffett 75%
I became pretty interested in Warren Buffet around half a year ago, simply because I realized life can be regarded as a process of investment using the resources you access for what you would like to have. Buffet’s investment strategies could possibly be useful to model and guide career and life. This is a book citing a number of mantras Buffet has been adhering to. It’s nice to read, but there is no systematic structure holding the book together and some of the points made are somehow not well supported.
20. Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce -Doublas Starr 85%
I read this book for the same reason I read Book 2 mentioned above. Nice book to read about the development and status quo about blood transfusion in both research and industry, but it may be too comprehensive and probably therefore somehow wordy for me.
19. An Essay on the Principle of Population -Thomas Malthus 85%
I read this book not because I would like to dig deeper in population theory, but because I hope to know another way to comprehend resources and competition in my life and career. It’s a classic masterpiece but doesn’t quite meet my needs, probably because it was written 400ish years ago.
18. Eat This Not That -David Zinczenko -90%
This is a book talking about which food to buy over others in both market places and popular restaurants in terms of health. A pretty useful guide book offering another way to look at daily food and determine what to eat.
17. Rock This! -Chris Rock 85%
Chris Rock was one of the most successful standup comedians in 1990s, while this book is a collection of his standup materials. Much can be learned about the topics and punching skills of this brilliant man. The only issue is the book was published in the 90s of last century in USA, while quite an amount of the materials and topics seemed quite far beyond me.
16. Steve Jobs -Walter Isaacson 100%
I finished it for the second time. In addition to my comments from last time (click here for the details), a strong cause-effect oriented writing and analyzing style mesmerized me one more time. I am once more convinced that one’s thinking and behaving style would determine his future in a significant, if not overwhelming, way.
15. How to Win -Mark Cuban 85%
Mark Cuban is an outstanding, outspoken and honest entrepreneur, blogger and the owner of NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. This is a small collection of his previous blogs in addition to some secret mantras toward his success. Again, his thinking and behaving style pushed him towards what he has achieved.
14. Who Moved My Cheese -Spencer Johnson 65%
You probably heard about this book and what it is about before. I like the book’s conclusion, but did not learn too much from the reading. Probably because I am a pessimist, who’s always open and trying to prepare for potential changes.
13. Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending -Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton 95%
The conclusions of this book are a must to know. The authors edited a big number of psychological research outcomes and came to five yardsticks (Buy Experiences, Make it a Treat, Buy Time, Pay Now, Consume Later, Invest in Others) to measure the happiness people can gain from the spending against. A brand new but critical way looking at the relationship between spending and happiness with sincere guidance for people to be happier.
12. Sophie’s World -Jostein Gaarder 100%
This is a fantastic introductory book of philosophy in the form of an unbelievably well designed story. It was in junior high that I read the book for the first time. It enlightened me with philosophy, psychology and sociology, while guiding me to think critically and understand the world, society and people around me in different ways. It is the most influential book to me. I just finished reading it for the second time and appreciated it even much more than 15 years ago.
11. <Marva Collins’ Way> My Rating: 90%
Marva Collins is a legend in the States’ education history. More information about her can be found on Wikipedia. This book introduces Mrs. Collins’ biography, determination and methodology to educate children. For me, education is the same as communication with others. In both cases, people are trying to deliver information and ideas to others for acceptance. Those who would like to communicate well with others need to read this book. It is also for those who would like to improve self-education by learning how to educate and motivate others.
10. <Only the Paranoid Survive> My Rating: 50%
The book’s name is unbelievably deceiving. This is definitely not the book that teachs you to be Steve Jobs like people or even tries to teach you anything. Meanless story telling without any conclusive comments waste readers’ time. The whole book is totally a showoff of the author’s experience working in an executive position for a gigantic company – Intel.
9. <Steve Jobs> by Walter Isaacson My Rating: 95%
A biography of Steve Jobs. Four things mesmerized me in a big way: 1. Jobs’ own legendary story and charismas: I am his big fan; 2. this book is full of facts instead of fabricated stories thanks to the willingness of collaboration with Jobs and people in his life when the author carried the interview in addition to the author’s diligent work. 3. the book is written on the author’s best objectivity and therefore filled with both positive and negative stories and comments about Jobs; 4. Analysis about Jobs’ behaviors, psychologies and decisions are offered to show the growth track and philosophy of Jobs. A great book for people who would like to learn from Jobs. I definitely will read it for multiple times.
8. <Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone> My Rating: %80
I haven’t read any kind of novels for a long long time, simply because I always hope to learn something from reading while novels are not always written for that reason. But it was fun for me to read this book full of imaginations. Plus some highly westernized concepts as well as characters can be learned for me.
7. <Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion> My Rating: 85%
A classic book on the psychology people hold when they say yes or no upon others’ requests. This book is based on intensive and thorough research and facts, and therefore seems too wordy to me with its conclusion of only 6 main psychological factors taken into considerations.
6. <Outlier> My Rating: 85%
Revealed unspeakable reasons for people to become successful in career (NOTE: not in life). NOTE again: this is not such a self-help book as “7 habits” or things like that. It is a book based on historical statistics and real data. It is a research report more than nonsense talking. A little bit too wordy comparing the points made and how thick the book turned out to be.
5. <Blink> My Rating: 50%
Trying but failing to explain why some people can make the right judgement on somebody else by only taking a slice of others’ impression. I couldn’t even finish it due to meaningless story-telling.
4. <Predictably Irrational> My Rating 90%
Introduced and analyzed the common irrational behaviors of human being in daily life with research methodology and experiments. This is a book definitely worth reading even though some of the author’s conclusion needs more evidence to support. But still you will be so shocked to death by learning how irrational you are actually being.
3. <Feynman’s Rainbow> My Rating 100%
Short but elegant true stories about Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner and main contributor to the USA’s nuclear bomb in World War II. He is wise, funny, innocent and curious about almost everything. What’s more he enjoyed his own philosophy and gained a peaceful mind towards others, physics and the whole world. I learned a lot from him.
2. <Surely you are joking, Mr. Feynman> My Rating 95%.
The autobiography of Richard Feynman (see item 4 above). So many funny stories of his whole life. Also revealed was how he conducted the research group contributing to build the nuclear bomb in World War II. Again, his philosophy towards life, others and research deeply impressed me.
1. <The Character of Physical Law> My Rating 90%
The lecture of Richard Feynman (see above). Built up the connection of the whole physics system with plain and easy English, vivid examples and absolutely NO equations. It is fun to read it, but looks like it is not really related either to my life or career. So I just simply quit after ¼ of the book.
Fun in My Life 