11 Books That Will Expand Your Mind.
Must read books in your 20’s & 30's.
Source-Unsplash(Toa Heftiba)
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” — Walt Disney
Reading books Gives you Valuable knowledge, Improves your focus, Makes you smarter than the non-readers, Increases your vocabulary and helps you create good habits, and also reduces stress. There are many benefits of reading books. If you don’t read the books, there’s no difference between you and those who can’t. Reading books opens the doors to unlimited knowledge. You must start reading books. Today we will discuss the 10 more popular books to help you expand your knowledge.
First, let’s talk about the benefits of reading books :
- Exercises the brain
- Improves concentration and the ability to focus
- Improves Literacy
- Increase General Knowledge
- Keeps you motivated and ahead of other people.
- Helps to reduce stress
- Increases your vocabulary and comprehension
- Fights depression symptoms
- Improves sleep quality
- Gives you a new perspective on life
- Teaches you new things
- Helps to improve your life
- Helps you to think critically
- It can make you happier and more positive
There are more benefits to reading books. Let’s discuss the books per our headline and what you came for.
1 ) How to Own Your Mind (Napoleon Hill)
Source-Amazon
“All physical action, therefore, begins in the form of a thought. To control physical action one has only to control thoughts. The presence of any thought in the mind tends to set up an appropriate physical activity in some portion of the body.”
― Napoleon Hill,
You must hear of Oliver Napoleon Hill, an American self-help author. He is best known for his book “Think and Grow Rich”. Napoleon Hill’s timeless classic, Think and Grow Rich, is the best-read self-help book of the twentieth century. Not so well known is how Hill earned his livelihood before he wrote ‘Think and Grow Rich. Another classic work of Dr Hill is ‘How to Own Your Mind’, which shows how to stabilize your mind and achieve success in life. As Dr Hill repeatedly emphasized, action is critical to success. But you must think before you act, or your actions will be wasted. These timeless chapters about the importance of thought before action will be very instructive in helping you attain your Definite Major Purpose. To do so, you must learn how to own your mind; this book will tell you how.
Invest your money in this book (Rs 325) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3hF0tJq
Buy Think and Grow Rich from here (Rs 89): https://amzn.to/3TDBGmo
2) Sapience (Yuval Noah Harari)
Source-Amazon
“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari
Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapience” is THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER. Sapiens is a book about the history of our ancient species. But this book does not merely present events, figures, and dates. In his signature style, Harari presents us with important historical events and trends and then questions and explains them. He ponders on our past, asks great questions, and tries to answer some of them.
Reading this book will make you question what you believe to be true about human history and nature. Harari’s unparalleled ability to change your perspective on fundamental ideas or offer a different perspective on what you think is obvious is bound to captivate your interest.
Invest your money in this book (Rs 325) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3GnxUKQ
3) Discourses and Selected Writings (Epictetus)
Source-Amazon
“Whenever anyone criticizes or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right. They cannot be guided by your views, only their own; so if their views are wrong, they are the ones who suffer insofar as they are misguided.”
― Epictetus
Epictetus, a Greek Stoic and formerly enslaved person ran a thriving philosophy school in Nicopolis in the early second century AD. His animated discussions were celebrated for their rhetorical wizardry and were written down by Arrian, his most famous pupil. The Discourses argue that happiness lies in learning to perceive precisely what is in our power to change and what is not and embracing our fate to live in harmony with god and nature. In this personal, practical guide to the ethics of Stoicism and moral self-improvement, Epictetus tackles questions of freedom and imprisonment, illness and fear, family, friendship, and love.
Invest your money in this book (Rs 322) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3hDFxT5
4) The Big Questions Of Life
Source-Amazon
“As they say, a true measure of progress is not how well we perform in comparison to others, but how we are doing compared to our past.”
― Om Swami
Pain is inevitable suffering is optional. Loss is unavoidable grief isn’t. Death is certain. And life? Well, life isn’t certain. Its uncertainty, unpredictability, and even irrationality make it what it is. Often, we run blindly into the fire, step on snakes, and get entangled in snares — these are the fires of desire, the snakes of attachment, and the snares of jealousy and covetousness. If we are bitten, burnt, and hurt, we call it suffering, and believe it to be the way of life, when, in fact, we are mistaking our pain for our suffering. We have little control over the former, but the latter is almost entirely in our hands. We can take things in our stride or be tossed on the tide. All it takes is to be able to open our eyes. This choice, we must remember, is always ours. Om swami’s new book marks the way to enlightenment through mindful thinking.
Invest your money in this book (Rs 194) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3EFZIJ2
5) Life 3.0 (Max Tegmark)
Source-Amazon
“If consciousness is the way that information feels when it’s processed in certain ways, then it must be substrate-independent; it’s only the structure of the information processing that matters, not the structure of the matter doing the information processing. In other words, consciousness is substrate-independent twice over!”
― Max Tegmark
If you’re from a technological background, this is your must-read book. This book is The international bestseller, Daily Telegraph, and The Times books of the year! AI is the future — but what will that future look like? Will superhuman intelligence be our slave or become our god? Taking us to the heart of the latest thinking about AI, Max Tegmark, the MIT professor whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial, separates myths from reality, and utopias from dystopias, to explore the next phase of our existence. How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? How can we ensure that future AI systems do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning, or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will AI help life flourish as never before, or will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks and even replace us altogether?
Invest your money in this book (Rs 399) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3AmmFyK
6) The Courage To Be Disliked (ICHIRO KISHIMI & FUMITAKE KOGA)
Source-Amazon
“A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.”
― Ichiro Kishimi
The Japanese phenomenon teaches us simple yet profound lessons to liberate our real selves and find lasting happiness. This book is set up in a dialogue where a philosopher goes back and forth with a student. At first, this seemed strange to read; however, I LOVED it! I often wondered the same question as the student, and those points would be addressed in the next few lines.
A big takeaway from this book starts with the idea that one’s past does not define the present. It goes through a series of examples about this point and settles on the idea that people make goals that cause them to be happy without realizing it. It is a hard point to grasp at first, but after reading the book, it was eye-opening to apply to my own life.
The next significant point to me was that “All problems are interpersonal relationship problems”. In other words, all your problems stem from relationships: friends, spouses, teachers, etc. Again, my explaining this point will not do it justice. The dialogue hammered this point in, and after reading, it was by far the most life-changing aspect of the book. Realizing this idea of a “separation of tasks”, where you learn your tasks, not to let others interfere in them, and that most of your problems are other people’s tasks, you should not concern yourself with them.
The final major point I want to touch on is that happiness can be found by contributing to the community. It would be best if you lived every day earnestly, to your full potential actively. In addition, you need to find a sense of contribution to your community (which can be any number of things). This contribution has to fulfil your own need, but not necessarily others.
My summary of this book is all over the place, but I genuinely think I would be doing this book a disservice by trying to explain the points within it. I HIGHLY recommend everyone to give it a read. It has been a wonderful book for me and helped me improve my life and find more happiness!
Invest your money in this book (Rs 346) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3hMSz0I
7) Man’s Search For Meaning (VICTOR E. FRANKL)
Source-Amazon
“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether, in a similar situation, he might not have done the same.”
Viktor E Frankl was a psychiatrist credited with developing one of the most important theories in human psychology (logotherapy) since Freud. He was developing his theory before the Nazis captured him; his time in the concentration camp enabled him to observe human beings in extreme conditions and further evolve his ideas.
The core idea of logotherapy (if I understand it correctly) is that human beings have a ‘will to meaning’, enabling them to survive even the most shocking brutality. To illustrate his point, Frankl writes in the first part of the book (about two-thirds of the total) about his day-to-day experiences in the camp. We all know how terrible, degrading, and dehumanizing these were, but I never fail to be shocked when I see or hear them. Frankl suffered terribly, but he was also fortunate, as a doctor, to be called upon to look after sick inmates, and this enabled him to observe others at their most vulnerable.
Invest your money in this book (Rs 229) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3ObcfaM
8) Thinking Fast And Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
Source-Amazon
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
― Daniel Kahneman
“Thinking Fast and Slow” Looks at how our minds work and how we make decisions. Why is there more chance we’ll believe something if it’s in a bold typeface? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? This book lets you make better decisions at work, at home, and everything you do. The mind is a hilariously muddled compromise between incompatible modes of thought in this fascinating treatise by a giant in decision research. Nobel-winning psychologist Kahneman (Attention and Effort) posits a brain governed by two clashing decision-making processes.
Invest your money in this book (Rs 379) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3En48DE
9) Think Straight (Darius Foroux)
Source-Amazon
“If we want to think straight at all times, we must stay grounded, look at facts, listen to other people’s perspectives, and only then draw practical conclusions.”
― Darius Foroux
Darius Foroux is an entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. He has been sharing actionable tips for optimizing life and work every week since 2015. His ideas have been featured in TIME, NBC, Fast Company, Inc., Observer, and other publications.
He is the author of many books, including “Do it today”, “Win your Inner Battle”, and “And what it takes to be free”. You may consider visiting Darius Foroux Website for useful material and tips on productivity, Habit creation, Decision making, and Wealth building.
Think Straight is based on the pragmatism philosophy founded by William James and Charles Sanders Peirce, which states that we can choose one thought over another. In other words, we can control what we think.
In a small book of fewer than 100 pages, it shares to follow advice on getting our mind to work for us, not against it. As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, “You become what you think about all day long.”
Invest your money in this book (Rs 98) on Amazon:-
Buy from here: https://amzn.to/3EFbsM4
Also, buy another great book from this author :
- Do it today (Rs 98)
- Win your Inner Battle (Rs 155)
- What it takes to be free (Rs 176)
10) DO EPIC SHIT (Ankur Warikoo)
Source-Amazon
“Be authentic. If you aren’t authentic, you’ll struggle to be consistent.”-Ankur Warikoo
Ankur Warikoo is an entrepreneur and content creator. His deep, witty, and brutally honest thoughts on success and failure, money and investing, self-awareness, and personal relationships have made him one of India’s top personal brands. In his first book, Ankur puts together the key ideas that have fuelled his journey — one that began with him wanting to be a space engineer and ended with him creating content that has been seen and read by millions. His thoughts range from the importance of creating habits for long-term success to the foundations of money management, from embracing and accepting failure to the real truth about learning empathy. This is a book to be read and reread, whose lines you will underline and think about repeatedly, a book you will give your family, friends and strangers. Ankur hopes for this book to become the most gifted book ever!
