I love reading books.

I'm also a huge fan of reading newsletters.

Here are 7 newsletters I highly recommend checking out.

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36 Amazing short books (less than 200 pages):

1) Meditations
2) On The Shortness of Life
3) The Art of Living
4) Steal Like An Artist
5) The Last Lecture
6) The Miracle Morning
7) The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
8) Tribe
9) The Greatest Salesman In The World
10) Lying
11) Make Your Bed
12) Finite & Infinite Games

13) The Compound Effect
14) The Dip
15) Poke The Box
16) Tribes
17) Anything You Want
18) The Go-Giver
19) Ignore Everybody
20) The Four Agreements
21) The Strangest Secret
22) Man's Search For Meaning
23) Nobody Wants To Read Your Sh*t
24) The War of Art

25) Gifts of Imperfection
26) Tao Te Ching
27) Ikigai
28) How To Fight A Hydra
29) Checklist Manifesto
30) Eat The Frog
31) Poor Richard's Almanack
32) Effective Executive
33) Who Moved My Cheese
34) 7 Brief Lessons on Physics
35) Lessons of History
36) The Boy, Fox, Mole & Horse

If you enjoyed this thread and want more book recs:

1) Follow @AlexAndBooks_ 👈
2) Sign up for my free weekly book newsletter (7,100+

There’s been a big increase in books being banned in schools and libraries.

But reading such books gives us the chance to explore diverse ideas, perspectives, and cultures.

Here are 20 frequently banned books you should read:

1/

1984

by George

2/

Brave New World

by Aldous

3/

The Kite Runner

by Khaled

4/

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

Throughout my early 20s, I struggled with depression.

Here are 10 simple habits that helped me achieve a better state of mind.

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0/ Disclaimer

I am not a licensed medical professional.

If you need help, please seek a counselor, therapist, or mental health treatment facility.

There are also plenty of free hotlines open 24/7 if you or someone you know needs to talk to someone.

1/ Journaling

Journaling is self-administered therapy.

You're having a conversation with yourself and sharing what's going well in life and what isn't.

It's free and available to anyone.

And just getting problems onto paper will help get them out of your mind.

1/ (continued)

How I journal:

I write out my anxieties, fears, etc.

I challenge those thoughts to see if they're justified or not.

I brainstorm ways to tackle any problems with action.

I record all the good stuff that has happened to me to remind myself life isn't all bad.

2/ Taking a hot shower

There's something incredibly relaxing and soothing about being in hot water.

Perhaps it's because the heat relaxes your muscles and thus relaxes your body and mind.

Also, being clean physically helps my mental state of mind.

What’s a book that’s worth rereading every year?

In the shadowy corners of the shortwave spectrum lurk the Numbers Stations: strange radio broadcasts of mysterious blocks of numbers in creepy monotone voices!

It's actually an old form of spycraft which is still in use today. And as it's #WorldRadioDay let's take a listen...

A Numbers Station is a type of one-way voice link for sending information to spies in foreign countries.

Operating on Short Wave radio bands they transmit a secret code of spoken numbers. Use of Numbers Stations peaked during the Cold War, but some are still operating today.

Numbers Stations are operated by various national intelligence agencies. At set times on a pre-arranged frequency a musical tone is played, followed by a speech synthesised voice reading out blocks of numbers. To most listeners it sounds both creepy and meaningless.

However to spies it can be vital. The numbers can be decoded to reveal a message, provided the spy has the right One Time Pad (OTP) - a random number key that is only used once before it is destroyed. OTP encryption is impossible to break if done correctly.

Why broadcast your secret message on Short Wave? Because it can be picked up across the globe. All a spy needs is a shop bought SW radio, a pencil, and the correct One Time Pad and they - and only they - can decipher the message. No complex kit is required.

Pierre Boulle was born today in 1912, so what better time to look back at his sociological science-fiction classic that paved the way for Star Wars and the MCU.

This is the story of Planet Of The Apes!

Pierre Boulle is probably best known for his 1952 novel Bridge On The River Kwai, based on his wartime experiences in Indochina. So it was possibly a surprise when 11 years later he authored a science fiction novel.

However Boulle had been a Free French secret agent during the war. He was captured in 1943 by Vichy forces in Vietnam and sentenced to hard labour. This experience of capture would shape his novel La Planète Des Singes.

Published in 1963 La Planète Des Singes recieved good reviews. An English translation - entitled Monkey Planet - was issued the following year. It was a story that seemed to strike a chord with readers.

In the novel two rich travellers find a manuscript written by journalist Ulysse Mérou. It tells a fantastical tale: how he travelled with two wealthy explorers to Betelgeuse. They land on the planet Soror, a world of primitive humans ruled by advanced civilised apes.

The more I think about the Bruce Springsteen Jeep ad, the more disgusted I get. It's allegedly a call for unity, but it is drenched in a very particular culture's iconography: a Christian church (that superimposes the cross on the US flag), farms, rural living, "the middle" ...

... it's all so white. This is the "America" of nationalist fairy tales: rural land, settled by self-reliant white farmers & good Christians. It's all trucks & dust & manual labor & squinting at the horizon while wiping sweat from your brow. This is the kind of "unity" ...

... designed to comfort (or at least not threaten) white people. It says, "let's unify by joining together to reaffirm America's mythical self-conception, despite the real-world violence & repression it has always entailed."

If I'm, I dunno, a latino housekeeper in Vegas or black Uber driver in Sacramento, what's in the commercial for me? What does this kind of "unity" promise me? What can I find in "the (mythical) middle"? Nothing. It's not for me.

If America ever does come together in some kind of social solidarity again (which looks pretty doubtful), it's not going to be around the myths & iconography of 20th century hegemonic white culture in the US. It's going to be around something NEW -- new stories, new icons.