<story><title>Bill Gates: Books I Read this Summer</title><url>http://www.thegatesnotes.com/GatesNotesV2/Personal/Books-I-Read-This-Summer</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jacques_chester</author><text>I&apos;m finding that writing reviews, even very surface-level reviews, of books I am reading is helping me to derive a lot more value from them.&lt;p&gt;Firstly, while reading, I find myself reflecting more on the book. After all -- I will be writing a review, I need to be an active participant.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I find that books will often spark some thinking on a topic and the review will essentially morph into an essay. I wrote a 3000-word review of one book[1] that diverged into fuzzy logic, theories of jurisprudence and a few other areas in order to properly explain my reaction.  Right now I&apos;m writing a review of &lt;i&gt;Waltzing with Bears&lt;/i&gt; that will diverge into financial accounting and a pet theory of mine about how tools create paradigms that shape entire bodies of knowledge.&lt;p&gt;Third, books can often be connected to one another. I find that my reviews tend to link to each other. Not because I am trying to drive internal link traffic (I&apos;m basically a nobody in internet terms, it&apos;s not worth the bother). But book A will have tangentially touched on the topic of book B; or perhaps book C illuminates something only poorly discussed in book D. To the point where I refer to books from before I started reviewing with an &quot;unreviewed&quot; annotation.&lt;p&gt;Finally, some people find my reviews useful. My hobby is Olympic-style weightlifting and I do a lot of reading both on it directly and on allied subjects (eg, anatomy). Fellow strength nerds have found my reviews useful in helping them select books for their own libraries. It&apos;s nice when people give you positive feedback on something like that.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chester.id.au/2012/04/09/review-drift-into-failure/&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Bill Gates: Books I Read this Summer</title><url>http://www.thegatesnotes.com/GatesNotesV2/Personal/Books-I-Read-This-Summer</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>sixQuarks</author><text>It&apos;s kind of funny that he recommends: &quot;Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness&quot;&lt;p&gt;Step 1:  Be worth billions of dollars&lt;p&gt;On a serious note, I realize that money doesn&apos;t buy happiness.  Proven scientifically over and over again, people get used to their situations usually within 6 months, good or bad, and get back to their &quot;normal&quot; happiness levels regardless.</text></comment>