12. Aaron Courville, Ian Goodfellow, and Yoshua Bengio - Deep Learning

11. Szczepan Twardoch - Król

10. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow

9. Przemysław Chojecki - Bystry potok

8. Margaret Atwood - The Testaments

7. Aleksandra Więcka - Jak mówić o sobie dobrze

6. Przemysław Chojecki - Jak być dwudziestolatkiem

5. Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers: The Story of Success

I like that the title suggests a collection of impressive biographies (or a recipe for success) and the actual book talks about the random and external factors behind a “success”. Discussing non-individual factors behind professional achievements in a way that does not undermine the hard work is tricky. Reading this book supports inner peace: it is very humbling and I love the fact that it discourages from gatekeeping and making quick judgements about others. People working in academia and machine learning researchers, as it were, tend to be slightly more on the individualistic and competitive side. I have no idea how to build a more human, less superficial and less competitive society, but it is already a lot to strengthen and cultivate such values in one’s own head. I was a bit uncomfortable with the last chapters on cultural background and “why Asians are good at math”, these stories and hypotheses could have been presented in a more inclusive way: hearing the actual voices of people with such heritage would have been more interesting.

4. Stephen King - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Table of contents:

  1. A short and captivating autobiography
  2. Tongue-in-cheek advice on how to write (and “how to do a freelance/creative job”)
  3. A gruesome accident

3. Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson - The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

This was a captivating and approachable book. The authors use the framework of mixed-motive games to explain human social behaviours. I was sold on the explanation of “strategic ignorance” and “strategic self-deception” at the personal and at the institutional level. The book discusses modern personal relations, consumption, advertising (e.g. lifestyle advertising), art, charity, education, medicine, religion - and so given the range of topics, it probably introduces some oversimplification. I would like to read more about how to build environments that incentivise people to do “the right thing”.

2. Amy Poehler - Yes Please

Amy sets a good example of how to appreciate friends and co-workers, and how to be insanely passionate and successful at work while keeping the ego at bay. I suppose reading this book was more uplifting than listening to Slaughterhouse-Five narrated by James Franco in winter in Canada. Interestingly enough, both books feature time travel. The book by Amy also contains major Parks and Recreation spoilers.

1. Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five

So it goes.