Wiser Than Yesterday: Educational Book Reviews and Summaries
Episodes
The Language Puzzle: How we talked our way out of the Stone Age - Steven Mithen
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between language, thought and culture is of concern to anyone with an interest in what it means to be human.The Language Puzzle ...
Bruce Lee: Artist of life - The 6 habits of power and wisdom from a legend
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce Lee was an intense man with such sheer concentration of energy that no one who encountered him, on screen or in person, could help but be drawn ...
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Richard Wrangham
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apeli...
Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume...
Impact: How to Measure World Change
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is Brexit more important than Bitcoin? How do we rank Buddhism vs TikTok?The world changes, technology advances, but what really matters and how much?...
Poor Charlie's Almanac - Charlie Munger
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The favourite mental models and timeless lessons from Charlie Munger on how to build worldly wisdom.Charlie Munger was the business partner of Warren ...
The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond - Stone Age Lessons on Innovation
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Heard enough lame insights about caveman psychology? Jared Diamond goes hard into what life was really like, how we thought and how it compares to tod...
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon - Brad Stone
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We share the 10 best mental models about innovation from tech titan Jeff Bezos.This episode covers the story of Amazon and some of the incredible shif...
Morgan Housel - Same As Ever: Timeless lessons on risk, opportunity and living a good life.
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation fr...
The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin [Three Body Problem pt.2]
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A philosophical discussion on part 2 of the Three-Body Problem series, The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin.We ponder different answers to Fermi's paradox and...
No Offence, But... by Gina Martin
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How to have difficult conversations, for meaningful change.We break down Gina Martin's book addressing how to navigate some of the worst conversation-...
The Signal and The Noise - Nate Silver
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Making good predictions is tough. We think we know more than we do and let emotions and biases creep in. How do some forecasters beat the odds? Our ho...
The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene are described as amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive. This multi-million-copy New York Times be...
The changing world order - Ray Dalio
27 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From legendary investor Ray Dalio, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Principles, who has spent half a century studying global economies and m...
The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Review of the Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, one of the most impactful hard-science fiction books this century.Set against the backdrop of China's C...
False Alarm - Bjorn Lomborg - The cost of climate change panic
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg examines how climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet. This is a divisive bo...
The Culture Code: Secrets of Highly Successful Groups - Daniel Coyle
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Teamwork is renowned for being the key to success. The practicalities of making it happen to rely on building a brilliant culture. But what does that ...
4000 weeks: Time management for mortals - Oliver Burkeman
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
4000 weeks is a productivity book that is anti-productivity. We are all going to die and optimising our day for every last morsel of work is not the w...
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What we do if most of civilization collapsed to survive as a species? What human knowledge is most important to preserve and use to rebuild society as...
How To Change Your Mind - Michael Pollan
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. We break down our main lessons ...
Body Keeps the score
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Body Keeps the score is a book that you keep hearing about especially as mental health and trauma become more and more relevant.Bessel Van Der Kock ex...
We're back - A quick update
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We had a long hiatus since the summer of 2022. The mind series rather dragged and we realised we needed to sort out a better system for things.We also...
NEURODIVERSITY: The Man Who Mistook His Wife and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this book, neurologist Oliver Sacks, describes the case histories of some of his patients. Sacks chose the title of the book from the case study of...
NEURODIVERSITY - PSYCHOPATHS: The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success by Kevin Dutton
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychop...
NEURODIVERSITY - AUTISM: NeuroTribes; The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of NeurodiversityBy Steve SilbermanWhat is autism? A lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring fo...
NEURODIVERSITY - ADHD: Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain by Peter Shankman
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain By Peter ShankmanIn Faster Than Normal, Shank...
Investing Recap
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thoughts and Learnings in Investing Everyone should be thinking about investing. Every money decision you make is an investment decision. All investme...
Investing: Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market by Noah Horowitz
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market By Noah Horowitz Art today is defined by its relationship to money as never before. Pri...
Investing: What is Decentralized Finance or DeFi
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Decentralized Finance or DeFi Decentralized Finance offers financial instruments without relying on intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or b...
Investing: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness By Eric Jorgenson Getting rich is not just about luck; happiness is not just a trait w...
Investing: The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness By Morgan Housel Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you kn...
Investing: The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment by Guy Spier
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment By Guy Spier What happens when a young Wall Street in...
Investing: Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 Into $100,000,000 by Jason Calacanis
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 Into $100,000,000By Jason CalacanisOne of Sil...
Investing: NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), explained
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
NFTs (Non-Fungible Token), explainedA non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger (blockchain...
Investing: The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central BankingBy Saifedean AmmousThe Bitcoin Standard analyzes the historical context to the r...
Investing: The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Intelligent InvestorBy Benjamin GrahamThe Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, first published in 1949, is a widely acclaimed book on value in...
Investing: Talking To My Daughter About The Economy by Yanis Varoufakis
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Talking To My Daughter About The Economy: A Brief istory of CapitalismBy Yanis VaroufakisIn this letter to his teenage daughter, one of the world's mo...
Investing: Introduction to Investing
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introduction to InvestingWe live in a capitalistic society, where everything revolves around adding value. Adding value can be anything: farmers, bake...
Body Recap
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Recap of the human body books that we have readIf Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Body - James HamblinWhy We Sleep...
Body: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never SeenBy Christopher McDougallInspiration for reading this book ca...
Body: Death by Food Pyramid - Denise Minger
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our HealthBy Denis MingerDenise Minger shares her...
Body: Burn by Herman Pontzer
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Burn: The Misunderstood Science of MetabolismBy Herman PontzerWe burn 2,000 calories a day. And if we exercise and cut carbs, we'll lose more weight. ...
Body: Gut by Giulia Enders
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organby Giulia EndersFor too long, the gut has been the body’s most ignored and least apprecia...
Body: Lifespan by Dr. Savid Sinclair
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lifespan: why we age - and why we don’t have toBy Dr. Savid Sinclair#1: Aging is a disease: We must move away from treating age-related diseases and...
Body: Breath by James Nestor
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James NestorNo matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it ma...
Body: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why we sleepWritten by Matthew WalkerAmazing breakthrough - science has discovered a new treatmentLive longerEnhances memoryMore creativeLook more att...
Body: If Our Bodies Could Talk by James Hamblin
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Bodyby James HamblinDoctor turned journalistLaunched a series of videos for the...
Business Recap
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Recap of the business books that we have readShoedog: Autobiography of Phil Knight, founder of NikeThe lean startup, Eric Ries:How to build a startup,...
Business: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy - Richard Rumelt
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Good strategy, bad strategy: The difference, and why it mattersBy Richard RumeltKey insightsStrategy =/= ambitious goal setting, vision, charismaAroun...
Business: Venture Deals - Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason MendelsonEver thought about getting investments for your startup? Ever thought about investing in a startup?Wheth...
Business: Hooked - Nir Eyal
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hooked - how to build habit-forming products by Nir EyalHow do successful companies create products people can't put down?Why do some products capture...
Business: Obviously Awesome - April Dunford
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Obviously AwesomeApril Dunford extracts from her own 20+ years of real-world tech marketing experience a basic positioning framework that actually wor...
Business: The High Growth Handbook
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The High Growth HandbookGlobal technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high-growth, tech companies like...
Business: The Messy Middle - Scott Belsky
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Messy middle by Scott BelskyMost startup stories describe the most romantic parts of a venture, from starting in a garage or college dorm to succe...
Business: The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Hard thing about hard thingsA valuable book for tech entrepreneurs, The Hard thing about hard things helps throw light at the challenges a CEO goe...
Business: The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Lean Startup by Eric RiesA startup is a grand experiment = "a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of ex...
Business: Shoe Dog - Phil Knight - The story of Nike
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shoe Dog is a memoir by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The memoir chronicles the history of Nike from its early struggles to its evolution into one of t...
The best books of 2020
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We (Sam and Nico) look back at what we read on the show in 2020.We both choose our top three books from the year that we discussed on the show and sha...
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
23 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer ...
Seneca - On the Shortness of Life
26 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Stoic writings of the philosopher Seneca offer powerful insights into the art of living, the importance of reason and morality, and continue to pr...
The Republic - Plato
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The RepublicWhere Plato lays down his ideas of an ideal state and its rulers. Plato's Utopian state is one which is just and his ideal rulers are phil...
Epicurus
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
EpicurusEpicureanism is powerfully and refreshingly relevant, offering a straightforward way of dealing with the issues of life and death. The chapter...
Enchiridion by Epictetus
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
EnchiridionEnchiridion means handbook: practical guide for lifeStarts with the dichotomy of control;* Some things are in our absolute control, our tho...
The Confessions by Saint Augustine of Hippo
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Confessions of Saint AugustineThe book starts off with his early childhood, where he reflects on the inherent violence of children, caused by orig...
The final days of Socrates - Plato
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Last Days of SocratesA Philosophy book by Plato that is divided between 4 partsEuthyphroTakes place just before Socrate's trial is about to beginT...
Season Recap: Racism and Inequality
19 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are very grateful for the chance to read and discuss the books this season on the show.As a hot topic we also listened and read a lot of other cont...
Nonviolent Communication - Marshall Rosenberg
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nonviolent Communication is based on the assumption that all human beings have capacity for compassion and empathy and that people only resort to viol...
Discrimination and Disparities - Thomas Sowell
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A searching re-examination of the assumptions, and the evidence for and against, current approaches to issues of economic and other disparitiesDiscrim...
How to be an antiracist - Ibram X. Kendi
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How to Be an Antiracist is a 2019 non-fiction book by American author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. The book discusses concepts of racism and Kendi's ...
White fragility - Robin DiAngelo
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism A 2018 book written by Robin DiAngelo about race relations in the United State...
Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race - Rene Eddo-Lodge
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The moment you've all been waiting for.Two white guys read the most talked about book on race and attempt to understand our amazing foolishness in a h...
Hope in the Dark - Rebecca Solnit
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of radicals at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the vi...
12. Skin in the Game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
07 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, is a 2018 nonfiction book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former options trader with a background in t...
11. Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nassim Nicholas Taleb present a blueprint of how to live in a 'Black Swan' world.He begins the book:"Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and ...
10. The Bed of Procrustes - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
14 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote some of his favourite maxims and ways to think in life into a book.This is a great hand book for nuggets of wisdom to pond...
8. Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
03 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets is a book that deals with the fallibility of human knowledge.Nassim Nichola...
7. Do You Talk Funny? - David Nihil
21 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of ...
6. Finite and Infinite Games - James P. Carse
19 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This book is challenging. Some people hate. Many people love it.It has been described as, "Disturbingly good" for it's ability to shake the concepts o...
5. Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez
16 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This book exposes the gender bias that is in the world around us and affects our daily lives. A brilliant look at the data that shows the facts we nee...
4. The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - Niel Strauss
10 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (also known as The Game: Undercover in the Secret Society of Pickup Artists) is a non-ficti...
3. Why Buddhism is True - Robert Wright
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
'Why Buddhism is True' looks at the science and philosophy of meditation and enlightenment. The author is a devout non-meditating anger prone evolutio...
9. The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
27 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Black Swan focuses on the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable outlier events — and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for t...
2. The Elephant in the Brain - Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
17 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
About the BookThe aim of "Elephant in the Brain" is to confront our hidden motives directly — to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our ps...
1. Introduction - The Big Plan
05 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is a simple episode where we hear about what the plans are for the show.Sam and Nico introduce each other and discuss some of their backgrounds i...