- Money Buff by Sam Fargo
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- Life-Changing Books
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Most books inform our current state. We learn new things or escape reality for a while. Then there are books that actually change us. Books you find yourself putting down after certain passages and staring into space thinking about what you just read. They shape us, challenge us, and transform our perspectives.
Each of these books gave me a lifetime of wisdom in exchange for 20 hours of my time. Not a bad deal.
East of Eden
"It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years. I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this." - John Steinbeck
Steinbeck considered this novel to be his magnum opus, capturing the full scope of his talent. East of Eden is about the struggle between good and evil and how we are empowered to live how we want.
In breathtaking prose, he describes things like the first time you realize your parents aren’t perfect, money’s failure to buy love, and finding your identity. Steinbeck’s insights into the human condition teach me something new every time I pick it up.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
"Waves were the playing field. They were the goal. They were the object of your deepest desire and adoration. At the same time, they were your adversary, your nemesis, even your mortal enemy." - William Finnegan
Barbarian Days is a love letter to passionate pursuits, with the rewards and detriments that come with a lifetime of dedication. It entirely captures being in your twenties and filled with passion.
This book gave me a deep appreciation for not only Mother Nature, but all of the metaphors that surfing has for life, which Finnegan crafts perfectly in immense detail.
Man’s Search for Meaning
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl
Frankl describes his horrifying experiences in concentration camps and it's every bit as tragic as you could imagine. He then employs his knowledge as a psychologist to gain insight into these experiences.
He believes that suffering is inevitable, but finding meaning in life can help us persevere through any challenge. Meaning is what keeps people going even throughout the darkest time in history.
Poor Charlie's Almanack
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.” - Charlie Munger
One of the first books I read on the subject of investing. The physical dimensions are so big that I would read it during visits to the library, never actually taking it home.
Poor Charlie's Almanack is an inside look into how one of the greatest financial minds views the world. Munger opened my eyes to the possibilities of multidisciplinary thinking and sheds timeless wisdom on human behavior and decision-making.
Dispatches
“He hadn't been anything but tired and scared for six months and he'd lost a lot, mostly people, and seen far too much, but he was breathing in and breathing out, some kind of choice all by itself.” - Michael Herr
Dispatches is a harrowing account of the Vietnam War. Like most things, we know about them from textbooks but cannot begin to grasp the reality until reading a firsthand account. Herr does a great job of illustrating just how f*cked up the situation was for Americans who were drafted.
Most of us have never come close to a live battlefield. His descriptions of human behavior in situations of extreme stress lend to a greater understanding of the enduring human spirit.
Dune
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." - Litany Against Fear
There’s no way I could create this list without including a sci-fi. The genre has made me think about the direction of our society, how events ripple into the future, and the consequences of individual motives. Dune by Frank Hebert is the story of factions fighting for control of a planet and its coveted resource that extends life and enhances consciousness.
The life-changing part for me was the Litany Against Fear, referenced above. Remembering that “fear is the mind-killer” has had a profound impact on me, and countless others who recall it in life’s scariest moments.
Fooled by Randomness
“Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.” - Nassim Taleb
If you can look past his arrogance, Taleb provides brilliant theories for anyone interested in randomness, statistics, and cognitive biases. When both good and bad things happen, we fail to account for randomness.
This book taught me something I intuitively knew, but couldn't quite articulate: the world is more random than we think. Taleb fundamentally changed how I view outcomes and I’ve referenced his work multiple times in my writing.
I’d love to hear about the books that have most influenced you! Let me know in the comments.
- Sam