Life Changing Books

[onlinegtrash]

someone in the previous post said... he did not find 'The Alchemist' as interesting...
for him:
The point is... if you read the book as a story book and take everything in it literally..
then its a boring book about a shepherd, he is no where as flashy as hollywood movie stars..

but

if you read the book as a metaphor of life... suddenly the book makes immense sense!

for eg: The shepherd boy talks about his dumb sheeps how they lost their instinct to survive
and started depending on him for food and water... how the sheeps have given up life instincts and turned into dumb followers... they can't even understand dangers that are waiting for them... by 'outsourcing of their life' to shepherd! Even if boy starts to kill one sheep at a time they can't understand until its their turn to die!

This is a metaphor for average man who doesn't think and outsources all his thinking to his boss!

The book is so full of enriching metaphors, I instantly fell in love with the book!
Esp. if you have an audio version of the book, its even more enjoyable to listen!

 

[Einstein]

Will Smith | Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | Progressive Thought Pat...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckhbz4xuLfM

 

[amitrandive]

someone in the previous post said... he did not find 'The Alchemist' as interesting...
for him:
The point is... if you read the book as a story book and take everything in it literally..
then its a boring book about a shepherd, he is no where as flashy as hollywood movie stars..

but

if you read the book as a metaphor of life... suddenly the book makes immense sense!

for eg: The shepherd boy talks about his dumb sheeps how they lost their instinct to survive
and started depending on him for food and water... how the sheeps have given up life instincts and turned into dumb followers... they can't even understand dangers that are waiting for them... by 'outsourcing of their life' to shepherd! Even if boy starts to kill one sheep at a time they can't understand until its their turn to die!

This is a metaphor for average man who doesn't think and outsources all his thinking to his boss!

The book is so full of enriching metaphors, I instantly fell in love with the book!
Esp. if you have an audio version of the book, its even more enjoyable to listen!

onlinegtrash

Thanks for the explanantion!!!
I have also posted excerpts and learnings from the alchemist here
http://www.traderji.com/words-wisdom/93353-life-changing-books-2.html#post956228

 

[amitrandive]

wow! That's quite a list...!

My Favorite Books that changed my life:

***** The Life Changing List *******
== Ayn Rand ==
* Virtue of selfishness
* The Fountain Head
* Atlas Shrugged


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This list only partial... instead of grouping knowledge by books...
I would like to group ideas by authors... we can absorb ideas from youtube/article/books/talks etc etc.
In my mind I group knowledge by authors and their key ideas so the book list is partial.

Here is a grouping of knowledge by authors and ideas:

Nassim Taleb : randomness, antifragility, risk management (and for his anger and style!)
Ayn Rand : individualism and capitalism
Walter Block : Libertarianism

Henry Hazlit : economics, libertarianism

Robert Kiyosaki : investment and entrepreneurship

Van Tharp, Ryan Jones: Position Sizing and Compounding

Osho, Eckhart Tolle : About ego, meditation and mindfulness
Carl Jung : interesting psychological stuffs (such as archetypes, transpersonal ego!, dreams, synchroncity etc.)

etc etc.

onlinegtrash

This is an amazing concept for classifying books , as per ideas.::clapping::clapping::clapping:

A beautiful quote for this thought

" A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading."
–William Styron

 

[amitrandive]

The Fountainhead
Author: Ayn Rand

http://www.flipkart.com/fountainhead-the/p/itmdusk9kgtcfff6

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is a gripping narrative that upholds the downfall of collectivism at the altar of the fiery human spirit and individualism.

Summary Of The Book

The Fountainhead revolves around the dynamic protagonist Howard Roark, who defies collectivism with his own brand of philosophy and architecture. He takes a firm stand against worshipping tradition and embraces his own modern art forms. Roark gets expelled from architecture school owing to his non-adherence to conventional guidelines. Roark starkly defies history in favor of a more utilitarian outlook. He highlights materials, location and purpose as the three pillars of architecture.

Roark ultimately works for disgraced architectural legend Henry Cameron in New York. At the same time, The Fountainhead also tells the story of Peter Keating, a perfect foil to Roark. Keating holds a job at the renowned Francon & Heyer firm, where he eventually lands a partnership on account of his flattery. Roark starts his own office, but finally lands up at a granite quarry owned by Guy Francon. The novel is also the story of Dominique Francon with whom Roark has a physical and emotional battle throughout the novel.

The Fountainhead is an intriguing look at hypocrisy through Roark’s anonymous designs that spur Keating’s success. Eventually Gail Wynand becomes Roark’s friend and patron. Roark even goes to trial for dynamiting a building, the designs of which were changed.
The manuscript of The Fountainhead was shunned by twelve publishing houses and when finally published, went on to sell in excess of six and a half million copies globally. It was also the subject of a 1949 film, the screenplay of which was written by Rand.

My view: A very bold book about dreams and passion.A book that entices one to look at life and morality from a different perspective.

 

[amitrandive]

Future Shock
Author: ALVIN TOFFLER
http://www.flipkart.com/future-shoc...hock&ref=0ee712f9-aef2-47ad-8ecd-9b6e50e0d930

Future Shock, authored by Alvin Toffler, is a book that talks about the difficulties that today's generation goes through because of the fast-paced life of today and the everyday change in technology. He talks about bizarre behaviour, emotional breakdowns and an unexpected increase in diseases among the people. It is essential for those who intend on saving the future of their family from the sudden change of culture around us and how they will need to deal with it.

My view:The only thing that is permanent in this world is change .A must read for every today's fast paced life in which everyone faces plethora of choices and changes.

 

[onlinegtrash]

onlinegtrash

This is an amazing concept for classifying books , as per ideas.::clapping::clapping::clapping:

A beautiful quote for this thought

" A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading."
–William Styron

I usually keep track of ideas and forget book titles and some times even author names...
I simply remember them as 'complexity guy' or 'psychologist guy' or 'trader guy' for instance
I read about
* speculation
* morality and necessity of speculation
* some key ideas on how to speculate (eg: high R ratio, long term bets, buying the haystack instead of searching needle, exiting with profits instead of letting profits turn into loss by greediness! )
* boom-bust cycles of speculation

The concepts come from variety of authors, books and places:
victor niederhoffer, mises.org, book: zurich axioms, George Soros (his reflectivity theory), youtube videos on 'complex adaptive systems'...

The first book of Robert Kioysoki was good after that...its all watered down rehash to sell more books and tapes... so Robert Kioysoki has only these key ideas: 'passive income+investments+entrepreneurship+compounding+mindset' after that all his books are rehashes...

so remembering only his key idea is more than enough than reading all his books...

 

[amitrandive]

I usually keep track of ideas and forget book titles and some times even author names...
I simply remember them as 'complexity guy' or 'psychologist guy' or 'trader guy' for instance
I read about
* speculation
* morality and necessity of speculation
* some key ideas on how to speculate (eg: high R ratio, long term bets, buying the haystack instead of searching needle, exiting with profits instead of letting profits turn into loss by greediness! )
* boom-bust cycles of speculation

The concepts come from variety of authors, books and places:
victor niederhoffer, mises.org, book: zurich axioms, George Soros (his reflectivity theory), youtube videos on 'complex adaptive systems'...

The first book of Robert Kioysoki was good after that...its all watered down rehash to sell more books and tapes... so Robert Kioysoki has only these key ideas: 'passive income+investments+entrepreneurship+compounding+mindset' after that all his books are rehashes...

so remembering only his key idea is more than enough than reading all his books...

onlinegtrash

This is great analysis.Would request you to post your views in this thread regularly.

 

[onlinegtrash]

Future Shock
Author: ALVIN TOFFLER
http://www.flipkart.com/future-shoc...hock&ref=0ee712f9-aef2-47ad-8ecd-9b6e50e0d930

My view:The only thing that is permanent in this world is change .A must read for every today's fast paced life in which everyone faces plethora of choices and changes.

interesting trivia: that book was published on 1970!!!!
i.e 4 decades before...
now latest bandwagon is 'singularity' and 'accelerated future'.

People say entire human knowledge is doubling in every 12 months!
This is reflected in number of web pages, youtube videos uploaded, web traffic and other technological break throughs...

Historic key events are occurring in rapid succession at unbelievable rate...
for eg: for thousands and thousands of years hottest technology was making fire with stones... and having sharpen stone weapons...
it took few more thousand years for the next upgrade to come by: i.e a different type of bow and arrow...
and it took few more thousand years for next upgrade to come by: i.e farming and civilization...
and building projects spanned across 4 to 10 life generations... people almost see nothing changing in their own life time... but slowly big empires and big buildings were forming.
then fast forward... radio adaptation took several hundred years..i.e an upgrade from paper to electrical signals...
then TV was even fastly adapted...
then came computers...
then came internet
then came mobile devices..
gosh.. now for every 6 months old devices become incompatible with new latest devices...!

now we fast forward to 'decentralize every damn thing' era.
money is being decentralized by bitcoin and other technologies
power and control is being decentralized by distributed digital technologies

people are talking about autonomous head less decentralized corporations (google:Ethereum autonomous corporations)

The new p2p + encryption technology is going to shake up the world, its governments, and existing systems of healthcare/education/transport/finance and everything...

so fasten your seat belts
(its okay even if you don't make a killing in markets, just stay alive healthily, a bright beautiful exciting world is dawning on us!)

 

[umeshmandal]

Future Shock
Author: ALVIN TOFFLER
http://www.flipkart.com/future-shoc...hock&ref=0ee712f9-aef2-47ad-8ecd-9b6e50e0d930


Future Shock, authored by Alvin Toffler, is a book that talks about the difficulties that today's generation goes through because of the fast-paced life of today and the everyday change in technology. He talks about bizarre behaviour, emotional breakdowns and an unexpected increase in diseases among the people. It is essential for those who intend on saving the future of their family from the sudden change of culture around us and how they will need to deal with it.

My view:The only thing that is permanent in this world is change .A must read for every today's fast paced life in which everyone faces plethora of choices and changes.

FUTURE SHOCK is a book my father read ! He used to say that the Future that the author foresaw was already upon the world ! I never read it. Maybe dig it out and read ! Maybe its still relevant !