Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - Carol Dweck

 While a very insightful and important view on the psychology of success in human, let me save you some hassle and give you the key points of this book so you can spend your time reading something more nuanced. 

There are 2 ways of looking at the world which the author has termed fixed and growth.  People are largely pushed into one or the other based on their upbringing, but can change them naturally and without notice over time or by actively trying to restructure their thinking. The fixed mindset is based about the idea that either you are smart and "get it" or you are not.  

A fixed mindset person believes everything should be easy because it comes to them naturally, or they will never get whatever "it" is.  It is a "that's just how the world is" view.  They dislike change and do not feel they have control of many aspects in their lives.  It dictates that only you can accomplish what you want and inclines people to take responsibility for a whole project, even when others were involved.  

A growth mindset person believes everything takes hard work and nothing comes naturally.  They believe every one and thing has a potential for change, and view the world as a challenge to overcome. Teamwork is appreciated and not seen as a problem but an opportunity to get new insight and ideas. 

When laid out in this format, it seems obvious how the fixed mindset could hinder someone's goal accomplishment and growth, but in real life, it is deceptively difficult to pick out.  An example I see regularly in my daily life:  I have red hair and get complimented on its shade often.  The fixed mindset is that I have this hair color and I have somehow earned it.  All the complements due to me boost my personal worth.  So what happens when my hair goes grey? All the self-worth I've derived from it goes too.  Now typically my response to these complements is, "Oh thanks! But it just kinda happened."  Even before reading this book, I realized the need to complement people on something they have done, achieved or chosen.  I am lucky to have this hair experience show me the importance of focusing on what people have done in a natural way, instead of things that were luck/chance.  I make it a point to complement people on colors or fits of clothing that the chose, or hairstyles instead of hair type, smart moves in a game or witty comments.  All of these kind of complements address the growth mindset, things people can change and actively work on, instead of things we can't change.  This is exactly what the book encourages.  There is one additional aspect of these complements that I was subject to growing up and it actively pushed me into a fixed mindset as a child.  I have worked hard to get out of it and, thanks to this book, now consciously make an effort to not say the same to any children I'm around.  I was often told growing up, "Oh you're so smart!" But society's implication is people are born smart or not, so there's nothing to change that, and therefore complementing a child this way puts them into that fixed mindset and when they have an academic problem they can't overcome, they begin to doubt their own intelligence.  I now make an effort to to say things more along the lines of, "Oh wow! You got an A? You must have worked very hard to get that!" Which subconsciously tells the child that effort will get results (Not always true, but it frames working hard in a positive way instead of meaning if you don't get it instantly, you're not good enough and never will be).  Oh, and this is true for adults too, but typical in more subtle ways. 

Smart Couples Finish Rich - David Bach

 I was super unimpressed with this book. Other than pushing money market accounts and a scheme for figuring out what you actually want, it was all the same old drivel about curbing spending and maximizing investments that you always find in financial books.  Being as you've heard all that before, allow me to focus on the one unique aspect I found in this book (it probably isn't novel either, but I personally haven't come across this idea elsewhere yet).

What do you actually want to spend your money on?  Sit down and write your top 5 things you want your money to do for you, like "more financial security" or "travel". Alright, cool, but what does that even mean? What is "travel"? How would any amount of money make you more financially secure? Doing this with a spouse and asking these questions forces you to hammer out the details of what you actually want to do with your money and that makes you figure out how much you really need and when you can honestly expect it to happen.  Let's say that "financial security" for someone is nothing more than a $1,000 rainy day savings account.  Alright, we have a specific amount in a specific location for an important reason.  Now the person can go looking for the extra cash to put into that account and get that goal accomplished.  Without those details hammered out, your stuck in limbo with some abstract idea of what you want, but no concrete plans to accomplish it.  

Learning To Speak Alzheimer's - Joanne Koenig Coste

 Just listening to this book and the few-minutes-long antidotal stories made me frustrated.  I have learned that I am unlikely to be able to deal with caring for an Alzheimer's patient.  My whole life's view is based on logic, which is totally devoid in an Alzheimer's patient.  I have a grandparent on each side who had it and I will not be able to care for one of my parents if they develop this. 

I completely support the ideas for care and the themes in the book.  I completely believe the author has laid out the best way to care for someone suffering from this disease.  This method is the most compassionate and effective method, and I just could not ever do it. (I'll take this moment to point out that I could not ever care for children for the same reasons.) 

Much of the author's ideas make so much since once you understand how messed up an Alzheimer's patient's mind is.  Their brain no longer understand or recognizes what they are looking at so they think their reflection in the mirror is a stranger, or painting/coloring the floor/vanity/walls around important items like toilets or sinks a sharply contrasting color to make it more visible and obvious what it is so the Alzheimer's patient can see and recognize it.  When they ask for impossible things like going back to their childhood home or speaking to their dead mother, do not tell them that's impossible but rather ask them to describe their mother/home.  Basically, divert them into talking about whatever it is they want instead.  Make the old doorknob defunct and install a new, higher one so they can't open the doors and walk out.  Feed them finger foods like a child because they can't use utensils.  Making sure they change their underwear and drink water and reassure them there's no boogey man under the bed (or in my grandmother's case, outside in the car or barn).  It's basically like caring for a small child and everything I hate about that process. 

Day Trading: A Step by Step Guide to Creating Passive Income and Financial Freedom - John Josefh Mallardh

 Lots of smart advice like practice first before risking real money, if you are in a slump just get out for a bit to clear your head, and most importantly do not ever use money you can't afford to lose! The patterns didn't translate so well in an audiobook but I know of them and could look them up.  I assume they are all in the print version of this book.  But for me, the biggest take home is I don't have enough money to do this and won't ever if only looking at my personal income.  Apparently, no one will let you day trade without tens of thousands of dollars.  So now I see why stuff like Robinhood took off so hard, even after all the closures and sketchy business practices were publicized.  

The Jungle - Upton Sinclair

 Here we have another book that I somehow got through all of school without reading.  This one is a long-term classic and it is referenced often not only in media but in government related affairs too, so it was a pretty obvious one to put on my list.  I'm glad I finally got around to it.

This book was fascinating and anxiety-inducing and great, up until the last few chapters that devolved into some sort of communist manifesto.  As immigrants who don't understand the trap, you are filled with dread for all the MC's.  Everything goes wrong in all the predictable ways and the author has done a wonderful job of capturing the suffocating helplessness of their plight and those like them.  This is not a happy book, but I still think everyone should read it!  It is amazing how far we have come as a society!  

"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Sinclair wrote this book to open the eyes of the established Americans to the unfair struggles of the poor and newer immigrants.  Apparently, no one gave a shit about poor children drowning in mud or women needlessly dying in childbirth or unemployment leading to death, but the horrors of the food impurities stuck because those people had to eat it.  They didn't care about the problems that didn't touch them.  While it wasn't his goal, I'm very happy that no longer have to worry about rats dead of poison being swept into the sausage machine. There was considerable good that came out of this incredibly long expose, even if it wasn't the outcome the author intended.  This book was the reason we created the governmental oversight in food and drugs so every American should read it. 

Changes - Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Bk. 12)

 My first knee-jerk reaction to this was, "Oh no, this is going downhill."  It was that internal groan of "why do children have to be a plot twist?"  As a general rule, any time surprise children show up, it's bs.  

Oh, how convenient!  You have offspring that, despite never having met, you feel suicidally protective over for no reason and completely without bonding.  But you never had to be bogged down with the actual work and sacrifice that leads to caring about a child's well-being.  (Let's be honest.  There are people who do raise their own children and still don't care about them.)

The whole plot is basically the child has to exist for the MC to give a crap and do something about it.  Then "for her own good" the child is shoved off in some unknown corner of the world where the MC still doesn't have to do any of the actual work to raise it and you know she will come back in 5-8 years as a teenager full of angst/rage/confusion about where her real parents are, bla bla bla.  

I hate children as plot devices so much.

1776 - David McCullough

 Every American needs to read this book.  It is an amazing trip through the American revolution in only the year 1776.  The war for freedom went on a long time, but several of the battles in this year were important in getting the message to Britain that the Americans were serious.  Up until the end of this year, the king and parliament thought it was just a small uprising, even after Bunker hill.  

But the reason I so highly recommend this book is the details.  You have heard of these battles in your boring high school history class, but the details are what bring the story to life and a HS class just doesn't have time for that.  Knox dragging 60 cannons from the Canadian border to Boston, Greene running out of a snowstorm on Christmas taking the Hessians by surprise, Washington pushing his men so deftly that the British estimated he must have 14,000-20,000 men in the American army when they really had only 8,000.  All of those fantastic and amazing stories get lost in the speed with which the material is covered in an American history class, so revisit that time.  You will come away with a much great appreciation of everyone involved in that whole time period.