Sacrifice- Simon Guillebaud

Sacrifices are bad right, why should I give up having a comfortable lifestyle? It’s my life so I can have my rules. Well, that’s not true and this book tells us why.

Imagine your mum at home washing up – she can easily continue doing it alone but she doesn’t have to. By sacrificing your time to help her you show your love and devotion. To sacrifice something can be a great privilege for us to do for others.

Guillebaud continues about this idea of purposeful sacrifice; how it isn’t bad, how it can change lives, and show devotion. This struck me really because of how it can be translated to faith. He talks of how there is a Creator who can easily go about his ways without us but through us sacrificing things we show appreciation and dedication. Later he goes on to talk about how we are all given these things in the first place; sacrificing is just giving back.

This simple idea of why sacrifice is good runs throughout with reasoning and stories to accompany it. Different aspects of sacrificing are conveyed such as what is logical, voluntary, and holy sacrifice. Reading this allowed me to understand the right sort of sacrifice and how God will never make me sacrifice so much that I can’t cope. It was very encouraging.

So for a great, quick read on sacrifice, this is your best bet and once you’ve finished it you can help your mum with the dishes.

Moonwalking with Einstein- Joshua Foer

Forgetful? Well, I definitely am. I don’t know about you but I find things like names, birthdays, and phone numbers just impossible to remember. We rely on so many reminders on our phones to keep on top of this information; whatever happened to good old brain power?! Well scale this up a gear; maybe you can remember quite a lot, but could you compete in a memory championship?

This book is written by the journalist Joshua Foer, just an ordinary guy with an average brain. He narrates his journey of mastering memory through having lessons with previous champions of the mind. Foer depicts his progress and thoughts with lots of humour, making it a good read.

The book shows the techniques for memorising things through Foer practicing them. This involves grouping numbers, word association, mind palaces, and much more. I found this quite interesting as I expected the process of remembering things to be much more complex, yet it is conveyed simply and understandably in the text.

Overall I love the progress of an average guy (Joshua Foer) learning how to memorise much more than he thought he could. The facts and techniques were fascinating and compelling to try out. Reading this book I now have more techniques to help my memory improve for exams (well I hope so!) and who knows, you too might learn something after a read; who doesn’t wanna be the next Einstein?!

How to get Unstuck- Matt Perman

Being a professional procrastinator I often struggle with time management and getting things done, so when I stumbled upon this book I was very interested in what information I could learn. But can productivity be improved upon by just reading a book?

Consisting of four major parts of becoming unstuck – the problem and principles, personal leadership, personal management and special obstacles – Matt Perman provides plenty to learn from. Written in an engaging format and accompanied by stories, helpful sub-topics, graphs, and book recommendations I found the style very accessible and engaging.

However, I did think the emphasis of many of the points made was more for the office; therefore, it made the book a little less relatable for me personally (as a teenager my current experience of the working world is a part-time job at Nando’s!!). But if I become Alan Sugar you know why!

Another nice addition Perman included linked to gospel teaching. Often quoting and referring to Biblical verses, his arguments were embedded in scriptural truth and this was helpful.

Overall ‘how to get unstuck’ was a good read. It was informative and applicable to daily life. However, some sections of the book were more relevant and helpful than others, slowing my reading pace and not being super engaging every time I picked it up. But… for those budding entrepreneurs this is for you (and personally, my procrastination levels have decreased (I think….!))