What are my top 5 books?
1. The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua was a terrific book. Chua helped me understand that my parents are normal by Asian standards. Chua gave examples of other Asian families with high expectations for their children to succeed academically, and Chua has a great sense of humor.
2. The Blind Side by Michael Lewis is a wonderful story about Michael Oher, a left tackle who plays in the NFL. It’s an inspirational “rags to riches” story.
3. George Martin wrote an excellent series in a Game of Thrones. However, it takes a long time to read each book. Since each book is about 1,000 pages long, it took me five months to read five books. I had to read an average of 50 pages per day about 20 times a month. I’m waiting for Martin to finish book six. People have been waiting for years to read The Winds of Winter.
4. I like statistics, so I enjoyed Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Moneyball had a major influence on sports such as baseball and hockey. After Moneyball was written, a decade later, every major professional sports team uses advanced statistical analysis to help them draft players.
5. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fascinating book in Outliers. In Outliers, Gladwell describes how successful people such as Bill Gates spent 10,000 hours practicing a skill such as computer programming. A person with Asperger’s Syndrome would enjoy spending 10,000 hours working on their primary field of interest.
On a different note, the worst book that I’ve read is 50 Shades of Grey. After reading the first book, I couldn’t understand why the Anastasia Steele character fell in love with a jerk like Christian Grey. The characters and their motivations were poorly developed in the first book.
