Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 4.8.24
This week, I finished four books, and it’s a mixed bag. I read an amazing book on why capitalism sucks and an incredible book on the psychology of scarcity. Then, we have a mediocre self-help book and then a pretty awful personal finance booked masked as a book to help communities of color. Enjoy!
Also, feel free to become a paid subscriber for the low low price of $5/month to help support the substack so I can keep buying books!
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
It's Not You, It's Capitalism: Why It's Time to Break Up and How to Move On by Malaika Jabali
This is a great book, and it was such a fresh way to discuss how our current system of capitalism is not working for most of us. Malaika is a socialist, and in this short book, she relates capitalism to a bad significant other. It makes it hilarious while also super educational. For example, she discusses how capitalism gaslights us into trying to believe it’s the best system out there even though so many of us are struggling to survive. She also talks about how capitalism catfishes us.
The book covers so many topics, like wages, property ownership, healthcare, and much more. She’s also humble enough to admit when she doesn’t have the answers to certain problems, which I loved. That’s a rare quality in authors. This is a short read, and if you want to get introduced to topics of socialism and have a better understanding why capitalism isn’t working, check this book out.
Get out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior by Mark Goulston and Philip Goldberg
Imagine you had a therapist who was a friend, and no matter what problem you had, they’d give you some quick tips for how to deal with it. That’s basically what this book is. It’s super popular, and I love Mark Goulston, so I finally read this one. It’s good, but it’s just very basic. There aren’t major insights in the book, and if Mark didn’t tell you he was a therapist, it’d just sound like a friend or random self-help person giving you tips for being better and dealing with stuff. It’s decent, but I wish it was a bit more clinical.
Wealth Warrior: 8 Steps for Communities of Color to Conquer the Stock Market by Linda Garcia
I wanted to like this book so bad, but I just didn’t. The author definitely knows her stuff, and if you’re just looking to better understand personal finance, I’m sure you’re going to get some value out of this book. But even that’s limited, and I think there are others that are better, and that’s purely because this book leaves out so much. Allow me to explain.
If you read the title, obviously it’s marketed toward people of color, which is why I wanted to check it out. Many people aren’t taught financial literacy, and this is something that holds communities of color back especially. While I appreciate and respect that Linda shares quite a bit of her personal story, what bothers me so much about this book is that she just victim blames.
Sure, she says, “We’re not taught this in the Hispanic community,” but with a book like this, you’d think that she’d at least mention systemic issues. She doesn’t. Not even once. She’s basically like, “We’re not taught this. Now you know. Make it happen and nothing can hold you back,” which isn’t true at all with our current state of capitalism. For example, she mentions the 2008 housing market crash and subprime loans and says something like, “People who shouldn’t have been borrowing were borrowing. It’s time for us to take responsibility.” Like, WHAT?! You’re just not going to discuss how the banks took advantage of communities of color?
What sent off a million alarm bells for me was when she said her and her boyfriend took a $1,400 trip and split it. She says this was less than 1% of her savings. That means she had at least $70,000 in savings, and she didn’t even explain how. Later, you have to put the pieces together. In short, she worked at Netflix back in the 2010s and started buying stocks. That’s how she got wealthy.
There’s a ton of law of attraction BS in this book, so it’s not surprising that she doesn’t understand the luck involved with her wealth. This book also isn’t all about investing as the title would suggest. She discusses it toward the end, and although she knows her stuff, I don’t know if I’d take her advice knowing she built her wealth off of a “right place right time” situation at Netflix.
Lastly, I’m just not a fan of people like the author who market toward people who are clearly low-income and make their products ridiculously priced. Her course on her site is $288. I was broke most of my life, and coming up with almost $300 for a course would be such a huge expense for me. It’s this strange bait-and-switch these people do. Her target audience definitely isn’t who she says if she’s charging $300 for her course.
Again, she knows a lot, and I even learned a few things, but it just had way too much negative for me to give it a great review.
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir
Years ago, I learned a tiny bit of psychology about scarcity. I learned that poor and low-income people make terrible money decisions not because they’re dumb but because when money is a scarce resource, you’re also thinking about a million other things. This cognitive load causes you to make worse decisions. So, when I heard about this book, I grabbed a copy, and it didn’t disappoint.
Sendhil and Eldar are researchers, and they do an excellent job with this book. It’s accessible to anyone who reads it, and it’ll probably give you some practical advice while understanding how you make some poor decisions due to scarcity. In addition to scarcity involving money, many of us make poor decisions or are bad at planning due to time scarcity. The authors have a bunch of studies that they reference, and they even tried some studies to help people manage their money better, and it’s super interesting.
This book is one of my new favorites, and I absolutely recommend it.
Subscribe to the reading list! It’s free! Although I’ve been publishing this weekly reading list for free for multiple years, consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5 to help me pay for new books and keep this list free for everyone. And we have brand new curated reading lists for paid subscribers.
If you enjoyed this post, it’d mean a lot to me if you shared it. Forward it in an email, share it on social media, or whatever suits your fancy.