A couple of months ago I started significantly limiting my time on Facebook. I removed the app from my phone and installed the Stay Focusd browser extension to limit myself to ten minutes per day. If it wasn’t for needing to feed the Facebook beast for work, I wouldn’t even need the ten minutes.
One of the benefits of quitting Facebook has been finding more time to read books and in-depth newsletters that I previously just scanned through. Here’s what I’ve been reading over the last two months.
The Joy of Search
The Joy of Search is Dan Russell’s new book about how to do in-depth internet research. Much like his blog, SearchReSearch, the book is written as a series of story-based and image-based search challenges that Dan explains how to solve. I’ve been following Dan’s work for more than a decade. I’ve used his approach to teaching search with my own students and colleagues over the years. It’s nice to see some of Dan’s “greatest hits” in book form.
Understanding Options
Like most working professionals, I have a typical mutual fund laden retirement portfolio and a few individual stock holdings. A few years ago I started to learn about options trading as a way to benefit from rapid fluctuations in the stock market. Understanding Options was the first book that read on the topic and I’m revisiting right now.
By the way, I’ve done okay with the few options contracts that I’ve traded, but I’m not going to be a talking head on CNBC anytime soon.
Ready for Rain
Ready for Rain isn’t a book, it’s a weekly newsletter written by Lee LeFever. His weekly newsletter is all about the transition of selling a house in the city (Seattle) and moving to an island with his wife and dogs. Many of the recent installments are about the process of designing and building a house.
What Are You Reading?
I’d love to hear what you’re reading. Please leave a comment.