Deep Work is a book by Cal Newport on how you can change your working practices. As the name suggests, this Deep Work summary will look at ways you can develop a working practice that allows you to get a lot of work done in a shorter space of time. The premise behind deep work …
Tom Stevenson
Books are a timeless source of knowledge. However, too few of us read enough, or have a reading habit altogether. People have been writing for centuries, there is a wealth of knowledge that can be tapped into by reading books that you won’t find elsewhere. Knowledge is timeless, it doesn’t if it was written 2000 …
Mastery is a wonderful book by Robert Greene which looks at how you can become a master in your chosen discipline. A lot of us make the mistake of thinking success is down to talent. That those who reach the heights do so because of innate gifts. This isn’t the case. As Greene explains in …
Bounce looks at what it takes to become successful and whether it all comes down to hard work or talent. The author, Matthew Syed, is a former professional table tennis player and he uses the world of sports as an example of what drives success. I’m sure all of us believed we could do what …
The End of Average is a book with a radical theory. That the idea of an average life or an average person is nonsense. In a short, but fascinating book, he sets out to tackle the myth of average and what we should focus on instead. This seems like counterintuitive advice. Averages are so entrenched …
The Jungle looks at the meatpacking industry in the United States during the early 20th century. The novel depicts an immigrant family’s struggles as they try to make a success of their lives in America while depending on the industry for their employment. Four months after Sinclair wrote the book in 1906, the United States …
Doughnut Economics is an interesting book that takes a different look at the economic paradigm we live in. Today, free-market capitalism rules the roost. Multinational corporations are the big economic drivers of our economy which is primarily based on extraction. The drivers of economic growth involve drilling and extracting fossil fuels from the ground. Coal, …
On Tyranny is a short but powerful book that looks at how democracies can turn into tyrannical regimes. The book, by eminent historian Timothy Snyder, is a guide and warning as to how easy it is to slip into tyranny. Snyder wrote the book in response to the election of Donald Trump. After the insurrection …
The 48 Laws of Power is perhaps Robert Greene’s most famous work. It’s the book that put him on the map. The premise of the book is simple. Greene lays out the rules you need to heed if you wish to hold and keep positions of power. All of these laws have some basis in …
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most harrowing books I’ve ever read. As the title suggests, the book looks at a day in the life of a prisoner in a Russian gulag in Siberia. The book was written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who experienced the Gulag himself when he was …