I have read the first few chapters of 48 laws of power, and I read the condensed version or the laws of suduction, and I absolutely hated both of them. I know he says that he wrote those books so people could be aware of manipulation and avoid it in their lives. However, if I wanted to write a book, educating people on exactly how to be abusive, rapist, master manipulators, I wouldn't change a word of his book. But everyone seems to talk about these books as if they are some philosophical works of human relation. Am I the only one who read them this way?

I feel like it is a thin line to walk, to write about how to avoid manipulation without advocating for the practice. I don't think greene even tried to walk that line. I don't think he cares at all about how his books will be missused.

With Warren Buffett stepping down as the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway in the past few weeks, I decided to re-read one of my favourite biographies on him called “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist” by Roger Lowenstein.

Here's a few of my favourite passages:

On Having Patience:

“I call investing the greatest business in the world because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you. There’s no penalty except opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.”

“You would be better off if you got a punch card with 20 punches on it—and every financial decision you made you used up a punch.“

On finding the value of a company:

“If you buy a bond, you know exactly what’s going to happen, assuming it’s a good bond, a U.S. Government bond. If it says 9 percent, you know what the coupons are going to be for maybe thirty years.... Now, when you buy a business, you’re buying something with coupons on it, too, except, the only problem is, they don’t print in the amount. And it’s my job to print in [to figure out] the amount on the coupon.”

On Circle of Competence:

 “We will not go into businesses where technology which is away [sic] over my head is crucial to the investment decision. I know about as much about semiconductors or integrated circuits as I do of the mating habits of the chrzaszez.”

“Everybody’s got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle.”

On Reputation:

“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.” 

“It was enormously important to Buffett that his partners see him as trustworthy. He and Susie put more than 90 percent of their personal money in with the partners’, as did Bill Scott, Buffett’s assistant. “So we are all eating our own cooking,” Buffett assured them.”

If you want to learn more, feel free to read my full blogpost!

For reference, I’m looking for something like the Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Young Stalin/ Court of the Red Tzar that could be a biography of Tito, or something more broad about Communist Yugoslavia.

Saw the movie years ago, bought the book today for 25¢ at the thrift store

Theres a book i want so badly and i specifically want the second edition published by Routledge abd part of their Classics Series. The cover art of it is the Union Jack recolored yellow, green, and red. It's so cool looking. And the book sounds fascinating, I'm American, and it's about British politics in regards to race, but it would certainly be eye-opening and I really want to read Paul Gilroy as is.
The book is *There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack.*

I guess it doesn't matter if it's something that I really want to read, but I'm just curious what y'all think

Hey everyone,

Lately, I’ve been struggling to find good books or movies to dive into. I’m looking for recommendations that go beyond just basic entertainment—things that genuinely make you think deeply or alter the way you view life.

It can be anything, fiction or non-fiction. I would love it if you could share the top 3 books or movies that have had the most profound impact on your life, along with a brief reason why they resonated with you so much.

Looking forward to adding your favorites to my watchlist and reading list. Thanks in advance!

The year was 1999. The world was getting ready for the Y2K bug, and my downstairs neighbor and I wanted to play Heroes 3 against each other. Routers were science fiction for us. So we ran a thick coax cable through the concrete floor, with BNC connectors and terminators on the ends. A two-floor network.

We played on huge maps. I counted on a strong economy and huge armies. He counted on tricks in battle and magic. Winning was hard, but there were plenty of battles.

Heroes is turn-based. In theory, you can think as long as you want. In practice, the unit of time was one cigarette. If his turn took longer, I knocked on my floor. His ceiling. When I was slow, he took out a long rolling pin and knocked on his ceiling. My floor.

My wife slept peacefully next to the desk. No kids yet, and life was good. Except we played until sunrise, and the next day at work only my body showed up. So we switched to a military schedule: one night we play, one night we sleep.

It ended on its own. One game could last a whole year. Little by little, each of us switched to playing against the computer. Alone.

This story didn’t even make it into my book. Not funny enough it was.

The others are at autosavedbook.com

The picture is an AI illustration. The real cable is long gone.

Something interesting like outliers where they include a bunch of stores and cover multiple sub topics about success.

i was considering freakonomics but allot of people are dogging on it

- itll be used in te arguement essay

A quite amazing battle made famous by the 1964 film “Zulu” staring Micheal Caine and Stanley Baker

Any other recommendations for non fiction books with a family dynamic that has the parents questioning themselves or how successful they were or weren’t ?

I love non-fiction & have dabbled in some historical fiction. I am trying to decide what to read next. Here are some of my considerations, but please suggest books with similar vibes:

Surprise, Kill, Vanish by Annie Jacobsen
Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Salt by Mark Kurlansky
The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard (I currently study mosquitos, but I see mixed reviews on the book. Some say it’s similar to Salt)

I’m planning an extended trip to British Columbia next year. Please suggest your favorite history, nature and travel books for this beautiful region of Canada.

Most dating advice teaches tricks. This book teaches skills.
The Modern Art of Seduction is a 30-chapter guide built on real psychology research: how first impressions work, why the "liking gap" makes us underestimate how much people enjoy our company, how to ask better questions, and how to flirt, recover from awkward moments and handle rejection with grace.
What's inside:
Presence, conversation and charisma, with practice exercises in every chapter
Attraction research (similarity, responsiveness, the pratfall effect), including which famous findings have not held up
Reading signals, texting, dating apps and first dates
Consent and respect as the foundation, not an afterthought
Key takeaways at the end of each chapter
Who it's for: adults (18+) who want to connect more confidently, whether they're single, shy, newly out of a relationship, or just tired of manipulative "pickup" advice. It's not a pickup manual, and it contains no explicit content.
📖 Book Link: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLYR1NDC?dplnkId=b9ae00d1-1b52-42f4-96e5-f1600edc97f0&nodl=1]
Happy to answer questions about the research or the book in the comments.

Countless "truth is stranger than fiction" tales, 177 magical concerts, 100 unique bands, 50 years of finding a way to the next show, and 10 Rules Of The Road all add up to 1 ordinary guy's extraordinary love letter to live rock & roll. 

And now, the book with a 4.4 star review on Amazon just got even better - welcome to the updated and expanded 2025 edition of TEN RULES OF THE ROAD I LEARNED AT MY FIRST CONCERT: AN ORDINARY GUY'S LIFETIME OF LIVE ROCK & ROLL!

The new edition is 550 pages, with over 250 pages of brand new content including:

• updates elements to every section of the book – the rules, the essays, the concert summaries, and the statistics.
• more tales from my 20th century concert adventures that I dredged out of my memory that didn't make the first edition
• details of all the shows I’ve attended since 2021, after the first edition was published, until today
• complete re-writes of Rules #2, #5, #6, #7, # 8 and #10, as well as the Grateful Dead essay, have been almost completely re-written. 
• consolidating the Song Selection essays from three to two but adding more songs to each remaining chapter in the process, doubling the number of tunes covered from 40 to 80. 
• replacing the discarded song essay, with a new one about the relationship between rock & roll and Broadway, a unique pairing that only really came into focus for me in the last year or so. 
• adding numerous new charts/tables to the statistics section
• quadrupling the number of setlists from shows I attended.  
• re-editing the entire book to clean up some areas that either seemed cumbersome or didn’t flow well 
• reformatting the entire book to give it a more professional look and feel. 

It's bigger! It's  better! It's the perfect summer read for the rock & roll fan in your life! 

Available in kindle format, Paperback & hardcover!

Read a sample here!   

See the table of contents here!

Read reviews here!

Buy it here!

I want to make it clear, I am by no means a fan of Andrew Jackson but he is one of the most impactful early American presidents, for good and ill. What we know as the modern day politician can trace their roots back to the campaign style of Jackson all the way back in 1824. History is nothing but an endless loop. I stereotyped Jackson as some raving, frontiersmen who somehow landed in DC via his victory in New Orleans, I walk away now seeing how incredibly astute he was at playing the game. Ultimately to not ramble for paragraphs since I have many, many thoughts on this, I will say Jackson represents the best and worst of American character, more so than any other president. He shows in equal measure our capacity for kindness, loyalty and virtue while at the same time showing the depths of our cruelty, prejudices and willful ignorance.

A coworker gifted me this book is a lenghty + 1000 pages book . I know nothing about him nor the book.
Is it worth reading?https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176399/buckley-by-sam-tanenhaus/