Batched Book Reviews #6
Published in
3 min readJun 20, 2023
Non fiction:
- Atomic Habits (3+/4) — Really good book about building habits. While the mechanisms and advice are not entirely novel and are widely known, the book’s value lies in its presentation. Moreover, it provides an opportunity to reflect on your own habits, identifying the ones you should get rid of, the harmless ones, and the ones worth building. It’s no surprise that this book is a huge bestseller.
- Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter (-) — Didn’t finish the first chapter. Narration was so bad I had to return the title.
- Thinking in Systems (3+/4) — One of those books that organizes existing ideas and concepts into a relatively novel perspective. It builds a way of thinking around things such as stocks, inflow/outflow, feedback loops, constraints, oscillation, renewability, resilience, self-organization, and (non)linearity. At least a few points resonated heavily with what I remembered from two other great books, Antifragile and Nudge. I felt that it could also provide new insights when read every few years, so it made it onto my re-read list.
- Essentialism (4-/4) — To be honest, I thought I was good at avoiding tasks and saying no. However, this book made me realize I still have a lot of room for improvement. The biggest revelation for me was to consciously choose essential tasks, instead of relying on intuition and habits. While the book’s content is not revolutionary, it’s a great resource for rethinking some aspects of your life and focusing on the most important tasks.
Fiction:
- Fear the Sky (2/4) — Aliens infiltrating Earth before an invasion to disable nuclear arsenals may sound like an interesting idea, but the book itself was a struggle to finish. The author attempted to infuse sci-fi elements throughout the story, but they remained superficial and without any depth. Additionally, the book could have been significantly shorter without losing any substance. The story lacked intrigue, character development, world-building, and even compelling action scenes.
- The Captain (2+/4) — The entire book gives the impression that Will decided to continue writing about large-scale powers and battles despite finishing Cradle. However, to create something new, he added a sci-fi element to a fantasy world. It’s not a bad book; I still enjoyed reading it, but it leaves something to be desired. My biggest concern is that the entire world feels overly simplistic and hand-wavy. There are no rules described that would guide the magic system, and the sci-fi part is not any better. Despite this, the science-fantasy genre is rare enough to make this book worth reading if you enjoy it.
- Legends & Lattes (3+/4) — Former mercenary starting a coffee house. That’s it. And it’s great. There is almost no action, just a lot of building. Building a business and building relationships. What’s most important, the book is full of tranquility that I greatly enjoyed. It reminded me of Beware of Chicken, which had similar vibes, and also a little bit of the Discworld: Industrial Revolution series (gnome-built espresso machine!).
- Street Rats of Aramoor (3-/4) — I finished Sandstorm and Wildfire and so the whole series. And I keep my previous take: it’s nicely written but little more. It’s a classic fantasy with most of its elements. Young hero left without a family? Check. Clear distinction between good and bad guys? Check. Something to make the main character exceptional? Check. In the end, I finished the series (its five books), so it cannot be bad. But it’s also far from great.
Stats
- Books read this year: ~75 (+8)
- Books on the shelf: 21 (-9)
- Books on the wishlist: 150 (+6)
