Book Summaries

Have you ever wondered how the economy works – how millions of individuals can buy and sell goods and services without a master coordinator? Have you wondered why we use money, rather than bartering our services with each other? Why do some nations prosper, while others stay poor despite vast natural resources?

Basic Economics by Stanford economist Thomas Sowell is an incredibly useful, broad introduction to economics. Containing no math, it instead communicates intuitive principles that will help you understand how market transactions work and the effect of policies on the economy.

In this Basic Economics summary, learn why:

• Rent control intended to allow affordable housing for the poor can actually make life worse by reducing housing supply and quality
• Setting a higher minimum wage leads to more unemployment and disadvantages youth and minorities
• Why payday lenders are justified in charging high interest rates and fees
• Why raising tax rates may not lead to higher tax revenues
• Why brand names exist, and how they reduce variance in quality

Have you ever been hooked on games like League of Legends, Candy Crush Saga, or Minecraft?

Ever wonder why those games were so engaging when exercise and studying feel like chores?

In A Theory of Fun for Game Design, game designer Raph Koster breaks down what fun is, how successful games achieve it, and what exactly we have to learn from games.

In this book summary, learn:

• why evolution has made games fun for humans
• what skills games actually teach, from statistics to social power and teamwork
• which building blocks are core to all successful games
• why women and men prefer different types of games

Do you have any bad habits you want to break? Or do you want to start a new habit, like healthier eating, exercise, or reading more?

You’re not alone. People try and fail to change their habits all the time. But they often fail because they believe it’s simply about willpower – stopping the habit brute force – without understanding the nature of the habit and how to most effectively change it.

The Power of Habit gives you an incredibly useful framework for understanding your habits and for changing them. I’ve found it personally useful for adopting new behaviors I’ve struggled with for years. This summary will walk you through the main points and the most important examples so you can finally kick your bad habits.

Close your eyes and picture an illegal drug user. What kind of person are you envisioning?

Imagine you’re at dinner with friends and someone tells you: “we really need to do something about the problem of white crime.” What’s your reaction?

You probably know about the war on drugs. What’s your reaction to the idea that black people are disproportionately targeted for drug crime?

What if you were told that rates of illegal drug use are equal between white and black populations?

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness unpacks these popular conceptions about drug crime. In this New York Times bestseller, Michelle Alexander argues that the war on drugs has created a new racial caste system, disproportionately punishing black people.

A powerfully interlocking system of laws and policies targets black people for drug crime, punishes them more severely than white criminals, and makes life as an ex-felon extremely difficult. The result is effectively racial subjugation and disenfranchisement.

In this New Jim Crow summary, you’ll learn:

• how the war on drugs followed a pattern of implementation consistent with slavery and Jim Crow
• how financial incentives and legal protection allow selective targeting of black males for drug crimes
• why it’s so difficult for drug convicts to reintegrate into society
• why remarkable black achievers like President Obama are deceptive indicators of black progress, and may actually perpetuate the New Jim Crow

Advice on pregnancy is often passed down as conventional wisdom without clear evidence (“Don’t take one sip of alcohol! Don’t clean the cat litter!”).

When the Harvard-trained economist Emily Oster got pregnant, she got tired of the low rigor surrounding most pregnancy advice. She dove into the medical literature and published her findings in Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong–and What You Really Need to Know.

Even if you don’t plan to get pregnant anytime soon, this is still a useful summary to skim through to learn some new angles on pregnancy, like:

• When during your period is the best time to get pregnant, and when it’s impossible to get pregnant
• Why you can have one drink of alcohol a day and not harm the fetus
• Why “eating for two” is a myth

At the least, read my one-page key facts below.