Tag: book review

Book Review – “Eat That Frog! Get More of the Important Things Done Today” by Brian Tracy

Eat That Frog: Brian Tracy: 9781444765427: Amazon.com: Books

This is one of the audio books that I listened to during my time driving to and from the job a city over. There is no real timeline other than I listened to these between September 2020 and February 2021. I was on a kick of motivation and productivity being at the new job.

I remember this book being short but sweet. This won’t be a very long review I remember laughing because the guy sounds pretty smug in the recording I listened to and I believe it was the author that read it. He sounded like he just made a bunch of money for writing a cheesy book about being productive, time management, and setting goals. To me this books was fairly basic in terms of revolutionary ideas. The past couple books I listened to were much better overall and contained more relevant information.

I liked the easy read or listen. It was pretty basic in terms of lasting importance. It focuses on prioritizing the biggest most important or otherwise lucrative tasks and goals. It has some solid information and ideas for anyone who struggles with a mountain of things to do or tasks to finish. It was definitely a useful read and I got something out of it for sure. I carried everything that I read and did forward from that time working out of town. I learned a lot and was able to listen to some good material for self growth. It was a good life experience and this little books was a worthy read. Not much I didn’t like about the book. It was short and not complicated. The phrase “eat that frog” gets said a lot but the book describes what it means in better detail.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for help with productivity and accountability as this book provides some good common sense advice and tactics. You could probably finish it in a couple reading sessions but you never know the information could help you manage yourself and your time better.

Overall this is a good little book. Nothing wrong with it even if I didn’t get much out of it. Check it out if longer more in depth books aren’t your thing. It’s easy and thoughtful. A little something for everyone contained within. Hope this review was helpful or informative. As always thank you for reading and feel free to comment or engage.

Pax

Book Review – “Broke Millenial” by Erin Lowry

Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

This was another of the books I listened to while driving to and from work in another city. This was the more modern answer to “The Intelligent Investor”. In this book the author Erin Lowry gives no nonsesne and practical information on budgeting, saving, and a brief explanation of investing. The demographic of this book and her story is aimed at the average millennial. I am a millennial which is described as people born between the years of 1981 – 1996.

I remember the book was good and she more or less told a story of her upbringing and what inspired her and necessitated her need to learn budgeting and financial stability. The story involves teaching and wisdom from her father but ultimately the knowledge and advice contained within is fairly common sense and practical. To me it was nothign really revolutionary but solid information for sure.

Over the past couple years I have been more and more into personal finance. At the time of listening to this story I was making more money at a normal job than I ever had before. I was interested in preserving my money and learning how to maximize my paychecks. This book taught me a lot and I applied the knowledge practically. I no longer work at that job, but I carried all of the habits forward for the most part. I also still have all of my investments and never sold anything.

I think personal investment and finance is important for anyone to learn and for some reason they don’t teach us enough in the course of our normal schooling. I always wondered about that myself. I figured they didn’t want the average man to be learning about high finance and the way those weird systems work. As we’ve seen in the past couple years what happens when the average person has access to the finacial world, modern apps and online brokerages make available what used to be reserved for financiers, investors, and bankers. The past couple years has shown that retail investment can turn whole markets. For mbetter or worse.

I liked that the book was easy to listen to and was aimed at my own demographic. After listening to “The Intelligent Investor” I needed a book that has a bit more modern examples and practices and this book was a perfect answer for that. I enjoyed the easy and relatable nature of the book. There wasn’t much I didn’t like about it. As mentioned it was a no nonsense book of ideas and experiences. If anything the information was rather common sense but it wasn’t bad at all.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in personal finance or who is, like me, a broke millennial trying to make and save money in this backward ass, late stage, capitalist world. It’s an easy read or listen and worth the time really. Anyone can benefit from the basic information and ideas on how to build better habits for your financial success.

Overall thoughts, definitely check it out. Not much more to say about this one. Hoped you enjoyed the review and it was informative. Feel free to comment or share if you dig the material. Till next time.

Pax

Book Review – “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham

The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed. - (collins Business Essentials) Annotated By Benjamin Graham (paperback) : Target

This books was listened to during the fall / winter of 2020. The overall text is mostly analytics and investment theory with provided examples. To me a lot of it was common sense information. However the smaller details were life changing and overall helped me get a better grasp on my personal finances and budget. To me some of the information was kind of hard to follow because I was driving and the reader would run through examples with numbers and stats and it was difficult for me not to be able to see it ion paper. I think I would have gotten a bit more out of the book if I would have read it.

The information contained in the book has been proven throughout time. The book remains vital reading into the fundamentals of intelligent investing. I believe this book was written in the 1940’s or 50’s by Benjamin Graham, a renowned and successful investor. The data and stats in this book reflect the time in which they were originally written. It definitely would be nice to have an abridged modern version that would run some of the numbers with modern day stats and inflation and wages. Lets face it the standard of living was much different in the 1950’s.

This book was very informative to me overall. I was currently working a new job and learning about my finances in a more mature light. For the first time in my life I was thinking about the future and making plans for long term savings and investing. Also this was all relevant information to me because a certain security i owned had recently taken on a massive upswing. For the first time in my life I had a stash of “Nest Egg” money that I didn’t know what to do with. More than anything I wanted to learn how to protect my investment and make the most of the opportunity. This book set me on a path of great knowledge and understanding about my personal finances.

The book was great in that all of the knowledge was easy to follow and the examples were real life and not pertaining to billionaires or the super rich. The text is aimed at helping the average man handle his finances better and pointing one in the right direction to start investing correctly and smartly.

My one negative critique of this book was the older examples but it is no fault of the author. This book was written in a different time and money and finances were a lot different. I took the information and applied it as best as i could to my own personal situation was able to learn and take a lot from the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to better their base knowledge of finances, budgets, and investing. This is not a strategy book, and it doesn’t dive into analyzing companies or anything like that. This book gives some solid metrics on what is healthy savings, what percent of income you should be investing long term, and overall ideas on good financial health. it was a fairly quick book from what I remember.

Great book overall. There are definitely more relatable books out there on this subject that have more modern examples and numbers. In regards to the information in the book it is solid knowledge for anyone to have. I got a lot out of it and if you are interested in finance, or curious about investing you should probably check this book out as a good starting point.

Hope you enjoyed the review. Hope it was helpful. Stay tuned for more. Playing a bit of catch up on my media reviews. haha Procrastination nation!!

Pax

Book Review – “Art of Solitude” by Stephen Batchelor

This was one of my audio book experiences while I was working at the medical dispensary in the city about an hour away form my house. I guess you could say I was going through a transformational period myself. The overall impact of the COVID pandemic plus the isolation of being on the road for 2 hours a day was tough for me. Factor in a schedule that didn’t allow much free time and I was feeling the burn of solitude and isolation. I was motivated to try and promised a lot that ended up not panning out. This book was a symbol of me trying to cope with the isolation of a work grind with over 2+ hours of driving daily. This is all to add some context of why I chose these self help, motivational, and personal productivity type books.

The book wasn’t bad at all. In fact it was really good but I do remember the readers voice being very monotone and not very exciting to listen to. The book is basically the tellings of a famous guru type Buddhist Teacher philosopher named Stephen Batchelor. Stephen basically quit his teaching and took on a journey that sought clarification into his own mortality and isolation, as well as, a deep dive into his thoughts on lonliness and solitude. I thought this relevant to all that was happening in our personal and social lives during the onset of the COVID pandemic during the late summer and fall of 2020.

The book was fairly short and nothing really stuck as being super enlightening and impactful to me at least. It was a long time ago that I finished listening to this book, but it was less teachings and advice and more of his experiences during this period in his life. Some of the more entertaining parts had the author describe attending various psychedelic rituals involving Peyote and Ayahuaska. I have experienced these substances and can more or less relate to someone who has never tried them and is experiencing them for the first time.

I liked the even tone of the book. There was more substance aside from his personal experiences. The author would add his own statements and ideas that relate to all the great thinkers in our history. I appreciated that he did a deep dive into what solitude means to himself, although, I didn’t quite connect to some of the concepts. In some of the experiences he was not alone and he was not in solitude but in a group setting. To me solitude is .. solitude. Like being up, tripping face, doing art or music at 3:45am when the rest of the world sleeps and nobody will disturb you.. solitude.

Not to get all philosophical with it, (pun intended) I think for an upper class academic who most likely has never really dove into the world of intense psychedelics, his accounts are all the more valid because he went to the deepest end of the rabbit hole doing ritualistic doses and purges of Peyote and Ayahuaska. Holy shit.. I bet he felt alone on the steps of death at points… I can honestly say I’ve experienced similar feelings on massive head-fulls.. but never in a ritualistic setting with all the spiritual mumbo jumbo attached to it.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is into philosophy, or has a desire to seek answers within themselves. This book has way more positive content than I can factually remember and it contains tons of solid quotes and ideologies by a professional thinker.

My overall thoughts are that this book would probably have meant more to me if i had listened to it in a non work or non driving setting. The audio books have to keep my attention and I feel like my mind probably wandered a bit during this book. As always I hope this was helpful or informative. Please let me know in comments if you ever want to discuss or talk about any book or subject.

Thanks for reading!

Pax


Book Review – “Zen and Now: on the trail of Robert Pirsig and the art of mototcycle maintenence” By Mark Richardson

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I listened to this book on audio book, as I was driving to and from a job a city over. The expeience was good and the reader was clear and had character.

This book is a re telling of a famous book called “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” written by Rober Pirsig, of his own accounts of a cross country motorcycle journey with his son. I have not read the original book which was published in 1968. The author of this book I read is named Mark Richardson and he basically followed the famous path of Pirsig and wrote it his own accounts and philosophies as a docu/memoir. If i remember correctly he was in touch with some members of Robert Pirsigs family or friends. Mark Richardson studied and took great interest in the story, man, and philosophy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, to the degree where he literally followed in the late authors footsteps and retraced his epic journey for himself, only solo and with no passenger.

In this story, the author describes his situation and need to escape and all that encompasses the desire to ride solo across the country on an old motorcycle. Throughout the book he relates philosophies of the original “Zen and the art” book as he sees them in relevance to his own life and relationships with his family and others. Mark goes on a journey two thirds of the way across the country as a quest to himself for his birthday and more or less to ponder who he is. Maybe like a midlife crisis thing or maybe to satisfy that itch that only a writer/journalist would know. The overall story is entertaining and not as much actual motorcycle maintenance as I thought it would be.

I liked the relation to Zen and motorcycles. A friend of mine recommended the original “Zen and the art” and when I needed something to listen to on my long solo drives I found this “Zen and Now” book by Mark Richardson. I believe the author even Read the book for the audio book I listened to. I found the story satisfying and entertaining. The philosophy is mild but relatable and the motorcycle jargon was a nice fit for my attention while driving. I didn’t find my self bored and I could pay attention easily.

I found this story particularly relevant for two reasons. 1) I own a motorcycle and have ridden myself for years so I understand the terminology and the feelings of combined freedom and isolation, confidence and caution. Thoughts and feelings that only comes with being on the road by yourself, on only two wheels. 2) At the time I was driving a full hour to and from work by myself with just my thoughts if not for the Audio book playing.

I think I found a deeper connection with the book itself because of the long hours spent driving. I could relate to the stress of weather and maintenance and traffic issues. Before I had ever heard of the book or it’s title, when people ask me about riding motorcycles, I would automatically tell them it has very zen like qualities to it.. So I learned I was far from the only individual who had ever made that connection.

I would recommend to anyone who is interested in motorcycles, true life adventure, or philosophy. The book isn’t heavy or in depth on any of these subjects but combines them into an entertaining and ultimately satisfying experience.

Overall, thinking back, to when I was working in a different city, I listened to a boatload of music and a handful of audio books and this one is the one that resonated with me the most and has also stuck with me the most. I definitley recommend it all the way around as just a good piece of literature. One that explores the common mans desire for adventure and brushes on the the workings of relationships and how they relate to stress and passage of time.

Good read

Thanks for reading the review! Stay tuned for more.

Pax

Book Review – Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

If you like tales of survival and stories about real life events and acts of heroism, then Unbroken is a book for you.  The book is written about a man named Louis Zamperini who’s fighter plane was shot down over the south pacific during world war 2.  The author Laura Hillenbrand actually got to spend time with the family of Louis Zamperini and the man himself I believe.  This fact makes this story all the more impactful because most of the facts probably came from the Veterans mouth, or those close to him.

The book takes you quickly through the beginning of Zamperini’s life, through his basic childhood and adolescence, but the story actually begins once he is flying missions over the South Pacific Ocean during World War 2.  This is very much a story of survival against insurmountable odds and about perseverance.  I won’t give up any of the main story but not much goes well for Louis during those years as a captured POW. 
What I liked about the book.

The main character himself could be fictional but it makes the tale all the more exciting knowing he was an actual living person. I don’t know why I find that time period so fascinating. The World War 1 and 2 eras impress, and irk me at the same time. I have been fortunate enough to travel and tour some of the famous memorial sites throughout Europe and Japan both. The whole concept of a “World War” is a terrifying reality to our human culture. You can arguably say that those wars gave us the modern drive for industry and capitalism, and still to this day, play a big part in the world economy.

I enjoyed this book because it doesn’t stop once you start reading it. There aren’t really many slow parts so to speak. The book takes you on the full ark of his experiences during the war itself, and then continues on to detail the healing that takes place among the soldiers coming home from those conflicts. I can’t imagine having to go through some of the ordeals that him and his crew had to go through, or the sheer terror of being stranded on the open ocean. So many experiences happened to Louis Zamperini yet he stays sane and even grows from the experience. A true testament to the will of man and the unyielding drive that some can develop to stay alive.

I love stories like this but it may not be a good one for people who are sensitive to detailed depictions of torture and survival.

I enjoy anything to do with WW2 and that time frame. I believe everyone should know something about the era all of our grandfathers and grandmothers lived through.

Definitely read this book if you like tales of survival and details about lesser known facts about WW2. Unbroken is a thoroughly engrossing story of a man who wouldn’t give up. Some good lessons and humanity in these pages, I definitely recommend.