QuickRead Podcast - Free book summaries

Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.

Today, it’s easier than ever to connect with another person. Thanks to social media apps like Facebook, we have opened ourselves up to become available at all hours of the day. While this makes people stay connected virtually, our modern lives are making us less connected as we no longer connect with physical people but simulations of them. And not only is technology providing us with an endless network of people, but it is also equipping us with robots who can do more than just take on mindless or dangerous tasks. Now, robots are providing humans with care and demanding that we care for them. In Alone Together, author Sherry Turkle explores the power of these new technologies and shares both sides of today’s digital culture. As you read, you’ll learn how robots can be therapeutic for the elderly, why being constantly connected leads to stress, and why people use virtual avatars to cope with the stresses of life.

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Discover the athletic superpowers you didn’t know you had.

Wouldn’t it be great to reach your peak performance as an athlete? Would you like to beat your own personal best and learn how to raise that standard every day? If your answer is yes, then The Mindful Athlete (2015) is your new handbook for unlocking your potential through unconventional means.

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How the Quest For the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World.

According to Pedro Domingos, one of the greatest mysteries of the universe is not how it begins or ends, or what infinitesimal threads it’s woven from, it’s what goes on in a small child’s mind: how a pound of gray jelly can grow into a seat of consciousness. Even more astonishing is how little role parents play in teaching the brain to go through this transformation, as it largely does it all on its own. Today, scientists, computer engineers, and more are working towards a machine that can do exactly what the human brain does: learn. With all the technology of today, machines may one day even become smarter than the human brain. Computers can learn from large sets of data that we may not even realize is getting collected. This means that our future can be run by technology, changing the way we live and interact with each other. As you read, you’ll learn how machines will one day be like the human brain, how there is no such thing as a perfect algorithm, and how a Master Algorithm is on its way to being created.

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The science behind miracles.

Have you ever encountered something so striking that it made you say, “That’s a miracle!” Or perhaps you’ve experienced a phenomenon that makes you feel as though it’s too extraordinary to ever happen by chance. But the research of professor and statistician David J. Hand indicates that what we consider miraculous is actually both ordinary and easily predicted according to something called the improbability principle. This book unpacks the science and statistics behind seemingly miraculous phenomena.

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How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind.

Former Wall Street trader turned Cambridge neuroscientist John Coates explains what happens to our minds and bodies when we take risks, specifically financial risks. By analyzing the behavior of stock-market traders, Coates shows how our hormones influence our daily lives and the risks we take. When you understand how hormones play a critical role in your everyday life, you can learn how to better handle stress and make better decisions. Through The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, Coates aims to explain the bubbles and crashes of the stock market concerning our physiology and biochemical processes. In the end, you’ll learn that the key lessons can apply to more than just trading on the market floor. As you read, you’ll learn whether or not you can rely on your gut feelings, why more women should work in the financial world, and how testosterone negatively impacts a man's risk-taking.

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Learn how to recharge and access your full potential.

We charge our iPhones everyday. We know what makes them tick. A simple connection between our phone, a power cable, and a source of electricity means that they’ll soon get the juice they need to function. But what about a human being? What do we need in order to fully recharge? In The Charge (2012), we’ll learn about the drives that motivate people to succeed and how we can access them to reach our full potential.

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The New Science of Cause and Effect.

As humans, our instinct is to ask the questions “why” and “what if?” As you go about your day, you might ask yourself, “If I take this aspirin, will my headache go away?” or “What did I eat that made my stomach hurt?” You might even ask questions about the past too like, “What if I left my house just a few minutes earlier, would I have made my flight?” Whenever we ask questions like these, we are dealing with cause and effect relationships, or how certain factors lead to various results. In the scientific community, “Correlation is not causation” has been the mantra chanted by scientists for more than a century, prohibiting causal talk in many classrooms and scientific studies. Today, however, we have gone through a Causal Revolution instigated by author Judea Pearl and his colleagues. Through The Book of Why, Pearl shows us how his work in causal relationships will allow us to explore the world in more ways than one. It also shows us that the key to artificial intelligence is human thought and creating machines that can determine causes and effects. As you read, you’ll learn how the human brain is the most advanced tool in the world, how misunderstood data can lead to protests of the smallpox vaccine, and how controlled experiments have been around for as long as humans.

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Unlock your potential to make a difference in the world.

We all want to do something that matters. We all hope that our lives will leave a positive impact on the world. Unfortunately, however, we often get stuck along the way, overwhelmed by the weight of our own fears or the grind of everyday life. That’s why author and entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie has crafted this guide for building a business that matters. Following his business model-- which donates products to a person in need for every product purchased-- you’ll learn how you too can start something that matters.

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DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original book. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended to. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and would like us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected]

How Good Ideas Spread: The Lessons from New Science.

Each time you use your cell phone to call someone, scroll social media, download an app, use the GPS, or make an online purchase, you are creating data. This data is more useful than you might realize, and when it is collected and analyzed, this data can teach us how humanity behaves and how social learning occurs. Today, social scientists are relying on such data to study the patterns of how information exchanges in a social network and to predict how productive that network is, whether it’s a business or an entire city. We can also use this data to its fullest potential by maximizing the collective intelligence of a group to improve performance and use social incentives to create new organizations. These social networks, from small groups to large cities, can then be fine-tuned to increase exploration and engagement, resulting in an improvement in the flow of ideas and creating an overall more innovative, efficient society. As you read, you’ll learn why Zurich is the model of the perfect city, how data is the new oil, and how that data can be used to create the perfect society.

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DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original book. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended to. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and would like us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected]

The New Science of Building Brain Power.

How can you make yourself smarter? Do you simply read more books? Learn a new language? Pick up a new instrument? Improving your intelligence has long been thought of as bogus among the scientific community. In other words, you are stuck with what you’re born with. This idea, however, is changing. Psychologists have long been trying to prove how various brain-training techniques can improve your intelligence. Unfortunately, measuring intelligence is a tricky business. But author Dan Hurley has done the research and is here to provide you with the many techniques proven to make you smarter. As you read, you’ll learn why improving intelligence is such a controversial topic, which type of physical exercise will make you smarter, and how playing games can boost your memory and attention.

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DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original book. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended to. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and would like us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected]