Last quarter wasn’t a lot of fun when it comes to reading. All the books I read were either mediocre or just disappointing.
In spite of that, I hope my mini book reports on all 4 completed and 2 in progress books will help you choose your next book.
Let’s get started.
Goodreads Rating: 3.96 (500K ratings) Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction
The Art of War if a classic book of military strategy based on Chinese warfare.
I didn’t pick up the book because of my fascination with military strategies, but because of the countless recommendations I got gushing about the book’s application to a person’s everyday life.
I was promised some great teachings that I can use in business, work, and in my general everyday life. However, there was none of that.
The emphasis of the book is strictly on warfare. Even on that topic, in my opinion, the book does not introduce anything new.
It talks about basic concepts, that most likely you have already come across when playing Call of Duty or Fortnight with your friends. Things like — prefer higher ground at war, don’t let your enemies flank you, always know your way out, etc.
I am sure these teachings were ground breaking at the time this book was written.
However, today, the teachings seem to be very rudimentary and hard to apply to other facets of life.
Peronal Goodreads Rating: ⭐ ⭐
Goodreads Rating: 4.27 (1.5M ratings) Genres: Fiction, Horror
The Shining was my second Stephen King book, after reading Billy Summers in 2022. Unfortunately, similar to Billy Summers, it was a disappointment.
Being an avid horror fan, I really wanted to like this book. I am usually a sucker for haunted mansion-themed books, but this book didn’t give me the same feeling.
The biggest issue I had with the book was its predictability. You can see everything coming, quite literally.
Many reviews pointed out the psychological scare aspect of the book, but I couldn’t feel any of it.
I am sure it will be controversial, but the feeling I got when I finished the book could be easily summed up by: predictable, dry, and very long.
Peronal Goodreads Rating: ⭐ ⭐
Goodreads Rating: 3.56 (2K ratings) Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction
Even though I rated Kaizen a lowly 2-stars, it was still better than the first two books I mentioned.
I finished Kaizen in a coffee shop over a weekend.
The book came to me at the perfect time. I was looking to make some significant changes in my personal and professional life. Glancing through my bookshelf for inspiration, Kaizen stuck out. I picked it up, drove to a nearby cafe, and 2 days later, I finished it.
The book was written at a very good pace. Every 10-15 minutes you will come across some digestible piece of information nugget that you can take with you.
The book also tries its best to be actionable. After every chapter there’s a checklist of things for the reader to do. However, some of these tasks require a lot of effort from the reader, so it didn’t work for me.
At this point you might be wondering — why did I rate it 2-stars if I have so many good things to say about the book?
That’s easy — literally all the teachings in the book is some kind of a “rehashing” or “rephrasing” of other self-help books.
If you haven’t read any self-help books, you will learn a lot from this book. If you have read at least one self-help book before, this is not for you, look elsewhere.
Peronal Goodreads Rating: ⭐ ⭐
Goodreads Rating: 3.89 (97K ratings) Genres: Nonfiction, History, Adventure
To my plesant surprise, The Lost City of Z was the best book I read in Q2’2024.
I wasn’t even planning to read this book in 2024. A couple of months ago I was randomly scrolling through books in my local bookstsore, when I came across The Lost City of Z.
The book is an adventure narrative about a sensational disappearance of a famous explorer in the Amazon Rainforest.
I learned a great deal about the life of an explorer in the early 20th century, about colonialism and the horror that can happen to someone trekking through the Amazon Rainforest.
It was a very fast read, with some good twists along the way.
I am a huge fan of books like these that help me learn about history through a fast-paced action packed narrative.
Peronal Goodreads Rating: ⭐ ⭐⭐
Overall, it was a very underwhelming 3 months (April, May, June) of reading for me.
On the bright side, the 2 books that rolled over into the third quarter — Quran in English and The Intelligent Investor— have been amazing! I won’t spoil too much for you until I finish both and have something productive to say about them.
If you want to stay connected, here are a few ways you can do so: follow me on Medium or subscribe to my website.