===The Book Thread====

A book that changed my understanding of life was 'Down and Out in Paris and London' by George Orwell. Top-quality reportage.

Originally posted by z1pz0r
Hey guys.

A lot of people suggest Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, I found it really bad. It's based on no empirical evidence whatsoever and anyone with critical thinking should be really sceptical about the whole concept.

I read You Are Not So Smart and it blew my mind. It's probably the only book that once I finished reading, I started reading it again from the beginning, because it just helps me so much understanding myself.

I wonder if anyone read You Are Now Less Dumb, is it the same concept? Is it as good as You Are Not So Smart?

You are in luck sir, I am one chapter away from finishing it.

Its just as good. There are less chapters, but more depth this time around. All new material of course.

Originally posted by BarryCarter

Originally posted by Swish29
Do you have any good books worth reading when someone is depressed/saying to himself most of the time 'what is the point?'? (of life)

Thank you

This

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diving-Bell-Butterfly-Bauby-Dominiqu/dp/0007879555/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1380014177&sr=8-3&keywords=diving+bell+and+the+butterfly

And pretty much any biography of someone you like, or someone who has overcome adversity.

Didn't help much to be honest but I finished to read 'Drive' after reading 'Mindset' and these 2 books have been really helpful (thank you very much Barry for writing this article, Mindset and Drive will definitely change my life if not already), as well as a session with Jared. It's fantastic how much there is to know, I'm planning on reading a lot from now on. I decided to write in a file all the books recommended by Daniel Pink in Drive, Carol Dweck in Mindset and Jared Tendler in TMGP2. I also added books recommended by Primoz Bozic (SchnitzelFisch), and I decided to share the list:

In bold green, books that are recommended by more than one source (including Barry Carter).

• List of the '15 Essential Books' in 'Drive' (Daniel Pink)

1. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life Play and Possibility (James P. Carse)
   
2. Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (Geoff Colvin)
   
3. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
4. Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation (Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste)
   
5. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck)
6. The We Came to the End (Joshua Ferris)
7. Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet (Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon)
   
8. Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell)
9. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
10. The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Medal (David Halberstam)
11. Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's Praise and Other Bribes (Alfie Kohn)
12. Once a Runner (John L. Parker, JR.)
    
13. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (Steven Pressfield)
14. Maverick: The Success Story Bhind the World's Most Unusual Workplace (Ricardo Semler)
15. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (Peter M. Senge)

• List of books recommended by people who have read Drive (included in the book):

1. The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle)
2. Encore (Marc Freedman)
3. Rework (Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson)
4. Linchpin (Seth Godin)
5. Just Listen (Mark Goulston)
6. Switch (Chip Heath and Dan Heath)
7. Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh)
8. Teach Like a Champion (Doug Lemov)
9. Mastery (Georges Leonard)
10. Employees First, Customers Second (Vineet Nayar)
11. How Full Is Your Bucket? (Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton)
12. Wellbeing (Tom Rath and Jim Harter)
    
13. Learned Optimism (Marin E.P. Seligman)
    
14. Do More Great Work (Michel Bungay Stanier)
15. Start with Why (Simon Sinek)
16. The Motivated Student (Bob Sullo)
17. Good Boss, Bad Boss (Bob Sutton)
18. Instrinsic Motivation at Work (Kenneth W. Thomas)
19. Wooden on Leadership (John Wooden and Steven Jamison)

• List of books recommended by Carol Dweck in 'Mindset':

1. Love is Never Enough + Prisoners of Hate (Aaron T. Beck)
2. Cognitive Therapy (Judith S. Beck)
3. On Becoming a Leader (Warren Bennis)
4. Modern Ideas About Children (Alfred Binet)
5. Developing Talent In Young People (Benjamin S. Bloom)
6. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't (Jim Collins)
7. Marva Collins' Way: Returning to Excellence in Education (Marva Collins and Civia Tamarkin)
   
8. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
   
9. Where Everyone Belongs: Practical Strategies for Reducing Bullying (Stan Davis)
10. The New Drawing on the RIght Side of the Brain (Betty Edwards)
11. Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (Albert Ellis)
12. Between Parent & Child + Between Parent & Teenager + Teacher and Child (Haim G. Ginott)
13. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ (Daniel Goleman)
14. Why Marriages will Succeed of Fail (John Gottman)
15. The Mismeasure of Man (Stephen Gould)
16. How Children Will Fail (John Holt)
17. When Smart People Fail (Carole Hyatt)
18. Groupthink (Irving Janis)
19. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game + Coach: Lessons on The Game of Life (Michael Lewis)
20. High Flyers: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders (Morgan McCall)
21. The Smartest Guys in the the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron (Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind)
22. Bullying at School (Dan Olweus)
23. Nothing is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life (Chistopher Reeve)
24. Teaching Genius: Dorothy DeLay and the Making of Musician (Barbara Sand)
    
25. Learned Optimism (Marin E.P. Seligman)
26. The Creative Habbit (Twyla Tharp)
27. Is It You or Is It Me? Why Couples Play the Blame Game (Scott Wetzler)
28. Wooden: A lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court (John Wooden)

• List of books recommended by Jared Tendler in 'The Mental Game of Poker 2'

1. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Malcolm Gladwell)
2. Bouce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice (Matthew Syed)
   
3. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Daniel Pink)
4. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
5. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck)
6. Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell)
   
7. Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (Geoff Colvin)
8. The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance (Josh Waitzkin)
9. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (Antonio Damasio)
   
10. The Power of Habbit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change (Charles Duhigg)
11. The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle)
12. The Way We're Working Isn't Working (Tony Schwartz)

• List of Books recommended by Primoz Bozic:

1. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (Steven Pressfield)
   
2. The Power of Habbit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change (Charles Duhigg)
3. A Million Bucks by 30 (Alan Corey)
4. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini)
5. Freakonomics (Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner)
6. Learned Optimism (Marin E.P. Seligman)
7. How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie)
8. Never Eat Alone (Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz)
9. Getting Things Done (David Allen)
10. Eat That Frog (Brian Tracy)
11. The Millionaire Fastlane (MJ DeMarco)
12. The Power Of Full Engagement (Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz)
13. The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey)
14. I Will Teach You To Be Rich (Ramit Sethi)

So the books in green are certainly must reads for poker players, as well as Barry's list. To read quicker I suggest getting 'Breakthrough Rapidreading' (Peter Kump), a book that was suggested by Primoz/SF even though I don't see it now in his list.

My plan is to finish Barry's list, then the books in green that I haven't read yet, then the list of Jared, I'll probably reevaluate in the meantime for now now it's what I want to do. If anyone has other suggestions or wants to comment on any book of this list that would be awesome

I guess many of Carol Dweck's recommendations are awesome, but not for me right now, I have other priorities, but when I'll want to have a relationship (or if it happens by accident) or when I'll have kinds (this can't happen to me by accident though ♦) there must be some gems there.

Awesome list. I love Switch by Chip and Dan Heath which is on the big list, that has really practical advice and its fun to read.

I also recommened all of Jared's recommendations.

Hello everyone!

Really great initiative with this thread and fantastic content so far. Now I know exactly where to point anyone looking for some solid books when it comes to poker, mindset, and making some positive changes in life.

Here are some of my favorites that directly or indirectly connects well in developing skills and a healthy mindset for poker. Some are a bit more to the alternative part of the bookstore.

If you liked The War of Art, you will like this one as well.
http://www.stevenpressfield.com/turning-pro/

Steven Pressfield - The Warrior Ethos
Very good for anyone that feels they need some improvement in the "Man up and stop whining" department.
http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-warrior-ethos/

Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now
A different perspective on the internal mechanics of thoughts and emotions. Can be really helpful to learn many soft skills like acceptance, becoming less reactive to negative thoughts, and how to actively and effectively calm difficult emotions.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Now-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808

Ken Robinson - The Element
Great book on how to find your passion in life, the element where you as a person function with the greatest of ease. Great inspirational stories from top athletes and successful people that one way or another found their purpose in life.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4224060-the-element

Brian Tracy - Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.
Well the tilte says it all pretty much:)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_?from_search=true

Seth Godin - The Icarus Decpetion
How to treat your work like an art and bring more creativity, inspiration, and joy into it. Making the end result all the better.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Icarus-Deception-High-Will/dp/B00AECT2XK

Hope anyone finds them useful. I really enjoyed all of them

Cheers!

Originally posted by ErikStenqvist

Brian Tracy - Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.
Well the tilte says it all pretty much:)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_?from_search=true

May have to get this, it comes up again and again when people I respect recommend books.

Hello,

upping this thread because I have issues in my life and I wonder if there is a book dealing with that. I basically sabotage my own success, happiness and health. I smoke (well the last cig I had was 20 hours ago), I eat junk food, I don't sport, I don't meditate, I don't go to bed on time, I don't get up on time, etc. though I know that doing or not doing these stuff would make me healthier, I would play more and better poker etc. why do I keep on being such an idiot?

I have another example of someone I know that is having the same bad habits though continues to smoke and drinks daily, and is super aware that it is super bad to do all that stuff... why do we continue? Why do people continue to go to the Mac Donald's, to not exercise, etc. despite knowing that it's stupid?

Originally posted by Swish29
Hello,

upping this thread because I have issues in my life and I wonder if there is a book dealing with that. I basically sabotage my own success, happiness and health. I smoke (well the last cig I had was 20 hours ago), I eat junk food, I don't sport, I don't meditate, I don't go to bed on time, I don't get up on time, etc. though I know that doing or not doing these stuff would make me healthier, I would play more and better poker etc. why do I keep on being such an idiot?

I have another example of someone I know that is having the same bad habits though continues to smoke and drinks daily, and is super aware that it is super bad to do all that stuff... why do we continue? Why do people continue to go to the Mac Donald's, to not exercise, etc. despite knowing that it's stupid?

awareness is the first and most difficult step ...

I recommend Plutarchs writings on education of free men. available online free of charge. No copyright, as it is 2 millennia old, but probably more applicable than ever!

One Stranger to Another by Edwin E. Smith

Very Good!!!

A small review:

Edwin Smith talks about revision, false starts, what poems will last and why it is important to write not just for contemporary publications but for the audiences of Frost, Whitman, and even Keats and Shakespeare. He discusses the value of finding your own voice. And he tells very movingly, how he “often left my warehouse job after a fourteen-hour shift and wrote a sonnet the same way another man might drink a beer or watch a ball game.” Since I felt so connected with the poet, I was surprised that I had trouble getting into his poems. One that Smith considers his best, “Springtime Come,” contains this verse about a seven-year old in a school yard: “…tired from the recess and tarrying there, / giving no thought or fancy to the day / long years later when heavy with days / solitude would be in itself complete,” which to me seems lifeless and excessive. The images of the first poems are good enough, but the poems seem over-written and reaching for meaning and importance they don’t earn. Then in “Aquarium” we are treated to a rich vision of the moon as “some big fish / swimming blunt, / slow and deliberate” and we are suddenly through the doorway of words into a world of surreal beauty. “Dark of the Moon” speculates about what would have happened if they had left Buzz Aldrin stranded on the moon, “separated by more than time and space / from even the rain and the wind.” The moon seems to be a touchstone again revisited in “Café Satellites” “Other planets have many moons, / is ours a spoiled brat only child / twisted insane by loneliness / bound to us not by love but desperation?” Wow!

One of my personal favorites is “Never the Jailer” though I wish Smith would have inverted the two final words “like something worn upon the brow / that isn’t a crown quite.” There is such a nice thing going with the “worn” ”brow” “crown” sounds that the vowels and consonants of “quite” sidetrack. Besides the inverted word order strives too much to be poetic. Getting published in small literary journals may be of questionable benefit, but reciting poems before an open mike helps iron out things the eye may not see, but the ear hears. The people who write poetry and those of us who read it are not “One Stranger to Another.” In fact, we may feel we know each other more intimately than we know our spouses or children. We share an experience, and more significantly, the challenge of grasping that experience in words…

Gooood day!

Many thanks for your suggestions.

There was this guy - Renaissance scholar Erasmus, who said “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

I would add these books:

The Flinch - Julien Smith
The Obstacle is The Way - Ryan Holiday

''Heap House''
Is a treasure of a trash tale by Edward Carey...

It's an intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate book, unflinching in its depictions of casual cruelty and systematic exploitation.
Once I recovered, however, I resolved to read everything Carey's ever written, because Heap House is, its heart of trash notwithstanding, an absolute treasure…

Read it guys!

The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera

Wanna be a man that takes control of his life? or gets controlled in social situations? If you chose the first option I suggest you read "The Rational Male" by Rolo Tomassi. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1492777862

Amazing book changed the way I view my life and social scenarios forever.

The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

He tries to capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation…

I like it…!!!

:challenge::facepalm:

oh wow great thread

Good day Everyone!

How is your reading going in 2017?
I will mention 2 new titles here:
"Ego is the enemy" - by Ryan Holiday
"The subtle art of not giving a fu*k " - by Mark Manson

What are your recommendations for an insightful and powerful 2017?

Originally posted by DarkLuxor
"The subtle art of not giving a fu*k " - by Mark Manson

Read this at the end of the year and it was awesome

On the side I co produce a podcast with Jared Tendler and we had Mark on it (he is a former poker player)

http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/mark-manson/

Had my head in a few books lately! One I thought worth a mention and is not poker related.
Worth a read if you are at a dead end with a medical issue!

Sustainable Medicine - by Dr Sarah Myhill
-Whistle-blowing on 21st century medial practice!

The book aims to empower readers to heal themselves through addressing the underlying causes of their health problems. She presents a logical progression from symptoms to identifying the underlying mechanisms, to relevant interventions, tests and tools with which to tackle the root causes of their symptoms.

Originally posted by BarryCarter

On the side I co produce a podcast with Jared Tendler and we had Mark on it (he is a former poker player)

http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/mark-manson//blockquote >

Very interesting thoughts and ideas . Thank you for sharing it.