In my last life and productivity post, I mentioned that I got into audiobooks.
I thought it would be a good to start a monthly list of books I have read or plan to read. Normally, after finishing a book, I write some notes about the main points I took away and things that I found interesting. I will share some of those notes here as well, as a way to provide an introduction to each book.
Please note that I mostly consume books in the form of audiobooks. Initially, I was not a fan of audiobooks, but as I mentioned in my post, they provide a good way to consume content faster, while allowing me to rest my eyes.
Audible and Disclaimers
I will include affiliate links to Audible for all discussed books, and for ebook and physical formats when available. You will not be charged extra, and Audible is likely to have the majority of books you want since it is the biggest audiobook platform.
When you buy a book from Audible, be sure to download and keep a local copy. That way, you own it like a physical book. If you only access it through the app, you rely on Audible for delivery. If they lose distribution rights for the book, you lose access. So, always download anything you purchase.
Sign up for a free Audible Premium Plus membership trial and get one credit for a free audiobook. Even if you cancel the trial, you still get to keep the book you got from the promotion.
Another way to access the books I mention in this post is to check if they are available at your local library. This is certainly the cheapest option, but keep in mind that you may need to wait weeks to obtain them, and you will have a time limit to finish reading them (usually up to 14 days).
So, here are the books I want to share this month:
“When – The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” By Daniel H. Pink
This book is full of useful life advice. Its main goal is to show how timing plays a crucial role in our lives. Timing is important at small scales, such as considering the best time of day to exercise, the best time to eat, or to take a break from work. The book also discusses studies that showed kids at schools perform and learn better when their classes start later in the day.
At the same time, the author also talks about the importance of timing for life decisions and career moves. For instance, people who graduate college during a recession tend to trail other professionals who graduated during bull markets in terms of salary and positions. The gap can be significant (I think I remember something like a 10-year gap). This difference can be due to less job switching during recessions because of fear.
The book has many examples that opened my mind, and even though I cannot explain them well here, it is a book I enjoyed very much.
“The Story of The Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease” By Daniel E. Lieberman
This has become one of my favorite books so far. The author tries to explain many of the diseases that are becoming prevalent in the modern era from an evolutionary perspective. It seems that our current lifestyle (especially modern Western lifestyles) brings about all sorts of problems that our ancestors did not encounter.
The first part of the book explains how humans ended up having the bodies we have through evolution. This is a tale of the first Australopithecus groups and their evolution through time to the original hunter-gatherers. Evolution has forced our bodies to adapt to an environment where calories are hard to get, and there is a need to be physically active for longer.
For most of our history, humans did not have a surplus of energy. However, with modern highly-processed diets, common in Western societies, most people have an overabundance of calories which leads to obesity and many health-related issues.
I think one of the book’s main goals is to show that a lot of the health issues we face today are preventable and come from our culture and lifestyle instead of evolution since for most of our existence as a species, we have been hunter-gatherers and not couch potatoes.
Random and interesting notes:
- There have been only approximately 600 generations of humans since agriculture became widespread. Humans have been hunter-gatherers for much longer. In fact, it is estimated that modern humans have been around for 10,000 generations. Moreover, the human genus as a whole has been around for about 100,000 generations.
- Humans evolved to be generally active, so our bodies still expect that there won’t be much food around all the time. That’s the reason our bodies are so good at storing fat. It was a necessary trait to survive during times when food was scarce when hunting or gathering fruits and vegetables.
- We cannot change our bone mass significantly once we are done growing. With exercise, we can maybe slow down the bone loss that occurs after 30 years of age. That’s why it is important that kids have active lifestyles. This will force their bodies to grow strong and thicker bones. Then, once they reach adulthood, they have a better starting point. The phrase used by the author is “no stress, no gain”.
I have written longer notes on this book since I liked it so much. However, I don’t want to overextend this synopsis. In the coming days, I will create a separate page on this website for all the book notes I take.
“Invisible Women – Data Bias in a World Designed for Men” By Caroline Criado Perez
This was a very eye-opening book about the way women are often overlooked in design decisions, be it company decisions, or even urban planning.
The book shows that many decisions taken by those in power (often men) don’t take women’s perspectives into account. Those men in positions of power are often ignorant of women’s needs.
For those reasons, women need to become more prominent in all aspects of decision-making: high management positions, government, etc.
The book uses a data-driven approach to show examples of detrimental policies when women’s voices are not part of the decision-making process. The author also talks about the importance of collecting gender-segregated data for policy-making. For instance, many drugs and medical training are based on the average male body. There have been many cases in modern medicine when not accounting for the difference in women’s biology led to fatal consequences when using drugs designed for men. This book covers those issues as well.
Some important (and random) points I took from the book:
- Cities and companies need to start gathering gender-segregated data related to their policies. This will allow them to analyze their impact and effectiveness.
- Investment in public transportation childcare is very beneficial to women
- Women work more hours on average than men. However, this work is in many cases unpaid labor.
- Separate bathrooms for men and women reduce the likelihood of rape (this especially applies to third-world countries and disaster-relief zones)
The links are here:
Discussion and Conclusion
Hopefully, you will enjoy these books as I have done. Let me know if you have read any of them and what you thought about them. Also, feel free to recommend other books so I can add them to my to-read list.
You can subscribe to my newsletter to get notified next time I post a new list of books to read. I think I’ll be doing this once a month.