I tell myself: “One day, I’ll indulge in some fiction books”, but never get around to it. Here’s what’s been keeping my mind occupied and putting me to sleep (a boring book, on Kindle Paperwhite, 15 minutes and it’s like Ambien every night without the mysterious vague memories).

I’ll write individual posts on what I’ve learned from these books. For now, I just wanted to list them all to make myself look smart (also somewhat desperately self-helpish). This was all money well spent, money given directly to Jeff Bezos. Yes, free libraries exist, but I love saving my Kindle highlights.

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• The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. Muraresku, Graham Hancock (Foreword) – Currently reading, it’s making me crave some of that Dionysian-Jesus spiked wine.

• The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams

• You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane – A fellow Shane, who is hilarious (a given), makes robots generate Buzzfeed headlines, gross recipes, etc. My book is similar to this one in the language generation techniques used.

• The Code. the Evaluation. the Protocols: Striving to Become an Eminently Qualified Human by Jocko Willink, Dave Berke, Sarah Armstrong

• Giving the Devil his Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist by Michael Shermer

• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed – Good book, but a member of my book club wouldn’t shut up (Oprah Winfrey)

• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah – Only audiobook I’ve listened to this year, and it was AMAZING.

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson, Jack Butcher (Illustrator), Tim Ferriss (Foreword)

• Astronomy: from the beginning: A history of skywatching and early astronomers from cave paintings and stone circles to the Renaissance and the first telescopes by Christopher Seddon – Great book for super thorough research.

• Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel

• Nolo’s Guide to Single-Member LLCs by David M. Steingold – (I don’t even have a business, I read this crap for fun.)

• Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility by Foster Cline, Jim Fay

• Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope by Mark Manson – A good followup to the parenting one.

• Acting with Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe by Deborah Gruenfeld

• Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

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Books about Books

Little known fact about me, I’m very conservative and don’t jump into anything until I read a dozen books on it. Here is what kicked me off on my mission this year to write my first book:

• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It by Steven Pressfield

• Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

• Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert by Tammi L. Labrecque

• How The Hell Do You Write A Book?: Unleash Your Inner Author & Write Your Business Book One Simple Step At A Time by Vicky Fraser

• Write and Grow Rich: Secrets of Successful Authors and Publishers (Exclusive Tips from Publishing Experts) by Alinka Rutkowska

• Choose Yourself! by James Altucher

• Published.: The Proven Path From Blank Page to Published Author by Chandler Bolt

• Long Story Short: The Only Storytelling Guide You’ll Ever Need by Margot Leitman

• Unleash the Power of Storytelling: Win Hearts, Change Minds, Get Results by Rob Biesenbach

• The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Jospeh Sugarman

• Amazon Ads for Authors by Deb Potter

• Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies On Authors and the Publishing Industry by Joanna Penn

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If you like the cover art for this post, it’s available in my shop as a Big Sticker! Click to visit the Etsy Shop.

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I made these products using Printful – Check them out, make your own printed products and let me know when you get a shop up with your own art!

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