Pathless Book Recommendations
Liked The Pathless Path? Read these. A curated collection of books for those seeking alternative paths in life and career.
Books & Reading
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Books & Reading
63 posts
Book Review: Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
Ezra Vogel's biography of Deng Xiaoping is slow at times but a great summary of a life that coincided with most of China's major events over the past 100 years. My review and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The New Fatherhood by Kevin Maguire
I read Kevin Maguire's The New Fatherhood in the final month before our second daughter arrived. My review and favorite highlights, including the idea of the Tunnel.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Young Money by Jack Raines
Jack Raines's Young Money is an honest, fun memoir of waking up to the default career path in your early twenties. My review and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
My Asia Book Recommendations, By Country
Novels, memoirs and histories I've read on Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Asian-American experience.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Leaving the Casino by Jessica Lackey
Jessica Lackey's Leaving the Casino is an absurdly useful guide to building a business on your own, beyond tactics. My review and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Unhinged Habits, and Why You Don't Need More Productivity
Jonathan Goodman's Unhinged Habits does what most productivity books fail at: showing how he actually lives, trade-offs and all.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Chop Wood, Carry Water by Andrew Taggart, on Work as a Mundane Spiritual Practice
Andrew Taggart's Chop Wood, Carry Water is a great simple book that pushes you to look at "work" at its most fundamental level.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Antimemetics, and Why My Ideas Spread Slowly
Nadia Asparouhova's Antimemetics is about ideas that resist spreading. It gave me a new way to see how The Pathless Path spread, slowly, one reader at a time.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned by Kenneth O. Stanley and Joel Lehman
Two AI researchers on why ambitious objectives can block discovery, and why stepping stones matter more. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Ghost Map, From Miasmas to Germ Theory
How the 1854 London cholera outbreak reveals a timeless pattern: established experts cling to wrong ideas for decades, from miasma theory to Covid airborne denial.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Organization Man, Where Corporate Loyalty and the Career Ladder Began
Whyte predicted workaholism, work-life balance debates, and the security-obsessed employee in 1956. A review of the book that decoded the source code of modern work culture.
Books & ReadingWork Beliefs & History of Work
Book Review: Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Anne-Laure Le Cunff's Tiny Experiments is like if Atomic Habits decided to blow up its life and embarked on a pathless path.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
What I took from David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs in 2018, what I think now, my favorite highlights, and the guide from my 2018 virtual book club.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Just Keep Buying, and Four Insights on Rethinking Wealth
Four data-driven insights from Just Keep Buying that challenge common fears about spending, saving, retirement, and how rich you already are.
Books & ReadingMoney & Finance
Book Review: Outlive's Powerful Final Chapter
Peter Attia's Outlive is a book about living longer. Its final chapter, about workaholism, shame and emotional health, is the most powerful part.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Chip War by Chris Miller
Chris Miller's Chip War is a comprehensive deep dive into the history of semiconductors since WWII, up to the current chip war between China and the US. My takeaways.
Books & Reading
Byung-Chul Han's The Burnout Society, on Becoming “Entrepreneurs of Ourselves”
In Byung-Chul Han's book, The Burnout Society, he argues that people are pressured to be "entrepreneurs of themselves" but people feel like they can never do enough.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment by Jed McKenna
The second book in Jed McKenna's Enlightenment Trilogy opens with a furious letter from a reader. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea, in 11 Quotes
Crossing the Unknown Sea is my favorite David Whyte book, the story of his leap from naturalist to poet. Here are the lines that stayed with me, organized by theme.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Die With Zero, and Why Too Many Save Too Much for Too Late
Die With Zero is a persuasive argument for those who spend to much to turn money into time & experiences earlier in their lives
Books & ReadingMoney & Finance
Book Review: Games: Agency as Art by C. Thi Nguyen
C. Thi Nguyen's Games: Agency as Art frames games as a way of practicing agency. My notes and favorite highlights, and why I think paths like mine are about taking a game stance toward the world.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Good Enough Job by Simone Stolzoff
One of the first modern work books that avoids both "hustle harder" and "capitalism sucks." My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Do We Go to School Too Long? On Simon Sarris's "School Is Not Enough"
Simon Sarris's School Is Not Enough is one of the best essays I've read in a while. He points out that most of us float through life on inertia and that this inertia continues post-schooling.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Inner Game of Tennis and the Inner Game of Life
W. Timothy Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis is a short book about tennis that's really about how we learn, judge ourselves and get out of our own way.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Food Lab and the Art of Learning to Cook
For years cooking never clicked for me. Then a friend handed me J. Kenji López-Alt's The Food Lab, and one idea from it changed everything: cooking is science.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Expecting Better by Emily Oster
A must-read for anyone trying to get pregnant or currently pregnant. It helped us think about things in a more nuanced and helpful way than most medical professionals.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
A nice contemplation on the art of leisure and appreciating the present moment.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Talent by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross
Cowen and Gross take a firm stand against the broken world of the default path talent assessment. One of the best books I’ve read on talent assessment.
Books & Reading
Book Review: One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson, on Work in a Serendipity Economy
A really cool book about one year, 1927, chock full of random interesting ideas. Right solution, wrong problem, wrong timing!
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Art of Gig by Venkatesh Rao
The best book I've read on consulting. My notes on Venkatesh Rao's maxims, the inner game of indie life, and the price of freedom.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Russ Roberts' Wild Problems and a Life Well Lived
A review of Russ Roberts' Wild Problems and why the biggest life decisions can't be solved with logic. The upsides of bold leaps are impossible to imagine beforehand.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Life Is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler, on Disruptors and Lifequakes
Feiler argues that most people think of life as a smooth linear path. Instead of being defined by a line, people’s lives are shaped by a steady stream of “disruptors.”
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams, on the American Dream, 1931 Edition
The American dream was coined in 1931 by James Adams in Epic of America and it's more thoughtful than our current derivative.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek, 15 Years Later
I didn't read Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek until a few weeks before I quit my job. Looking back, I think it's one of the most underrated books of the 21st century.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Spiritual Enlightenment, The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna
Jed McKenna's first book follows an enlightened man going about his days and reacting to the people around him. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Soaring Twenties and Other Essays by Thomas J. Bevan
A collection of Thomas J. Bevan’s writing from 2021 and reflections on being an online person trying to do creative work.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray
Nick's book is very good and inspired me to host an event in Austin, which led to me making a bunch of new friends.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm's 1941 book on freedom from and freedom to, and why so many people trade their freedom away. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
"Ambition Is Frozen Desire" - Excerpt From David Whyte's Consolations
David Whyte details the positive and negative sides of ambition and our challenge of grappling with it in our lives
Books & ReadingWisdom, Success & Philosophy
Walden, Chapter 1, in Modern Language
Thoreau's first chapter of Walden, Economy, distilled into simple modern language, with his 1854 original a click away under each passage.
Books & Reading
150+ Things Worth Reading & Listening To From 2020
150+ links from the boundless newsletter on work, life, carving one's own path and making sense of the modern world
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope
Stephen Cope's book on dharma, told through the lives of Thoreau, Frost, Keats, Jane Goodall and others. The work of your life is finding what matters and then building a life around it.
Books & Reading
The Terror of Being Left Outside: Revisiting C.S. Lewis's Essay "The Inner Ring"
C.S. Lewis wrote in 1944 that one of the biggest pulls in one's life was the desire to be part of an "inner ring." This essay brought alive the feeling I had in college when I first found out about elite entry-level professions such as consulting and investment banking.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Aspiration by Agnes Callard, on Meaning and the Traps of Ambition
Book review on Agnes Callard's \"Aspiration\" about the philosophical role of aspiration and becoming in a meaningful and good life
Books & Reading
Book Review: Reclaiming Control by Amy McMillen, in Three Excerpts
Admitting you don't know what you're doing in today's world takes courage and kudos to Amy for showing us the way.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
The Body Keeps the Score makes it clear that many people are carrying enormous pain and trauma in hidden and plain sight. My review and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Black Mass, Millenarianism and Pandemic Utopias
Everyone has a religious, political or institutional utopia. A review of John Gray's book \"Black Mass\" gives us a way to be skeptical of these visions
Books & Reading
Book Review: Dignity by Chris Arnade, on the Front Row and the Back Row
Chris Arnade spent several years wandering around America talking to people who are struggling and learning about how they find dignity in their life.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Rest by Alex Pang, With a Summary and Key Quotes
Book Summary: Rest by Alex Pang makes sense of rest through his own journey taking a sabbatical after leaving Academia and the corporate world.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics shook me up and probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars as I explored a new relationship with money. My review, a follow-up on generosity, and my favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: Range by David Epstein
David Epstein's Range is full of stories about people who didn't follow a path of specialization. My notes and favorite highlights on generalists, slow learning, and finding your fit.
Books & Reading
Revisiting Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise Of Idleness”
I revisit Bertrand Russell's famous essay to ponder the question: Do we work too much? Why aren't we having more fun in our days?
Books & Reading
Revisiting Keynes Prediction for a Post-Work 2030 in "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren"
John Maynard Keynes essay about technological unemployment predicted that by 2030 we would have shifted worried more about how to occupy leisure
Books & Reading
Book Review: Quiet by Susan Cain, and How She Remembered Her Dream
I thought I had a good understanding of introversion and extroversion until I read this book. It made me realize I was a lot more introverted than I thought.
Books & Reading
All The Things Worth Reading In 2018 (175+ Links)
The top 175+ longform, essays, articles and podcasts from 2018. Boundless Reads is a weekly e-mail of the five best reads from around the web!
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm reframes love as a practice rather than a feeling. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
35+ Book Recommendations to Help You Quit Your Job
Want to escape the corporate world? Don't know how to imagine a new path? These ten types of books will help you rethink everything.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Heart Aroused by David Whyte
David Whyte's poetic look at the corporate world and the parts of ourselves we give up for safety. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Three Marriages by David Whyte
The David Whyte book where I found the phrase "pathless path." How I found it, what I think, and my favorite highlights on work, marriage, and the self.
Books & Reading
Book Review: The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Alan Watts on why the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. My take and favorite highlights.
Books & Reading
Book Review: A Dozen Things I Learned From Adam Grant's Originals
A book review of Adam Grant's originals on how to be a nonconformist and create change on your own and within organizations. (With cool charts!)
Books & ReadingOrganizations & Culture
Why You Should Stop Consuming The News & My Media Diet (August 2019)
The news is designed to outrage you & addict you. Politics taps into this to get votes. I want to help you block the outrage and find better stuff to read.
Books & Reading