DeRae’s Guide To Summer Reading
As Cautious Coffee continues to grow, our goal is to provide more content for our followers to supplement each episode and to challenge your mind. This week, we’re diving into my reading list and current recommendations. One note: You won’t find a self-help book anywhere on this list. Each summary is courtesy of Amazon. Is there anything we should be reading? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don’t sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remained elusive.
An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. Within the brain, sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming mollifies painful memories and creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge to inspire creativity.
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
The human brain may be the best piece of technology ever created, but it’s far from perfect. Drawing on colorful examples and surprising research, neuroscientist Dean Buonomano exposes the blind spots and weaknesses that beset our brains and lead us to make misguided personal, professional, and financial decisions. Whether explaining why we are susceptible to advertisements or demonstrating how false memories are formed, Brain Bugs not only explains the brain’s inherent flaws but also gives us the tools to counteract them.
In this sparkling and provocative book, renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate its surprising mysteries. Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead? Is there a true Mel Gibson? How is your brain like a conflicted democracy engaged in civil war? What do Odysseus and the subprime mortgage meltdown have in common? Why are people whose names begin with J more like to marry other people whose names begin with J? And why is it so difficult to keep a secret?
Taking in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence, and visual illusions, Incognito is a thrilling subsurface exploration of the mind and all its contradictions.
It’s been nearly 25 years since Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad first made waves in the Personal Finance arena. It has since become the #1 Personal Finance book of all time… translated into dozens of languages and sold around the world.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is Robert’s story of growing up with two dads — his real father and the father of his best friend, his rich dad — and the ways in which both men shaped his thoughts about money and investing. The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.
In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.
System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.
Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Topping bestseller lists for almost ten years, Thinking, Fast and Slow is a contemporary classic, an essential book that has changed the lives of millions of readers.
Warren Buffett Wealth follows the world’s greatest investor from the beginning of his career, as he takes a 100-dollar investment and turns it into one of the most successful multibillion-dollar companies in the world. By carefully detailing how Buffett began his career and discussing what he learned from Benjamin Graham, this book reveals the true secrets to Buffett’s success. Readers will see how Buffett reached the pinnacle of his profession by following certain key principles such as investing in old-style traditional American companies, holding the companies forever, and hiring and keeping the same managers.
“Readers with an entrepreneurial turn of mind will devour The Millionaire Mind because it provides road maps on how millionaires found their niches.” After its first publication, Dr. Thomas J. Stanley’s second best-seller The Millionaire Mind spent over four months on the New York Times best-seller list, rising to position #2, and has sold over half a million copies. Here is the first paperback edition of Stanley’s second groundbreaking study of America’s wealthy.The Millionaire Mind targets a population of millionaires who have accumulated substantial wealth and live in ways that openly demonstrate their affluence. Exploring the ideas, beliefs, and behaviors that enabled these millionaires to build and maintain their fortunes, Dr. Stanley provides a fascinating look at who America’s financial elite are and how they got there.
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