Books Read

Everything chages but some thigns stay the same. The author talks about the importance of long term thinking and the importance of understanding the past to make better decisions in the future. Human nature doesn't change.

L'enigma della camera 622 - Joel Dicker

Fiction. Joel Dicker is a swiss author that writes in Geneva. This is a detective story that takes place in a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, while the author is writing a book about the same story. Multiple timelines and a lot of twists.

One Blade of Grass - Henry Shukman

Henry is a poet and a zen teacher. Growing up in Oxford, his parents were both academics and he was expected to follow the same path. While he's still young they split up, leaving him scarred for life. He develops an excema that will follow him for many years. During his gap year he goes to South America for some months, spending time away from home, he heals and has a meaningful spiritual experience. While sitting on a beach, he sees the beauty of the world, how everything is connected and how everything is perfect as it is. Coming back home, everything falls apart.

Felicità - William Ferguson

Edwin is an editor in a publishing house in New York. He is not happy with his life, he is not happy with his job, he is not happy with his wife. One day he receives a manuscript from a mysterious author. The book is about happiness and is going to change the world, and Edwin will start a journey to find it.

A Geek in Japan - Hector Garcia

A book about the japanese culture, written by a spanish guy that moved to Japan. It's a collection of essays about the japanese culture, the food, the people, the history, the technology, the manga, the anime, the religion, the language, the work, the family

Il sogno sostenibile. Da Ponza alla Polinesia - Giovanni Malquori

Logbook of a sailing trip around the world, from Rome to Polinesia in steps, during holidays. The author didn't want to leave his job and his life, but he wanted to live his dream. He talks about the beauty of the sea and the islands, the people he met and the difficulties of sailing.

101 Storie Zen

I'm currently interested in Zen and Buddhism. This book is a collection of very short stories about the Zen philosophy.

Profondo come il mare leggero come il cielo - Gianluca Gotto

How the author discovered buddhism after getting ill with dengue fever in Thailand. He talks about the importance of living in the present moment and the importance of meditation.

The anthology of Balaji - Eric Jorgenson

A collection of the thoughts of Balaji Srinivasan, a very interesting thinker and entrepreneur.

Come una notte a Bali - Gianluca Gotto

A novel about a guy that is unhappy of his life, stuck in meaningless job, sharing a . Nobody around him seems to understan him. After discovering that his girlfriend cheated on him, he decides to quit and go to Bali to find himself. There he will fall in love with a girl.

Sette passi verso l'armonia - Thich Nhat Hanh

The author is a vietnamise buddhist monk and peace activist. He talks about how to live a more harmonious life, with less stress and more joy.

A Million Miles in A Thousand Years - Donald Miller

The author of 'Blue Like Jazz' talks about how to live a better story. It's a book about life, and how to live it better.

The refusal of work - David Frayne

I started this book long ago and forgot about it. Reading it now, I was totally captivated by it. It puts into words a lot of the feelings I have about work and the modern work-centered society. It's an essay about the damage of basing your life purely on work, and some people's search for a more meaningful life.

Odissea - Omero

The epic story of Ulysses and his journey back home after the Trojan War.

Read in 2023

Gang fit: freedom and strength - Guru Anaerobic

Thought-provoking. Today we are employed in a job that controls our life and we disregard health as something less important. In the book, the author talks about the importance of being strong and healthy, and how to achieve it. He also talks about the importance of being free, and how to achieve it.

The Pathless Path - Paul Millerd

Great book about following your own path in life.

How to get rich - Felix Dennis

Life lessons from Felix Dennis, founder of the publishing house Dennis Media, that became rich making magazines.

This is your mind on plants - Michael Pollan

Coffee, Opium, and Mescaline. The author talks about the history of these plants and his personal experience with them.

Poverina - Chiara Galeazzi

Chiara is a young radio broadcaster. One day sitting on the couch she realizes she can't feel half of her body. She's hit by a stroke.

Perfetti o felici - Stefania Andreoli

An Italian psychologist talks about the lifes of young adults, grown up in a society that is obsessed with appereance they go in search of authenticity.

The Magic of Thinking Big

Good life advices. Don't limit your thinking. When in doubt, think big.

Adrift - Steven Callahan

After his custom-built sailbot gets destroyed while crossing the Atlantic, Steven has to survive on a emrgency raft using only his skills and few items. A true story of survival and resilience, with lot of technical details on how to survive in the ocean. Beautifully written.

Le coordinate della felicita' - Gianluca Gotto

Beautiful book that resonated a lot with me at this moment. Give yourself permission to follow what makes you happy. You don't have to do what anyone else is doing. You can live an unconventional life. Don't be afraid of making mistakes as they mean that you really tried and really lived.

Le farfalle sul Mekong

A diary of travel in Thailand and Vietnam. I've read it while I was in Thailand.

Bangkok days - Lawrance Osborne

Talks about the decadent life of expats in Bangkok. I've read it while I was in Thailand.

How to fail at almost everything and still win big - Scott Adams

Biography and life advice in a fun way from the creator of Dilbert.

Sul senso della vita - Viktor E Frankl

Il racconto dell'isola sconosciuta - Jose Saramago

Very short story from the Portugese author.

The Dark Forest (La materia del cosmo) - Liu Cixin

The sequel to 'The three body problem' that I read in 2018. An alien enemy is coming to the Earth in 400 years, in the meantime they have sent sophones, smart particles

This is Marketing - Seth Godin

A fresh approach to marketing, in contrast with the 'spam on social media' way that is very popular nowadays. Actually behave like a human and try to be authentic and helpful to someone else.

- Scott Admas (Dilbert)

Funny collection of comic strip and text

How To - Randall Munroe

A book from xcdc with absurd engineering situations.

March 22 - 320 pages

Spillover - David Quammen

Very good book on the discoveries of zoonotic virues, such as the Coronavirus.

Read in 2022

1. Atomic Habits - James Clear

Finished January 2022 - 200 pages

Good book. I wanted to read it since a long time and my brother kindly lend it to me. Main takeaways: a 1000 small improvements can lead to a tremendous change in your life.

2. On the Move - Oliver Sacks

Finished March 2022 - 400 pages

Autobiography of the great doctor and scientist, author of 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat'. He talks about travels, motorbikes, weightlifting and his life as a british gay doctor in the US. His experience with patients and how he wrote his books, and the mosti important relationships of his life.

3. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - S. Clarke

Finished March 2022 - 960 pages

It's the semi-realistic story of magic rising in the UK in the 1800s, thanks to two magicians: the old and grumpy Norrell and the young and brilliant Strange. I expected something similar to Bartimeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud (that i loved as a teenager) but the style is totally different, still very enjoyable. The narration starts very slowly but become more interesting as it goes on. When you reach the end, you are so familiar with the characters and the universe created, that you want to read a second book.

4. Questa e' l'America - F. Costa

Audiobook

Costa is an italian journalist, vice director of ilpost. He spent the last few years traveling in the US and covering the america politics through his podcast, newsletter and books. His

5. Memories, Dreams, Reflections - Carl G. Jung

March 22 - 500 pages

Autobiography of one of the most influential psychiatrist. He worked with Freud and lived in Zurich. Memories of his childhood, meeting with his inconscio and his travels. He had visions and giving a lot of importance to dreams, most of the time the latter would guide him in the direction to take. Took me a long time to finish this, the biographical part goes well but the philosophical section in the end got a bit too abstract and technical.

Read in 2021

Unlike last year, this year I didn't set any reading target. However I tried to read less non fiction and more fiction, but only things that I enjoyed reading.

1. The miracle morning - Hal Elrod

When he thought he had everything in life, the author had a serious life-threatening incident. He fell behind everybody else and he started waking up early in order to recover. After this book I woke up at 7.30 every day for 1 week.

2. Men without women - Haruki Murakami

I wanted to read something from Murakami, but not something too challenging. I found this book for only 3$ in Bucher-Broky (a beautiful 2nd hand bookshop in Zurich). It's a series of short stories and there a couple of nice ones.

3. Hell yeah or no - Derek Sivers

A collection of 1 page posts from Derek Sivers. Beautifully written and dense. I already read most of them already, but I bought the physical copy to have in my library and read it again.

4. This is going to hurt - Adam Kay

The story of a life of a doctor in the NHS. Sometimes horryfing, sometimes funny, a nice reminder why I decided not to be a doctor.

5. Your music and people - Derek Sivers

Another collection of posts from Derek Sivers, more focused on pursuing a music career.

6. Le otto montagne - Paolo Cognetti

An award winning italian novel. The story of a man and his relationship with a mountain village, his family and his mountain friend.

7. Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer

An essay that reads like a novel. The author discovers the world of memory champions and decide to become one. Quite interesting, our mind is more powerful than we think. The method is based on encoding the information into something more memorable, usaully visual.

8. Il Pensiero Giapponese

I got this as a gift since I love the japanese culture. There are some interesting ideas.

9. Era meglio il libro - Valerio Lundini

A book of short stories by current favorite italian comedian. He has humor that is a bit difficult to describe, sometimes surreal and other times cringe on purpose.

10. Endurance - Alfred Lansing

Amazing read. 22 men survive for 2 years in the south pole, after their boat is crushed by ice.

11. Mi chiamo Matteo e faccio il contadino - Matteo Fiocco

The story of an italian guy that decided to buy a piece of land and start farming and filming himself. Sharing his journey he became a somehow famous youtuber.

12. Helgoland - Carlo Rovelli

Helgoland it's a desertic island in the north sea where Heisenberg went as a 23 years old to think about his research and come up with a quantistic theory.

13. The Log from the Sea of Cortez - John Steinbeck - (in italian: Diario di bordo, Canale di Cortez)

The nobel prize winner Steinbeck goes with his friend Ed Ricketts in a naturalistic mission in the California Gulf, with a unique ecosystem and indigenous people. The way it's written reminds me a lot of Bukowski.

14. Solve for happy - Mo Gadwat

Written by a Google employee that loses his son and talks in a scientific approach about how to be happy. There are some nice lessons in there but for some reason I took me a long time to finish it, probably I didn't like it that much.

15. Il conte di Montecristo - A. Dumas

Written 170 years ago and it's still one of the best novels written. It never ends (about 1000 pages) and feels like 3-4 novels fit into one.

16. Let my people go surfing - YC

I expected more from this book. I liked the idea of letting people stop working and go surfing,when there are waves. This goes in the direction of having

17. Spillover - David Quammen

I didn't finish it yet but it's very good.

18. Brave New World - A. Huxley

A very interesting novel from Huxley, with some thought-provoking ideas about a society of the future. Some of these things we are already living them.

Read in 2020

Target was 50 books. Read 43 books.

1. Il formidabile esercito svizzero - John McPhee

A very interesting book about about the swiss army that you can summarize with the motto "Be prepared". Recomended. I wanted to read something from McPhee and I recently moved to Swtitzerland so this combination was perfect.

2. Il libro dei cinque anelli - Musashi

3. Messaggio ad un’acqua la che si crede un pollo - Anthony De Mello

4. La fine è il mio inizio - Tiziano Terzani

5. The Game - Neil Strauss

6. Discipline equals freedom - Jocko Willink

7. Story of your life - Ted Chiang

9. Show your work -

10. Story of your life - Ted Chiang

11. L'arte di trattare le donne - Schopenauer

12. Essentialism - McKeown

13. I figli di Dune - Frank Herbert

14. I bottoni di Napoleone - 368pp

15. Creative calling - Chase Jarvis

16. Il sistema periodico - Primo Levi

17. Woman in the dunes - Kobo Abe 179pp

18. Talking to strangers - Malcom Gladwell 346pp

19. Così un uomo pensa - James Allen - 100pp

20. The subtle art of not giving a f* - Mark Mason

21. Il coraggio di non piacere

22. Possiamo salvare il mondo prima di cena - Safran Foer

23. Homo Deus - Harari

24. Lolita - Nabokov

25. La dieta della longevità - Valter Longo

27. Day skipper for sail and power

28. My year of rest and relaxation

29. Nudge

30. So good they can't ignore you - Cal Newport

31. Scrivo poesie solo per portarmi a letto le ragazze - Charles Bukowski

32. This book will save your life

I found this book for free somewhere and read it while I was on vacation in Crete, Greece. It's a story about a rich man in LA who has everything but doesn't remember to enjoy his life. At some point he start feeling some kind of pain

33. Unthetered soul - Michael Singer

34. Normal People - Sally Rooney

Found this book on the street for free. It's a very popular novel nowadays. Two people that love each other but are too afraid to tell each other, end up growing apart and meeting again and again. Without a happy ending.

35. Norse Mithology - Neil Gaiman

Beautiful prose and stories.

36. Steve Jobs non abita più qui - Michele Masneri

The weirdness of the Silicon Valley viewed and told by an italian journalist

37. Not fade away - Peter Barton

Biography of Peter Barton, founder and CEO of Liberty Media. An intense life cut short by cancer.

38. How to get filthy rich in rising Asia - Mohsin Hamid

Funny but also sad, the stereotipical story of a guy from childhood poverty to success and death.

39. Sum - David Eagleman

Different views on what happens once we are dead. We may discover that...

40. Il maestro e la margherita - Michail Bulgakov

It's a weird russian novel that includes the devil, Pontius Pilatus and a witch. It's quite slow and don't understand where it's going. You meet the main characters after few hundreds pages.

41. Mord am morgen (in german)

Very simple german book for learning the language.

42. Café in Berlin (in german)

Same as above.

43. Life is what you make it - Andrewe Buffett

Written by Warren Buffett's son. Not particularly insightful.

Read in 2019 or before

1. The sun and her flowers - rupi kaur

A modern poetry book about the end of a love and the start of a new one.

2. Vivere momento per momento

About mindfulness and silence, a bit difficult to read.

3. Walden - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau spent two years in 1845 in a small hut on the lake Walden shores, away from society, observing nature and writing. The language is not always easy but some images are beautiful. It's also incredibly practical sometimes and describes how much money he spent in total for getting the food.

4. Art of Learning - Josh Waitzkin

Josh was a chess champion when he was 10, he traveled the world and learned from different Grand Master. Then a movie about his life came out and he was submerged by fans. He couldn’t not focus on chess anymore. His intimate relationship to the game was ruined. But then he started Tai Chi. He found a lot of similarities between the two sports. They are part of the art of learning. He also became a Tai Chi Push Hands world champion.

5. The Phoenix project

Bill is promoted VP of IT operations just before the rollout of Project Phoenix, a mystical application that what its supposed to make his company competitive again. The project is largely behind schedule and full of bugs, but the CEO forces the rollout anyway. Of course it’s a disaster. Bill can only improve from there.

6. Art of asking - Amanda Palmer

Learn how to ask support to the people who want to support you. Learn how to show your vulnerability.

Show your work

Essentialism - Georg McKewon

Understand what’s really important and drop everything else.

Siddartha - Herman Hesse

15-07-2019

The story of brahamin that want to reach the nirvana.

Art of Hacking

Finished on Thursday 15 August 2019 Anectodes and strategies used to enter systems and gather protected information.

Il silenzio è vita - Chandra Livia Candiani

Finished on Thursday 15 August 2019 Remembers you to slow down. Enjoy the silence and the moment. Be aware means living. Distraction means death. A lot of short stories of wisdom.

Ego is the enemy

__Finished on Thursday 1 August 2019 This book is so full of wisdom that it makes you want to underline everything. Stories of men and women from that past the learned how Our ego is part of our lives that Più abbiamo successo e più siamo spinti dal nostro ego a comportarci male. Dobbiamo essere attenti a non farci guidare dal nostro ego ma usare l'amore e

When breath becomes air

Finished on tue 30 July 2019

The story of how the neurosurgeon Paul K faced his lung cancer. The part I liked the most is his history, from being a child in a desolated town in the desert to being a known surgeon who works 12 hours a day. The stress the he was living was incredible and his diagnosis finally let him take a step back and reevaluate his life. Illuminating the part on med school, how the kids are facing with death, our permanent partner. The body of a patient is a machine that you try to fix as good as you can but it’s unbelievable complexity limits you. For trying to fix the brain This is even more true.