112 books
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143 voters
“Bill Gates (and his successor at Microsoft, Ray Ozzie) are famous for taking annual reading vacations. During the year they deliberately cultivate a stack of reading material—much of it unrelated to their day-to-day focus at Microsoft—and then they take off for a week or two and do a deep dive into the words they’ve stockpiled. By compressing their intake into a matter of days, they give new ideas additional opportunities to network among themselves, for the simple reason that it’s easier to remember something that you read yesterday than it is to remember something you read six months ago.”
― Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
― Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
“Typically, people who exercise, start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. Exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change.”
― The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
― The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
“Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities—a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity—but they also share one other defining attribute. They have a lot of hobbies.”
― Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
― Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
“Further, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter--it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up independently, for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that they should not be the source of any idea.”
― Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
― Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Mathieu’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mathieu’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Biography, Business, Classics, History, Humor and Comedy, Memoir, Music, Non-fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Self help, Sports, and Travel
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