A partial biography of Dmitry Shostakovich, focused on the pre-war and especially the war years when he composed the famous Seventh Symphony. A touching narrative, explaining the political climate of the USSR and Europe in very simple terms, giving context to the composer's life.
I've seen opinions that Shostakovich is loved more for his biography and complicated relationship with the government than he is for his music. Certainly his discordant, often dark or confusing music can take some getting used to. But this book does not portray him as this brave hero; he's human. He has family and children. He loves football, to the point of once inviting his favourite football team for dinner. He has genuine fear when his music is condemned in the papers and his friends are being taken away one by one; he even prepared a suitcase and kept it by the front door, in case he would be arrested at night, as not to wake up his family. He does protest the regime, but in small, subtle ways; preaching for young students, sending money to friends, writing music which doesn't have words but still paints a very clear picture.
I did not like how little post-war information there was in this book, though. I understand that the main character is not Shostakovich himself but the Seventh, yet it feels incomplete when it paints this idyllic picture of Shostakovich and his wife without mentioning his later two marriages once.
A famous text by a famous author, Frankl relays his experience in Nazi concentration camps and then outlines the basics of logotherapy, the psychotherapeutic approach he developed. Honestly, I expected more from this book. The main principles of logotherapy - identifying one's purpose in life and sticking to it - are enticing enough, but described in the book in the vaguest ways. It is a rather short book, and one intended for the general public and not health professionals - perhaps other works by Frankl make a bit more sense.
A book about how social media is literally destroying our ability to focus. Some claims it makes are dubious at best, but I agree with the overall message - although I did originally pick it up from a list of books about digital minimalism, the #nosurf movement and the like, so I'm obviously biased here.
Another book related to digital minimalism and reducing the impact of social media on our lives. A lot of self-help books are annoying and preachy, but this one is pleasantly gentle and not forceful. It's a personal account of a Jewish family adopting the habit of not using any screens every Saturday; it's not a ruleset as strict as orthodox Shabbath but clearly following in the footsteps ancient traditions. They make it a day of rest - they spend time together, invest in their hobbies, invite friends over for a grand Shabbath meal.
The author doesn't suggest you follow their experiences exactly - not everyone can do this on Saturdays, or even once a week, and the ruleset of this digital detox would be different for everyone, too (personally I cringed a bit when I learned they still use Amazon Alexa for certain tasks on Saturdays, but to each their own...). It gives tips and tricks, but doesn't bind you to a specific guideline. I liked that, and that they teach by example.
In the beginning of the book, the author sets the very ambitious goal of proving to you, the reader, that humans are not selfish or untrustworthy by nature as so many of us believe. It uses many examples throughout history and debunks many myths about human nature. I already knew that people in real life did not behave like in Lord of the Flies, and that the Stanford Prison experiment and Stanley Milgram's shock machine experiments are not the scientific proof of innate human cruelty once believed, but it was nice to read about it once again in detail. There were interesting studies that were new to me, for example the fact that most soldiers all throughout history hesitate to participate in actual combat, firing their guns multitudes less often than required.
I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced to, as the author suggests, trust everyone around me or stop reading the news (if you can afford to not care about the news, you're in a very privileged position...), but the book certainly made me change my perspective on some things.
I had high hopes for this book, but it just ended up being a time capsule for what the digital world looked like in 2007. It hypes up the Internet and hyperlinks and metadata and decentralized information storage like Wikipedia, but from the perspective of 2025 where total digital surveillance is the norm, it just reads as naive. Also, the author uses some very unique vocabulary, I had to reach for the dictionary multiple times. TIL what meerschaum is.
"You might be wondering what makes us more original and more trustworthy than other self-help book authors. Well, we're ex-Google employees!" - Man, I wish I had the self-awareness of a Silicon Valley tech bro.
Sarcasm aside, this is not the worst self-help book I've read, because, just like 24/6 above, it's not pushy. It's a list of tips to manage your time and priorities, but even the authors admit they don't use all of them (and sometimes have entirely opposite opinions on them). Nothing revolutionary or new to me, but I might actually try some of the stuff listed here. Also has a nice list of further reading at the end, which I might check out later.