Apparently books are something people are interested in and usually when you
go online and search for recommendations, you always get the same shit. So
here is a list of books remarkable enough for me to make a recommendation
against them, for them or how to use them.
I will keep this page updated from time to time and try to keep some modicum
of organization, as it also serves for myself as a reminder to know which
books to read again and which ones to avoid.
Also I can use it to save myself from writing the same one-line excerpt
whenever I actually do recommend a book.
In this section I add a refinement-indicator going from low to high,
indicating how high your general level of understanding of sports performance
has to be, so you can appreciate the book fully. This is not a difficulty
rating, but should be more seen as a re-reading recommendation. While
re-reads are always useful, the higher the refinement, the more I recommend
re-reading a book just for the sake of picking up finer points you have missed
a few years ago.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- reference, but practical
- refinement:
- low to high
This was the first book I wanted to recommend but it took me a while until I
could figure out what exactly I like about this book.
It definitely does not tickle my abstract curiosity.
However, it is a very applicable book and goes in a very straight line from
theoretical backgrounds to its implementation in the gym or at the dinner
table.
It is also the only English or German book I've read that discusses the
importance of load variability and the ability to extrapolate, so for this
fact alone it is a gem.
What I initially didn't like is that about 100 pages are just training program
spreadsheets, but I came to like it as a historical relict from a pre-internet
era.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- reference/textbook
- refinement:
- low to high
THE book on women and their hormones. There is nothing comparable on the
market, it is a first. At the end of 2020, it is the only one. It is good. It
is detailed. It is even being copied, as some of those German "evidence based"
fucknuts made a bad rewrite of this book and were being heralded as the
great feminists, all while being complete asshats and copycats. But well. This
is only to underline how unique this book is. A sad testimony to the fact that
medical science didn't discover women before the 2010s.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- guide
- refinement:
- low
This is THE book on dieting, staying on a diet and building the skill of
controlling one's own bodyweight through modification of food intake, i.e.
dieting. It is a good book. I would not know any other book written on the
topic that I could recommend nearly as much as this book.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- textbook
- refinement:
- medium
Again a Lyle book, again a THE book. This is THE introductory textbook on
protein metabolism with respect to health and sports performance. It is not
required as a beginner, but certainly a must read for anyone who has anything
to do with health, sports and performance.
- recommendation:
- yes
- refinement:
- low to high
The Bromocriptine is what Lyle himself calls a "weird little book". It's good,
but very ... well, weird.
I have not read all of his other books, as some I just have discovered when
I looked up how this Bromothing was written, but I am certain they are good.
He has some special diets, like the ultimate diet for already lean individuals
and his rapid fatloss handbook, and well, it is good stuff. I do not know of
other sources about the ultimate diet and the rapid fat loss diet (or PSMF as
it is called in medicine), so maybe these are again THE books on the topics,
but those are more niche than the aforementioned ones.
Also I can recommend Lyle's blog with one caveat: His training programs are
not really targeted at strength athletes and aspiring champions, but more at
genpop trying to stay healthy and lose fat.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- guide and textbook
- refinement:
- low to high
This is classic text is aimed at beginners in the strength sports. It is
fairly long, part for the procurement of buy-in, part for the very detailed
description of the lifts. To this day (end of 2020) the description of the
deadlift is unrivaled in its quality across the literature. The squat section
is still good, but it's overly focused on the posterior chain, which might be
influenced from a different era of strength sports. For this see also Chad
Wesley Smith's book "Juggernaut training", which is presented below.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- guide
- refinement:
- low
This is a very good book on strength training and has a bit better programming
advise then Rippetoe's Starting strength. The technical cues given are helpful
even for more intermediate athletes and the programming principles apply
universally.
- recommendation:
- maybe
- type:
- guide
- refinement:
- low
This was a fun read. From a training theory standpoint this book is very basic
and clearly aimed at beginners. What makes it unique is that it is
- targeted at females
- written by a female
- good
- not poisoned by this embarassing male ahooh-ahooh-alpha-demeanour
Also the programs are kinda fun, with a good deal of leg work and tons of
upper body fun.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- textbook
- refinement:
- low
Easy to digest fundamentals of strength training. It is a good book, though on
the low density site of things. While the principles - specificity, overload,
fatigue management, stimulus recovery adaption, variation, phase potentiation
and individual difference - seem rather obvious, the prioritization presented
is certainly unique to authors. Furthermore they give detailed hints on how to
make sure to not over- or under-apply these principles. Which makes the book
rather long and easy to read, but these details are also part of its value.
- recommendation:
- maybe
- type:
- program
- refinement:
- medium
If you decided to give the Texas Method a try, these books certainly help you
to enhance the experience and really milk it out. The programming conecpts are
sound and also stand for themselves outside the context of the TM and the
exercise selection is sound as well. It is a really nice book historically in
that it is an embodiment and snapshopt of the rise in popularity of barbell
sports in 2010-2015.
- recommendation:
- no
- type:
- program
- refinement:
- medium
Now 5/3/1 was a very popular program at its time and its ingrained minimality
makes it as a good drop-in for slots, where you want somewhat heavy, low
volume work. However, that is pretty much everything there is to it. The
programs are embedded in a lot of semicringe buy-in, building much on the
headsmashing hardcore mentality of the last multiply days. Ironically, the
thing why I refer to these books personally most often, is the assistance
template called "Dave Tate's periodization bible".
Later versions of the book (beyond, advanced, for powerlifting, whatever they
are called) embrace that the program itself is too minimal to yield progress
on its own and offer a plethora of addons one could add to the program. This
is a fun scroll through, but nothing more.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- program, guide, textbook
- refinement:
- low to high
This is the first lifting book I remember reading and it was probably one of
the early breadcrumbs I followed before I actually hit the iron. However, it
is written with this weird soviet branding of Pavel, which you probably either
like or do not like, and part of the reason why I did not re-read it for many
years - a grave mistake!
This book is both interesting to the aspiring trainee, as well as to the
advanced athlete. For the former it takes away much of the complexity of
starting lifting: just deadlift and press, with some simple concepts for
safety and good forme, and some conjurement of buy-in (given that the general
vibe does not repel you). For the latter it contains many nuggets and insight
into soviet training research, focussing on training with many reps in
reserve, to build the skill of strength.
- recommendation:
- yes
This is a very interesting book about the history of both the science of
mitochondria, as well as mitochondria themselves. It elucidates their function
and probably how they relate to longevity and other concepts, as those alluded
in the title.
I read it because Greg Nuckols recommended it highly, so this makes it a
double recommendation.
- recommendation:
- yes
- authors:
- Peter Sterling, Bruce S. McEwen, David S. Goldstein, Burton Singer, Carol D.
Ryff, Teresa Seeman, George F. Koob, Michel Le Moal, Jeffrey B. Rosen, Jay
Schulkin, Ziad Boulos, Alan M. Rosenwasser, John C. Wingfield, Michael L.
Power
This is an introductory collection of essays on the topic of allostasis. It
gives an insight in the concept of allostasis and how the regulation of
processes in the body works. I am not aware of a better introduction to the
topic yet, as the research still seems to be a bit too fresh to be found in a
textbook, so this book helps to bridge the gap between the existing body of
knowledge and the average reader.
- recommendation:
- until there is something better
Let me just quote some of the backcover snippets:
"heady stuff, written with tremendous verve and panache" and "a masterful
tapestry of deep insights".
As flowery these quotes might seem, it is no comparison to the word soup the
author produces.
I suspect half of the book is just "nice writing".
There are many interesting experiments and thoughts going on, but it is just
all embedded in far too many words, written by someone who enjoys language far
too much.
Maybe I despise it so much because when I was younger I tended to write like
that as well.
Writing style aside, I suspect to this point this is a very unique
book, giving a (still) concise account of the developments in the fields
associated with consciousness.
It is quite old though and given the advances in AI, especially with deep
learning, it comes to no surprise that some passages did not age well or are
now "well, duh".
- recommendation:
- yes
This classic is a strong recommendation, despite me not really liking the
writing style, as it is written to comprehended not only by genpop, but the
population most resilient to education, economists.
In countless examples and mini-exercises it demonstrates how our fast-response
thinking is prone to many, very general statistical errors, biases and
misconceptions.
I suspect it is one of the must reads most people will never read, making them
gullible and susceptible to all kinds of manipulation.
Especially in a time where we are seeing a lot of resistance by uneducated
people in the fight against discrimination, education on the biases and
weaknesses we are being shipped with seems all the more important - and
lacking.
- recommendation:
- probably not
- type:
- basic trading stuff
The book in itself is not bad, though some things are just outdated (broker
comissions) and some things are overly specific to time and place (taxation).
However, it discusses basic option strategies and I suspect nowadays by the
time you find this book, you've already watched enough youtube tutorials to
figure this stuff out on your own.
- recommendation:
- probably not
- type:
- basic trading stuff
I do not think this book tells you a lot about options what you did not know
before, when you start reading books on the topic.
What I like is that it does not try to do too much technical things.
But I suspect this is more a relict from the pre-internet era.
- recommendation:
- probably not
- type:
- standard american productivty fluff, should have been a blogpost
Key message: extrinsic motivation kills intrinsic motivation. Fluffed up to
far too many pages.
If that idea is somewhat foreign to you, it might be worth starting to read,
but feel free to throw it away shortly after.
To be fair this book is why I started this list, as I had reread it
accidentally and only noticed at some random remark halfway in, where it
dawned on me and given the remarkable lack of remarkable parts, I decided to
protect against such accidents in the future.
- recommendation:
- yes
- type:
- productivity
A nice book on time management principles for system administrators.
As admins are apparently kind of a weird breed, they need their own way to
manage with the daily stresses and annoyances.
Of course I think everyone can gain from this book, as most people just lack
routine and clear concepts for the things they do. Some things are a bit
outdated (driving a car, some software, well it is over 10 years old), but
many things and concepts are here to stay (issue trackers, version control,
documentation, DNS issues), and the practical routines can still be inspiring
or easily adapted.
- recommendation:
- first and second chapter
- type:
- standard american productivty fluff, should have been a blogpost
Key message: try to work on lead metrics and not lagging metrics and make it
compelling to do so. Fluffed up to too many pages. Better look at pictures of
different "4dx dashboards" than to read past the first two chapters (I guess,
thankfully I got the same recommendation)
The refinement of the book is very low, as you would from any book which does
not even write out the "four" in its title.
Just another book that should have been a blog post.