I relented, after holding off from personal development books for an extended period I bought into another one, a big one, and thankfully a good one. After passing the typical hyperbolic hooks that start these books (this one was a childhood incident) and ignoring the sad reality of publishing these days (this book was published…

This short novella tells a story in three acts (great now I sound like the blurb). First the imagined world that lives within Chuck, and then major moments from his life. It was written well, very engaging and a fun story that inspired a little wonder in me more than I have felt as of…

Ignore the comments on the covers, Chisholm is no Bourdain. A good writer with a fascinating story to tell? Yes. But to compare him to Bourdain or Orwell seems premature. A Waiter in Paris chronicles the life of Chisholm as just that, a waiter in Paris, however, although experiencing the life for a short period,…

I have been thinking about this for a long time. The importance of objects around the house, how we engage with them, how they influence our behaviour, how they preserve our identities. Coccia touches on this but also more in this collection of themed essays covering rooms, spaces both physical and digital. I enjoyed his…

Seferis has an interesting story. He was born in Smyrna and Greek diplomat, he was also a Nobel prize winner, which isn’t surprising to me because I enjoyed his poetry and also recognised his personal connections. The poems here are all in English so I’m sure they’re missing the rhyming and aesthetics that usually come…

This is the second time that I have read Fooled by Randomness. I felt that this time I was able to comprehend it better, but it did not hit me as the revolutionary work as it did the first time. In this book Taleb discusses his philosophy on randomness, using examples from his life and…

Running Smart acts as a compliment to a hobby runner, discussing topical and novel theories with academic backing. Generally the book was easy enough to get through and had an enjoyable, simple style, but overall it often contradicted itself and offered limited additional practical guidance or insight for runners. My biggest issue with the book…

I first heard of this book after seeing an article in the Neos Kosmos. Just months later I found a copy in the Paperback Bookshop and was told that I purchased it on the first day after its delivery. Turns out that they had such a good reception with Nikos Papastergiadis’ book that they decided…

I was walking along Sydney Road with a bit of time to kill. I had a pie, walked through Princess Park and browsed through a Socialist Bookstore. The store is pretty new, and initially I was curious why it had been set up at all. Inside everything was political, the staff appeared to be young…

After reading Zorba – twice, because for some reason I thought I would process more from doing so – I decided to read another Nikos Kazantzakis book. For one, the author fascinates me. He story of excommunication, Nobel nominations, travels and literary standing is fodder enough, but the fact that he is also Cretan really…

Now this was a good book. This almost autobiographical tale follows a young Michael Lewis as he winds up on the office floor of Saloman Brothers, just as their hugely successful bond trading business begins to collapse. Michael Lewis is an engaging writer and the characters here ranging from a loyal Italian wall street visionary…

Following on from Hari’s other book, stolen focus, I picked up his earlier work Lost Connections. I was expecting to read about changing society, what I didn’t realise though was this book was actually focused on Depression. Like Hari’s other work, this book does a great job pulling readers into the emotional story hook line…