A personal blog
Jillian M. Hess
Chris Guillebeau
Michael Easter
Philip Maffetone
I knew a lot of this stuff from blog posts and YouTube videos but it was nice to hear the man himself. The thing that was new to me and interesting was the time-shrinking concept for long events.
Taren Gessel
Mind blown at the idea of not holding your breath while swimming. I'm the target demographic so there was a lot of appeal.
Rich Roll
Inspiring story but I skipped a lot of the personal details parts (like his fake wedding).
Matt Fitzgerald
I liked the part about running form being self-optimizing. Otherwise, it seemed like not as much time was dedicated to the "20" part.
Christopher McDougall
Thorsten Ball
Susanna Clarke
Thomas Watson
C.S. Lewis
Richard Baxter
Nir Eyal
Enjoyable, practical; I liked the smoking example, getting kids to own their rules, the story about Slack, the idea of never reading articles in the browser
Cal Newport
A typical Newport book. It got me really motivated about improving myself as a software engineer.
Theodore Beza
This book is hard and technical. Not sure if it's simple. The translation is modern but can be awkward in places: as it attempts to be accurate, the English style can suffer. Tons of language-related footnotes. Beza absolutely destroys the Lutherans, it's amazing. The system of doctrine in the appendix is helpful. This isn't casual reading but great if you want to understand the details of the debate.
Stever Pressfield
The beginning was amazing. The first "book" was 5/5. But then it got weirder and weirder, and some parts were gross.
Voddie Baucham Jr.
John Flavel
Mary Beeke
Very awkward style, bland; lots of stories about her famous husband
Nick Harkaway
Amazing breadth and pure imagination; but the conclusion was anticlimactic. Also, much too long.
William Bradshaw
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Laura Vanderkam
Peter Attia
This book has had a profound impact on my life. As a relatively young person, there is so much you can do to improve the quality of your life later on. I especially enjoyed the chapters related to exercise: he explains the outsize impact a simple exercise regimen can have on your life. I wish the diet chapter had been better but I was neverthless thankful for the strong renouncement of the Standard American Diet.
William Gouge
Lewis Bayly
Ursula K. Le Guin
Claire Maxted
Very basic; a good introduction to the sport, but perhaps a little patronizing
Steve House, Scott Johnston, Killian Jornet
Such a good, and practical book. Sometimes you get caught up in reading random internet articles about running, diving into Reddit threads, and after a while you don't even know what you should be doing to improve you endurance. It's nice to be able to gain some clarity from athletes with decades of experience; advice that isn't formulaic, and that doesn't skip over the reasoning behind it. There are many strong statements in this book, and I love that. Reading this book was especially helpful to me as a beginner to the sport of ultra trail running. My notebook is full charts, tables, and notes. Highly recommended.
Recommended by James Day
Theodore P. Letis
A wonderful meditation on the state of the English bible, and a compelling case for the retention of the AV in the 21st century
Ryan Holiday
The first half of the book was great: lots of provoking thoughts. But then it got wearisome with all of the stories. Each chapter is really short, and starts with some random story from history. It gets repetetive, and it was a bit of a slog to get throught the latter part.
Harry G. Frankfurt
Walter J. Chantry
An accessible introduction to the concept of Sabbath-keeping from a Reformed point of view
Colleen Hoover
This is my once-a-year, what-everyone-is-reading novel. Currently, it has over 270,000 ratings on Amazon. It was a mindless, easy read. The pacing felt right apart from the cringy diary entries. The story was boring, the characters flat, the ending abrupt, and cheap.
Chris Martin
Cal Newport
Having read Deep Work, I expected much of the same but it wasn't like that. Very relevant, and practical.
Tanya Reilly
Alfred Lansing
John Downame
Anthony Burgess
David Kadavy
Ryder Carroll
This was not good. Boring, inflated writing full of Asian philosophy, and weird pseudo-psycho lingo. Just no. I thought it would provide an in-depth description of the system but it's straw. The original video had all the information presented in such a neat way. This is the opposite.
Tiago Forte
The first half was very motivating, and exciting. I liked that it was general, and not specific to any tool (hello Notion fanbois). But the description of the implementation felt too vague. It tries to be a middle ground between a zettelkasten, and a GTD system, and I'm not sure that works.
Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky
Great read; easy, and friendly; doesn't try to be a pseudo science book; a ton of neat bite-sized ideas
Thibaut Meurisse
James Gray
Mark Ward
This book is just so silly. It could have been a blog post. His argumentation is emotinal, inconsistent, and childish. There might at times be some hint of a good argument but his rhetoric makes you not want to even care. I read this book against my better judgment.
James A. Grier
Thomas Watson
A classic work on personal piety; highly recommended
Jeff Riddle, Christian McShaffrey
An excellent collection of essays; many personal stories, and many different reasons for rejecting the modern critical text. Each essay is short, and thus it prevents the author from delving into too much technical detail (I think this is wise decision on the part of the editors). Highly recommended as a gentle introduction into the topic.
Bohumil Hrabal
Robert Alter
Jordan Peterson
Petrus van Mastricht
Absolutely phenomenal. I love how he takes a topic and moves through the four aspects: exegesis, doctrine, elenctics, and practice. Prolegomena is usually dry but this was exhilarating. It's also very easy to read. No lofty language. Every statement is punctuated by Scripture references. I'm really eager to start the next volume.
David S. Touretzky
Joel Beeke
John D. Currid
A great little read; meaningful encouragement for the language learner; curious insight into the language teaching method of the day
Nicholas P. Lunn
Vicki Robin
Saifedean Ammous
This was a good read. Most of the book outlines the history of money, from seashells to modern day government money. While written by an academic, the tone was popular, and sometimes mocking and highly critical which left a slightly bad taste in my mouth. Present your arguments and let them speak for themselves.
I think it's a successful, and reasonable critique of the idea that inflation is a good tool; however, I'm not convinced that Bitcoin is the solution. The author admits himself that a new layer would have to be created on top of Bitcoin to serve as an exchange of value while Bitcoin can only really serve as a store of value.
Nate Pickowicz
This should have been an article. A basic thought spread over many pages. Forced illustrations, and personal stories.
Dane C. Ortlund
Garnet Howard Milne
James Clear
Gene Kim
C. R. Wiley
Lily Brooks-Dalton
Jaron Lanier
Charles Duhigg
Peter C. Brown
Sönke Ahrens
Joel R. Beeke
Dirk Jongkind
Michael Bushell
Benny Lewis
John Murray
Robin S. Sharma
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Thomas Watson
John Calvin
James E. Dolezal
Joel R. Beeke
Terry L. Johnson
Thomas Boston
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield
R.C. Sproul
James M. Chaney
Thomas Watson
Gregg Strawbridge
J. Gresham Machen
Athanasius of Alexandria
William Perkins
Samuel E. Waldron
A.W. Tozer
C.S. Lewis
John Calvin
John Flavel
Eric J. Bargerhuff
William Gouge
Kelly M. Kapic
Rankin Wilbourne
Michael S. Horton
Richard Sibbes
Joel R. Beeke
Cal Newport
Eve Ensler
George Orwell
Timothy J. Keller
David Allen
John F. MacArthur Jr.
Paulo Coelho
J.C. Ryle
John A. McDougall
J.I. Packer
J.C. Ryle
R.C. Sproul
John Calvin
John F. MacArthur Jr.
Thomas Chalmers
Joel R. Beeke
Kevin DeYoung
John Piper
D.A. Carson
Isaac Asimov
Timothy J. Keller
David R. Helm
John F. MacArthur Jr.
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Ray Bradbury
Daniel Suarez
John Scalzi
China Miéville
Lois Lowry
Christopher McDougall
George Orwell