Batched Books Reviews Archive: #3

This is my batched books review. If you’re here for the first time see the intro.

This batch comes from period between Oct 2021 to Dec 2021. At that time I didn’t yet wrote those reviews steadily for all titles so its a selection of books from that period.

• How the Stock Market Works (3/4) — I enjoyed it quite a lot even though it’s very basic. It’s a good introduction to the topic of stock trading, explaining different kinds of orders (market, limit, etc.). It also has some decent investing advices, such as “don’t invest in the same domain that gives you employment.”
• The Infinite Game (3/4) — It’s a decent book on the ethics of creating a business and how to make it last. The problem with this book is that at least half of it will be rather obvious for most people. I also (for unknown reasons) expected more game-theory-like analysis on the topic — not even close.
• Prisoners of Geography (4/4) — Highly recommended. It’s kind of “popular science for geopolitics,” and I never thought geopolitics could be that interesting. What’s even more surprising is that this book is perfectly digestible in the form of an audiobook, even though it’s all about maps.
• How to Be a Stoic (3/4) — A very decent book on how to live a good and peaceful life. There is hardly a philosophy more stress-free than stoicism. Especially nice if you already believe in the foundations and want to strengthen your understanding.
• The Goal (4/4) — Probably the biggest positive surprise for me… ever? I expected yet another business/self-improvement book (I could have read the book summary, but who has time for that?). What I found instead was a really interesting story about getting the factory out of trouble. Framing the ideas in the form of a story is a brilliant strategy to make people think about the problem instead of just listening and nodding along. The described ideas/approaches are really thought-provoking for anyone who deals with any pipelined environment, be it a factory or software development.