Astrophysics for People in a Hurry – Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The people that know me know that I absolutely love anything related to the cosmos. Being a physics major has also supplemented my curiosity for all things space. Neil DeGrasse Tyson does a wonderful job breaking down everything about our universe and explains difficult concepts in a way that is understandable. It does help to have some type of background in chemistry, physics or math as many things are unexplained and would require additional research in order to fully grasp the content in this book.
Atomic Habits – James Clear
An amazing read for people looking to break down the psychology of what goes into creating, developing, and maintaining habits that can help change your life. The author gives a lot of practical knowledge and real world examples on how certain practices can be implemented in your daily life to help create the life that you want to live. This book is more of a manual on daily practices that should be followed and emphasizes how to make those habits into an asset rather than a liability.
Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber – Mike Isaac
Isaac is a New York Times reporter who followed the rise and fall of Uber and explains the story in a very comprehensive way. It can be thought of more so of a biography of Uber’s founding CEO, Travis Kalanick, during his time at Uber and who he was as a person, a businessman, and a leader. For those that are aware of Uber’s early demise, and curious of the story, this is the perfect book that explores every incident that occurred throughout Uber’s early history. It is more so of a story rather than what some might think of as a pure business book littered with words only an MBA would understand.
The Signal and the Noise – Nate Silver
For those who don’t know, Nate Silver is an American statistician who analyzes baseball and the election. He is also the founder of FiveThirtyEight, a site that analyzes politics from campaign fundraising to elections. It was named after the total amount of electoral college votes in the United States. I began reading this book as an intro into data science. Silver goes over many topics from stocks, weather, baseball, politics, and predicting earthquakes. The author mostly explores our understanding of uncertainty and probability and differentiating what can be known and what has to be left to chance in order to better understand how to make predictions more accurate as well as why some fail.
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
This was another one of my favorite books as the author speaks upon the 13 most common habits of wealthy and successful people. The author was mainly influenced by Andrew Carnegie who instilled in him the power of the human mind and a philosophy that would become the foundation of all his personal success. After a 20 year research journey, Hill wrote this book to serve as a gospel to explaining the Law of Success and includes those beliefs that help one find success in any avenue of life from money, power prestige and influence.
Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert T. Kiyosaki
A book that is very popular for those that are learning the concept and theory of wealth generation. The author explains the way which shaped his thoughts about money and investing. Furthermore, he explains the differences in how the middle class view money compared to how the rich do. The author provides practical knowledge in how one should increase their wealth and why people struggle with financial problems and how to overcome this. One of my favorite quotes is “There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary. Poor is eternal.”
The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason
This is an extraordinary book as I love the intersection between philosophy and finance. More so, this book explores the mindset of those that lived in Babylon which was one of the richest early empires in Mesopotamia. The author starts of by expressing how in a place called the Temple of Learning, men would gather and discuss/argue interesting subjects regardless of how ridiculous the subject might be. The question of how to attract good luck is discussed and leads to the lessons that help one to accrue wealth. It follows 7 simple rules of money and includes passages that explain how these rules have remained universal even today.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – Tavis Bradberry & Jean Greaves
I was looking for a book that would help me understand and grow my potential as a person and landed on this. EQ or emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand your own feelings and the feelings of others. Many in today’s society inherently possess or lack this ability and it is considered an asset in many functions of society especially in a professional environment. This book serves as a guide to those who would like to develop this tool in themselves and it offers test and practical material to help you get better.
The Hermetica – Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
For some reason, I have a deep love and curiosity towards ancient Egypt and consider it as a civilization that may have been more advanced than society today. The authors write this book about Hermeticism, which was popularized by Hermes Trismegistus and a figure who inspired William Shakespeare, Plato and influenced the finest minds in the Italian Renaissance. It explores the philosophy of the Egyptian Ptolemaic era providing as a type of time capsule to help understand the beliefs and culture of the time and region. It may dwell on the edge of pseudoscience to some, but it is definitely a good read for those interested in Egyptian and Greek Hellenistic beliefs and their mystical thoughts.
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth – Reza Aslan
Probably one of the most controversial as well as critically acclaimed book during it’s release. For those that are highly religious and have certain beliefs, this book might be something of a heart ache but to those who manage to read it, the author with absolutely no religious infliction speaks about the historical evidence of Jesus of Nazareth. Not Jesus the Christ as most would know him. Starting from Jesus’s birth, the author explains Jesus’s upbringing and someone who opposes Roman and Jewish exploitation over the land which eventually lead to his crucifixion. His preaching’s influenced not only the Jew’s of the region, but also reached as far as Rome itself as he set in motion the events that lead up to a duality in early Christianity between the early Christians and the Jews.
Deep Patel 