Effective
Melissa Swift
Doing your work well is a quiet power, and you only need to master 1 of its 4 rooms.
Suresh's Deck
I read at least 100 books a year.
This is the shelf, kept in public, and 3 things live on it. The first is the books I finished last month, with the film where I talk them through. The second is the 2 books open on my desk right now. The third is the full catalogue of 2025, all 100 of them, each with its gist in under a minute of reading and its 8 page note free for the asking.
Read what calls to you. Pass on what does not. The right book at the right moment can change a year.
New this year. Where I have written an operator's note, the whole 8 pages come to you on WhatsApp for nothing. Ask by name and it arrives.
01 Last month
In July 2026 I finished 12 books, and here is the film where I talk them through.
Every month I put the finished pile on camera and say what each book actually argues, in plain words, in under 5 minutes. Not summaries read from somewhere else. My own reading, dated, so you can see the practice is alive rather than take my word for it.
Force of Nature
Owen D. Jones
Evolution is faster and closer than you think, and it prices every choice. Control a problem rather than wipe it out.
How Change Really Works
Julia Dhar, Kristy Ellmer and Philip Jameson
7 of 10 change programmes fail, and the reason is people rather than plans. Treat your workers like customers and sell them the change.
How to Not Know
Simone Stolzoff
Not knowing is a skill you can train. Face small unknowns, stay humble, and act anyway.
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay
Jenny Lawson
No cure is promised. A toolbox is. Small tricks, tiny tasks, and the reminder that staying alive is a win.
A Little More Social
Nicholas Epley
We guess wrong about reaching out. It goes better than we expect, nearly every time, all over the world.
Mind Drama
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
The worry loop is not a flaw. It is a part of the brain asking if you are safe, and it can be retrained in 4 steps.
Prophecy
Carissa Véliz
Predictions are moves for power rather than facts. A guess about you can behave like a command, so prepare instead of trusting.
Superteams
Ron Friedman
Great teams are built from small daily habits rather than talent. Guard the quiet work, then come together on purpose.
What Are the Odds?
Mark Prell
Every answer needs 2 things. Good numbers, and an honest reading of them. Good math on bad numbers is junk.
The Secret History of Gold
Dominic Frisby
Gold is the money nobody else owes. Whoever holds it makes the rules, and printed money quietly taxes the saver.
What's Going Right
Paul Conti
Start with what is going right rather than what is wrong, and let the giving drive lead the other 2.
02 On my desk now
2 holders, and they are only ever these 2.
When one finishes it comes off and the next one goes on. If you see the same pair here for 2 months, write to me and tell me I have stopped reading.
Holder one
The Art of Pacing
Elizabeth Svoboda
On the desk · August 2026
Holder two
All the Difference
Susan MacKenty Brady, Stuart D. Kliman, and Leslie C. Smith
On the desk · August 2026
03 The Top 100
All 100, in the order they sit on the shelf.
Every one of these was read and catalogued in 2025. The gist is my own reading of the book rather than a summary from somewhere else. Where the 8 page operator's note exists you can ask for it by name, and it reaches you on WhatsApp at no charge.
I read at least 100 books a year and I catalogue every one of them.
This page is the list from 2025. It is here because the reading is part of the work rather than a hobby beside it, and because a founder deciding whether to spend an evening on a book deserves an honest opinion from somebody who finished it.
04 Free · Nothing to sit through
Name a business book. I will send you 8 pages on it.
I read 100 books in 2025 and I wrote an operator's note on each one I could use. Each note runs to 8 pages. I write it myself, from the book itself, for a man running a factory in Ambattur rather than a company in California. There is no charge and there is no call to sit through.
Name it and it comes to you
97 notes written and ready today. The rest are being written. Ask anyway and I will tell you where yours sits.
05 What an operator's note is
It runs to 8 pages, and it is written from the book for a man running a factory.
- 01Pages 1 to 4. What the book actually saysThe key points in plain language, in the order you would use them, with the parts that do not survive contact with your floor left out. And I say plainly what the book is, whether it is a school textbook, a memoir, or a consultant selling his own method.
- 02Page 5. A diagnosis you score yourselfYou answer 10 questions yes or no and you get a score out of 10. It takes about 4 minutes, and it tells you where you actually stand rather than where you hope you do.
- 03Page 6. A sheet you fill from your own numbersThe sheet works on your own figures rather than on the book's examples, and your figures are what make it real.
- 04Page 7. What to do in the next 7 daysOne move, small enough to actually happen, named clearly enough that on Monday morning you know exactly what to do first.
06 One ask
Name a book. That is the whole of it.
Tell me a title from the 100 and the 8 pages come to you on WhatsApp. I will not call you and I will not add you to anything.