The team at 1729 digital believes that learning is a continuous process and hence gets together every evening to discuss a book. Here are our top picks for the month of August,

The Promise of Bitcoin

Bobby C. Lee

The Bitcoin discussion is heating up. Whatever side you choose, there’s no questioning Bitcoin’s promise: its huge potential in terms of digital, peer-to-peer payments, and the future of currency. The Promise of Bitcoin is a lesson on the financial revolution that began in 2009 when an unknown developer known as Satoshi Nakamoto established Bitcoin. Based on the belief that traditional monetary systems have failed us, this digital money offers a more dependable, decentralized, and democratic alternative. How does it function? Bobby Lee, a Bitcoin pioneer who has been at the forefront of the movement since its inception explains this in the book.

• Consider security and accessibility before choosing your bitcoin wallet
• The easiest way to join the bitcoin revolution is to use exchanges

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Think Simple

Ken Segall

Think Simple demonstrates how, from Hyundai to Whole Foods, simplicity is the key to success. Ken Segall, an Apple insider, explains to us how to resist complexity and focus on what truly counts in a strong business. Segall focuses on nine themes or degrees of simplicity, claiming that simplicity isn’t easy. Rather, it is on a mission, in the air, admires a leader, embodies teamwork, is committed to the brand, fits all sizes, is slimmer, inspires love, and is instinctive.

• A strong coherent brand is a key to successful simplicity
• A company’s CEO is crucial to achieving simplicity

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The Extended Mind

Annie Murphy Paul

The Extended Mind delves into the potential of thinking beyond the boundaries of your brain. It demonstrates that the route to better intellect is not restricted to your skull. Rather, it’s a journey through your body, your surroundings, and your interactions with people. The book examines the practices of educators, managers, and leaders who are already reaping the benefits of thinking outside the brain, as well as the research behind this exciting new vision of human ability. It explores the findings of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and psychologists, as well as the practices of educators, managers, and leaders who are already reaping the benefits of thinking outside the brain. She unearths the unseen narrative of how artists, scientists, and authors—from Jackson Pollock to Jonas Salk to Robert Caro—have employed mental extensions to solve problems, discover new things, and create new works. 

• Natural landscapes have a unique power to refresh and open our minds
• Social interaction is a powerful driver of human intelligence

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Big Feelings

Mollie West Duffy and Liz Fosslien

The refrain of this book is “How can I help? / What can we do?” And the answers, which are stretched across multiple pages and depicted in images rather than words, are: speak it through, compromise, and see things from a different angle. Big Feelings is a guide to dealing with some of the most difficult emotions we’ve ever experienced, from the wrath to despair. It is possible to get through these feelings by noticing and confronting them.

• Identify your feelings to be able to process them
• Once you have identified your feelings you can then move on to deal with them in a healthy manner

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Who gets what- and why

Alvin Roth

Alvin Roth’s important study on market design is brought to a larger, nonspecialist audience in Who Gets What – and Why, explaining how markets function, why they sometimes fail, and what we can do to improve them. Using current examples, Roth explores the nonfinancial forces that impact markets and demonstrates how we might make better market judgments. Matching markets are extremely complicated and are impacted by factors other than money. Human fallibility sometimes interferes with these marketplaces, making it harder to find suitable matches. Fortunately, effective market design may alleviate many of the ensuing issues, benefiting everyone involved.

• Unlike classic commodity markets, matching markets are motivated by more than just prices
• Technology can help ease market congestion

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The One-hour Content Plan

Meera Kothand

The One Hour Content Plan is a tactical approach to writing interesting, attention-grabbing, and profitable blog content in one hour or less. Meera Kothand’s concrete advice for would-be content writers is the result of years of hands-on experience in internet marketing. This book is full of important insights and methods that will help you get your bright ideas off the ground.

• Define your audience, purpose, goals, and strategy to achieve success as a blogger
• Use the offer method to help push your readers into purchasing your products or services

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Zero to One‍

Peter Thiel with Blake Masters

Peter Thiel’s Zero to One gives both an optimistic perspective of America’s future advancement and a new way of thinking about innovation: it begins with learning to ask the questions that lead you to uncover value in unexpected places. Zero to One provides startup entrepreneurs with advice. It demonstrates how to create a monopoly using proprietary technology, a strong brand, scalable goods, and the use of network effects.

• Stop imitating and start thinking outside established conventions
• Stop making products that can be copied and create a monopoly instead

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Bittersweet

Susan Cain

Bittersweet is a profound reflection on the bittersweet emotional experience, which is generally disregarded. It contends that opening up to the bittersweet, where grief and joy coexist, permits us to fully experience life. It also demonstrates how vulnerability can be a source of strength, desire can be a guide, and sadness may lead us to joy and satisfaction. The author’s goal in Bittersweet is to investigate the premise that light and dark, birth and death — bitter and sweet — are permanently coupled. Cain believes that the ability of bittersweetness to stimulate innovation and satisfaction is vastly underappreciated and that this prevents people and businesses from achieving their objectives.

• The way we meet our pain defines who we are
• We lose a lot when we think of ourselves as winners

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Abundance

Deepak Chopra

Abundance gives a fresh route out of a life of limitation and deprivation. You may alter your life from one plagued by limits to one where you want nothing by employing meditation practices. Abundance is an informative guide to success, fulfillment, completeness, and plenty, giving practical guidance on how to foster a feeling of abundance in times of fear and instability.

• Awareness is essential for fostering abundance
• Healing, power, desire, and security complete your journey to abundance

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Know Thyself

Stephen M. Fleming

Stephen M. Fleming, a cognitive neuroscientist, lays forth the fundamental concepts of metacognition in Know Thyself. This eye-opening book demonstrates how, by understanding our metacognitive processes, we can use them to make precise, informed decisions. We achieve this through metacognition, as Stephen Fleming demonstrates. The most crucial skill we have for comprehending our own minds is metacognition or thinking about thinking. Metacognition is a fantastic ability: it allows us to be self-aware as well as think about the brains of others. It is the ultimate human quality, and in its most refined manifestations, it possesses a power that neither other creatures nor our existing artificial intelligence possesses.

• For better learning outcomes, think about how you learn
• Self-awareness is hardwired into your brain but you can always sharpen it

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Animal Farm

George Orwell

Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical novella by George Orwell that was first published in England on August 17, 1945. It relates the narrative of a group of farm animals that rebel against their human farmer in the hopes of establishing a society in which the animals may be equal, free, and content.

• The book draws parallels between the Russian revolution and the behavior of the animals on the farm to show the oppression faced by the working class
• The book talks about how power-hungry leaders use the working class to their advantage without caring for their needs

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Doesn’t hurt to ask

Trey Gowdy

Doesn’t Hurt to Ask teaches the subtle art of persuasion with an unusual tool: questioning. Former congressman Trey Gowdy demonstrates how intelligent questions may help you reach your audience, express your message, and win people over – whether in a trial, a business meeting, or over dinner. Along the journey, Gowdy reflects on the times in his life when he learned the most about arguing and persuading. He discusses his gaffes during his first murder trial, the discussion that impacted his perspective on criminal justice reform, and what he learned when interviewing James Comey and Secretary Hillary Clinton.

• Persuasion is a subtle art, and questions are its greatest tools
• Always know your objectives, your facts, and your jury

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Man’s search for meaning

Victor Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning recounts the traumatic experiences of novelist and psychologist Viktor Frankl while interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. It provides insights into how humans may overcome insurmountable odds, cope with suffering, and eventually find purpose.

• There is no general meaning to life, everyone’s life has its own meaning at a given moment
• You can manage your fears by actively pursuing them

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