Its Been 3 weeks since I Started the #bookaday project….Mostly there are a ton of people asking me how I manage it and it’s pretty simple.

I read 100 per hour and I normally select books that are less than 300 pages. I save the longer books for the weekends or days when I think I will have more time.

I read for 3 hours a day on average. 1.5 hours in the morning, 15 30 mins here, 15 min there.. I usually close the book right before I fall asleep.

More on that later here are my thoughts on the last 20 books.

*****DISCLAIMER****

I’m only talking about 20 books here, the other 5 are in a previous post.

Ways you can help:
1.LET ME KNOW YOU"VE READ this..even if you didn’t finish it.
Hello, is this thing on?

2. Recommend books to me!

3. Let me borrow them..

4. Share this with anyone you think would like any of the books.

5. Join me in reading a book a day, or a book a WEEK!
SOME STRANGERS on IG HAVE BEGUN TO TAG ME ON THEIR BOOK SELECTIONS> woo hoo!

6. The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand
My thoughts: I had been warned about this book because it is viewed almost nearly as pure propaganda. But that only led me to want to read it more.
I feel like so many of the books I read, be they philosophy, or physics, economics, or psychology they present the world under ideal conditions and make suppositions or laws about behaviors only within those conditions. I feel that Rand has help me to understand much of the drivers in our modern world and by reading her books I am able to see the failures of her model to suit it. Nonetheless. PROFOUND

7. Way Of The Superior Man
David Deida
This book came on high recommendation from men and women, but I think it’s popularity is a sign of our times. There has obviously been some fluctuation in the gender norms at least, here in America. This book speaks to some modifications to those norms.
In principle I think the book could have great pieces but I was distracted but the writing. In my view it could have been organized differently, perhaps a more logical, linear fashion and might have been more effective with out the borrowing of so much from the eastern philosophies. The pseudo spiritual nature made it hard for me to realize exactly what characters Deida was presenting. Also he used the word “penetrate” OVERHYPED

8. Free Play
Stephan Nachmanovitch
This book is an incredible summary and almost guide book for the creative process. I’ve begun researching this heavily and he is so inline with what I’ve found. That we all have a creative capacity albeit, varied. But we can certainly take actions to bring cultivate it. I can’t say enough about this book. BIBLE!

9. Miss Lonely Hearts
Nathanael West
My thoughts:I was not a great fan of novels but I’ve come to love them and West is now one of my favorite authors. His use of language is so cutting and clear that in certain moments I felt as though I was experiencing the pain of the characters myself. This story is a wretched one about a paradox that we can too easily find our selves in when we follow the wrong motivators. GREAT BOOK

10. How The Laws Of Physics Lie
Nancy Cartwritght
My Thoughts:
Cartwritght attacks physics from a logical and philosophical position. She argues that much of the laws of physics are based on models that do not fit reality. While this is 100% true it is important to note that it is not altogether an original idea.
I was completed affirmed in my thinking by reading this book as I have always questioned the IF/THEN causations in physics as these laws so often occur in vacuo, and the author makes the point that there is fundamental flaw in the practicality of physics for this reason.
It is an important book to read for anyone working in abstraction, we must always remember that we can only put as much trust in our theories as they earn through practical application. Other wise we are just living with out head in the clouds. LOVED IT

11. Why We Can’t Wait
Martin Luther King Jr
I hadn’t realized King was a good writer as well. But it was this work that won him the Nobel Peace Prize. He outlines his strategies methods, and philosophy behind the non violent movement and why it is effective. I recommend it to any young revolutionary to keep as part of their tool kit.
What struck me is that I found my self more interested in the conditions that made their non violent strategy so effective and it seems that it was empowered by the extreme violence of their antagonists, who was in many cases the police. Where the police performed their duties in a peaceful manner, the protests often took place without incident. It seemed to me that there were subtle provocations taken in that time that would test the limits of the polices patience this could almost be used as a sports strategy book. Sometime the best offense is a good defense.

12. We Should All Be Feminists
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My Thoughts: This was a quick Ngozi Adichie is great, this was a transcription of here TED talk on the subject and is feminism is one word I have always had mixed feelings about. While I am proud to say that I am an advocate of gender equality. I don’t like the ideal that feminism is an inherently female concept. The author obviously goes head to head with this idea, but does so in a way that is as much personal as it is philosophical. GIRL POWER

14. The Creative Process
Brewster Ghiselin

My Thoughts: When I am in a funk, this is the pocket reference I use to get out of it. Brewster captures letters, essays, and random thoughts from some of history’s greatest minds and has compiled an catalog of their thoughts on how they work through problems, ignite their imagination, and come up with new ideas.
It only further supports my hunch that we are simply instruments of creativity and not the makers of it.

15. Headscarves and Hymens
Mona Eltahawy

This book made me so uncomfortable in the best way. I was forced to look at several new ideas that I had never considered. From the perspective of being a woman, a muslim, and a feminist Eltahawy is pretty unabashed about her feelings, thought they are not always constant. It is ever perplexing to see how age and maturity influence not only our behaviours but our ideas. She is in the middle of a complext conversation that I can only begin to understand after reading this book. WOAH

16. The End Of America
Naomi Wolf

I am not sure that this book was the same feminist writer I had seen so much of but it definitely has a harsh tone regarding what the citizen must do to shift the trajectory of our nation. I think that this book seems to be more like something that was based on opinion and sought facts to support a position rather that coming to a hypothesis based on observation of the facts laid plainly ahead.

While I actually agree with a lot of what was said, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a strong inherent bias, that was being presented as fact. It was fine writing but I was honestly un able to finish this one to the very last page.

17. I Suck At Girls
Justin Helpern

This was a quick and funny book about the escapades of a young man, women, and his father’ hysterical advice and commentary along the way. One of my favorite passages was “Son, you will never have sex with a woman that looks like that, real women don’t have sex like that”.

Thats the kind of insight every kid should grow up with! HILARIOUS!

18. Drawing A Tree
Bruno Munari

Bruno Munari is a classic art book instructor and I love every minute of this book but it was literally a book about drawing a tree.

So I read another one in the same day that felt like I was doing something.

Frederic Lenoir

This book actually made me happy, it was well organized and covered happiness from the religious, philosophical, psychological, chemical, and even financial perspectives. I feel as thought it could have been much harder to read but Lenoir made it easy, which made me happy. Personally I found that based, on the book I have several advantages that allow for my perpetual optimism.

20. Physics Of Wall Street
James Owen Weatherall

This book was incredible. I assumed that I would be able to crack the stock market after reading it but I was not. Instead I was granted a very firm understanding of how the advancements of math and physics have come to yield so much influence in matters of the economy and the stock market. However you feel about it they are not going away, and I am more than interested reading so many more “history of…” books.

Weatherall makes the point that it is not physics’ fault that the market crash but the people who indiscriminately used mathematics to make predictions that were not fully applicable to the economy. BOOM BAM POW..

hopefully I can stay on top of my recaps because writing about 20 different books is harder than reading them!