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Five Books to Feed Your Mind
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." -Frederick Douglass
Matt Karamazov
June 29, 2023 ā¢ Estimated Reading Time: 39 minutes
šHey, good evening!
First off, let's welcome all the new people who joined us since last time!
There are 2,143 of us in total now.
Thank you (yes, you!) for trusting me to bring you the absolute best book recommendations I can each and every week!
As always, these are long emails full of great books and tons of cool surprises.
But I never expect that everyone will be interested in every single thing I publish.
So, feel free to jump around and dive into whatever does interest you!
Today we've got...
An introduction to today's "5 Books"
The book quote of the week
My personal news, and the best of what I'm reading and sharing right now
Two online creator friends of mine you need to know about
Three of my favorite newsletters that I always open
A new book alert: featuring a book thatās virtually guaranteed to help you live longer
The latest book breakdown from the Stairway to Wisdom
Publication bias and why negative results donāt get published in research journals
My Monthly Reading Recap, featuring the one book I canāt stop recommending to everyone who will listen
Why āachievingā failure is the key to success
Learning this about FREEDOM and DISCIPLINE changed my life
My top 5 book recommendations this week
A special gift for reading all the way to the end
In one sentenceā¦
Make Time is one of the best time management/productivity books out there, and it comes with 87 different tactics you can use to get the most minutes out of your day and the most meaning out of your life.
The Therapy of Desire is a philosophy book thatās a little bit harder than most books, but well worth it, as itās about the forces that shape our desires, what different philosophical schools have to say about what we āshouldā want, and how to ādesignā your own desires so they serve you better.
Discipline is Destiny is a fantastic book about self-discipline, and Ryan Holiday uses historical case studies of people who either had it or didnāt to show how itās one of the crucial ingredients in either success or failure.
Dune is one of the most famous science fiction books of all time, about an international empire, divided into Houses, all fighting to control an incredibly rich planet that contains the only supply of āspice,ā the main substance that makes space travel possible.
The Gutenberg Elegies is a wonderful book about books and the decline of reading in the digital age - although it was written in 1994, so evidently people have been complaining about this for a while!
Here in this email are summaries of each book, along with a sample of my best notes, and if you want my complete set of notes on these books, you can find them on my Patreon .
Pro Learning Tip:
Getting a membership to Medium is one of the best investments I've ever made in my continuing education. The quality of the writing on Medium is superb, and some of the smartest, most interesting thinkers publish there regularly.
āStuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.ā
1) The first month of the Charity Reading Challenge is almost over!
Weāve raised $90 so far for the childrenās education charity, First Book, and Iām hoping to at least double that next month!
Iād like to thank the following people by name for giving generously to this great cause:
Cindy Heine, Richard Hazlitt, Rene, and Jim Tremaine! You guys rock!
This will be an ongoing challenge and you donāt have to donate or anything in order to participate.
Itās open to everyone - and please share this Reading Challenge if you know some people who might like to take part - and if youād like to donate to First Book, theyād appreciate it a lot!
I mentioned how I was going to finish reading Sapiens this month, along with 8 other books and 1 audiobook. Wellā¦
I have 2 days to finish 400 pages of Sapiens, soā¦thatās probably not going to happen!
But I finished the audiobook and 7 other books, and Iām close to finishing a few more, so itāll be close!
What are you guys reading?
Either reply to this email and let me know, or go to the Challenge page and leave a comment there!
Happy reading!
2) A few great books that I'm reading right now are Do It Today, by Darius Foroux, Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, and Life Force, by Tony Robbins .
I'm also listening to You Owe You, by Eric Thomas on Audible. Itās read by him, which makes sense, given that heās a motivational SPEAKER for a living! His story is also hella inspiring and Iāll pick up basically any book he comes out with.
Nowadays, I listen to about 3-4 audiobooks a month, and I always listen to them on Audible. No other audiobook service even compares. You can also get a 30-day free trial right here .
You know I love to support new and old friends of mine who are doing awesome things (or simply amazing people I've stumbled upon around the internet), and so hereās someone you should know about:
1) First up is my good Twitter friend Gustas Varnagys, who helps people unlock their potential and cultivate mindful discipline (you can see why Iām a big fan of this guy).
Gustas is a big time reader with excellent taste in books, and heās seriously one of the coolest people Iāve met on Twitter so far this year.
I think heās doing fantastic work, and although he doesnāt have a newsletter yet, he is starting one, and so until then you can follow him for tweets about personal growth, audience building, and creating lasting change.
2) Next up is Charlie Becker, whose phenomenal post, Making, Not Finding, Your Way, I read while researching my breakdown of The Pathless Path, by Paul Millerd.
He also writes a Substack newsletter called Castles in the Sky, where he delivers a weekly dose of truth, beauty, and humor to combat intellectual loneliness and existential boredom.
Castle in the Sky is a metaphor for experiencing a new idea so powerful that it changes the way you see the world, and reading Beckerās work might just do that for you.
You can follow him on Twitter, read Castles in the Sky, or both!
Do you know someone I should know?
Iām always looking to connect with accomplished, inspirational, and good-hearted people who share the same interests that I doā¦especially books!
So if you have a favorite author, influencer, creator, etc. that you think I might love to meet (and maybe feature here), let me know! You can just hit reply to this email anytime and tell me about them. Thanks!
š Alex and Books Newsletter: Become smarter, happier, and wiser with 5-minute book summaries. Plus advice on how to develop a reading habit, become a better reader, & more.
š Sahil Bloomās Curiosity Chronicle: Join 400,000+ others who receive the 2x weekly newsletter, where Sahil provides actionable ideas to help you build a high-performing, healthy, wealthy life.
š The Imperfectionist: Oliver Burkemanās twice-monthly email on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment.
Iām a little late to the party on this one - this book came out in March - but if you enjoy being alive and want to do it for a few more years, this is one book you may want to read before itās too late!
Hereās what Amazon has to say about it:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ā¢ A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert.
āOne of the most important books youāll ever read.āāSteven D. Levitt, New York Times bestselling author of Freakonomics
Wouldnāt you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.
For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimerās disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.
This is not ābiohacking,ā itās science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attiaās aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:
ā¢ Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesnāt tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
ā¢ That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
ā¢ Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity ādrugāāand how to begin training for the āCentenarian Decathlon.ā
ā¢ Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
ā¢ Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.
Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.
"I want to see people live the lives they are capable of, not just the ones they think they are allowed to live."
The chances of a perfect life path being successfully scripted for you by someone else are precisely zero. We exist in a community of others, but individually, we are completely alone and our lives are up to us.
More than that, we have the opportunity - the ability - to curate our own reality every moment, and by definition, no one can do this for us. We think that the meaning of life is "out there" and that we have to find out what it is. When in reality, it is Life that asks us the questions, and how we live is our answer.
In the same way, Paul Millerd doesn't have any answers. There are no hacks or step-by-step formulas in this book, no mandatory reading lists, and no milestones you have to hit in order to live a meaningful life.
Instead, The Pathless Path is about the invisible scripts that shepherd us into prescribed modes of living and being in the world; it's about freedom and creativity; it's about money, meaning, and work; and it's about being fearlessly, unapologetically yourself, in a world that shouts back, "You can't do that!"
It's also about going somewhere, but not following anything. Getting lost, and finding yourself. Leaving, but never arriving.
The default path - doing what everyone is doing, living the same day, week, month, and year that everyone else is living over and over again - used to work for most people. But this future that we're building together is not a default future. We have so many more options and opportunities - possibilities for our lives that we can explore and take to their logical conclusions. The default path is dying away, and we have to come to terms with our own freedom and what we want to do with it.
I mean, here you are, the universe's most spectacular creation, and you're just kinda getting by. Living a "good enough" life, surviving day to day, coasting through a default world you never made.
The Pathless Path is Paul Millerd's answer to the question of what makes meaningful work and what we might aspire to in our lives. But you and I can never be Paul Millerd. His life is taken. You can only be yourself, and I can only be myself. The pathless path is narrow, wide enough for only one person. You.
In the world of academic research, publication bias occurs when "the outcome of an experiment or research study biases the decision to publish or otherwise distribute it."
That means that researchers sometimes opt not to publish the results of their studies if the experiment turns out differently than expected or doesn't find anything at all.
Apparently, papers with statistically significant results are three times more likely to be published than those with null results, which unduly motivates researchers to manipulate their findings or otherwise work to ensure statistically significant results, regardless of their initial findings.
Needless to say, this is a...problem.
You can see a version of this problem with research on smoking funded by cigarette companies going unpublished. That's a more extreme manifestation of publication bias, of course, but you can understand why researchers wouldn't want to go through with publishing an entire paper saying that they didn't actually find anything.
Further Reading: The Stairway to Wisdom
Note: This is a sample from my other newsletter, Stairway to Wisdom. Along with the book breakdowns, you get a premium weekly newsletter packed with insights and ideas like this one. Get your 14-day free trial right here .
š I Push This Book Into Someone's Hands at LEAST Once a Day (Plus 4 Other Books I Read Last Month)
Here is my Monthly Reading Recap, where I talk about the 5 books I read in June of 2023, including one classic-in-the-making called The Pathless Path, which questions the very meaning of work and its place in our lives.
I also talk about Message from the Middle of Nowhere, an incredible book about sales, business, character development, and more...it's even somewhat of a TRAVEL book, and shortly after reading it I made plans to head to Iceland!
You'll get the full story in the video above.
There's also an AMAZING leadership book in here (Book #5) and it's one that I think EVERY SINGLE PERSON should read.
Have you read any of these books before? Let me know! I read every comment.
Even though I had just achieved muscular failure performing the squat (thatās when you physically, LITERALLY CANNOT perform another rep, not when āyouā want to stop), I still had to do the same thing with the linear leg press, leg extensions, leg curls, and seated calf raises, before moving on to decline sit-ups and a final half-hour of walking cardio.
Yea, Wednesdays suck.
But Iām standing there with my legs on fire and Iām thinking:
āNo one else is doing this.
Not only is there no one else here (I mean, it WAS midnight after all), but virtually no one else in the entire world is willing to put in THIS MUCH EFFORT to win; theyāre not willing to go through THIS MUCH PAIN; and theyāre not willing to do this for as many DECADES as IāM willing to do this for.
This is f***ing NORMAL for me, and thatās why I win.ā
This mindset wasnāt an accident, and Iām also not just referring to what it does for me in the gym.
This is my daily, 16-hours-a-day attitude, and itās a major reason why Iāve moved so far ahead in life and why most people will never catch up to me.
Adopting it will set YOU apart as well if thatās something you want for yourself.
If I could shake everyone on Earth by the shoulders and deliver one essential message, it might be this.
Understanding this puts you ahead of literally 98% of people on this planet who will ALWAYS take the easy way out, believing that it saves them from experiencing pain and frustration, and who donāt realize that that pain and frustration is GATHERING STRENGTH and will hit them harder and faster later on.
Discipline yourself now or become a slave later. Discipline yourself while itās still under your control, or wait until itās NOT your choice later on. [Read Time: 8 Mins ]
Books are like a handful of silence, and books like Make Time are like an oasis of sanity and calm within the chaos of our busy, ever-accelerating lives.
The authors, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky are two tech innovators with deep domain experience and expertise who recently made the shift from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.
They've also spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines and engaging thoughtfully with the deeper questions of the proper role of technology in our lives, and the end result is this book.
Make Time presents a dead-simple, 4-step system for setting daily targets, improving focus, eliminating distractions, optimizing energy, and reflecting on what works for you and what doesn't so that you can begin to design your days and become the intentional architect of your own life.
Jake and John also identify two primary obstacles to deep focus and daily joy, which they refer to as Infinity Pools and the Busy Bandwagon.
Briefly, something is an Infinity Pool if you can scroll or refresh at any time to access a virtually infinite reservoir of new and stimulating content that's designed to constantly pull you away from your most important work. Think YouTube, Gmail, Netflix, etc.
The Busy Bandwagon refers to the always-on, go-go-go ethos of relentless productivity and 24/7/365 access to your mind by anyone who wants you to place their priorities ahead of your own. Demanding bosses, unrealistic expectations of coworkers, the treadmill of email, etc.
Make Time isn't supposed to be a complete diagnosis and cure for the state of distraction in the world today - it's just supposed to help you make some time for the things that are actually important to you and to bring more joy into your work and your life. And at that task, the book succeeds beautifully.
Alongside the 4-step strategy for making time, the authors include 87 different tactics that will actually help you do that!
The whole book feels like a conversation between the two of them and the reader - like the person reading it is a really terrific friend of theirs that the authors want to see succeed and be happy.
Gaining distance from your defaults is going to be one of the greatest benefits that this book will give you. It's also uniquely difficult to do, because, by definition, defaults are basically habits. They're automatic, and so we need a consciously-chosen system for changing those defaults.
Make Time is that system; Jake and John are your friendly and knowledgeable guides, and freedom is about to become your new normal.
āThe first step is choosing a single highlight to prioritize in your day. Next, you'll employ specific tactics to stay laser-focused on that highlight. Throughout the day, you'll build energy so you can stay in control of your time and attention. Finally, you'll reflect on the day with a few simple notes."
***
āWhen you schedule something, you're making a commitment to yourself, sending yourself a tiny message that says: 'I'm going to do this.'"
***
āWorking till exhaustion makes us more likely to fall behind by robbing us of the rest we need to prioritize and do our best work. Trying to cram in just one more thing is like driving a car that is running out of gas: No matter how long you keep your foot on the accelerator, if the tank is empty, you aren't going anywhere."
***
āIn reality, a structured day creates freedom. When you don't have a plan, you have to decide constantly what to do next, and you might get distracted thinking about all the things you should or could do.
But a completely planned day provides the freedom to focus on the moment. Instead of thinking about what to do next, you're free to focus on how to do it. You can be in the flow, trusting the plan set out by your past self."
For those of you not opposed to a little bit of cognitive exertion, hereās another brilliant book by Martha Nussbaum. Among contemporary philosophers, she continues to be near the top of my list of people whose books make my life - and my thinking - demonstrably better.
She just absolutely floors me with her academic credentials, combined with her obvious passion for justice and the overall flourishing of every single member of the human race. I can tell that she cares about me, even though sheās never met me, and youāll find that she cares about you too.
Whatās also impressive is her commitment to finding the right answer, not just ābeing right.ā She doesnāt care whether sheās had the right answer all along, or if her views are corrected and improved by others; all sheās interested in is helping human beings not to suffer. She is, in short, a hero.
In The Therapy of Desire, she examines the medical model of philosophy, based on the work of famous Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics, all of whom prized the kind of philosophy concerned with real beneficial effects out there in the world, the kind which improved the lives of real people in real time, instead of the more academic philosophy practiced today.
Essentially, the thinkers she discusses believe that any philosophy that doesnāt alleviate human suffering isnāt worthy of the name. Same as medicine which doesnāt cure whatās wrong with the body should never be called medicine.
This book also put into words something that Iāve often felt previously, namely that the value of each individual human life is infinite. The implication, of course, is that there is nothing that any of us have to ādoā in order to become worthy of unconditional positive regard (in Rogerian terms) and nothing that we have to ābecomeā in order to be persons of absolute value in the universe. In that respect and several others, this book changed my life.
āThe complexity of adult emotions is made even more complex by virtue of the fact that many of them have infantile emotions embedded in them. If we donāt appreciate the way in which the fear and longing of the child survive in the adult, we lack, as well, a good understanding of why many adult emotions prove so recalcitrant to rational persuasion.ā
***
"At present I do not even accept cosmopolitanism as a fully correct comprehensive ethical view, since I think it gives too little space for a non-derivative loyalty to family, friends, loved ones, even nation. I have changed my mind on this point. Without such attachments, life becomes empty of urgency and personal meaning."
***
āGods are, as Heraclitus observed, in a paradoxical way finite; for they are dead to, closed off from, the value that we see, the beauty that delights us. Closed off from the struggle to do good work inside the constraints of a finite human life."
***
āBecause the damages caused by anger and hatred in public life cannot be addressed by philosophy alone, the authorās proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Amnesty International.ā
Self-discipline has traditionally been a hard sell. Self-indulgence, quick dopamine hits, and having a good time have been winning the marketing battle lately, similar to the "battle" between chocolate and asparagus. Or between reality television and educational documentaries.
But what if the problem is simply that we've been thinking about self-discipline in entirely the wrong way?
Up until now, self-discipline may have been the equivalent of a Henry James novel in a TikTok world. But Ryan Holiday's book, Discipline is Destiny, will have you reimagining the whole concept in a much more liberating, fulfilling way.
His aim is to teach you how to harness the powers of self-discipline to fulfill your personal destiny. While everyone's destiny is fundamentally different, everyone's destiny is the product of self-discipline. Your habits shape your character, and your character shapes your destiny, and so Ryan's book goes right to the root and gives you the physical, mental, and emotional skillsets for success.
In the final analysis, self-discipline is prescriptive. It will show you your future. Your environment, actions, habits, and mindsets are constantly shaping your destiny, and this book will show you how to guide this process more intelligently.
This involves thinking of self-discipline in the "proper" way: not as a punishment, as self-deprivation, but as it really is: a pathway to even greater freedom.
Some days will be hard. Actually, that's not true...many days will be hard. The hard days will outnumber the easy ones, but the meaningful days will also outnumber the meaningless ones. Living this way won't always be easy, but it will always be worth it.
āAt the core of this idea of self-mastery is an instinctive reaction against anything that masters us. Who can be free when they have lost, as one addiction specialist put it, āthe freedom to abstain?āā
***
āThink about it: Most people donāt even show up. Of the people who do, most donāt really push themselves. So to show up and be disciplined about daily improvement? You are the rarest of the rare.ā
***
āThe good news is that because itās hard, most people donāt do it. They donāt show up. They canāt even do one tiny thing a day. So yes, youāre alone, out there on the track in the rain. Youāre the only one responding on Christmas. But having the lead is, by definition, a little lonely. This is also why itās quiet in the morning. You have the opportunities all to yourself.ā
***
āThe cost is not just personal but shared by us all, in symphonies never written, feats never accomplished, in good never done, the potential of an ordinary day never fulfilled.ā
āI must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.ā
***
āThis Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to menās lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.ā
***
āYou cannot back into the future.ā
***
āThe people who can destroy a thing, they control it.ā
This is quite an old book about how āno one reads books anymore now that the world is moving so fast.ā Which is funny, because this one came out in like, 1994. And I read it on my iPhone!
I quite liked it, though, especially the more autobiographical parts about Birkerts working in bookstores as a young man, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, until he went all-in on books and became a writer.
Thematically, itās about slowness, deep reading, and the benefits of contemplation ā all themes that I am interested in and believe are important ā but I donāt get the āalarmistā stuff about the ādecline of readingā and so on. I mean, maybe? But plenty of people read today (not enough, but plenty), and some parts of this book can come off as a bit whiny.
All in all, though, Iām glad I read it, and some of the notes I was able to take were really, really cool. Maybe the fact that I doubled up on my use of the word āreallyā points to some downward trajectory of the written English language? I donāt think so.
āI speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle.ā
***
āIt is easy enough in retrospect to see a book as a screen, a shield, an escape, but at the time there was just the magic ā the startling and renewable discovery that a page covered with black markings could, with a slight mental exertion, be converted into an environment, an inward depth populated with characters and animated by diverse excitements.
A world inside the world, secret and concealable. A world that I could carry about as a private resonance, a daydream, even when I was not reading. A moveable feast.ā
***
āI observed then and I have confirmed many times since: A book never looks more alluring, more essential, than when it is about to get packed away in a box.ā
***
āThe relative outer tranquillity of reading belies the magnitude of the internal transition.ā
Todayās Five Books on Amazon:
You made it to the end! Congratulations!
You're now among the rarest of the rare.
I mean, that was a lot of books!
But I hope you found something here that looked interesting!
Personally, Iām obsessed with sharing the magic of books and reading, and so I love it when one or more of my book recommendations āhits.ā
Also, if you know someone who might love this newsletter, you can just send them this link!
Or click here to share via Twitter. Thanks!
And if someone forwarded you this email, you can sign up on this page right here.
I also want to thank you for reading this newsletter all the way through to the end and to thank you for real, Iām going to give you a 1-month free trial to the Stairway to Wisdom.
Thatās twice the free trial period that most people get, because people who finish what they start - and have the patience to do a lot of reading - are usually the ones who love the Stairway to Wisdom the most.
Enjoy!
And remember, you can just hit "reply" to this email to ask me a question or offer a book recommendation of your own. I may take a while to respond, but I read every one!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you apply the wisdom found in the greatest books ever written to your life:
Iām going to be leaving some casual spots open for personal coaching, alongside what I do for my monthly clients, and the first choice always goes to the people on my email list.
Simply reply to this email or click here if this is something you're interested in working with me on, and I'll let you know more about it, answer all your questions, etc.
Areas I can help you with include reading more books and remembering more of what you read, growing your business, getting into better shape, and building mental toughness and resilience.
Youāll work 1-1 with me, and together weāll be lining up big breakthroughs for you every single month.I've released 50 complete, in-depth book breakdowns on the Stairway to Wisdom that respects both your time AND your intelligence and will help you become the person you've always known you were capable of being. Read them for free here.
āJoin my free Substack publication, The Competitive Advantage, where I teach high-level, high-impact self-discipline tactics and strategies to help you progress toward your goals.
You'll also join a supportive community of other winners all moving forward together in the direction of where we want to be in life. Join here.
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