Your Monthly Book Recommendations
4 Books To Buy, Read, Share And Shout About
Two months down, ten more to go. Stay on course to hit your reading goals for 2021 by picking up these unputdownable books. Each will inform, entertain and delight you. You’ll recognise everyday mathematical quirks. You’ll harness the psychological power of moments. You’ll learn how to use the “hook model” employed by social media to grow your following. You’ll understand the love/hate relationship between technology and trust.
Read them, enrich your cognitive toolkit, challenge your assumptions and broaden your horizons. You are welcome.
Humble Pi: A Comedy Of Maths Errors by Matt Parker
Mathematics is the language of God. Modern-day miracles like vaccines, satellites and AI have an underlying mathematical foundation. Logic is a branch of mathematics. Yet, as Matt Parker’s hilarious “Humble Pi” showcases, we make mathematical errors all the time. I’ve compiled a few of my favourite takeaways from this nifty little book. Here’s hoping these inform and entertain in equal measure.
Continue Reading: 1 Million Seconds Is 11 Days; 1 Billion Is 31 Years
The Power of Moments by Chip & Dan Heath
The argument put forth in the Heaths’ bestseller is simple: our lives are shaped by a few “defining” moments. A few seconds make (or break) us. Our problems are mostly behavioural. Fleeting moments have profound, long-lasting impacts. Manufacturing such moments propels us to greater intellectual and emotional highs. Two hundred and fifty pages of uplifting evidence later, I was convinced. Here’s what I learned about harnessing the power of moments to create riveting content.
Continue Reading: Mostly Forgettable + Occasionally Remarkable = Peak Writing
Hooked by Nir Eyal
First things first — social media is global-scale psychological manipulation. An induced addiction. For both, consumers and creators. The “connect-use-reuse-share-repeat” feedback loop preys on our psychological needs of attention, variety & variable reward. Our brain doesn’t simply gush out dollops of serotonin & dopamine. It does so because it likes it. The psych-tech whizzes making decisions at these companies know exactly what buttons to press. And they do. Repeatedly. But…
We still “social network”. With more devices than we ever did. Despite knowing the ills. We are gluttons for cognitive rewards. We keep finding ways to continue getting more of them. Nir Eyal’s excellent “Hooked” revitalised how I look at my readership and pushed me to provide more frequent and valuable content. Something I know the book, and hopefully my article, will convince you to do.
Continue Reading: Keep Your Readers Hooked
Who Can You Trust? by Rachel Botsman
We put more trust in algorithms than humans. Trust in the government, media, business and institutions is at an all-time low. We don’t trust bankers or politicians yet share taxi rides with strangers. How and why does this dichotomy exist? And where will it take us? Rachel Botsman’s wide-ranging primer on the intricate relationship between trust and tech is unputdownable. From Airbnb to Blockchain, our trust in traditional, centralized institutions has eroded and shifted to distributed, decentralised trust networks. We now trust our friend’s newsfeeds more than mainstream media. Our echo-chambers more than institutions. Favourable information over unbiased reporting.
Continue Reading: Trust Is Dead. Long Live Trust.
Want more unique recommendations?
Check out the best books I read in 2021 (so far) here.
Check out the best books I read in 2020 here.
