Why I Don’t Write Book Reviews

and other book recommendations

Shortly after hitting the 300 book mark, my mother suggested I write book reviews and publish them in local news papers. I had three objections to this. First being, who am I to review and critique the life’s work of Nobel laureates, science giants, captains of industry, spiritual masters, and dead philosophers of antiquity. Second, I don’t believe in absolute reviews for bodies of text, with special emphasis on the poetic or philosophical kind. Like rewatching an intricately produced and well thought-out film, revisiting previously read books—like Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or the Tao Te Ching—always highlights a new dimension of the text upon every new reading. It’s as if the words transcend literal meaning into what the reader is ready to receive, revise or realize. The review of any book would be subjective to the experience, growth cycle, and intellectual limits of the reviewer—thus will be context curbed or entirely missing hidden meanings. Also, we cannot review in English, texts translated from the vernacular Arabic, Sanskrit, or Greek mother tongues, without denaturing the original spirit of the intended message. The third reason I won’t write and publish reviews for local news papers, is because I don’t want to be associated with dying mediums that pedal propaganda, sensationalism and advertisements dressed up as ‘news’.

I do on the other hand give general book recommendations—or when I can, specific recommendations. But I believe that once a person is ready, the organized information—jacketed in a book—will find the reader. Single-minded absorption of a body of text, transmutes information on a page into knowledge. Hoarding knowledge for the sake of knowledge, only to use it against others is egomaniacal. And hoarding knowledge but withholding information when others need it is selfish. Knowledge is to be shared and used for the greater good of the whole or else it is knowledge sought in vain. Most success stories are stories of how domain specific knowledge is wielded and shared. Despite hardships to receive it, once knowledge is internalized, it can be drawn upon for insight and introspection at will. Knowledge is all around us if we are willing to seek it out.

In the non-fiction world, it’s okay to read a few books and not understand some chapters. Grappling with difficult books and ideas out of our comfort zone is the scaffolding required to build the higher mind. Once you swim through enough quality content, connections and depth come easily. Old thought junctions can connect in novel ways to paint a new mental map. Don’t fret, dig deeper.

Below I’ve listed (in arbitrary categories and no particular order) some non-fiction books that have had impressions on me and opened me up to different dimensions of thinking and being. I have a fiction gap so feel free to share your favorite novels.

Timeless books (poetry/spirituality/philosophy):

• The Madman, The Forerunner, Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran
• Thought Relics by Rabindranath Tagore
• The Gospel of Ramakrishna by Swami Abhedananda
• The Bhagavad Gita by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, translated by Eknath Easwaran
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Enchiridion by Epictetus
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
• The Yoga Sutras by Patañjali

Lifestyle books (mindfulness/well-being/self-help):

• How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
• Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy by Sadhguru
• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer
• Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho
• Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation by Alan Watts
• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
• The Sufis by Idries Shah
• Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins
• “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman

Informative books (psychology/technology/environment):

• The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
• How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
• How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
• Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler
• Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age by Douglas Rushkoff
• The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
• Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life by Colin Ellard
• The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

Business books (practical/economics):

• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
• The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
• Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
• Zen Entrepreneurship by Rizwan Virk
• Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth
• A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorp
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler

Mind stretching books (consciousness/science/philosophy):

• The Simulation Hypothesis by Rizwan Virk
• Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist by Christof Koch
• Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness by Philip Goff
• Letters From An Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
• Grunch of Giants by R. Buckminster Fuller
• What Is Life? With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches by Erwin Schrödinger
• The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity by Amir D. Aczel
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
• When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought by Jim Holt
• The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence by Benoît B. Mandelbrot, Richard L. Hudson

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ―Aristotle

Disclaimer: I am not responsible if the ideas set forth in some of the books recommended, change conventional thinking, expand world views, or dismantle currently held beliefs. You are responsible for what you let in (or remove) from your own mind.

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