The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz
The best business book I’ve ever read. Harsh, realistic, grounded, straight, and gruesome. The best advice comes from people who have made severe mistakes and lived to talk about it, and that’s what you’ll get from this book.
It offers sincere and inglorious tales of how to run start-ups and businesses. From it, I leaned what managers should always do before all else: train your teams and kill the politics.
Babel: Around the World in 20 Languages, by Gaston Darren
A thought-provoking exploration of the 20 languages that dictate how a third of the global population communicates. It takes us on an intriguing tour, addressing questions such as how tiny Portugal spawned a major world language while Holland didn’t, why Japanese women talk differently from men, and what it means for Russian to be related to English.
Can the Monster Speak?, by Paul B. Preciado
Not a book per se, but rather the transcription of Preciado’s controversial lecture at the École de la Cause Freudienne annual conference in 2019.
Throughout it, the philosopher poignantly shatters Freudian paradigms and foundations. It speaks for a new epistemology capable of allowing for a multiplicity of living bodies without legitimizing hetero-patriarchal and colonial violence.
The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace Wells
Earth is burning, as you may have heard and seen on the news. This book paints a horrifying picture of what’s to come if we insist on our collective inertia.
In sobering detail, Wallace-Wells lays out the mistakes and inaction of past and current generations that we see negatively affecting all lives today, and how they will inevitably impact the future.
Featured image: Babel: Around the World in 20 Languages, by Gaston Darren
