shelf / books & screen

The shelf.

Books that left a mark and films worth the runtime. Short notes, no spoilers. Dad jokes included at no extra charge.

Today's dad note: every book here was described as life-changing by someone who says that about a lot of books. the lives are still pending update.

book
★★★★★

The Psychology of Money

Morgan Housel

The best book on money that isn't really about money. Housel doesn't tell you how to get rich — he explains why our thinking about wealth usually works against us. Every chapter is short, every chapter lands. Read it slowly because you won't want it to end. Recommended to everyone, especially people who think they're not interested in finance. Those people need it most.

I finished it and immediately felt both wiser and more aware of every bad financial decision I'd ever made. Character-building experience.

book
★★★★★

The Chimp Paradox

Steve Peters

A genuinely interesting perspective on how the brain works. Peters splits the mind into the "chimp" — emotional, impulsive, fast — and the "human" — rational, deliberate, slower. The chimp almost always wins if you don't recognise it in time. I read it and immediately thought of three situations where I'd been completely chimpanzee. Not comfortable. Very useful.

Turns out most of my worst decisions were made by a small irrational primate living rent-free in my prefrontal cortex. Eviction proceedings ongoing.

book
★★★★★

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Eric Jorgenson

Required reading. Not a novel — a curated collection of Naval's thinking on wealth, happiness, philosophy, and how to actually think. Every page has a sentence worth keeping. You read it slowly, return to sections, and quote it to people who didn't ask. One of the rare books where the format is as good as the content.

Warning: will make you reassess your entire relationship with time, leverage, and why you're still in meetings that could have been emails.

book
★★★★★

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

Required reading. Written ~1,900 years ago as a private journal by a Roman emperor — a man with absolute power, reminding himself daily to stay human. Nothing is outdated. Every thought on control, impermanence, and focusing on what's within you reads like it was written this morning. Best experienced slowly, with a pen in hand.

A Roman emperor had more discipline in his personal notes than most of us have in our entire productivity systems. He didn't even have a Notion template.

book currently reading

The Lean Startup

Eric Ries

In progress. Ries argues that most startups fail not because they had a bad product, but because they built the wrong product for too long. The Build-Measure-Learn loop as the answer to that. Every chapter shifts what "progress" means in an early-stage company. I keep stopping to apply it to things I'm currently building, which is slowing me down and making me better simultaneously.

A book about moving faster that keeps making me pause and rethink everything. The irony is not lost on me.

series
★★★★★

Beef — Season 1

Netflix, 2023

Starts as a dark comedy about a road rage incident and ends as something completely different and harder to categorise. Season one is perfect — every character has layers you don't see coming, every episode moves the line. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong deliver some of the best performances I've seen in years. Watched it in one sitting and immediately wished there was more.

A show that begins with two people honking at each other and ends with you questioning your entire value system. Solid 10/10 use of a Tuesday evening.

series
★★★★★

Formula 1: Drive to Survive

Netflix, 2019–

The F1 classic — a proper look behind the curtain you don't get from race broadcasts. Some seasons are more dramatised than others, but the access is real and the moments that land, land hard. The only show that makes me pause and search for the original team radio. Recommended even to people who don't follow F1 — you'll watch it anyway.

Verstappen's face during radio calls is a masterclass in barely-contained emotions. I study it for professional development.

series
★★★★★

The Grand Tour

Amazon, 2016–

The mother of all car shows and a worthy continuation of the legendary Top Gear. Clarkson, Hammond and May are like a band that got back together with a bigger budget and even less supervision. It's not really about cars — it's about friendship, adventure, and what happens when three completely different people do something they genuinely love. Every special episode is a film in its own right.

Three middle-aged men destroying expensive vehicles across multiple continents. Television has never been more honest about what men actually want to do with their weekends.

film
★★★★★

Snatch

Guy Ritchie, 2000

The film of all films. Ritchie made something that can't be copied — the pace, the dialogue, character after character who could each carry their own movie. Brad Pitt as Mickey is one of the best performances of his career, delivered in a dialect nobody fully understands. Every rewatch reveals something new. A perfect example of how energy and style can matter as much as plot.

Brad Pitt speaks entirely in unintelligible Irish traveller slang and somehow this is the most charismatic anyone has ever been on screen. Studied. Still confused. Inspired.

film
★★★★★

The Pursuit of Happyness

Gabriele Muccino, 2006

A lesson in never giving up — delivered in a way that isn't a motivational cliché. Chris Gardner carries his son through a situation with no safety net, no plan B, and no quit. Will Smith operates at a level that leaves you without words. I watch it when I need a reminder that problems have perspective. Works every time.

Watched this after a bad week. Then felt guilty about calling it a bad week. Recalibrated. 10/10 perspective reset, 0/10 for your self-pity.

film
★★★★★

The Social Network

David Fincher, 2010

Technically a film about the founding of Facebook. Actually a film about ambition, betrayal, and what happens when you put a great idea in the hands of someone better at building than relating. Fincher and Sorkin made one of the smartest films about startup culture without ever using that phrase. Every line of dialogue moves at a speed that assumes you're keeping up.

A film about a man who built a platform connecting billions of people and had zero friends. The irony has never left me. Neither has the Trent Reznor score.

film
★★★★☆

The Founder

John Lee Hancock, 2016

The Ray Kroc / McDonald's story — and not the version you expect. Kroc isn't a hero, but he's not quite a villain either. The film shows how empires get built: through persistence, negotiation, and occasionally crossing lines you didn't know existed until you were already on the other side. Michael Keaton is exceptional. You finish it asking where ambition ends and something else begins.

A film about a milkshake machine salesman who stole a burger empire. The American Dream, unedited.

film
★★★★☆

Moneyball

Bennett Miller, 2011

A film about baseball that isn't about baseball. About what happens when you decide to measure things nobody else measures and fight tradition with data instead of instinct. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill make a great team. Every founder who has ever said "but the industry always does it this way" should watch this. Data beats opinion. Every time.

A film that convinced me spreadsheets are romantic. I have complicated feelings about this. The data supports them.