What I Just Read

Vivid biography, both tragic and romantic. The author helps readers really climb into Napoleon's mind, revealing all facets of Napoleon's complicated personality. Quite a satisfying read. Napoleon is one of history's rare exceptions to the expression "no man is a hero to his valet." Most leaders have a constructed public persona, with a tremendous difference between their public self and their actual self. When we see a king or a president, we see various carefully constructed illusions of "kingness" or "presidentness" while having absolutely no idea who the underlying person is . Napoleon, in stark contrast, really was his true self, and in some ways this was what was tragic about his fateful arc from obscurity to total power and back. One also reads this book with a sinking, depressed feeling about our childlike and ignorant political leaders today, with their pathetically simplistic understanding of geopolitics, with no knowledge of the nua...

Most readers will get 90% of the value of this book just from reading chapters 16-19, which deal with things you can do you increase/enhance your own GH levels naturally via diet, exercise, (non-pharmacological) supplements and other practices.  The bulk of the rest of the book covers "studies show" theories, explanations and speculations of how and by what mechanism GH works in the body, and since the book was published in 1997, I'm certain most of these studies have been either debunked or better explained by more recent research. Notes:   1) Key supplements to keep in mind:  Melatonin: for sleep/recovery from training Glutamine: up to 2,000 mg/day plus weight training L-Carnitine: one to two grams a day Ubiquinone (Co-enzyme Q10): 60 mg up to 100 mg. Chromium (binds to insulin) 200 micrograms per day Creatine: 45 g per day after heavy exercise Ginseng: for cognition and recovery from stress, 200 to 400 mg a day Dibencozide (coenzyme B12): 1000 micrograms a day Gamma Or...

Interesting, depressing... and unfortunately a necessary book to read right now as our modern liberal democracies begin their "Jacobin cycle": moving from creeping authoritarianism towards totalitarianism-lite, on their way eventually towards something far, far worse.  Read with: Franz Kafka: The Trial George Orwell: 1984 Notes:   * The Jacobin cycle is a useful lens to think about how countries in a perpetual state of "progressive revolution" simply eat themselves alive: one group of revolutionaries liquidates those who came before them as "approved" policies and ideas change... only for that next generation to be executed themselves by the generation to come. It's like an ouroboros eating itself in a perpetual cycle of self-annihilation. * Note that today's cancel culture, the politics-based deplatforming, demonetizing and firings that happen here in the USA are simply Soviet-lite: it's the same type of mechanism at work. Who knows, we may b...

Explains the theory and practice of the "Coué Method" of autosuggestion developed by Emile Coué. This crisp 119-page book (published back in 1922!) gives you all the necessary tools to practice autosuggestion on yourself. It's deeply unfortunate in the modern era to see the Coué method either ripped off (see for example  The Secret ) or mocked (see the  lisping, affirmation-spouting Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live ). And yet there is self-evident therapeutic value in actively choosing your belief sets and then acting and speaking in accordance with those beliefs. Read with:  Dr. John Sarno:  The Divided Mind Michael Murphy and Rhea A. White:  The Psychic Side of Sports David R. Hawkins:  Power vs  Force Notes: * "To all In conflict with their own imperfections this little book is dedicated" * "Induced autosuggestion does not involve, as several hasty critics have assumed, an attack upon the will. It simply teaches that during the actual formula...