greatest novels ever written about ambition:

Nogales is one city cut in half by a fence. On the Arizona side, the average household earns about $30,000 a year. On the Mexican side, it’s about a third of that. If you haven’t read Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, you don’t know why some countries get rich. The people on both sides of that fence share the same ancestors, the same food and the same weather. What’s different is the rules they live under. Some rules let ordinary people own property, start businesses and keep what they earn. Others are built so a small elite can take everything. Geography and culture can’t explain why South Korea is about ten times richer than North Korea. Only the rules can.

the rise and fall of history’s greatest empires:

books to build wealth in the AI era:

the most underrated books of the last 20 years:

A 20-year study found the average expert predicted the future about as well as a dart-throwing chimpanzee. Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner shows what the few people who actually can predict do differently. Tetlock tracked 284 experts making about 28,000 predictions. The famous ones did worse than the unknown ones. Then the US intelligence community ran a forecasting tournament, and Tetlock entered with thousands of ordinary volunteers. The best of them beat professional analysts who had access to classified information. What set them apart wasn’t IQ or credentials. They broke big questions into small ones. They thought in percentages instead of yes or no. They changed their minds often, in small steps. And they kept score. Everyone makes predictions every day about money, jobs and people. This is the best book there is on making better ones.

books to read in your...

books to think like Charlie Munger:

MBA degree in 16 books:

An ordinary journalist trained for one year and won the US Memory Championship. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer is the story of how he did it. In 2005, Foer went to cover the contest as a reporter. The competitors told him they weren’t born with special memories. They had learned a technique. So he tried it. He practiced for a year, came back in 2006 and won. He memorized a shuffled deck of cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds, a new US record. The technique is about 2,500 years old. Greek and Roman orators used it to give long speeches without notes. It is the most useful book on memory you will ever read.