r/nonfictionbookclub

So basically I've created a reading list using gpt and some other ai for my upcoming future for accordance to my interests and things i wanna learn so look at em suggest any corrections if needed

🧠 Psychology, Thinking & Self-Development

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman

2. Antifragile — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

3. Thinking in Systems — Donella Meadows

4. The Scout Mindset — Julia Galef

5. Superforecasting — Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner

6. Make It Stick — Brown, Roediger & McDaniel

7. The Willpower Instinct — Kelly McGonigal

8. So Good They Can't Ignore You — Cal Newport

💰 Money & Personal Finance

9. The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel

10. The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins

11. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing — John C. Bogle

12. A Random Walk Down Wall Street — Burton Malkiel

13. The Intelligent Investor — Benjamin Graham

14. The Millionaire Next Door — Thomas Stanley & William Danko

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Human Behavior & Society

15. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) — Tavris & Aronson

16. Behave — Robert Sapolsky

17. The Righteous Mind — Jonathan Haidt

18. The Blank Slate — Steven Pinker

19. Games People Play — Eric Berne

20. Models — Mark Manson

21. The Status Game — Will Storr

🗣️ Communication, Arguments & Creativity

22. Influence — Robert Cialdini

23. Thank You for Arguing — Jay Heinrichs

24. A Rulebook for Arguments — Anthony Weston

25. Rhetoric — Aristotle

26. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamott

27. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information — Edward Tufte

28. Nonviolent Communication — Marshall Rosenberg

29. Steal Like an Artist — Austin Kleon

🏛️ Philosophy

30. Apology & Crito — Plato

31. The Republic — Plato

32. Nicomachean Ethics — Aristotle

33. Meditations — Marcus Aurelius

34. Enchiridion — Epictetus

35. Letters from a Stoic — Seneca

36. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals — Kant

37. On Liberty — John Stuart Mill

38. The Social Contract — Rousseau

39. Fear and Trembling — Kierkegaard

40. The World as Will and Representation — Schopenhauer

41. Thus Spoke Zarathustra — Nietzsche

42. The Myth of Sisyphus — Camus

43. Existentialism Is a Humanism — Sartre

44. The Art of War — Sun Tzu

📖 Literature

45. The Death of Ivan Ilyich — Tolstoy

46. The Stranger — Camus

47. Crime and Punishment — Dostoevsky

48. The Trial — Kafka

49. 1984 — Orwell

50. Dubliners — James Joyce

51. Small Things Like These — Claire Keegan

52. Amongst Women — John McGahern

53. The King in Yellow — Robert W. Chambers

🔬 Science & Scientific Thinking

54. The Demon-Haunted World — Carl Sagan

55. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — Thomas Kuhn

56. The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins

57. A Short History of Nearly Everything — Bill Bryson

🌍 History & Civilization

58. Sapiens — Yuval Noah Harari

59. Guns, Germs, and Steel — Jared Diamond

60. Silk Roads — Peter Frankopan

🧠 Meaning & Psychology of Existence

61. Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl

62. The Hero with a Thousand Faces — Joseph Campbell

💻 Technology & Business

63. The Innovators — Walter Isaacson

64. Life 3.0 — Max Tegmark

65. Zero to One — Peter Thiel

66. The Lean Startup — Eric Ries

♟️ Strategy

67. Principles — Ray Dalio

68. Competitive Strategy — Michael Porter

🎲 Risk, Uncertainty & Economics

69. Fooled by Randomness — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

70. The Undercover Economist — Tim Harford

Total: 70 books.

It’s not just reading, but reading with understanding, absorbing the content, and making it your own that makes you a friend of books.

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I remember reading a book when I was in middle school about 18 years ago that would talk about different evil people throughout history! From vlad the impaler to H.H Holmes it was full of illustration and felt like it was more of a picture book than a full novel. Does anyone else know what book im looking for?

Back in 2012 I was 22, working two jobs, finishing my degree, and running on pure anxiety. I lived in a tiny apartment and felt like I was constantly performing just to keep everything from falling apart.

One night in the library I found a stapled, binder-clipped manuscript left on a desk. No cover. No title page. No author. Just an opening line that hit me like a brick:

“You are not exhausted because you are doing too much. You are exhausted because you’re performing a version of yourself designed to keep everyone else comfortable.”

I sat there and read all ~90 pages in one sitting.

It wasn’t gentle self-care advice. It was a cold, precise breakdown of how people turn “being useful” into a survival strategy. How we absorb other people’s emotional labor, abandon our own boundaries, and sabotage ourselves to avoid conflict — all so we can feel safe.

That manuscript forced me to set real boundaries for the first time. I quit over-committing. I left a toxic relationship. I stopped trying to be everyone’s emotional support system.

A few years later, during a cross-country move, the physical copy was lost in a box of old textbooks. I told myself it didn’t matter. I thought I had already fixed the patterns.

That was the trap.

The manuscript had explicitly warned that understanding a coping mechanism is not the same as dismantling it. It said the old survival instincts would eventually come back wearing a different mask.

And they did.

In my late 20s and early 30s the same patterns returned, just rebranded as “being a team player” and “keeping the peace.” I took on everyone’s stress at work. I stayed in a dead-end job because I was terrified of failing. I poured everything into a partner who gave almost nothing back.

By 34 I was burnt out, clinically anxious, and completely hollowed out living the exact life of self-erasure the manuscript had described more than a decade earlier.

For years I searched old forums, self-help blogs, and out-of-print lists looking for any trace of those pages. Nothing.

Then last week I was reading a thread about habit loops and someone mentioned hyper-independence as a trauma response designed to make sure no one can ever disappoint you as badly as you were disappointed as a child.

Those were almost the exact words I remembered.

I messaged the poster. They said it came from a book called Banned Blueprint by Nolan Steele.

I tracked it down. It was the same text.

Reading it again at 36 felt completely different. At 22 I used it to try to gain control. At 36, after years of burning myself out managing other people’s expectations, I finally understood what it had actually been warning me about.

If you’re currently carrying everyone else’s weight and pretending you’re fine, don’t just read it.

Actually do the work it asks for.

Im a new mom, Berkeley educated, and I run in very high net worth circles with my husband who owns a jet business.

I’d like to feel more “in the know” about AI, world markets, the like— for my son’s future & for my social circles.

Let me know if anything comes to mind. As I also am a bit anxious AI suggested The Age of Magical Overthinking (but saw it had bad reviews), The Thinking Machine, and Chip Wars. Anyone second or detest these?

Ever since I was a kid, I was very kuch fascinated by the idea that if you work hard, put in your reps, have the discipline and never quit you will eventually achieve your goals. Although, there is some truth to that and we have so many examples out there as a proof but what I never really understood or I would day pay attention to is how could you achieve like huge dreams and huge goals all my yourself? You need people to surround you with, you need to be present for those opportunities, you need to be surrounded by right frame of mindset people to get to the next level. And no wonder I got all my answers after reading this masterpiece. There were so many smarter and hard working people than gates to jobs but only gates made to that level or jobs did. It is not only because they were smart, hard worker and disciplined but also they had the right environment, right opportunities and were present in the right place at right time.

Love to know your thoughts if you have ever gone through this masterpiece.

This looks like an interesting convo, plus looks like you get a free copy of the book when you sign up.

I’m a beginner when it comes to nonfiction. Most of my life, I’ve been reading science fiction/fantasy/adventure. Lately, I read Humankind by Rutger Bregman, and I really enjoyed it. In the past, I’ve read some nonfiction books, mostly related to World War II (I’m Polish). Do you have any recommendations for a rookie? Maybe some must-read books or your favorite in this genre?

Can you recommend some books?

I’m finding myself nodding along to everything I’m reading lately and worry I’ve fallen into an echo chamber. I’m not looking for something by an influencer/grifter but something from a conservative academic or (actual) journalist. Recent nodding along books:

There is no place for us (about working homeless families)
The price of mercy (a public defenders rather depressing view of the justice system)
Blind spot (billionaires pick the candidates we vote for so is it even a democracy?)

One morning I was standing on my house's varanda when I zoned out with no thoughts, just staring at a rainy day. There was an empty two-storey building across from my house that has been abandoned. The building was covered in debris, bushes, plants, and a variety of insects, including snakes. Many people have lived in their homes for years and at some point, the choice to leave those places becomes clear. But then I looked at a flower that had shades of pale pink to dark pink and it had a beautiful contrasting center that was thriving in full sun and partial shade and the soil it was in drained well and the flower was getting moderate amounts of water. It is commonly known as 'Sadabahar'. This flower was living fine, all alone, in an abandoned building. No one has tended to this flower, and yet it is doing well on its own. The question was why was it doing so well? Then I thought back to a person I used to know long ago. When I thought about that person, I could not help but picture that flower.

He was a man I grew up with and have known since our youth; he was tall with a very strong built, muscular body with hands full of veins and looked strong even from a distance. Until that day, I did not realize how beautiful he had grown to be like that flower.

I was unaware of the circumstances surrounding your growth and what nutrients were provided by the soil, if it was a favorable environment for you to continue to exist in. All I could see was how well you presented yourself to me, how attractive, humorous, lovable you were. It's clear now that I was very surface-oriented with respect to my view on you from the beginning. I may not have been a good enough friend to you as much as I had thought I was, had, and could have been, if I had been able to understand your suffering a little more. I wish I could have been able to see that you were suffering; I feel that I would have been able to help you if I had. This guilt that I was not good enough for you will consume me.

I am dying, my dear. My memory continues to deteriorate and becomes more and more burdensome each day. I fear that one day I will forget you entirely, so I try to remind myself of you daily, in any way I can. I never intended to pry into your life, but I did, more so to be closer to you. However, you pushed me away by saying hurtful things to me. You attempted to escape my grasp on numerous occasions, yet I still hold you tight.

I am very fond of you. I am sincere when I say that to you. I have always thought of you as a mentally strong person who gets things done regardless of the toll it takes on you. You would get me chocolates when you did not have money. You love me unconditionally, but I love you even more(ehee). I could never love anyone as much as I love you because the day you left was the last time my heart and brain were connected emotionally. I was always very forthright with you about my feelings, but I just never wanted to share my feelings with anyone else. For me, it would have been acceptable to keep my feelings to myself. I do not know why I all of a sudden started to forget about my feelings for you, but now I am starting to write down everything that goes through my head. In fact, I do not think I am as strong as you believe I am. Perhaps I have been paying the price for holding everything in my head.

I look to the moon, stars, and sky. It has been an inspiration for me that reminds me of the times spent with you in a good way. I looked back and thought about how much I wish we had more experiences like this. I miss being with you and feel comfortable knowing we were meant to be together in this life. Your happiness and health are what I wish for you in all your future endeavors.

I have only found joy in my heart for you, even if it was a short time.

>P.S I hope you read this someday soon.

I have no idea what inspired me to pick up this title, a 1922 polemic by a famous theologian and mystery writer, written when the science of Eugenics was at its peak in popularity among intellectuals left and right. It has become one of the most legendary blind pulls of my life. It is stunningly intelligent and moving, and ranges from it's main subject to discuss the economics and politics of them time in a succinct way; but I didn't come here to sum up its argument. I came here to say that it repeatedly made me laugh out loud; Chesterton is devastating to his enemies.

>Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them "The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females"; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them "Murder your mother," and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same. Say to them "It is not improbable that a period may arrive when the narrow if once useful distinction between the anthropoid homo and the other animals, which has been modified on so many moral points, may be modified also even in regard to the important question of the extension of human diet"; say this to them, and beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into their face. But say to them, in a simple, manly, hearty way "Let's eat a man!" and their surprise is quite surprising.

>The modern evil, we have said, greatly turns on this: that people do not see that the exception proves the rule. Thus it may or may not be right to kill a murderer; but it can only conceivably be right to kill a murderer because it is wrong to kill a man. If the hangman, having got his hand in, proceeded to hang friends and relatives to his taste and fancy, he would (intellectually) unhang the first man, though the first man might not think so.

(about incest)

>Dr. S.R. Steinmetz, with that creepy simplicity of mind with which the Eugenists chill the blood, remarks that "we do not yet know quite certainly" what were "the motives for the horror of" that horrible thing which is the agony of Œdipus. With entirely amiable intention, I ask Dr. S.R. Steinmetz to speak for himself. I know the motives for regarding a mother or sister as separate from other women; nor have I reached them by any curious researches.

(about the feeble-minded bill)

>Indeed, the first definition of "feeble-minded" in the Bill was much looser and vaguer than the phrase "feeble-minded" itself. It is a piece of yawning idiocy about "persons who though capable of earning their living under favourable circumstances" (as if anyone could earn his living if circumstances were directly unfavourable to his doing so), are nevertheless "incapable of managing their affairs with proper prudence"; which is exactly what all the world and his wife are saying about their neighbours all over this planet.

(more about the feeble-minded bill)

>Then there are others whom I may call the Precedenters; who flourish particularly in Parliament. They are best represented by the solemn official who said the other day that he could not understand the clamour against the Feeble-Minded Bill, as it only extended the principles of the old Lunacy Laws. To which again one can only answer "Quite so. It only extends the principles of the Lunacy Laws to persons without a trace of lunacy." This lucid politician finds an old law, let us say, about keeping lepers in quarantine. He simply alters the word "lepers" to "long-nosed people," and says blandly that the principle is the same.

(contrasting the treatment of serfs under feudalism with contemporary treatment of the homeless)

>If it be answered that he can go to the workhouse, I reply that such an answer is founded on confused thinking. It is true that he is free to go to the workhouse, but only in the same sense in which he is free to go to jail, only in the same sense in which the serf under the gibbet was free to find peace in the grave. Many of the poor greatly prefer the grave to the workhouse, but that is not at all my argument here. The point is this: that it could not have been the general policy of a lord towards serfs to kill them all like wasps. It could not have been his standing "Advice to Serfs" to say, "Get hanged." It cannot be the standing advice of magistrates to citizens to go to prison. And, precisely as plainly, it cannot be the standing advice of rich men to very poor men to go to the workhouses. For that would mean the rich raising their own poor rates enormously to keep a vast and expensive establishment of slaves. Now it may come to this, as Mr. Belloc maintains, but it is not the theory on which what we call the workhouse does in fact rest. The very shape (and even the very size) of a workhouse express the fact that it was founded for certain quite exceptional human failures—like the lunatic asylum. Say to a man, "Go to the madhouse," and he will say, "Wherein am I mad?" Say to a tramp under a hedge, "Go to the house of exceptional failures," and he will say with equal reason, "I travel because I have no house; I walk because I have no horse; I sleep out because I have no bed. Wherein have I failed?" And he may have the intelligence to add, "Indeed, your worship, if somebody has failed, I think it is not I." I concede, with all due haste, that he might perhaps say "me."

The whole book is like this, though some of the quotes are sort of long and some of them require too much context so I don't want to post the whole thing. But still. Disarmingly clever and easy to read when I was expecting something dry and didactic. Has anyone else read this book, or other of Chesterton's writings?