It's been a really long time since I've read a novel. The House of the Spirits was quite an easy read, with vibrant characters that keeps the reader engaged. While the author does not explicitly state the setting, the story spans several generations of a powerful family in Chile going through multiple regimes. When spanning that long of a time horizon, it allows the author to incorporate anecdotes of joy, of pain, of happiness and of misery, and what more can you really want out of a novel?
There are good, if not great ideas in here on how to improve your decision making and strive to become more of a truth seeker, as well as ways to make your decisions less biased. That being said, the ideas are presented in somewhat of a clumsy manner with some of the best ideas shoved all in the last chapter
The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Buy and Live as They Do
I just realized I read the wrong “The Culture Code” that I wanted to read. It was interesting at first but then just beats the dead horse. Perhaps there is a mismatch in expectation even halfway through the book - the author just gives us a bunch of examples without diving deeper on how we can make analyses ourself
As someone who wasn't born in the space race of the 60s, I had a bit of a tough time following who was who outside of the two I had known prior to reading this book, Armstrong and Aldrin. There was a point in the book I almost shelved it because it didn't feel relevant (the part about the astronauts' families). It's a short read but wish it had provided more scaffolding and delved deeper into the “lessons” for CAPCOM and the specific missions.
I read this book for practical advice on extending lifespan. Sinclair does achieve that and along with it provide some history and context which I enjoyed, but the last third of the book was almost pointless moral dilemma situations that could have been lopped off and I would have enjoyed the book a lot more.
I had pretty high hopes for this book as I heard about it through Farnam Street's Knowledge Project podcast and Sivers seemed like a unique and interesting guy. The book itself is just a collection of essays and just does not go deep on many, if any of the topics he writes about. I think it's highly reflective of the way Sivers says he himself reads books, where he would go through books and just look for quotes he likes. I think Hell Yeah or No has some excellent ideas but it was not that great of a read for me.
I first heard of the author in The Knowledge Podcast with a Shane Parrish and I really resonated with what he said, which means there's no surprise that I found the book really impactful to my understanding of desire. It really explains why we seem to have an obsession of keeping up with the Joneses. I know we as humans have this tendency but he drives home the point that it is part of human nature and explains why we do so, and when we learn why, we can choose to opt out or alter this need and become anti-memetic. It has made me reevaluate some of the desires I have and whether or not they are actually worth pursuing