David Raji

Question: What was it like to be a young man in 1917 volunteering for World War 1 and fighting for Germany? What’s it like to fight a losing war in general?

Summary: This book took you through the journey of a young scholar who is encouraged by his teacher to join the war with his classmates. The book goes through in excruciating detail what it’s like fighting, living and dying in such raw conditions as an active warzone.

Fascinating Idea: This book was haunting. A friend reminded me that the Nazi’s burned copies of this book and I think I understand why. It instills in me a strong disgust of war and its effects on the people fighting it. The generals and politicians that command it are so far removed from the stench and madness that is at the front line. Seeing how this completely upends the lives of simple self-determining people for the sake of ideas such as patriotism or profit, showed how futile the prospect of war could be. The fascinating takeaway of this book is a strong anti-war stance.

Question: Why is it that as countries increase in progress, there is more inequality? Shouldn’t there be an ushering of universal benefits that uplift everyone? Why is there still poverty?

Summary: This book basically gives you a masterclass in economic fundamentals and then beats down certain concepts to help build Henry George’s argument about progress and why it doesn't necessarily help poverty.

Fascinating Idea: The main idea of the book is honestly revolutionary. George’s main conclusion is that the reason for poverty in a sufficiently progressed society is the private ownership of land. If there was a way for you to share the inherent profits of land with the whole populace, then people wouldn’t be incentivized to sit on parcels of land and contribute nothing in terms of productivity while gaining land values. He has a compelling illustration of how all productivity gained in a progressive society ends up going to rent. +1 for implementing land value taxes and also universal basic income to evenly distribute the value!

Question: Is there a healthier way to use the technology that is now ubiquitous in our lives?

Summary: Cal Newport is the award-winning writer of Deep Work where he goes into ideas about working efficiently on complicated topics. That book and concept was a bit too “pie in the sky” for me to grasp but the concepts in Digital Minimalism are beyond practical. His description of the problem of rampant algorithms, lost hours and mindless scrolling resonate so well with me that it sometimes feels like he’s directly talking about me. He presents tools and thought processes on how to free yourself from the tyranny of your tech.

Fascinating Idea: Your technology is a tool. Unfortunately there are really smart people that are paid LOTS of money to think of ways for you to be trapped spending more and more time on your phone than you’d like, but that doesn’t change the fact that your phone is a tool. Newport suggests greyscalling, deleting useless notifications, blocking apps any way you know how - basically take back control of your tool. I found this to be very effective in using my phone for what I actually want instead of waking up hours later realizing I got lost in the looking glass guided by a really good algorithm.

Question: How can we improve our lives through the places that we live in? How important are walkable cities in the equation of life satisfaction and happiness?

Summary: Jeff does a fantastic job outlining the boons of living in a walkable city. He explains how it’s good for our health, wealth, joy and overall life. The book attempts a compelling argument that we should attempt to live in walkable communities or advocate for making our current communities much more walkable.

Fascinating Idea: Honestly, this book is going to inform where I live for the foreseeable future. After reading the chapter on biking I sold the motorized scooter I used to ride and bought a single speed bicycle. Initially my range on it was much lower than the 17 miles of the scooter and I arrived at destinations sweaty but after a few weeks, I found myself biking across municipalities, finding good neighborhoods, getting useful accessories and enjoying my commute. I’ve also been able to look around my city a lot more and learn about how things look from ground level while saving tons of money. It’s walkable neighborhoods for me here on out, no more excuses.

Question: Is there such a thing as a perfect political system? What might that system look like?

Summary: The book is from the point of view of a European traveler who is recounting tales from his travels to the new world with peers. He recounts an experience with a people in a place called Utopia. He describes the systems and norms of the location. The insinuation is that to live here is to experience a perfect society. One that is perfectly just and fair.

Fascinating Idea: The idea that this “Utopian” society would actually be horrible to live in. If you think about it, people need permission to do just about anything (travel, marry, work) and follow very stringent rules with the threat of being cast into slavery. Which, by the way, is how the book bypasses all concepts of ill in the society. Ironically the idea of this collective paradis sacrifices the individual liberties of a person. Which brings the idea can we have a free Utopia? When everyone is free to do what they want but don’t end up subjugating the will of others?

Summary: This is a book by Jose Rizal about the Filipino people under subjugation by Spain. He speaks from his own experience about the Philippines and how her people are to rise up against the Spaniards. He outlines things Spain can do to form a new relationship with the Filipino people and describes predictions about the relationships that the Philippines as a nation can develop in the future.

Fascinating Idea: Reading this book honestly led me to think about the idea of emancipation of black people under oppression. Obviously, that idea of oppression is more acute in the colonized Philippines than the subjugation of North American black people. That said, there were parallels to Jose Rizal’s calls for emancipation that mimicked the civil rights movement. Very inspirational and conversely very similar end to MLK Jr.

Summary: This book is meant to help you simplify your life and achieve your dreams faster and easier. Very conventional self help book in that sense but its method is simple, cut out anything unnecessary. You can do this in a few ways: Consistently challenge assumptions you have about what you want, get really, *really* good at saying no, and focus on your yes with full focus.

Fascinating Idea: This whole book was really convincing to me to be honest. This reminded me of the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and the question of keeping the main thing the main thing. Greg McKeown does not pull punches and is very direct in the action items in this book. Highlights were the chapters on making a mission statement, saying no graciously and the idea that you should even say no to *good* things that aren’t the essential thing. I’m learning more and more that my time is being constantly siphoned and I can't do the things that I, myself, deem essential. Very impactful book.

Question: How can you have a better approach to communication to better address the needs of all parties without causing people to get defensive?

Summary: This book is trying to help anyone better communicate their needs effectively and help the people in their lives to recognize those needs and emotions as well as become biased to help them. The book goes through different techniques that help the reader efficiently let people know how they feel while avoiding the pitfalls that conventionally can lead to people getting defensive and avoiding resolution or even an understanding. The methods are used for handling conflict and unpleasant feelings and also expressing gratitude and explaining positive emotions. The book also goes through examples of these techniques in action which helps paint a picture of what our world could look like with more effective Non-violent communication. The book helps you to communicate with others and yourself using the following framework: I feel [emotion], when you [did specific action] and this stems from [universal need that explains my reaction to the event].

Fascinating idea: When I read this book I thought it'd help me communicate with others. What it really helped me do was introspect so much better. I had to take a majority of my time here thinking about what my needs actually are and how to actually put them into words. Also getting in tune with my emotions on a discrete level. I initially referred to every bad emotion as nervous instead of disappointment, angry, disgusted etc. A chart doing the breakdown of different emotions helped me better understand my own feelings.

The Question: What does Silicon Valley look like to the world? What's up with this place and culture?

Summary: This book is the memoir of Anna Weiner. She is initially a floating 25 year old in NYC working at some dead-end jobs in publishing. She joins a startup, and this starts her adventure through Silicon Valley. She ends up having a pure silicon valley experience: startup grinds, lucrative acquisitions and even becoming good friends with founders. Throughout the experience she asks, “what's the point?”.

Fascinating Idea: One thing that this author gets at without mentioning outright, is the idea that very few ideas in silicon valley are actually novel. Uber is taxis, Airbnb is a bed and breakfast, social media is just human interactions and sharing, and even github was already being done before - the main provision is that these things are now centralized. Fundamentally, the actions that humans take aren't all that different. The change is that we do it all through one device and we’re tracked while doing it. I guess this always presents a possibility to opt out since the world isn’t really that different when you do.

The Question: How do we define polarization? Has it been increasing and if so, what does that mean for American politics?

Summary: Ezra Klein is really smart. In this book, he walks us throught the history of polarization in America. The book talks about things that contribute to polarization as well as presents lots of psychological evidence to explain current trends and predict the future of politics.

Fascinating Idea: One of the compelling ideas was the breakdown of Identity Politics. Klein argues that conservatism in the US isn't a set of principles but actually an identity. It's reflected by how homogenous the American Republic party looks (mostly white middle-aged men). He argues that the Democrats have a harder time building a single-identity coalition like this so they have to moderate their tone, so what they say to encourage black people doesn't dissuade their Hispanic working-class coalition etc etc. This also kind of explains that phrase "Democrats fall in love, republicans fall in line." Party loyalty might be more pertinent when it's a big part of the group identity.

The Question: Why is it that 40 years after the women's suffrage movement and the “first wave” of feminism, more women than ever felt unfulfilled with how limited the scope of their lives were.

Summary: Betty Freidman is a research juggernaut. This book is just throwing haymakers in terms of examples and case studies on and one. Now, I’m not necessarily privy to the world of these upper-middle class white women from the 60’s, but Betty paints a distinctly human experience in their frustrations. She makes her points that women should be a more prominent part of global society by drawing from a ton of research, and a veritable cacophony of voices/interviews. Realtalk, this book was longer than I thought it’d be. There was just *so much* content. If anyone is trying to understand that second wave, RBG, ERA type of white feminism - this book is their bible.

Fascinating Idea: Betty takes on Freud in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It was a great chapter about how Freud’s biological conclusions are bogus especially when it comes to how it determined women’s interactions. She straight up says that Freud doesn’t understand women. I totally believe it! She talked about his strange relationship with his own wife, mother and sisters. How those power imbalances informed his perceptions. She even critiques how his actions aren’t even consistent with his own findings. Definitely made me second guess that version of pseudo-intellectualism and behavioural psychology.

The Question: Why is it that 40 years after the women's suffrage movement and the “first wave” of feminism, more women than ever felt unfulfilled with how limited the scope of their lives were.

Summary: Betty Freidman is a research juggernaut. This book is just throwing haymakers in terms of examples and case studies on and one. Now, I’m not necessarily privy to the world of these upper-middle class white women from the 60’s, but Betty paints a distinctly human experience in their frustrations. She makes her points that women should be a more prominent part of global society by drawing from a ton of research, and a veritable cacophony of voices/interviews. Realtalk, this book was longer than I thought it’d be. There was just *so much* content. If anyone is trying to understand that second wave, RBG, ERA type of white feminism - this book is their bible.

Fascinating Idea: Betty takes on Freud in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It was a great chapter about how Freud’s biological conclusions are bogus especially when it comes to how it determined women’s interactions. She straight up says that Freud doesn’t understand women. I totally believe it! She talked about his strange relationship with his own wife, mother and sisters. How those power imbalances informed his perceptions. She even critiques how his actions aren’t even consistent with his own findings. Definitely made me second guess that version of pseudo-intellectualism and behavioural psychology.

The Question: What's it like to die? How does the process of dying inform life?

Summary: The book follows an aspiring brain surgeon who finds out that he has a late stage metastasized brain cancer. Paul Kalanithi tells his life and his story through diagnoses and finally death. This book was just gut-wrenching. So real. Incredibly beautiful and relevant. Reading this made me want to take back my time from inconsequential activities like social media and mindless tv. Also Paul was a great writer, him talking about life and legacy really helped open my mind and think about life's bigger questions and answers.

Fascinating Idea: In the book, Paul describes this panic when he realizes that he's been preparing for a role (neurosurgeon) that inherently takes a long, long time to realize and that he went through the grind but will miss out on the glory. He talks about loving your work, embracing the journey. Changed how I thought about my career. Less as a destination to reach but more as a story to enjoy in the present. Also, finding things I enjoy now, instead of just constantly delaying gratification for delaying sake. Take vacations, leave toxic environments, spend some money on yourself; this book left me with the idea that life is short so we ought to enjoy the journey.

The Question: What is the relationship between Indigineous people in North America and non-Indigenous people based on? What’s all this history like and what is the resulting perspective of American Indigineous folks.

Summary: This book is more than just an historical anthology. The writer, Thomas King, does a stellar job of talking about historical stories while explaining the context from an Indigenous perspective. The book is an absolute banger, a gut-wrenching crash course in Indigenous history and also present context. He talks about some serious mistreatment of Native peoples with such transparency and clarity that shows he’s not in the business of softening the discussion for white people. This book is the definition of real. We as North Americans need to be better.

Fascinating Idea: As King himself mentions at the end of the book “It’s all about the land”. The relationship between Indigineous people and their land is fundamentally different than a fee-simple commodity. The book explained how communal land sharing and tribal structures are ingrained in the Indigineous experience and how problematic legislative actions in the US and Canada are systematically ripping those away. Big eye-opener.

The Question: Are we trippin’? Why do we need all this useless technology in our cities? Is it even really helpful or is getting in the way of our actual civic work and endangering our privacy?

Summary: This book talks about city tech. Basically goes through examples of city bureaucrats adding public space wifi, cameras everywhere or “AI” to cities in order to bring them up to date. The book talks about “tech goggles” that people sometimes have where they just think that adding more tech to something will immediately make it better. Turns out that’s not the case, sometimes.. Well, often actually - it makes it worse. This book talks about some downright terrible examples of that *cough* sidewalk labs *cough* and then at the end highlights some good use cases!

Fascinating Idea: Privacy considerations of using technology in the public domain. People can use taxi data to find out who frequents strip clubs and then extort them and ruin their political careers, for some reason. Police use facial recognition data to punish people for attending protests against police brutality. Fighting the idea that there is police brutality by.. being brutal. This book did a great job of explaining the importance of privacy and why you should care about it even if you believe you have nothing to hide.

The Question: Why are men the way that they are?

Summary: This book is a collection of essays about feminism. Absolutely solid. It’s author is credited for the word ‘mansplaining’, although she apparently isn’t a big fan of its use. From microagressions to violence against women and a crystal clear explanation of how they’re all woven together. Book really helped paint a picture of the butterfly effect of misogynist violence. How letting this joke slide now relates to acts of physical violence against women later.

Fascinating Idea: Reading this book was just a total revelation. Being a better ally definitely starts with knowledge. I’m low-key ashamed to say, I wasn’t as knowledgeable as I thought on women’s studies and history. Understand the pattern and you can more quickly call it out. Understand the history and you can better empathize with the gravitas of the inequality. Also big-ups to the author for acknowledging and discussing the different experiences of feminism for Black and Indigenous women. Highly recommend the read.

The Question: Do we actually understand strangers and how can we better judge people we don’t know?

Summary: When talking to strangers we make quite a bit of assumptions that we wouldn’t make about ourselves. We’re overconfident in how well we can judge strangers and that leads to gross misjudgements of character. The book goes through many examples breaking down how we’re often wrong and the biases that make us wrong.

Fascinating Idea: So many good ones in this book. How police investigators/FBI agents who are tasked to discover lies are most gullible when people’s emotions don’t match their expressions. Due to this, it’s sometimes more reliable to use raw data to judge character instead of the reputation/expectations of someone tasked with interviewing a stranger.

The Question: How can I have a solid Christian marriage?

Summary: This is the book on Christian marriage by Francis Chan. The man is known for just owning the phrase “to live is Christ and to die is gain”. All about going all out. The book, and virtual workshop walk through practical steps to strengthen and rebuild your marriage centered on Christ.

Fascinating Idea: The most important thing in your relationship is both of your relationships with God and his mission to make disciples. If you’re having marriage problems, you’re probably having Jesus problems. It’s main takeaway is that you should band together and focus on pursuing Christ and make much of Him to improve your marriage as a byproduct.

The Question: How do we fit into our personality types and how does that inform our interactions?

Summary: This is a book about the Enneagram. The book goes through each of the personality types and evaluates what they’re like in childhood, under stress, when calm and safe. The book also gives famous examples with that personality type, and makes predictions about how someone may be like at work or in a relationship. This is meant to help you see your tendencies and better identify which personality type you adhere to.

Fascinating Idea: The idea that taking the personality test might be misleading. According to this book, when you take the personality test, you sometimes answer in a way that is expected of you or what you want to be. I understand that because as I read the descriptions, I saw myself in different personalities than just in the one that fit me best.

The Question: Can we build a better, more equitable world purely based on science?

Summary: This book assesses what it’s like to build a Utopian state through idealistic governance. Mainly focuses on universal basic income, shorter work weeks and open borders. This book evaluates ways to implement these ideals and why/how it might contribute to creating utopia.

Fascinating Idea: Universal basic income for all people seems to be the books most daring and pertinent topic. It’s presenting the argument and using cases from around the world to justify it. From GiveDirectly’s work in rural Kenya and even a Canadian experiment in a small Manitoban community.

The Question: Who is Ifemelu and how can you marry her American and Nigerian identities?

Summary: A high-energy, full personality Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, moves to America. Difficulties and complexities of life ensue. Then moves back to Nigeria as grown-up Americanah. In addition to cultural touchstone it doubles as a complex love story.

Fascinating Idea: There’s a lot of loves in this book and as confident and bombastic the main character is, she suffers from a lack of self-reflection. In a lot of the instances, I found myself being sympathetic to the people and families that were hurt along the way from reckless behaviour in pursuit of feelings.

The Question: What’s the right way to date as a Christian person?

Summary: A knowledgeable assessment of Christian dating. The subject of many a disgruntled believer. If the bible talks a big game about marriage, what does it say about dating?

Fascinating Idea: Christian dating is evaluating whether this person is someone that you can marry. Being very diligent in the task of assessing if they can be there through life’s twists and turns. You might do everything right, follow the guidance to the letter and things might still fall apart. That’s why the most important part is prayer.

The Question: What is an up-to-date snapshot of International Development?

Summary: This is a book about world facts. What is the actual state of world development in 2019. The writer explains in-depth how we are all relying on outdated misconceptions about how poor the global south is and this book does an up to date assessment on where people are at in global development.

Fascinating Idea: That the idea of ‘developed’ countries and ‘developing’ countries is outdated. Instead there’s a 4 tiered system that better breaks down wealth from the absolute poorest to ‘middle income’ countries and then rich countries. Most people are actually in the top half, vase majority in the top 3 with a few billion in abject poverty. Also even within so-called ‘rich’ countries, you find people across that spectrum (usually the top two tiers).

The Question: How can I live a more rested life and avoid burnout?

Summary: This book gives the argument for slowing down in life. It breaks down the dangers of hurry and how it hurts us, our lives and our faith. Then goes through practical steps on slowing down. There’s no rush. You’ll make less mistakes and it makes everyday life so much more manageable.

Fascinating Idea: One of the ideas in this book is just incorporating the lack of hurry into everyday life. General patience. Not jay-walking, not checking your phone when waiting in line for a sec, breathing slow, arriving early, walking/biking instead of driving. Reading the book in itself was a leisure endeavor and it really biblically sold me on this lifestyle of calm and leisure.

The Question: What makes a good spiritual leader and how can I become one?

Summary: This is a great, simple and straight-forward book on leadership. I found it relevant to all leadership, not just spiritual leadership. Breaks down leadership principles and methods of thinking about them.

Fascinating Idea: Lots of good nuggets here. Big ones that I felt I needed to be reminded of time and again is prayer, delegation and pride. Prayer as a tool to prepare for what you can’t see and just to involve God in your life. When you micromanage and refuse to delegate, you’re robbing someone of the opportunity to grow and yourself of the opportunity to have rest. Pride is just the downfall of even the best leader.

The Question: Of all the diets, which is the healthiest and the best for living long and healing?

Summary: This book uses the scientific method to convince the reader that raw plant based food is the best for health. There is a China study especially where the whole raw plant based diet showed incredible results in helping people with chronic health issues.

Fascinating Idea: This book made some insaaaane claims about the healing properties of whole plant-based diets. Reversing diabetes, curing cancers, reducing seizures just miracle cure levels of healing and did a decent job pointing to scientific papers that backed it’s ideas. Needs some research

Question: Who is Michelle Obama?

Summary: Michelle Obama is a badass, but she’s also just a woman that’s trying her best. She does a great job telling us about her upbringing and showing us a deeply relatable version of her life story. Honestly, reading this book made me realize that most people that I look up to are incredibly lucky, normal and approachable. Barack seemed like such a force of nature tho.

Fascinating Idea: The book emphasizes a commitment to trying your best and also being transparent about failures. One major takeaway about Michelle’s life is that you don’t have to be perfect to be good and have a great impact in the world. Sometimes even our heroes are just people trying their best.

The Question: How do I get a better relationship with money?

Summary: The last budgeting book that you’ll ever need. It approaches budgeting by asking you how much money you really need. Then it starts getting philosophical in it’s questions about your life, what you really want and how you want to live. The book explains that money is a tool and that it’s main purpose is to give you the life you want. So it implores you to think about cutting out the excess in your life and focus it on true financial freedom which is having the freedom to do exactly what you want with your time.

Fascinating idea: That money is interchangeable with life energy. You want to be doing exactly what you want with you life and financial freedom is understanding that and being free from vocational obligations