Book Summaries
This page shows all of my book summaries with notes and key takeaways.
- My Favorite Books
- Business Books
- Decision Making Books
- Psychology Books
- Happiness Books
- Investment/Finance Books
All Books. Pick a book below to read my summaries, notes and key takeaways:
How to Decide by Annie Duke
Here is a description from Amazon: "What do you do when you're faced with a big decision? If you're like most people, you probably make a pro and con list, spend a lot of time obsessing about decisions that didn't work out, get caught in analysis paralysis, endlessly...
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
From Amazon's description: "Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result. In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in...
Smart Choices by Howard Raiffa
From Amazon's Summary: "Where should I live? Is it time to get a new job? Which job candidate should I hire? What business strategy should I pursue? We spend the majority of our lives making decisions, both big and small. Yet, even though our success is largely...
Decision By Design by Shane Parrish
From Shane Parrish's "Decision by Design" "The process of decision making has been studied for ages. How to actually move through that process is the art form. The skills you’ll learn in Decision by Design have been tested over time and across industries. They work...
The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef
From Amazon's Description: When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a "soldier" mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalizing in our personal lives and everything in between, we...
“The Success Equation” by Michael Mauboussin
From Amazon's description: “Much of what we experience in life results from a combination of skill and luck.” — From the Introduction "The trick, of course, is figuring out just how many of our successes (and failures) can be attributed to each—and how we can learn to...
Atomic Habits by James Clear
This might be the best book on Habits. James Clear give lots of actionable advice and great wisdom as well! The book gives lots of examples from his own life and life of others. Below are my notes: General outline for creating habits. To start a new habit, you must...
Decisive by Chip Heath
From Amazon's book description: "Research in psychology has revealed that our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and irrationalities: We’re overconfident. We seek out information that supports us and downplay information that doesn’t. We get distracted by...
Quit by Annie Duke
Summary from Amazon: "Business leaders, with millions of dollars down the drain, struggle to abandon a new app or product that just isn’t working. Governments, caught in a hopeless conflict, believe that the next tactic will finally be the one that wins the war. And...
A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel
From Amazon's description: One of the “few great investment books” (Andrew Tobias) ever written, with 2 million copies in print. In a time of rampant misinformation about ways of growing your money, Burton G. Malkiel’s gimmick-free investment guide is more necessary...
“I will teach you to be rich” by Ramit Sethi
Form Amazon's description "Buy as many lattes as you want. Choose the right accounts and investments so your money grows for you—automatically. Best of all, spend guilt-free on the things you love. Personal finance expert Ramit Sethi has been called a “wealth wizard”...
“All About Asset Allocation” by Rick Ferri
From Amazon's description: "All About Asset Allocation offers advice that is both prudent and practical--keep it simple, diversify, and above all, keep your expenses low--from an author who both knows how vital asset allocation is to investment success and, most...
Think Again by Adam Grant
From Amazon's Description: "Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor...
The Bogleheads Guide to Investing by Mel Lindauer
From Amazon's description: The irreverent guide to investing, Boglehead style The Boglehead's Guide to Investing is a DIY handbook that espouses the sage investment wisdom of John C. Bogle. This witty and wonderful book offers contrarian advice that provides the first...
Super Thinking
by Gabriel Weinberg From Amazon's description: The world's greatest problem-solvers, forecasters, and decision-makers all rely on a set of frameworks and shortcuts that help them cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones. They're called mental...
The Great Mental Models by Shane Parrish
From Amazon's description: "The old saying goes, "To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." But anyone who has done any kind of project knows a hammer often isn't enough. The more tools you have at your disposal, the more likely you'll use the right...
Judgement in Managerial Decision Making by Max Bazerman
From Amazon's Description: Behavioral decision research provides many important insights into managerial behavior. From negotiation to investment decisions, the authors weave behavioral decision research into the organizational realm by examining judgment in a variety...
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman is considered one the greatest and most influential living psychologist in the world. He is known for his work on the psychology of judgement and decision making. In 2002, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on how Biases and Heuristics affect Economic...
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
From Amazon's Description: "After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the...
Noise by Daniel Kahneman
From Amazon's Description: From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and the coauthor of Nudge, a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments and how to make better ones--"a tour de force” (New York...
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
From Amazon's Description: "Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. Money—investing, personal finance, and business decisions—is typically taught as a...
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
From Amazon's Description: "An instant classic, this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths about starting your own business. Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of...
You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake! by Olivier Sibony
From Amazon's Description "We all make decisions all the time. It's so natural that we hardly stop to think about it. Yet even the smartest and most experienced among us make frequent and predictable errors. So, what makes a good decision? Should we trust our...
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock
This is one of my favorite books. Now you can learn the art of and science of prediction! Professor Philip Tetlock of Upenn and Wharton Business School, has been studying forecasting for over 35 years. Tetlock was curious if experts were good at predicting...
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher
From Amazon's description: "Getting to Yes has helped millions of people learn a better way to negotiate. One of the primary business texts of the modern era, it is based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, a group that deals with all levels of...
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
From Amazon's description: "Getting rich is not just about luck; happiness is not just a trait we are born with. These aspirations may seem out of reach, but building wealth and being happy are skills we can learn. So what are these skills, and how do we learn them?...
Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubormirsky
From the intro of the book: "Nearly all of us buy into what I call the myths of happiness—beliefs that certain adult achievements (marriage, kids, jobs, wealth) will make us forever happy and that certain adult failures or adversities (health problems, not having a...
The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
From Amazon's Book Description: "Jonathan Haidt skillfully combines two genres-philosophical wisdom and scientific research-delighting the reader with surprising insights. He explains, for example, why we have such difficulty controlling ourselves and sticking to our...
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
From Amazon's Description: “By far the best book on investing ever written.” — Warren Buffett "The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of “value investing”—which shields...
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work from John Gottman From Amazon's Description: "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work has revolutionized the way we understand, repair, and strengthen marriages. John Gottman’s unprecedented study of couples...
Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb
From Amazon's Description: "As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights: • For social...
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
From Amazon's Description: "Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business...
Principles by Ray Dalio
Billionaire Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater, the biggest Hedge Fund in the world. This book is a collection of all the principles Ray Dalio uses for decision making, in business and in life. He first wrote "Principles" as a guide for his company's employees....
Influence by Robert Cialdini
From Amazon's description: "In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini—New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion—explains the psychology of why people say yes and how...
Grit by Angela Duckworth
From the Conclusion Page: "This book has been about the power of grit to help you achieve your potential. I wrote it because what we accomplish in the marathon of life depends tremendously on our grit—our passion and perseverance for long-term goals. An obsession with...
Happier by Tal Ben Shahar
From Amazon's Description. "Can we really learn to be happy? Yes, we can. Each semester, nearly 1,400 students sign up for Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar's life-changing class "How to Get Happy". Currently it's the hottest course at Harvard, taken by 20 percent of...
The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
From the Foreword of "The How of Happiness" "What are the meanings and mysteries of happiness? Is it possible to acquire more of it, and can new happiness ever endure? These are foundational questions to which I have devoted my entire career as a research...
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
From Amazon's description: "Have you ever:• found yourself stretched too thin?• simultaneously felt overworked and underutilized?• felt busy but not productive?• felt like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas? If...
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
From Amazon's Description: "Interpersonal skill is something that is needed in all spheres of life and is learnt from a very young age. Still, some seem to be more successful and popular when it comes to being popular and influential. It comes from developing the...
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle
From Amazon's Description: "The best-selling investing "bible" offers new information, new insights, and new perspectives The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is the classic guide to getting smart about the market. Legendary mutual fund pioneer John C....
Happy Money by Elizabeth Dunn
From Amazon's Description. "Two professors combine their fascinating and cutting-edge research in behavioral science to explain how money can buy happiness—if you follow five core principles of smart spending. Most people recognize that they need professional advice...