EFFECTIVE THINKING
Poor Ash’s Almanack > Book Reviews > Effective Thinking
★★★★★★★ (7/7) (life-changing)
Stolen Focus by Johann Hari: Review and Analysis – Buy Stolen Focus on Amazon
A deep dive into the modern attention crisis, exploring the forces destroying our ability to focus and what it takes to reclaim our minds. If anyone asked me for the single most important book to read in 2025, this would be it. It’s important for us in both our work life and our personal life – not just for human flourishing as an individual, but equally important in our relationships – and especially important if you have kids. One of the core foundations for our new attention / focus mental model.
Misbehaving by Richard Thaler: Review and Analysis – Buy Misbehaving On Amazon
Nobel laureate Richard Thaler delivers an extraordinarily learning-rich, supremely funny journey through cognitive biases and behavioral economics. Mental models include: salience, contrast bias, hyperbolic discounting, opportunity costs, sunk costs, utility, overconfidence, hindsight bias, status quo bias, loss aversion and fairness.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman: Review and Analysis – Buy The Design of Everyday Things On Amazon
Renaissance man Don Norman lays out multidisciplinary design principles to make products and systems work effortlessly. Mental models include: structural problem solving, humans vs. econs, memory, feedback, activation energy, multicausality, status quo bias, salience, and schema.
Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales: Review and Analysis – Buy Deep Survival On Amazon
In survival situations, who lives, who dies, and what’s the neuroscience behind it? Mental models include: cognition, intuition, habit, stress, agency, overconfidence, selective perception, memory, complexity, trait adaptivity, culture, multicausality, margin of safety, luck, process vs. outcome, and n-order impacts.
How Doctors Think by Dr. Jerome Groopman: Review and Analysis – Buy How Doctors Think On Amazon
How do doctors combat cognitive biases while making diagnoses? A fascinating exploration that will help you as a professional AND a patient, covering models including authority bias, reciprocity bias, recency bias, overconfidence, Bayesian reasoning, framing, cognition, intuition, action bias, man-with-a-hammer, and counterfactuals.
Nudge by Sunstein / Thaler: Review and Analysis – Buy Nudge On Amazon
What do you get when you cross behavioral economics with Don Norman style design thinking? Structural problem solving solutions that help people save 3x for retirement and sign up to become organ donors. Models include: status quo bias, social proof, loss aversion, structural problem solving, and activation energy.
Surviving Survival by Laurence Gonzales: Review and Analysis – Buy Surviving Survival On Amazon
Say you survive a shark attack – or domestic violence. Your journey’s not over yet – survival is often the start of a longer, and more difficult journey. How and why do some people achieve resilience – bouncing back stronger – while others never move past the trauma? Blending neuroscience and great storytelling, Laurence Gonzales investigates in a concise and impactful book.
Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger: Review and Analysis – Buy Poor Charlie’s Almanack On Amazon
The book that started it all – Munger’s “latticework of mental models” approach is the foundation of this site. Highlights: incentives, multicausality, n-order impacts, rationality, incentives, ideology, inversion, luck, margin of safety, and scientific thinking.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey: Review and Analysis – Buy The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People On Amazon
A landmark classic: the single most influential impact on my personal development, and that of many others. Models include: agency, schema, habit, local vs. global optimization, structural problem solving, utility, inversion, empathy, mindfulness, and social connection.
Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin: Review and Analysis – Buy Seeking Wisdom On Amazon
A compact book covering broad ground in elucidating some of the more common mental models, often via quotes from Munger and Buffett. Highlights include: incentives, n-order impacts, overconfidence, probabilistic thinking, inversion, compounding, social proof, and margin of safety.
The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor: Review and Analysis – Buy The Happiness Advantage On Amazon
This profound, research-backed (and hilarious) psychology book helped me realize that happiness was a choice, and set me on a path to where I am today. Models include: agency, schema, activation energy, stress, hedonic adaptation, contrast bias, and local vs. global optimization.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy by Dr. Judith Beck: Review and Analysis – Buy Cognitive Behavior Therapy On Amazon
A counterintuitive yet necessary and true realization is that our thoughts are just that: thoughts, that may or may not be true. CBT provides an empirically-validated methodology for building more adaptive beliefs. Models include: empathy, agency, mindfulness, probabilistic thinking, a/b testing, contrast bias.
★★★★★★ (6/7) (standout for its category)
The Up Side of Down by Megan McArdle: Review and Analysis – Buy The Up Side of Down On Amazon
An astonishingly broad-ranging, insightful book analyzing failure’s role in our lives – and how we can and should respond to it. Models include: feedback, overconfidence, agency, salience, process vs. outcome, utility, loss aversion, arms race, commitment bias, trait adaptivity.
Mistakes were Made (but not by me) by Tavris/Aronson: Review and Analysis – Buy Mistakes were Made (but not by me) On Amazon
Why can we see others’ mistakes clear as day… while completely overlooking our own? A fascinating exploration of psychology and the follies of memory, including contrast bias, local vs. global optimization, incentives, hindsight bias, salience, confirmation bias, stress, and sunk costs.
Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock: Review and Analysis – Buy Superforecasting On Amazon
How can ordinary individuals like you and I make more accurate predictions than experts – in their own fields? The specific thought process includes models like probabilistic thinking, multicausality / disaggregation, Bayesian reasoning, overconfidence, habit, and feedback.
The Checklist Manifesto by Dr. Atul Gawande: Review and Analysis – Buy The Checklist Manifesto On Amazon
A widely-read but often misinterpreted book on the power of a simple tool – a checklist – for reducing technical errors. It delves into a lot of interesting models, including: memory, structural problem solving, culture, empathy, activation energy, utility, and margin of safety.
The Success Equation by Michael Mauboussin: Review and Analysis – Buy The Success Equation On Amazon
Luck and skill can be difficult concepts to conceptualize; Mauboussin does a great job of providing clear visual metaphors for separating the two in business, sports, and beyond. Models include: luck vs. skill, path-dependency, sample size, storytelling, social proof, and intuition.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg: Review and Analysis – Buy The Power of Habit On Amazon
Habits have a strong gravity pull, shaping 40% of our daily decisions. It’s important to have the right ones – Duhigg explores the habit feedback loop, and how we can control it. Models include: feedback, agency, memory, incentives, intuition, and of course, habit.
Lost Connections by Johann Hari: Review and Analysis – Buy Lost Connections on Amazon
Johan Hari argues that depression and anxiety are not caused by a simple ‘chemical imbalance’ but are rational responses to profound disconnections in modern life. He identifies key disconnections, including the loss of meaningful work, community, and intrinsic values. The book reframes depression as an evolutionary signal of unmet human needs.
Before Happiness by Shawn Achor: Review and Analysis – Buy Before Happiness On Amazon
The world confronts us with more information than we can possibly process; Achor synthesizes fresh research into practical, actionable conclusions with a healthy dose of humor. Models include: utility, growth mindset, tradeoffs, sunk costs, social connection, selective perception, disaggregation.
10% Happier by Dan Harris: Review and Analysis – Buy 10% Happier On Amazon
Meditation gets a bad rap because of its association with hippies and Zen paradox nonsense. So news anchor Dan Harris was a skeptic… until secular meditation, free of woo-woo bullshit, made him 10% happier. Models include: mindfulness, hedonic adaptation, habit, and product vs. packaging.
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown: Review and Analysis – Buy Daring Greatly On Amazon
Social connection is empirically validated as a powerful driver of our behavior (and our well-being). Researcher-storyteller Brene Brown explores how connection and disconnection shape our lives, and how we can embrace authenticity and vulnerability. Models include: social connection, mindfulness, culture, in-group vs. out-group behavior, and the growth mindset.
The Seven Sins of Memory by Daniel Schacter: Review and Analysis – Buy The Seven Sins of Memory On Amazon
Our memories are designed to forget – it’s a feature, not a bug, surprising as that may sound when you’re looking for your keys for the third time in five minutes. Exploring memory’s inner workings enhances our understanding of cognitive processes. Models include: recency bias, memory, overconfidence, structural problem solving, association bias, and consistency bias.
★★★★★ (5/7) (solid for its category)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman: Review and Analysis – Buy The Pleasure of Finding Things Out On Amazon
A delightful window into the thought process of beloved American physicist Richard Feynman – as talented a raconteur and teacher as a scientist. Models include: culture / status quo bias, probabilistic thinking, commitment bias, product vs. packaging, disaggregation, process vs. outcome, and margin of safety.
How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: Review and Analysis – Buy How To Win Friends and Influence People On Amazon
A landmark classic that’s still popular a century later, HWFIP can lean Pollyanna-ish and theatrical but still teaches powerful lessons that have benefited me and many of my friends. Models include: empathy, incentives, schema, local vs. global optimization, and agency.
“30 Lessons for Living” by Karl Pillemer
A unique methodology on finding the best worldview – seeking the perspective of the elderly – but predictable results and no “new” lessons.
★★★★ (4/7) (acceptable for its category)
“The Lonely American” by Olds/Schwartz.
An intriguing book with a strong first half about how local vs. global optimization leads our social connections to fray… but ultimately, not a lot of useful practical advice, and derailed by a lot of unsupported opinions. Still worth reading!
“The Paradox of Choice” by Barry Schwartz.
I was looking forward to this one, but it disappointed.
Mindware by Richard Nisbett
A book with a lot of interesting points, but ultimately not a ton that’s unique, and a very incoherent / illogical discussion of “dialectical reasoning” in the second half.
★★★ (3/7) (mediocre)
Douglas Adams’ “How To Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big”
Enjoyable to read (the first half, anyway) but ultimately doesn’t deliver a lot of learning potential.
“Mindset” by Carol Dweck
The growth mindset is phenomenally important, but Dweck goes down the egalitarian rabbit hole and concludes (directionally) that talent doesn’t exist – she fails to understand trait adaptivity. Her research is great; her book, not so much.
“Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman
Vastly overrated and overrecommended – extremely poorly written, and superseded by many superior books on cognitive biases.
“Why We Make Mistakes” by Joseph Hallinan.
Too brief to be of any use to serious readers; good for someone who is a casual reader, but not for readers of this site.
“Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer
An engaging narrative about one journalist’s journey to the national memory championship, but not one from which many useful lessons can be extracted.
★★ (2/7) (meaningfully flawed)
none at this time!
★ (1/7) (run, Forrest, run!)
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig
The most painful book I’ve ever read to the end: an annoying narrative style with a complete absence of any interesting or applicable lessons.
“Grit” by Angela Duckworth
A book that promulgates a maladaptive, uninspired “work harder not smarter” philosophy that’s already far too common in the business world. See instead Don Norman’s seven-star “Design of Everyday Things” and the structural problem solving mental model for a more mature, thoughtful, logical approach to the world.