3/5

If the wealthiest families from the past 100 years had spent a reasonable portion of their wealth, invested in the stock market, and passed their wealth down to their children, there would be tens of thousands of billionaires with inherited fortunes today - but there are none that fit that description on any rich list anywhere in the world. This is the core puzzle of The Missing Billionaires, and the authors make the case that this isn't the result of poor investment selections, but moreso poor investment sizing. This book introduced me to plenty of new ideas around portfolio theory, but is it going to change my investment behaviour? Probably not.

3/5

In the first of six essays, George Orwell muses on the cost of reading measured against other forms of entertainment, estimating that he spends substantially more on drinking and smoking each year than he does buying books. The other five essays are on completely unrelated topics. For me, the best part of reading anything Orwell is his descriptions of people, for example: "One of them, I remember, was a wretched drivelling little creature, almost an albino, peering upwards out of weak eyes, with a long nose at the end of which a dewdrop always seemed to be trembling."

3/5

Dopamine is responsible for making us want things. Modern life gives us access to highly dopaminergic activities more easily than we've evolved to handle. The body works to achieve homeostasis, therefore too much weight on the 'pleasure' end of the see-saw leads to your body applying weight to the 'pain' side to balance things out. This also works in reverse. A good introduction to addiction and the science of motivation. Moralistic undertones.

3/5

A short history of the five major (pre-human) extinction events, followed by an argument that the Anthropocene constitutes a sixth. This book introduced me to the concept of New Pangaea, whereby the ease of moving plants and animals around the world (on purpose and accidentally) has the same effect as reassembling Pangaea. Pairs well with Guns, Germs and Steel.

3/5

A PolyMatter video (linked in notes) on China's impending demographic collapse got me interested in the topic, and this is a good introduction through a New Zealand lens. Key areas of discussion here are immigration, housing intensification, elder care and welfare. Good for building a base of understanding, not good for familiarising yourself with any potential solutions as none are presented.

3/5

Cal Newport is an author I'll happily break my 'no new books' rule for, but this one was a let down. The big ideas are good (do fewer things, work at a natural pace, obsess over quality), but there's not a lot new here if you've read his previous books. The examples he used throughout the book skewed heavily toward writers and musicians which while interesting, isn't super relatable.

3/5

More information on citrus than I thought I'd ever need, but reading this while travelling Italy made it interesting. Seeing the Medici's weird citrus collection in the Boboli Gardens became an unexpected highlight for me on the trip.

3/5

Josef K. is arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. I thoroughly enjoyed The Metamorphosis and In The Penal Colony, but The Trial didn't hit as hard. Still a disturbing and disorientating read if that's your thing, but I'd read the other two first.

3/5

The story of the Kelly Criterion, potentially a dry topic, but the author does a great job of weaving the story together into a sort of true-crime page-turner. The story involves the Mafia, Bell Labs, Claude Shannon (the father of information theory), hedge funds and counting cards in Vegas. In some ways it's a good counterpart to The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

3/5

Prior to reading my knowledge of the Russo-Ukranian war was limited to news snippets. This was a very accessible entry into how a modern war is fought, and how and why other countries have responded the way they have. Interesting look into the logistics of staging a war, an explanation of Classical vs. Total War, and a look at the Russian propaganda machine in action. The latter is particularly interesting after reading Once Upon A Time In Russia and Freezing Order.