heathward's reviews
593 reviews

 The Decision Book is a compendium of models – SWOT, Maslow, and the like.

The book is broad. Perhaps too broad. It's also shallow. Each model gets a cursory glance, four pages at most. This might be fine for a fleeting introduction, a sort of "model discovery" phase, but I was left wanting more. It seems the authors’ plan was to introduce a model, then send you out to research the details.

On the plus side, the drawings and graphs are informative and the book is small enough to keep on hand at work. I can imagine being stuck on a dilemma and whipping the book out. 

I probably won’t do this, but I can imagine it. 

 

 Listened as an audiobook. 

Good:

 Simple tips, such as :
 Ask tough questions.
 Focus on details, even small ones.
 Learn from mistakes.
 See hard times as opportunities for growth.
 Teaching helps you learn.

Bad Parts

 Excessive boasting (Not very British, if I may say so)
 Jumbled narrative
 Broad topics, but doesn't look deeply at any of them. 
 The content often jumps around.

Who Should Read It?

 Best For:
 People looking for an easy read with personal development insights.
 Rubbish for :
 Readers expecting concrete business advice.

In Short

An interesting read that offers personal development tips but falls short as a business guide. It's best suited for people who want self-improvement stories and are prepared to sift through some terrible writing to find the gems.

The audio was great, clear and easy to follow. It was a nice motivational listen on my drives into work. 

 

 This book is a 300 page pep talk from Ryan Holiday about temperance, using stories of temperate people from history. It is pleasant, but simple.

The book doesn't give steps for how to get better at being disciplined in your everyday life. It says what to do, like wake up early, but not how to make that happen if you struggle with it. In other words, it tells you "be temperate" without explaining how to be temperate.

People already know what's right and wrong. Hearing it again doesn't change things. What would be helpful is a plan that shows how to build habits little by little. Better, a plan based on research, not just stories. Without a plan, the book feels like common sense, telling us things we already know. If you are really lost and don't know where to start in life, this book could give you some ideas. But if you want something that helps you grow and change, pick a different book.

Some parts of the book are good. The part about Antoninus Pius shows how he took responsibility and was a calm leader. The chapter on boundaries talks about being strong enough to not vomit your problems on everyone else. The flexibility chapter talks about being able to change and adapt. 

The writing is also easy to understand. 

A Little History of Philosophy discusses 40 different thinkers, starting with ancient Greeks like Socrates and going all the way to 21C. Each thinker (Some, like Charles Darwin, aren't philosophers in the traditional sense) gets their own chapter, and the stories flow together and overlap.

Instead of using complicated explanations, the author tells stories that about the philosophers that help us understand their thoughts, which I appreciated as someone starting to learn the subject. 

The book explains things clearly and shows how thinkers' ideas are connected, using thought experiments to help us understand better. I like how the author was able to make these thinkers feel like real people.

The book only talks about thinkers from Europe and America, leaving out many ideas from places like China, India, and the Middle East. It also doesn't include many women philosophers. As others have rightly said here, it should really have been titled "A Short History of Western Philosophy". 

Overall, this a great book if you want to start learning about philosophy. It's easy to understand and makes big ideas approachable.

My favourite sections were 1991-2017, which I really didn't expect. It was interesting, and I have to see rather calming, to see the boom and austerity years historicized. 

You become more relaxed when you decide to take up residence in your own mind and your own business. Life is easy when you simplify and make peace with your train of thought. When you believe your ‘bad’ thinking; you suffer. How many people, events, and things did you try to control with your mind today? Stay in your own mind and enjoy the laser like energy of having a clear mind. You don’t worry because you care; you worry because that is what you have learned to do.

This was a short book, which I read in e-book format over a couple of days. The strategies for remembering were great. Everything else was bad and the preachy voice of the author was awful.