Mustachian Books Collective Recommendations

Hey @Julianek and other book worms, any new recommendations? :slight_smile:

Lately, I started reading a lot of self-help books and three especially interesting are:

  • 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson
  • The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
  • Mindshift by Barbara Oakley

In finance, I can recommend:

  • A Wealth of Common Sense by Ben Carlson (main message: don’t do stock picking, it’s hard - do indexing :stuck_out_tongue: )

I’m currently reading How Not to Die, which might interest you if you are currently into self-help. It’s about diet for long-term health. It can get a bit repetitive in some parts, but it’s easy to identify this parts and just skip over.

3 Likes

I got hooked on low-carb and paleo thanks to “Why We Get Fat” by Gary Taubes. I quit sugar, but quitting bread and potatoes for a Polish family is practically impossible. :smiley:

1 Like

I have a friend doing this, only eating meat, fish, eggs, cheese etc, and no carbo based stuff as grains, potatoes, fruits, etc.
I think this is quit non-sustainable. if everybody did that, the planet could’nt feed half of the curent population. not to speak of climate and invironmental impact of growing that much cattle and harvesting even more fish than even today

I am quite convinced that by reducing the pure sugar stuff in our daily life gets you 90% towards a healthy diet: sugar in coffee, chocolate, jam, honey, ketchup, soft drinks, (sweet) pastry, etc

How Not to Die is not actually about losing weight, but about preventing diseases with diet instead of treating the disease once it appears :wink:

1 Like

Mr Money Mustache is also on that diet. But his version is more vegetable/nuts based - he eats lots of avocados, salads with olive oil, coconut oil, and so on.

I’m not sure if it is not sustainable. The basic rule of economics is that if demand is growing with fixed supply, then the price is rising - this, in turn, attracts capital investments because of the bigger return on capital. The more capital is invested, the bigger production and thus supply - this equilibrates the market back to normal, sustainable price which clears the market and satisfies all demand.

Once one understands this basic mechanism, then it’s hard to be as alarmist as some ecologists are - besides 200 years ago people (Thomas Malthus) were saying “we’re running out of food, population is growing too fast to support itself”, 100 years ago people (William Jevons) were saying “we’re running out of coal, the population is using coal too fast”, 30 years ago people (Club of Rome) started saying “we’re running out of oil, world is using oil too fast”. People basically can’t imagine the exponential changes in the technology of production thanks to capital investments - it’s hard to imagine exponential changes, just like compound interest.

I think the solution to overfishing is privatisation of the waters. Just like the solution to deforestation in many developed countries (for example Sweden) was privatisation of forests.

Speaking of climate change, I’m generally of opinion of these two economists.

Totally agree. If you add to that list potatoes, bread, pasta and grain - you end up with low-carb diet. I think it’s in general important to not eat sugar and carbs with high glycemic/insulin index.

Interesting, I have to read that and incorporate it into my diet.

I’ve read that books have lots of fiber… :smile:

4 Likes

For anyone interested in (tech) startups, here’s an awesome list of readings:
https://www.startupschool.org/library

2 Likes

Another interesting list:

Where do you guys buy the books (paper format)? Any specific shop or Amazon?

I have 4 I want to read :smile:

  • Your Money or Your Life
  • Early Retirement Extreme
  • A Random Walk Down Wall Street
  • The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing

Normally I buy through Amazon or TheBookDepository.

If I really want the paper version, I’d go to Amazon.
But for 90% of books I get the epub version for free on libgen.io

Exemple with Your Money or your Life

1 Like

I have all of them in epub version, but I really don’t like to read on the computer :man_shrugging:

In my case I bought a second-hand Kindle on tutti.ch for 30 CHF.
This solved the matter for me, but I acknowledge that not everybody likes to read on an e-reader.

3 Likes

I bought 3, I think it will be good to start learning.

  • Your Money or Your Life
  • The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing
  • The Bogleheads’ Guide to the Three-Fund Portfolio
1 Like

I used to buy books from www.bookdepository.com, but for some reason they no longer accept my credit card. Another site is www.abebooks.com, but they tend to be a bit more expensive.

Is this website legal?

It’s not illegal to download stuff for private use in Switzerland with blatant disregard for copyright, as long as you don’t upload it back (eg via torrent). There’s maybe something in the laws about stuff like CP, I’m not sure, but copyright is totally ignorable unless you upload the stuff or use publicly in some other way without permission

1 Like

One book I suggest to everyone is “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by S. Covey. I also re-read it regularly.

1 Like

A few titles that fascinated me in the past year:

  • The one I’m reading right now, amazing write-up on core principles of acquiring wealth by George Samuel Clason back from 1926. Timeless: Richest man in Babylon

  • Not a financial one, but about incredible ways that we as a human kind have learned about the world and ourselves: The Discoverers

  • I find Harari’s work great - read the already recommended Sapiens, about to read Homo Deus soon, and looking forward to the latest one 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

2 Likes