📚 Welcome back to The Reading Life!
The first two books tonight are more for success-oriented, entrepreneurial types (which includes me, of course!), and the third book is a minor classic novel that I thought was a great read, but one that I’d totally understand if you didn’t like it.
The last two though?
Oh man, the last two books on this list embody everything that I love about reading, about books, about living. They’re just spectacular. Both of them.
You’ll see!
A few quick things to pass along too. For one thing, The Reading Life just crossed 11,000 subscribers! So that’s pretty cool! Thank you to everyone who’s read it, shared it, recommended it…everything. I appreciate you!
You might know that I donate $1 each month for every Premium Member of The Reading Life, and with February’s donation we’ve raised $751 for First Book Canada!
So thanks for that, too!
Upgrade to Premium to help support the cause, but also to get a TON of stuff in return as well.
I also owe you guys a Patreon Book Notes update, and that’s coming soon too! I wanted to get them uploaded tonight, but…it’s 11:34PM here and so there’s approximately zero percent chance of that happening!
Aiming for tomorrow on that one.
Here in this newsletter though, I’m sharing my complete notes and summaries of each of the following Five Great Books:
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In This Issue of The Reading Life, We’ve Also Got:
📖 What I’m Currently Reading
📕 Books I’ve Finished This Month
📜 The Book Quote of the Day
🎥 How I Get Paid to Read Books All Day
✍ My Latest Medium Articles
✅ New Book Releases Coming Soon
📚 Tonight’s Five Main Book Recommendations
🏅 Earn Rewards for Referring This Newsletter
Let’s not wait for our coffees to get cold…let’s hit the books!
The Arabian Nights, translated by Richard Burton: Thousands of years later, The Arabian Nights still has a hold on our collective imaginations. Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin, and so many other stories you’d likely recognize in here. It’s just a spectacular read, and the Richard Burton translation is one of the best!
The Library, by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen: My main takeaway from this book so far? Books can be burned, libraries can be destroyed, knowledge can be lost, and wisdom can be forgotten......but reading ALWAYS comes back!
The Library is a history of, well…libraries…and it’s fantastic so far. It traces their history from the earliest collections of printed material, up through the first, most rudimentary book collections, right up through the present day. Highly recommend!
After achieving my (somewhat meaningless) goal of reading 1,000 books before I turned 30, I set a new (also meaningless but cool) goal of reading 10,000 books. As of today, I’ve read exactly 1,464 books, including 10 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
Headway is a book summary app with thousands of titles available, but that’s only the beginning. With personal growth plans, daily micro-learning sessions, curated collections, and more, you can make 2026 your best year ever. And when you sign up through my link, you can get 60% OFF! Check Out Headway 👈
“This book isn’t about being reckless. It’s about understanding when and how to break the rules strategically to create opportunities. Life isn’t a straight path with clear instructions. It’s a maze, and those who succeed aren’t the ones who wait for the main door to open. They’re the ones who find a side entrance, carve their own way forward, or knock the whole wall down.”
How I Get Paid to Read Books All Day (And How You Can Too): Yes, I get paid to read books all day. No, it's not an impossible pipe dream.
Yes, I actually make great money now. No, it's not going to happen for you in 6 weeks.
Yes, now is one of the best times to make it happen. No, it's not going to be as easy as you think it will.
Yes, it’s still absolutely worth it, and you should watch this video all the way to the end to learn how I did it and about the mistakes you should avoid! [Watch Time: 6:19]
If you enjoy the video, please consider subscribing to my channel and sharing it with a friend. Cheers!
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: This lost self-help book from 1908 holds the key to owning every hour of your day.
Michael Jordan’s Personal Trainer Wrote This Book to Help You Become RELENTLESS: Read it if you want to leave “average” behind forever.
The 12 Best Business Books I Read in 2025: Including how I’m applying each one to scale my business faster than ever.
REAL Confidence, by Simone Knego: I received an advance copy of this book a short time ago, and it’s wonderful! Highly recommend for anyone who wants to break free from self-sabotage and be able to trust themselves again, and everyone who wants to lead their life with courage, clarity, and self-respect. Expected: February 17th, 2026
Beyond Belief, by Nir Eyal: I’ve read two of Nir’s books so far, and so I’m eagerly awaiting this one, which is about science-backed ways to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results. Naturally, I’ve read plenty of books on the subject already, but I know that I’m going to come away with tons more here that I can use immediately. Expected: March 10th, 2026
Inside the Box, by David Epstein: This is David’s follow-up to his previous book, Range (which I really liked), and it’s about how Limits are the key to stimulating creativity, innovation, and collaboration. Essentially, adding constraints can make us better, and free us to do great work. Expected: May 5th, 2026
Protocols, by Dr. Andrew Huberman: Still a long way to go before this one comes out, but it’ll be an essential guide to improving brain function, enhancing mood and energy, optimizing your health in all kinds of ways, and rewiring your nervous system for high performance and a better life. Expected: September 15th, 2026
The Laws of Money:
The Law of Abundance — There is an ample supply of money for everyone who really wants it and who obeys the laws of cause and effect as they apply to money.
The Law of Exchange — Money is the medium through which people exchange their production of goods and services for the goods and services of others.
The Law of Capital — Your most valuable asset is your physical and mental capital, your earning ability.
The Law of Time Perspective — The most successful people are those who take the longest time period into consideration when making their day-to-day decisions.
The Law of Saving — Financial freedom comes to individuals who save 10 percent or more of their income throughout their lifetime.
The Law of Conservation — It’s not how much you make, but how much you keep that will determine your financial future.
Parkinson’s Law — Expenses always rise to meet income.
The Law of Three — There are three legs to the stool of financial freedom: savings, insurance, and investment.
The Law of Investing — Investigate before you invest. Spend at least as much time studying a particular investment as you do earning the money to put into it.
The Law of Compound Interest — Investing your money carefully and allowing it to grow at compound interest will eventually make you rich.
The Law of Accumulation — Every great financial achievement is an accumulation of hundreds and thousands of small efforts and sacrifices that no one ever sees or appreciates.
The Law of Attraction — As you begin accumulating money, by magnetizing it with the emotion of desire, you will attract even more money to yourself.
The Law of Accelerating Acceleration — As you begin moving toward your goal of financial freedom, it begins moving toward you at an accelerating speed.
Beneath the surface of the everyday, there’s an unseen undercurrent of universal laws and forces that work together to determine the results you experience, what happens to you, and where you end up.
They are always and everywhere at work, much like gravity, and ignorance of these laws is no excuse. They’re quietly and powerfully shaping your destiny, whether you’re aware of them or not.
The great news is that you can learn these laws. You can discover their functions, how they operate, and most importantly, how to control them to stack the probabilities of success in your favor.
That’s what this book is about, and what Brian Tracy has done is compile 148 of these laws - covering areas as diverse as success, achievement, relationships, negotiation, fulfillment, and more - and break down how you can put them to work in your own life. So they’re working for you, rather than against you.
As comprehensive as these Laws are, I’d never suggest that you stop here. Richard Koch has another excellent book called The 80/20 Principle and 92 Other Powerful Laws of Nature, and I’d highly recommend reading that as well (and basically every other great book you can get your hands on).
What I will say, however, is that these Laws represent perhaps the 5 percent of principles and strategies that will lead to 95 percent of your results in life.
They’re not necessarily “secrets,” and they’re certainly not magical - no more magical than the universe itself, I mean. But they’re unbelievably powerful.
“An extraordinary life is won on offense, then preserved on defense.”
This is one business book that I’ve read multiple times, and it was the first to get me to realize that the days of the week aren’t even real.
I mean, no other animal on earth knows the difference between a Monday and a Friday, except for the ones who find themselves chained to desks five days a week.
Unscripted is about escaping the script that society has written for you, and playing the part that you actually want to play instead.
It’s about life, liberty, and the pursuit of entrepreneurship, and about owning 100% of your time, not just the scraps that are thrown to you from what’s left after serving the interests of people who will never truly care about your life more than you do.
I want to be clear about this: some day jobs can be incredibly fulfilling and lucrative. You could love going to work each and every day, and if that’s true, I’m legitimately happy for you! But I’m basically unemployable at this point, and Unscripted was a major part of the reason why.
I used to work for minimum wage, sure, but instead of getting drunk on the weekends to forget Monday-Friday, I craved freedom more than anything, and I ended up developing a taste for it.
So I have nothing against traditional careers, and nothing against working for someone else, commuting, etc. Some people like it. I hated it, and this book was a major piece of my escape plan.
To my credit, I put DeMarco’s advice into action, repeatedly, again and again, no matter how stupid I may have looked to outsiders. It was all part of the learning process. I was willing to look dumb for long enough to become f***ing dangerous.
How fast can you become free? Well that’s one of the many things I love about MJ DeMarco’s books. He’s not selling six-week dreams or mountains of riches without work. The “Fastlane” to success and freedom will take most people 5-10 years.
Compared to the 40+ years most people spend desperately trying to get ahead on more traditional career paths, I was willing to give the Fastlane a shot.
But I also learned something critical relatively quickly: It was that total freedom may be years away when you’re starting from zero, but when you’re headed in that direction and never stop, and when you want to be free more than anything, then you already are.
“Even though Sammy knew I could read him like the top line of an optometrist’s chart, he also knew that he could relax with me because I wasn’t willing or didn’t know how to use him for a ladder the way he used me.”
Published in 1941, this is a classic cautionary tale about ambition, power and greed, set in Hollywood and featuring the ruthless, conniving Sammy Glick.
Glick starts off as a copy boy at a New York newspaper and eventually steps on enough people to become the most powerful movie producer in Hollywood.
The story is told by Al Manheim, who starts off the novel with Glick at the paper in New York and essentially becomes his only friend, as Glick dives deeper into his own narcissism and paranoia.
I should say too that Schulberg’s sentences are what make this book even more memorable. Sharp and surprising and funny at times, he can also string a sentence together that’s a little bit longer but then carries you exactly to where he wants you to go.
I loved this book, and it’s a relatively fast read, so if you have a few hours you may want to check it out!
“One of the things I believe most intensely is that every child’s ‘Why?’ should be answered with care - and respect. If you do not know the answer, and you often will not, then take the child with you to a source to find the answer. This may be a dictionary or encyclopedia which he is too young to use himself, but he will have had a sense of participation in finding the answer.”
Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most inspirational and beloved First Ladies in U.S. Presidential history, and she was 76 years old when she wrote this strikingly beautiful and amazing guide to getting the most out of life.
In this book, she shares her own philosophy for living, her approach to life. As she defines it (and lives it, which are two very different things!), it’s about getting out there and figuring it out as you go along, not sitting back and waiting for the “right time” before taking a step forward in belief.
She very much believed in the truth of the saying that, as you start walking, the path will appear.
She was also one of the kindest, most warmly welcoming First Ladies too, and one story (not from this book) sticks out in my mind.
She was giving a tour of the Oval Office to a class of fifth-graders, and one of the schoolchildren gave her a hand-carved, wooden nameplate for her desk. I haven’t seen a picture of it, but I’m sure the quality was exactly what you’d expect from a fifth-grader.
She held onto it for years. When people asked whether she ever intended to get rid of it, she said that she was keeping it, “In case he comes back.” Yeah! Love that story.
You Learn by Living covers a wide range of subjects like learning how to learn, overcoming fear, time management, resilience, being useful, becoming an individual, getting the best out of other people and taking responsibility for yourself. It’s just a wonderful book in so many ways, and it’s one I’ve always highly recommended!
“And after all, isn’t that what life is all about, the ability to go around back and come up inside other people’s heads to look out at the damned fool miracle and say: oh, so that’s how you see it?! Well, now, I must remember that.”
Ever since having my life changed by Fahrenheit 451, I’ve loved Ray Bradbury and his entire approach to creation. Both little “c” creation and big “C” Creation.
This book is about how he does it, and it’s a collection of essays about the art of writing, capturing and expressing creativity, and making something that people want to read.
It’s “part masterclass, part memoir,” going deep into his creative process and specifically how he created various timeless works of art, one of which being, naturally, Fahrenheit 451. That book was about a futuristic, dystopian society where firemen burned books, and the pages of this book, Zen in the Art of Writing, are on fire as well.
The temperature of Bradbury’s typewriter went up at least thirty degrees as he was writing this, and he’s virtually unmatched in his ability to get the reader to feel something; to be completely immersed in the world that Bradbury laid out on flat paper, then to raise one’s head and realize that the dimensions of the “real world” have changed too. Maybe that was how the world always was, only he had tilted your head slightly to the left. Maybe.
Zen in the Art of Writing is also about writing as a tool of self-revelation. Except, when many people talk about self-knowledge, they’re talking about uncovering the darkest parts of oneself and coming to terms with them.
Whereas, when Ray Bradbury writes about self-revelation, he means the process of uncovering the best parts of yourself and revealing them to the rest of your world through your art.
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 180,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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