Book Review Kickoff

In my “introduceyourself” post I expressed the desire to build the habit of writing on a daily basis. To ease into this, I’m going to begin with some posts on books I’ve read rather than trying to write the next great novel on Steemit.

I’ve always been an avid reader. If reading a gripping work of fiction, my book-reading resembles binge watching, but with paper. In recent years, I’ve found my reading trending more toward non-fiction books. My list of books I want to read is enormous, and as fast as I knock one off, I’ve usually added several more in its place.

That said, it wasn’t until recently that I stumbled upon an idea that, in hindsight, seems so obvious. Listening to a podcast of the Tim Ferriss Show featuring Noah Kagan, Noah revealed that he writes book reports for every book he reads to help him remember and review concepts he’s learning as he goes. I mean, duh?

Somehow, when I went from reading fiction for pleasure to reading non-fiction to learn I had failed to return to the tried and true practice of note-taking. I still shake my head at the many books I read before stumbling upon this most obvious of suggestions. There were so many concepts I could have locked down and revisited in the future without having to re-read the whole book.

Anyway, Noah inspired me to begin doing my own book reports. He posts his on his website to benefit others, but I’m not quite there yet. My notes are pretty detailed, and often cross-reference to other books I’ve read or concepts I’m trying to reinforce, and may not always make sense to an outside reader.

Rather than pasting my book reports into Steemit posts, since they’re largely summary and restatement of the concepts, my goal is to post about a given book, briefly summarizing the general concepts and adding some of my own perspective and commentary to the mix, hopefully getting some online discussion going. In the posts, I will include a link to my full book report for the book, with the caveats above.

The first one, I’m planning on tackling “Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday, so stay tuned. What about you? What books are you reading, or what books would you like to see discussed?