On this rosy fingered dawn, I tell you true that there are some good books here. 

I’m book clubbing The Odyssey with some friends before the movie comes out. I’m 90% done, so we’ll count it for this share out. The story is 2,800 years old. So is human nature. The language might feel archaic (see: rosy fingered dawn), but the actions the characters take are still relatable. This one is silly, but I got a kick out of Odysseus getting egged on to engage in discuss throwing after one of the Phaeacians basically told him he’s probably not an athlete. As someone who is easily egged on to physical competition, this spoke to me. And the sailors getting trapped listening to siren songs feels like a parallel to modern addictions. Anyway, legendary story, and I’m glad I got around to it before the movie hits theaters. 

Cry Havoc by Jack Carr is the first book about Tom Reece (Jame Reece’s father, the main character in the terminal list series). Like all his books, this one is a ton of fun. Good if you want a masculine book with a fun plot. 

Skin In The Game by one stubborn fellow, Nassim Taleb, will be a book I revisit in the future. This is my second time going through it. It’s hard to pin down one takeaway, but the subtitle does it well: Hidden Asymmetries In Daily Life. The only book in the Incerto series I haven’t read or listened to, funny enough, is the most famous Black Swan. I’ll get to that soon. Its been a couple months since I read it, and the concept of the “silver rule” in society is what comes to mind most: don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you.

The Inner Game of Tennis paired extremely well with how my jiu-jitsu coach likes to teach. He teaches via a method called “differential learning” which isn’t about teaching step by step, but rather giving you an idea to move with – and then let you come to your own conclusions. The Inner Game is similar in that is teaches you to focus more on feel instead of thinking. The lessons that you have to reach for are often the stickiest. 

The Shortness of Life is an essay by Seneca which I started around my birthday. It is mainly an essay railing on how much time people waste. He’d lose his mind if he saw how the modern prole feed has captured society. 

The Sovereign Individual violates the aforementioned stubborn fellows motto: ignore economists. But given that its had some staying power for the last 20+ years, there is something Lindy about it, perhaps. The title/subtitle makes it sound kind of self-helpy, but it is more a history of how technology shapes society & government at large. It covers a lot of ground: from the rise and fall of Rome, the church, how the stirrup, gunpowder, and, now, the microprocessor changed (or will change) society. 

The Book of Elon is the latest book by Eric Jorgenson. The book is Elon’s most useful ideas. Some people love Elon, some hate. But if you want to learn from him this is the best place to start. 

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson is an 80 page book about the 2nd sentence of the declaration of independence. A great short read to celebrate Independence Day! If you’ve read Isaacson’s fantastic biography of Benjamin Franklin, you’ll recognize some of the ideas (like Franklin’s edit from we hold the truths to be “sacred and undeniable” to “self-evident”). Still there will be much that is new.