Reading Archives

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Nik’s Book Notes)

November 2, 2025November 2, 2025 Nik

It’s good that I didn’t expect anything when I first opened Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s not that I thought it’d be bad. I just happened to know absolutely nothing about either the book or its author. Sure, I’d heard the name Kurt Vonnegut before, but thinking it was a remarkably German name for an American author was where my judgements began and ended.

I’m glad I went blank into Slaughterhouse-Five because whatever expectations I might have had would have been subverted immediately. It’s one of those books you can never quite put your finger on, yet even though its parts seem disorganized, those parts don’t just add up to a whole, that whole makes you feel and reflect on many things.

For example, you could say Slaughterhouse-Five is about the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Technically, that’s correct. And even though the city and its destruction are mentioned all the time, the supposed main event ultimately takes place on less than a handful of pages. It is anticlimactic not only in its presence but also its description. Bombs fell. Our hero stayed in his shelter. He came out, everyone was dead. So it goes.

The 3 Shades of Eternity

September 21, 2025September 21, 2025 Nik

The German word “Steppenwolf” describes a kind of wolfhound, half wild animal, half domesticated pet. In Hermann Hesse’s 1927 novel of the same name, protagonist Harry Haller claims to be a specimen of this very variety, forever torn between an idealistic life outside society’s expectations and the comfort of hiding his values in plain sight.

If he could find the courage, Harry would write his soul out, live like a monk, or die on some principled hill, perhaps even literally. But he can’t, and so he resigns himself to only letting his lofty ideals shine through on occasion. While drinking with people at the pub, for example. Or when discussing politics over dinner. Or as he goes through any of the many humdrum, mundane repetitions of life most of us are bound to as well.

Of all the books I’ve read in the last 12 months, this nearly 100-year-old one has left the biggest mark on my soul. One lesson in particular stuck with me, and it starts taking shape when Harry notices an embellished painting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe during a visit to an old friend’s house. Harry adores Goethe, a great of German literature, but he despises the stylized, framed icon sitting on a small round table like a piece of decoration. So much so, in fact, that by the time the after-dessert-drinks roll around, he starts arguing with his hosts about it until his only escape seems to be running out the door — which he promptly does.

Later, Goethe visits Harry in a dream only to tease him about his snobby attitude earlier that night. Goethe playfully evades Harry’s questions about morality, dances, and even pranks him by holding a live scorpion in front of his face. Eventually, he claims that “eternity is but a moment, just long enough for a joke” and fades into darkness with “a still and soundless laughter that shook him to the depths with an abysmal old-man’s humor.”

I didn’t understand these words at first, and, like most of the action in the book, none of it seemed to make sense in the moment. But I did notice later on that both eternity and eerie laughter became recurring themes.

Choosing To Get the Education I Deserve

August 23, 2024September 16, 2024 Nik

It was one of those weeks where one and one just add up to three.

First, I woke up at 5 AM one morning. Groggy, unable to sleep, I dragged myself to the couch and opened a new fantasy novel. I struggled with a phrase on the first page. Then another on the second. I read and read, and by page 24, I was scratching my head so hard it started hurting: “Is it just me, or is this written so badly, it’s barely comprehensible?”

Between the multi-paragraph sentences, needlessly verbose descriptions, endless adverbs, and backwards unwinding of the action, I gave up on The Atlas Six right then and there. I confirmed with several friends that the writing was indeed atrocious, and after some googling, I found out why: It’s a self-published book that became a bestseller because the 15-year-olds on TikTok are all over it. Now, I’m not too old for a Booktok recommendation, but I am too old to read bad, unedited writing. Aren’t we all?

A few days later, my friend Franz sent me a list of the top 100 literary classics, aggregated across a decade of rankings. “How many have you read?” he asked me. I did a quick count. The answer was five. Ouch! Here I was, a writer with ten years of experience, apparently wasting my time on TikTok drivel, yet having read almost none of the all-time greats of English literature. “What the hell am I doing?” I thought.

In that moment, something clicked — and then so did I. I proceeded to Amazon, loaded my shopping cart like a kid on Christmas with an unlimited budget, and hit “Order.” Over the next week, box after box arrived, and while I watched them pile up, I finished two early birds — Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Turning those pages felt like taking a big breath through my nose after stepping outside for the first time in days. “Ahhhh! That’s better.”

I’m currently enjoying J. R. R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion, and while I do feel like my literary train is finally heading in the right direction again, the whole incident made me reflect: How can someone who writes for a living cruise right past the most important works in their industry for a decade?

My 12 Favorite Nonfiction Books Most People Have Never Heard Of

June 30, 2023April 17, 2025 Nik

Imagine a city with one million inhabitants. It has everything you would expect from a city of that size: some skyscrapers, a decent transport system, and all the usual public and social infrastructure.

There is, however, a catch: Everyone in this city can only read the same 10 books. It’s a simple literary restriction, but what consequences might it have? If all of those books are mainly concerned with inequality and societal problems, chances are, the city’s citizens will spend most of their time bickering and fighting. But what if those books are instead filled with stories about community and kindness? Probably, people will be inclined to help one another, and everyone will get along on most days.

Regardless of their effect and how strong you believe this effect might be, however, with only 10 books, the people in that city will inevitably stop learning. Thinking, creativity, innovation — eventually, these pillars of progress will come to a screeching halt. Why? Because the pool of ideas is too limited! Try as hard as they may, the best those citizens can do is to rehash the same ideas from the same 10 books, over and over again. Sooner or later, to create more and better output, they’ll need more and better input. The same is true for you as an individual.

Haruki Murakami famously wrote that “if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Popular books are usually popular because they’re agreeable. They’ll get you social credit and remind you of what’s common sense, but they’ll rarely truly stretch your brain. There’s nothing wrong with reading these books, but they shouldn’t be the only ones you consume. If you and your friends all read the same few bestsellers each year, and you all agree on their premises, none of you will learn anything new! Where’s the discussion? The thinking? The sparring of ideas? If you all read different books, however, everyone has something to teach to everyone else.

Over the last ten years, I’ve read hundreds of nonfiction books. Without fail, the lesser known ones have been the most satisfying in terms of new ideas, memorable lessons, and, yes, I’ll admit it, making me look smart in front of my friends. So for more than one reason, I agree with Murakami: Don’t run the risk of becoming like the people in that city — set in your ways, a rusty thinker. Read the obscure, the questionable, the forgotten. Read what no one else is reading.

Here are 12 titles I believe will fit that mark. Even if you’re an avid nonfiction reader, I’m confident you won’t have heard of most of them. But if you give them a try, maybe they’ll enter the ranks of your all-time favorites. They sure have done so for me.

4 Tips to Forever Improve Your Reading

April 4, 2023November 27, 2024 Nik

Reading may not be your favorite thing to do, but you are still a reader. Every day, you read thousands of words. You read messages, notifications, and web pages. You read books, signs, and documents.

If you could retain 10% more of everything you read, your life would be a lot better. The following 4 tips took me years of daily reading to collect but will only take you 3 minutes to learn. You’ll be a better reader forever.

Choose a Life of Stories

January 31, 2022October 11, 2025 Nik

You want to make a change. A very small change: You want to have coffee. Coffee is how you start your day.

If you were to have coffee just for the caffeine, you could take caffeine tablets. No taste, no hassle. Just swallow and drink some water. You could drink a shot of an energy drink. It won’t taste as nice, but you’d get the kick. Hell, you could get a caffeine IV! You probably wouldn’t be the first.

Instead, however, you go to a café. You open the door, and there it is: a story.

How Modern Non-Fiction Books Waste Your Time (and Why You Should Read Them Anyway)

July 6, 2021October 25, 2025 Nik

When I first discovered non-fiction books, I thought they were the best thing since sliced bread. Whatever problem you could possibly have, there’s a book out there to help you solve it. I had a lot of challenges at the time, and so I started devouring lots of books.

I read books about money, productivity, and choosing a career. Then, I read books about marketing, creativity, and entrepreneurship. I read and read and read, and, eventually, I realized I had forgotten to implement any of the advice! The only habit I had built was reading, and as wonderful as it was, it left me only with information overwhelm.

After that phase, I flipped to the other, equally extreme end of the spectrum: I read almost no books, got all my insights from summaries, and only tried to learn what I needed to improve a given situation at any time.

So, do self-help books work? As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

9 Timeless Articles You’ll Read Many Times Over the Years

May 24, 2021August 8, 2024 Nik

“Matter” is my theme for this year. As in: What matters?

So far, it has been fun to ask this question in my personal life. What are the things I really need? Who are the people I really want to be around? I’m decluttering and prioritizing the people I care about.

When it comes to my work, however, asking this question hasn’t been fun at all. It’s throwing me for a massive loop. All writers eventually hit this wall. In my case, I look back at seven years and some 2,000 pieces, and when I ask, “Which ones did I really care to write?” the answer is “Shockingly few.”

When you’ve written every day for so long, there’s always another idea, always another fluff piece you could write. Fortunately or not, I’m so bored of fluff pieces. I’d rather not repeat myself for 50 years. So, how can my problem be to your benefit?

Well, in my investigation of “Which writing matters?” I couldn’t help but dig up the articles that mattered most to me over the years. The following nine are beacons of light I keep coming back to again and again. I hope you too will find their timeless wisdom worth revisiting.

You Don’t Care Enough About Your Book

April 6, 2021August 8, 2024 Nik

I’m writing a book. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Writing articles is easy. It didn’t use to be, but when you’ve done it 2,000 times, anything becomes frictionless. Articles are low-stakes. If one flops, I’ll just write another. It only takes a day. With a book, well…

If your book tanks, you’ll have wasted a year. You won’t get paid for work you’ve already done. If people hate your book, they won’t hate 1,000 words — they’ll hate 200 pages. That’s a lot of bad karma, and, quite frankly, it scares the hell out of me.

Other people, it seems, aren’t as afraid. Everyone’s writing a book these days. Books are the new business cards. Haven’t you heard? I hate this trend. It leads to shitty books, and we already have too many of those.

If you’re writing a book solely for money or clout, I suggest you reconsider. You’ll make careless mistakes driven by greed and fame-seeking. Chances are, it’ll be exactly one too many, and you’ll get neither gold nor groupies.

If you’re one of those rare specimens who — gasp — write a book for the reader, I’d like to issue a warning, a reminder to myself, really: Right now, you don’t care enough about your book. If you don’t start immediately, your supposed masterpiece will flop like a Michael Bay movie at Cannes, and, worst of all, you’ll deserve it. It’ll be your fault and your fault alone.

Let me show you two examples. The point here is not to ridicule the authors, so I’ll blur their names. My goal is to show you how “small” mistakes add up to a book that looks sloppy overall — and will inevitably fail. Look at the cover and backside of this book. What’s your first impression?

Are You a Reader or a Listener?

November 24, 2020August 5, 2024 Nik

When Dwight Eisenhower served as supreme commander of the Allied forces during World War II, journalists raved about his press conferences. His responses to questions were always brief, but beautifully polished. He showed total command of his subject matter.

A few years later, however, when Eisenhower became the president of the United States, his interviews with the press became a source of frustration. Reporters said he rambled without direction, never answering their questions. He was criticized as ill-informed and awkward.

It turned out that back when Eisenhower was supreme commander, his aides made sure that questions from the press were submitted to him well before he answered them publicly. That way, he could think through his responses and refine them. When he later moved to an open press conference style, where questions were fired at him off the cuff, he floundered. Eisenhower didn’t know that he was a reader, not a listener.