--- title: "Bookshelf" description: "Influential books" author: David Jiang url: https://dj.theory-a.com/writing/bookshelf date: 2023-05-15 modified: 2024-11-07 language: en tags: best --- # Bookshelf ## [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.notion.so/dlwjiang/Zen-and-the-Art-of-Motorcycle-Maintenance-17a1d5a408ee4766acabdc1a9f94b3b3?pvs=4) by Robert Pirsig > When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. And even if you do it’s a hollow victory. In order to sustain the victory you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out. That’s never the way. > > When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process ## [Finite and Infinite Games](https://www.notion.so/dlwjiang/Finite-Infinite-Games-ca1cc9549a7249d1bd3a2eb44d70c301?pvs=4) by James Carse > Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself, and therefore a contradiction. They only attempt paradoxically to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere. ## [The Systems Bible](https://www.notion.so/dlwjiang/System-Bible-f738165e271d48c6bff201f168031ac5?pvs=4) by John Gall > A COMPLEX SYSTEM THAT WORKS IS INVARIABLY FOUND TO HAVE EVOLVED FROM A SIMPLE SYSTEM THAT WORKED. ## [Antifragile](https://www.notion.so/Antifragile-823e923d40654f65a0a651a8ce723449?pvs=21) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb > Consider that someone driving two hundred and fifty miles per hour in New York City is quite certain to never get anywhere—the effective speed will be exactly zero miles per hour. ## [Tempo](https://www.notion.so/Tempo-a1ac60e47b8842848a0ecb48160cf9e1?pvs=21) by Venkatesh Rao > Many people fail when they attempt to get organized because they make the mistake of striving for legibility and meaningfulness to an external eye, by imposing conventional or received social meanings onto personal realities. ## [Speed of Trust](https://www.notion.so/Speed-of-Trust-6788977f39ee4a19b1293d37db0995f7?pvs=21) by Stephen M.R. Covey > In a high trust relationship you can say the wrong thing and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship you can be very measured and precise and they'll still misinterpret you. ## [12 Rules For Life](https://www.notion.so/12-Rules-For-Life-a5853d6df2004f838c8eb913cf044f05?pvs=21) by Jordan Peterson > Proper Being is a process not a state, a journey not a destination. It's the continual transformation of what you know, through encounter with what you don't know rather than desperate clinging to the certainty that is eternally insufficient. Always place your becoming above your current Being. ## [A New Earth](https://www.notion.so/A-New-Earth-a4e90ced75ec440ca8e7102e76e77991?pvs=21) by Eckhart Tolle > how do you let go of things? don't try, it's impossible. attachment drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them ## [Courage to Be Disliked](https://www.notion.so/Courage-to-Be-Disliked-202d9c13a1e64541a2c2e19b4f3861b2?pvs=21) by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga > All problems are interpersonal problems. ## [The Book](https://www.notion.so/The-Book-Alan-Watts-59d6965e1aa842dd899bf470b80fb9ad?pvs=21) by Alan Watts > And since this task is never achieved, he is taught to live for some future, if not himself than at least his children. Thus we breed a type of human that is incapable of living in the present -- that is, of really living. ## [Peopleware](https://www.notion.so/Peopleware-aeb37aa4c3164c2dac58e206bfb9d77b?pvs=21) by Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco > A novice manager believes work can be completed without people's emotions getting involved. But if you have any experience at all you'll have learned the opposite. ## [Sapiens](https://www.notion.so/Sapiens-0faa8c2b46174ae3ad3510b4506ac2a6?pvs=21) by Yuval Noah Harari > Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want ? ## [33 Myths of the System](https://www.notion.so/33-Myths-of-the-System-c60efe4ad18d45bf8e8956b9ed96fc6b?pvs=21) by Darren Allen > Our society resembles the ultimate machine which I once saw in a New York toy shop. It was a metal casket which, when you touched a switch, snapped open to reveal a mechanical hand. Chromed fingers reached out for the lid, pulled it down, and locked it from the inside. It was a box; you expected to be able to take something out of it; yet all it contained was a mechanism for closing the cover. ## [The Body Keeps the Score](https://www.notion.so/The-Body-Keeps-the-Score-49680f72c243460a8124e974aa7d1ec9?pvs=21) by Bessel van der Kolk > This is particularly true if the abuser was someone close to them as a child, or someone they depended on, as is so often the case. The result is confusion about whether one was a victim or a willing participant, which in turn leads to bewilderment about the difference between love and terror, pain and pleasure. ## [Impro](https://www.notion.so/Impro-1eaaa07e85614f53ae75ea01e442e698?pvs=21) by Keith Johnstone > We think of art as self-expression, which is historically weird. An artist used to be seen as a medium through which something else operated. He was a servant of God. ## [The Inmates Are Running the Asylum](https://www.notion.so/The-Inmates-Are-Running-the-Asylum-d000f615c33e476cad1e84741ad498e0?pvs=21) by Alan Cooper > Unfortunately most products don't have a description, instead they have a shopping list of features. A shopping bag filled with flour, sugar, milk and eggs is not the same thing as a cake. ## [The Art of Learning](https://www.notion.so/The-Art-of-Learning-cac57e8b26f74278b41da8031f6f96d6?pvs=21) by Joshua Waitzkin > It is easy to speak of nonviolence when I am in a flower garden. The real internal challenge is to maintain that fundamental perspective when confronted by hostility, aggression, and pain. ## [Radical Honesty](https://www.notion.so/Radical-Honesty-383df4904adb4d74a3059c605335371c?pvs=21) by Brad Blanton > The truth turns into bullshit in the human mind just like food turns to excrement in the human body. Unfortunately, the mind doesn't expel its wastes automatically like the body does. ## [Atlas Shrugged](https://www.notion.so/Atlas-Shrugged-38918b5115af4f0ea7e039f9fa89fb63?pvs=21) by Ayn Rand > you dare not fully to be evil or fully to live. When you are honest, you feel the resentment of a sucker; when you cheat, you feel terror and shame. When you are happy, your joy is diluted by guilt; when you suffer, your pain is augmented by the feeling that pain is your natural state. ## [How to Talk so Kids Will Listen](https://www.notion.so/How-to-Talk-so-Kids-Will-Listen-06e8de925abe4d939bcb9682f311c115?pvs=21) by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish > When we give children advice or instant solutions, we deprive them of the experience that comes from wrestling with their own problems. ## [Seven Lessons of Chaos](https://www.notion.so/Seven-Lessons-of-Chaos-7fcafdbd53a34eea8cce1cf5343d5fb1?pvs=21) by F. David Peat > When our sole measure of time is mechanical, we experience time as a shopping basket that has to be filled to the brim. So we push ourselves, rush things and lose the flavor of life. ## [From Science To God](https://www.notion.so/From-Science-To-God-78d7c24042b740c9ba9714e85eff0ebb?pvs=21) by Peter Russell > Space and time are not , however , fundamental dimensions of the underlying reality . They are fundamental dimensions of consciousness . ## [Becoming a Technical Leader](https://www.notion.so/Becoming-a-Technical-Leader-521b943357c24696a714a20b664c9395?pvs=21) by Gerald Weinberg > Since you can't reliably know your effect on other people the best strategy is to accept that you'll sometimes be a laughing stock. If you can't tolerate being a public fool, you're not going to succeed in a role where all your actions are studied in detail by everyone else. ## [Are Your Lights On](https://www.notion.so/Are-Your-Lights-On-da1fcce89059457fafbfabb08ad3a50f?pvs=21) by Donald C. Gause and Gerald Weinberg > IF IT IS DAYLIGHT, AND IF YOUR LIGHTS ARE ON, TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS; IF IT IS DARK, AND IF YOUR LIGHTS ARE OFF, TURN YOUR LIGHTS ON; IF IT IS DAYLIGHT, AND IF YOUR LIGHTS ARE OFF, LEAVE YOUR LIGHTS OFF; IF IT IS DARK, AND IF YOUR LIGHTS ARE ON, LEAVE YOUR LIGHTS ON. ## [Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman](https://www.notion.so/Surely-You-re-Joking-Mr-Feynman-ba086b1df54d427998b1da43b6157b59?pvs=21) by Richard Feynman > Finally, I said that I couldn't see how anyone could he educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything. ## [Turn This Ship Around](https://www.notion.so/Turn-This-Ship-Around-ae3eec69f1ed4ac09f5b11abca211984?pvs=21) by L. David Marquet > So we had a system that was focused on understanding the status instead of actually getting the work done ## [The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing](https://www.notion.so/The-22-Immutable-Laws-of-Marketing-a22ce55a82154b62826e5cb527ad670e?pvs=21) by Al Ries and Jack Trout > You can't stand for something if you chase after everything. ## [Fountainhead](https://www.notion.so/Fountainhead-2ccc2b870ca74ed787651bff51d9b0d4?pvs=21) by Ayn Rand > Don’t set out to raze all shrines—you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity—and the shrines are razed. ## [Introduction to General Systems Thinking](https://www.notion.so/Introduction-to-General-Systems-Thinking-8d63959eb5594f6ea665677798ed8166?pvs=21) by Gerald Weinberg > A system is a way of looking at the world. ## [Lila](https://www.notion.so/Lila-0b93986bc39b4b0e8a89b6c175cbee8f?pvs=21) by Robert Pirsig > There has to be a certain kind of people who can look at it and say, “Hey, wait a second! That’s good!” without having to look over their shoulder to see if somebody else is saying the same thing. That’s rare. ## [9 Lies About Work](https://www.notion.so/9-Lies-About-Work-0b53a0551dcb46a5bf21e1920821e05b?pvs=21) by Ashley Goodall and Marcus Buckingham > To re-cognize a person is to spot something valuable in a person, and then to ask about it, in an ongoing effort to learn who she is when she is at her best.