Episode 2 Books

This conversation explores why literacy matters, how reading habits evolve, and why building a personal library can be more important than finishing every book on the shelf. The discussion moves through history, economics, philosophy, fiction, and lived experience, touching on formative books, rereading, translations, and the relationship between reading, curiosity, and a meaningful life.

Episode Shownotes

• Why books matter beyond entertainment
• Literacy as a foundation of economic and social development
• The printing press and the spread of knowledge
• Personal reading habits and building an “anti-library”
• Buying new vs. used books
• Reading during commutes and busy schedules
• Favorite and formative books
• Fiction, nonfiction, and rereading as an adult
• Translations, language, and reading in the original text
• Books that change how people see the world
• Gifting books and sharing ideas
• Choosing books for a deserted island
• Literacy, prosperity, and long-term societal outcomes

Episode Timestamps

• 00:00 Introduction and choosing books as a topic
• 01:00 Literacy, history, and the importance of the printing press
• 03:00 Books as tools for preserving and transmitting knowledge
• 04:00 Reading habits, productivity, and personal experience
• 06:00 The concept of the anti-library
• 09:00 Buying books and used bookstores
• 11:00 Online used books and shipping challenges
• 13:00 Spending on books and gift strategies
• 15:00 Current reading lists and recent books
• 18:00 Fiction, satire, and absurdity
• 20:00 Rereading books and changing perspectives
• 22:00 Emanuel’s recent and planned reading
• 29:00 Business books and practical reading
• 31:00 Most gifted books and influential ideas
• 37:00 Books for a deserted island
• 43:00 First books remembered and learning to read
• 47:00 Writing, authors, and life stories
• 49:00 Revisiting classic and science fiction
• 53:00 Literacy, society, and long-term impact
• 55:00 Closing thoughts

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People who were mentioned

• Emanuel Petrescu
• Kevin Carney
• Umberto Eco
• John Turturro
• Sean Connery
• Ron Perlman
• Winston Churchill
• Tim Ferriss
• Richard Branson
• Mike Oldfield
• Phil Tasci
• Margaret Fink
• Jason Krause
• David McWilliams
• Felix Martin
• Joseph Schumpeter
• Terry Pratchett
• Neil Gaiman
• Alan Watts
• Mircea Eliade
• Hugh Grant
• Paulo Coelho
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Mario Vargas Llosa
• Gabriel García Márquez
• Demis Roussos
• John Maynard Keynes
• Robert Heinlein
• Douglas Adams
• O. Henry
• Denis Villeneuve
• Frank Herbert
• Dave Chappelle
• Ricky Gervais
• Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

Books / Written Works that were mentioned

• The Name of the Rose
• Four Hour Workweek
• The Four Hour Body
• The Four Hour Cook
• Tools of the Titans
• Money: A Story of Humanity
• Money: An Unauthorized Biography
• The Theory of Economic Development
• Good Omens
• American Gods
• Alice in Wonderland
• Through the Looking Glass
• The Book (Alan Watts)
• The Prophet
• Screw It, Let’s Do It
• The Alchemist
• The Little Prince
• Don Quixote
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
• The Brothers Karamazov
• Demons
• Crime and Punishment
• Dune
• Foundation (series)
• Dark Money
• Traction
• Speak Like a Pro
• Beyond Youth with Grace and Vitality
• Science of Success

Music / Albums that werementioned

• Tubular Bells

Organizations / Brands / Platforms that were mentioned

• Curious Pundits
• Virgin Galactic
• Virgin Mobile
• Value Village
• ThriftBooks
• Amazon
• Kobo
• GO Train
• Canada Post

Places that were mentioned

• Toronto
• Burlington
• Canada
• United States
• Europe
• Romania
• India
• British Columbia
• Pickering

Concepts that were mentioned

• Literacy
• Printing press
• Anti-library
• Vedanta
• Yin Yang
• Creative destruction
• Capitalism
• Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Emanuel: Hi Kevin and hi everyone. How’s your day going so far?

[00:00:05] Kevin: Good, I’m ready to go. It’s podcast time.

[00:00:09] Emanuel: It is podcast time. We should probably have an intro or a jingle or something like that. It is podcast time. It’s Curious Pundits, today’s pundits, Emanuel and Kevin. As always, we had an introductory show in our second episode today, which also features a new software that we’re using to experiment recording.

We chose a topic very dear to both of us and hoping very dear to many of our listeners, the topic is simple. Books.

First of all, what are your thoughts on books? Kevin, I see you have one or two behind you, and why are we, have we chosen this topic?

[00:00:54] Kevin: I’m actually not sure why we chose it. You know, you suggested and I said, oh yeah, that’s a good one. Let’s do [00:01:00] that. Right.

So the topic is books.

In my mind, books is, in historical terms, is a relatively modern form of something that are I think is one of the most important things in all all of human history.

So the broader topic to me is not books per, but literacy.

Books obviously needed the printing press. The printing press obviously needed writing. And these were, you know, significant developments in human history, shall we say.

[00:01:38] Emanuel: A means to an end.

[00:01:42] Kevin: Well, it’s more than just a means to an end. Periodically, someone will ask a question like, what is the most important thing that humans have ever invented? And they go like, you know, computers and telecommunications and medicine and all that kind of stuff. Right? But I’m [00:02:00] firmly entrenched that probably the most important invention in all of human history was the printing press.

And the reason I think that is… it’s not, for whatever reason, it’s not well understood, how in historical terms, literacy is relatively new.

And the rise of literacy and in my my worldview everything comes back to economics.

But the development of literacy and the increase in trade, which resulted in a significant increase in material prosperity for a a lot of people, almost everybody, they’re intertwined, very, very much so.

And the history of literacy to me, is more important than the history of books per se.

Books is just like the newest form in which we spread information through the written word.[00:03:00]

[00:03:01] Emanuel: A vehicle for gaining knowledge essentially. Attest…

[00:03:05] Kevin: For the dissemination of knowledge. Like books are the thing that allows people to communicate both across vast distances and across vast periods of time.

I read books written by dead people. I’m never gonna meet these people because, you know, they’re dead. Right? But their words live on in the books that they’ve written.

[00:03:28] Emanuel: They change lives, worlds, and because of books, we probably have a better life than we would have had a hundred years ago and more.

I’ll get back to that because this intro spans probably a few topic ideas of other podcasts, but the reason why I suggested books and I wanted to reinforce what you just said is because I’ve noticed in my life that, life tends to [00:04:00] get busy.

Life of a digital marketer tends to get busy, life for an independent digital marketer tends to get busy, and often you cut down on things that you enjoy, one of them being literature.

But I’ve noticed that throughout my life, in all the periods where I was the most productive, I made the best deals and things were happening for me, were also the same periods that where I was allocating more time in reading and understanding what I was reading and in studying altogether, being part of the… being part of the journey, being part of my life.

So I’ve kind of went into that mode again and tried to set aside some time of exclusively reading books.

And we’ll get to what kind of books as well, because I believe you should have a diversified portfolio in terms of what you are reading and, one pro tip…

I used to commute a [00:05:00] lot, so that helped when, reading in the subway, in the bus, and sometimes… driving, I drive quite a lot. I live in North America, so you have to, but it’s not my first option. I’m European, so I like the public transport system. I’m accustomed to the one in Europe, which actually works. At least in Toronto, not so much.

But still, even if I need to go somewhere outside of the city where there’s a one hour drive or two hour drive, I prefer to take take the train or we have here the GO train, which is kinda like the GTA around the Toronto area.

Sometimes it’s cheaper, more comfortable for sure. I don’t stay in traffic and things I’m looking forward to is actually catching up on my reading.

So I just met two weeks ago, somebody in Burlington, which is 40 minutes drive from Toronto. I took the GO train, it cost me like I know [00:06:00] 11 bucks Canadians going back and forth, but I had the opportunity to catch up on my reading.

Before I ask you a couple of questions that I’ve prepared here, are you familiar with the concept of anti library?

[00:06:14] Kevin: No, I’m not.

[00:06:17] Emanuel: Excellent. I force myself not to Google it, and I rely a lot on my memory, so I might get a few things wrong, but I believe, I don’t remember who, but the answer was by Umberto Eco, the Italian writer who wrote a couple of great books. Most well known one is The Name of the Rose.

They made a series recently with John Turturro and a couple of other actors, well known from series. And a more famous, I believe is 1980s’ movie with Sean Connery and Ron Perlman, the only ones that I remember right now.

Anyway, somebody asked him because he had like probably [00:07:00] 30,000 books in his library and he said…

They ask him, are you going to read all these books in your lifetime? Most likely not. And he did some math and it turned out that you would need, I dunno how many years if you are an average reader or a fast reader or whatnot, but the concept of an anti library is to build up this anti library in the idea that the more books you have, the more books you’ll read.

So unlikely to read all the books, but the more you have, let’s say you have a hundred books in your library, you’ll probably read 25. If you have a thousand books in your library, there’s a higher chance of reading a hundred of them, which, you know a hundred is larger than 25.

And that the math is simple, right? The knowledge that you’ll gain from it.

It’s instrumental in the… At the end of the day, the success, the quality of your life. At the end of the day, you know when the day ends or the life ends, what is it? Right? [00:08:00] Are you happy? Books and reading and catching up and learning new stuff from books and the process itself.

It’s something that brings me joy.

[00:08:11] Kevin: So I had not heard that phrase, but I’m very familiar with the idea because I do that too. I buy books, which I fully intend to read at some point, and…

[00:08:22] Emanuel: Great minds think alike.

[00:08:24] Kevin: Forever. Right.

[00:08:26] Emanuel: Yes.

[00:08:28] Kevin: By the time this up on YouTube, the backgrounds might be blurred because the software we’re using allows that to happen.

But there’s a bunch of red books on my bookcase that all look like they’re part of a series and that’s because they are. I was in a used bookstore sometime and those are history books written by Winston Churchill about World War II, and I’m like, well, this guy had a front row seat, this is probably good.

And it was a good price and I probably bought those 15 ago. Opportunistically I was there, they were there, it was pretty cheap, I’ll read them one day. [00:09:00] Never read them yet.

I mean, I’ll get to it, but you get the idea.

[00:09:04] Emanuel: They have this thing called Value Village here. He’s a pro tip. I’m pretty sure there’s a equivalent I in in the US as well about pro tip for Canadians and they have a book section. So Value Village is a, let’s put it this way, discount store. It’s a kind of like Salvation Army type of…

[00:09:22] Kevin: Yeah.

[00:09:23] Emanuel: …use. And you can find some gems.

Gems in there, right? And even some, some new books. And the last one I bought for six bucks was a I have here Tim Ferris is Four Hour Cook. If you’re familiar with Tim Ferris, he’s a…

[00:09:39] Kevin: What’s the title again?

[00:09:41] Emanuel: The Four Hour Cook, let me see if I can have it here so I don’t get the name wrong, but the Four Hour Cook. So, Tim Ferris, he’s a podcaster fairly known in this space, and he wrote his, the most famous book he wrote is…

[00:09:54] Kevin: I have read The Four Hour Workweek.

[00:09:55] Emanuel: Him. Yes, that’s him. So from that series, actually he [00:10:00] has some other ones. The Four Hour Body Works, the Four Hour C ookbook about nutrition and all those things. I haven’t read it. And I might start, because I brought like actually here some books on the, on the side. I might start with the last one that I got as a gift when I left my last job, you know, to start my entrepreneurial endeavors. Endeavors, not just one, but more.

This podcast being one of them. Tools of the Titans, a collection. Curated by him, and some interesting people in here. So this one, I got it as a gift, but as we know, these kind of books can get quite expensive, around 40, 50 bucks, 35 give or take Canadian/US.

But you sometimes find, find them at Value Village with, in brand new essentially, at a discounted price.

So that, that’s a pro tip.

[00:10:54] Kevin: Yeah. I’m big on used bookstores. In fact, I buy most of my books from a large [00:11:00] online used bookstore named Thriftbooks.

[00:11:04] Emanuel: Thriftbooks. Okay. I haven’t…

[00:11:07] Kevin: It’s independently owned. It’s not owned by Amazon or any other major brand.

[00:11:09] Emanuel: Yep.

[00:11:10] Kevin: It’s its own brand. Not every book they sell is used, but they are a very large online used bookstore. And it’s my go-to place. If I can’t find the book at Thriftbooks, then I’ll go someplace else, but if they’ve got it, I just buy it from them.

[00:11:24] Emanuel: And what’s the website again? For our listeners and for me first.

[00:11:28] Kevin: Thriftbooks.com.

[00:11:32] Emanuel: Okay. I’ve made a note here. Thriftbooks.com. I might have encountered this. Do they ship in Canada?

[00:11:40] Kevin: I don’t know.

Now, the United States, the reason these online bookstores are so easy to use is the United States has a special postage rate for books. Shipping books within the United States is really cheap compared to shipping anything else.

However, I did once send [00:12:00] a book to my niece in British Columbia and I paid twice as much in postage as I paid for the book because it crossed the border.

[00:12:09] Emanuel: This is not therapy session, but Canada and Canada Post is again on, I know exactly, they’re not officially on strike, but there’s a huge, huge delay in deliverability.

So that’s a frustration.

Pro tip. Okay. I didn’t know that’s all. Probably order a bunch of books to your address, Kevin, and we’ll figure out how I’ll, I’ll maybe come down there.

[00:12:31] Kevin: Check to make sure that they ship to Canada. I don’t know if they do or don’t.

[00:12:34] Emanuel: Yeah. I just made a note there because I did a calculation once I had a “book want” list, on Amazon and just that one which I’ve been adding for the last, let’s say couple of months, six months or half a year, was costing me like $2,000 Canadians, which is, I don’t know how much in US at the moment, but still a significant amount of money.

So if I [00:13:00] were to order all of them, and that’s just the ones that I had for the last couple of months.

But, that said, I do have a couple of questions and since we talk about, you know, where you buy them, how much would you say do you spend, let’s say, one year on average, a year on books, new books?

[00:13:20] Kevin: Oh wow. Well, there’s well, there’s two parts.

One is that I probably spend out of my own pocket $10 to $20 a month on books, so in the range of $120 to $240 a year.

Now again, I’m buying used books. I’m a huge believer in used books and used bookstores.

But then but then I have a alternate strategy which is, the really expensive books, I ask my kids to buy them for me for my birthday and Christmas.

So they they probably spent, $150 bucks a year each buying me [00:14:00] books.

[00:14:01] Emanuel: I was just reading, and I’ve searched some statistics here and they range from $20 a year as you said, to $400 and something again, and I do the same thing.

I have a “books wishlist”, which is a public Amazon list, like all the influencers have.

And instead of a gift card, I prefer to add one. And I’m slowly, slowly building my anti library. I’m, to be honest, probably good for the next 10 to 20 years in the numbers of book that I have.

But there’s room for more, and the more you have the higher chance of getting to read those books… you’ll actually have.

And I said for me, if I read more, life tends to be better during those periods where I read something that I enjoy and [00:15:00] I can learn. I read a lot of business books as well.

Speaking of a reading list, what are you currently reading, Kevin, and now, and what were the books for the past, let’s say five… five last books that you read or for the past couple of months? What stood up and what’s something that you are willing to share?

[00:15:22] Kevin: Well, I mostly read nonfiction because of my interest, that has turned into a bit of an obsession that you know of with the history of money. So…

[00:15:34] Emanuel: Gonna learn about that.

[00:15:34] Kevin: The last book I read is Money: A Story of Humanity by David McWilliams.

The book I’m reading now is Money: An Unauthorized Biography by Felix Martin.

Then queued right after that is The Theory of Economic Development, by Joseph Schumpeter.

Now, everybody knows the concept of [00:16:00] capitalism being built on creative destruction.

That’s Joseph Schumpeter.

Apparently this is the book that contains his ideas on destruction being a dominant force that moves capitalism forward.

So generally these are the kind of books I read, but every once in a while I need break.

My youngest son and I, if we read a good book, we’ll mail it to other.

He previously mailed me Good Omens, by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman.

And then recently he mailed me American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

So I recently read American Gods… and I mean it was an interesting story. Good Omens was like a fantastic read, in my mind, although other other people may disagree because it’s kind of religious satire and some people take their religions incredibly seriously.

American Gods, I wouldn’t describe it as religious satire, although that seems to [00:17:00] be a bit of a theme with Neil Gaiman, but it was a really good story.

One of my favorite books of all time is Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, because it’s a, I don’t know, exercise in absurdity and it highlights absurdities in her immediate environment that in my mind, kind of mirror the fact that there are absurdities in our immediate environments on a day-to-day basis.

I just love that book.

[00:17:30] Emanuel: I was just about to say giving, if we look at the IRL in real life, I, I wouldn’t call it that absurd anymore.

[00:17:40] Kevin: Say that again.

[00:17:42] Emanuel: If we compare it to what’s happening, IRL in real life, that’s an abbreviation that kids use nowadays; I won’t call it that absurd anymore.

[00:17:53] Kevin: Yeah. So, this is tangentially related, but we [00:18:00] live in an era where comedians have become reliable sources of news, and legitimate news organizations have become bit up joke.

I think the primary reason for that is, is that good comedians are connoisseurs of absurdity.

And and they turn current events into these narratives of absurdity that actually convey what’s happening in the world.

[00:18:29] Emanuel: Excellent description that I’m going to use moving forward, because that’s something I realized as well.

Dave Chappelle, I love watching Dave Chappelle and I don’t even laugh that much anymore, but I still enjoy it.

Ricky Gervais, we all know his Emmy’s appearances. And all the comments that they made as well.

And there’s a couple of Romanian ones that you know fall into this place. And I can, can relate of course, because I’m still heavily [00:19:00] invested in what’s going on over there.

But, good point that you made about comedians becoming a reliable source of news as the traditional news institutions… to an extent also… if I’m honest, this is my opinion, they probably never were [reliable sources] exactly, they were probably the only sources.

And in our collective mind we thought that, you know, if somebody simply appears on TV, he’s always right. Or it had that power of an influence and an opinion, you know?

And always less is more, so you got just a few options, so you took things for granted.

But you know how many things… and even at school, they taught us about stuff that’s not true anymore. And it’s totally, totally opposite.

But let’s stick to the topic of books today. And we learned a thing or two about your reading list and one of your favorite books.

Let’s stick to classic literature or classic [00:20:00] books.

What’s one book that you always refer to or you, probably read it a few times and you always enjoy it and give it, give you know, reference it back.

[00:20:15] Kevin: There’s actually very few books that I reread. I do on occasion, so…

I don’t know what this next little bit says about me, but when I was 14 or 15, I was on science fiction kick and I read pretty much every book that a guy named Robert Heinlein wrote, and and I remember thoroughly enjoying them.

And and at one point, as an adult, within the last maybe 10 years, I was in a used bookstore and I saw a copy of one of his books.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I remembered really enjoying when I was like 14 or 15. Skinny little book, right? So I bought it, I reread it and I thought this is terrible.

I can’t believe I used to like this.

So I had grown up. I now view the world in a [00:21:00] different way. And not not only did the book not seem good, it actually seemed bad. I mean, I can’t believe I ever enjoyed this.

There however, a few books which have… caused me to change the way I look at things.

There was a before I read the book, and there was an, after I read the book, and there was a significant difference in my understanding about things, and there was a couple of books that have done that to me.

And I’m happy to get to that, but I’d like to ask you the same question.

What books are you reading now? Have you read recently?

[00:21:41] Emanuel: Sure. Well, thank you for asking me.

This is my this is something ongoing, so I enjoy because it’s short snippets, probably four to eight pages. So you can just, you know, when you wanna take a short break, don’t know what you do. You can sit then just for 10, [00:22:00] 15 minutes, you know, learn something new and apply with what the Titans, business, billionaires, athletes do.

So that’s ongoing.

I recently finished, last night, Screw It, Let’s Do It, Richard Branson’s book, the Virgin Galactic, Virgin Mobile. That’s actually one of the few independent cell phone companies in in Canada.

And many, many people, other people know him from being an extravagant billionaire, and I learned about him early on because I relate to his story a lot, in a sense that he started off with magazines.

I started off with putting my own magazine first in in school, in grade school.

He started off with music.

I’ve started, I had my own recording studio and record label for quite a while. Fun fact, I was just listening to Tubular Bells, Mike Oldfield’s album, the one that breakthrough…

[00:22:58] Kevin: I know that album well. [00:23:00] Yeah.

[00:23:00] Emanuel: And many people know it and they got recognition through the Exorcist, the movie, the soundtrack, but it’s a masterpiece of of music, it’s art.

And it’s the album that break through for him as an artist and for Virgin. And, you know, at the end of the day, it, you could say that the wealth that Virgin… empire has today, people fly into space for leisure right now, is due to Mike Oldsfield Tubular Bells.

[00:23:29] Kevin: Yeah, it started with Tubular Bells, which was recorded in a recording studio in Richard Branson’s house.

[00:23:36] Emanuel: Yes. I learned about… I think, is it the first one, the Tubular Bells? I don’t have that memory right now. I think…

[00:23:44] Kevin: I think the answer might be yes.

[00:23:47] Emanuel: We need to double check, but y es, for sure.

And what I was wanted to say, I realized that based on what I’ve read, based on what I’ve seen, and based on my personal interactions with [00:24:00] successful people, the ones that either have money or have achieved something in their own domain, I was always under the impression that they’re sophisticated.

But I came to the conclusion and that book confirmed that sometimes less sophistication actually can bring those results as well.

And to get back to as well, what am I reading? What’s on my reading list?

Well, I don’t want to challenge myself with a couple of things. One of them I did three years ago to do one video, short video a day.

For the entire month of October. So I was telling people, I’m a consultant, I was telling them, you know, you need to do videos, you need to do videos, you need to do videos.

[00:24:43] Kevin: I remember you did that. Yeah.

[00:24:45] Emanuel: Yeah. And I wasn’t doing so many videos, so I said, you know what? For the month of October, I’m gonna do one short, less than one minute video for each day.

So yeah, that was an interesting challenge. It actually brought me some, some leads.

So what I was walking my [00:25:00] talk and actually that brought some business, so it works.

A nd now my next challenge and is to do by the end of the year to read one book a day. Now I’ve read a couple of books in one day.

I remember the first one was The Alchemist, Paul Coehlo’s The Alchemist, which was an amazing, I was still, it’s in grade school and I was kind of like amazed.

I was, it was before high school, so it probably came at, at the right time.

And some other ones, one of my favorite books and the book that I often offer to other people and I refer back to is, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which transcends language, transcends life in my opinion. It’s one of the best pieces of literature.

And there’s also a song called Apres La Fin Du Monde by Demis Roussos. After the world ends, what will remain of us? Right? Another reference is to childhoods. And by was it Philip Dick, what [00:26:00] will remain of us after the world ends.

Probably a couple of pages of The Little Prince.

But to keep this shorter, I do have a list here that, of books that I plan to read by the end of the year, one a day.

I’m not sure that I’m gonna do it in one sitting, so one week or five days, it might be a little bit too much, but I’m going to cheat.

[00:26:25] Kevin: I mean, one a day is ambitious. One a week is ambitious.

[00:26:29] Emanuel: I’m going to cheat a little bit, okay? Because obviously reading something like this in one day, it’s overly ambitious, but I have the opportunity to meet many of the author that I’ve read their books, especially this year.

So I have here Margaret Fink. She’s been instrumental in my career in Canada here. She helped me get my first job essentially.

Beyond Youth with Grace and Vitality.

She’s an inspiration. So I had the opportunity to buy her book this year [00:27:00] at the launch, and I plan to read it.

Also, you might have seen him on my webinars, Phil Tasci. He is one of the best coaches, trainers out there. Institutional enterprise level type. Speak Like a Pro, public speaking. It’s an important skill. Storytelling and public speaking. So that’s that.

Since we talked about Paulo Coelho, this is something I picked up on not a used bookstore, but older editions. So I probably paid very little.

And this is, although a big book, it has big font and it’s a pleasure read. So it shouldn’t take that long. It shouldn’t be that ambitious.

I read in Romanian a lot, and that helps.

My mom gifted me this book. It’s a dialogue between Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez. So I’m looking forward to getting to know what they had had to say here, because there’s [00:28:00] been an influence, a significant influence to many.

And a book. I like to read business books. I like to read success books and even the self-help literature every now and then because it helps. They’re easy to read. And, but this one’s particularly interesting because I got it at an event.

It’s by Jason Krause. At an event about leadership, about you know, becoming better. And he was a former executive coach firm. He was a Olympic athlete representing Canada. Bobsled pilot, yeah.

But it ended up not going there. So he has an interesting story and he kinda like translates all that mindset of what comes, what it takes to become a Olympic athlete to business.

And I would like to know the science of success. This seems like an interesting book. It’s not a big book. It’s not too thin [00:29:00] either.

But these are my cheat sheets for this year to get. To have the feeling that I have something accomplished.

And speaking of money I have here a book called Dark Money. I forgot the author. I can’t see the author right now, but it’s about how money are used for dark, darker things.

But those were my shortlisted, short list of books and obviously… I’m actually, I’m one of those guys, I’m that old where the books that I’m reading currently, I put them in a piece of paper to protect them because, as I said, I travel a lot, I put them in my bag, in all kinds of places, and they tend to get dirty.

Traction, it’s about the EOS, Entrepreneurial Operating System. I read this book right now and I’m revisiting it chapter by chapter in order to structure and have my company operate under this operating system.

So if you run a business, have your own business, I highly recommend it. [00:30:00] 75% of the things that they recommend I was already doing for my business. So this came in, fitted like a glove for me.

And plus I have here my Kobo book, which has probably all the books that 200 people will need to live in a hundred years.

Just in case something goes down and you need to leave and grab whatever you can. Your emergency kit, right? You have your water filtering, some batteries, some pills to survive.

I used to live in Pickering and because there’s a power plant there, they give us the the ionized pills as well, right?

So everything else, and this Kobo book, which battery should last at least 30 days, and has all the good books, the great books of the world in there.

I think we started off with the one question that I’m not sure I remember correctly, but I had one more here.

What was the most gifted book that you [00:31:00] gave away and the most famous question of all, if you were to be on a deserted island for the next 20 years and you could bring only, let’s give it some some room, three books with you, what would those be and why?

[00:31:20] Kevin: Can I go to your first question first?

[00:31:22] Emanuel: Sure.

[00:31:23] Kevin: The book I’ve given away the most, because I actually have a very definitive answer…

[00:31:28] Emanuel: Haven’t received any from you, by the way, so you are gonna spoil my surprise, right?

[00:31:33] Kevin: Say that again.

[00:31:34] Emanuel: I haven’t received a book from you yet, so you’re going to spoil my surprise.

[00:31:39] Kevin: I’ve actually stopped giving it away, and in view of the fact that it would cost like 20 bucks to mail it to you, it’d be cheaper for you just to go buy it in Toronto.

When I was in my early twenties, somebody gave me this book and it completely changed the way I looked at the world and interacted with the [00:32:00] world.

I’m looking for the right way to explain it.

It’s not a a book about religion. It’s a book something called Vedanta.

Vedanta is the philosophical framework that underpins most, if not all, of what we call the Eastern religions. Hinduism, Zen, Taoism, et cetera, et cetera. They’re all based on a way of looking at the world, which is taught in the Vedas, which is just very different from the way Abrahamic religions look at the world.

Until then I had grown up thinking that the differences between the various Abrahamic religions; Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, and Baháʼí, those those differences were really significant, to the point where we’ve been killing each other for centuries over these differences.

And then when when I had my [00:33:00] first taste of Vedanta, like I had no idea what these other religions were about. And all of a sudden the differences between the Abrahamic religions look really petty.

Like what are what are we doing? Right?

It’s just a different way looking at the at the world.

So I would buy this book ten at a time, and if I met someone who I thought had an inkling in it, I would just give them a copy. And I did this for a long time.

I think it’s a really excellent book.

[00:33:31] Emanuel: On a side note before I let you to move along is that The Prophet is one of the most gifted books I was reading, something like that, and I realized that I’ve received it from two or three people. As for myself, copies…

[00:33:48] Kevin: I’ve read The Prophet in my mind it’s it’s still kind of like on the Abrahamic side of things.

[00:33:54] Emanuel: Yes.

[00:33:55] Kevin: Yeah, so the catch is if you were raised in a Western [00:34:00] tradition and you want to start to understand the Vedas, you’ve either got to find a European who lived in India for a long time and knows how to translate not just the words, but the sediments. Or an Indian who lived in in the west for a long time, who knows how to translate the words and the sediments.

I actually got a copy of a book written by a German guy. He lived in India for a long time, and he translated it from Sanskrit to German, and then somebody else translated it from German to English, I couldn’t make heads or tail, it was completely unintelligible to me.

[00:34:37] Emanuel: That, and what I wanted to say is Mircea Eliade, he’s a Romanian and he is that person.

He’s actually the father of history of religion. So he lived there in he wrote about it. He had a… they made a movie after his experience in there. I forgot the name of the movie, but it’s with Hugh Grant. It’s a very independent, very, very independent movie.

It looks like it shot with [00:35:00] a personal camcorder. But again, it’s very independent. He was really young, so probably a budget student film.

[00:35:10] Kevin: So anyway, the book I’m talking about is called The Book. Written by a guy named Alan Watts. And Alan Watts was a professor of philosophy or some such back in the fifties. And he wrote the book I think in 1955.

But it’s just, it’s a primer on Vedante for people who were raised in some Western tradition.

And it opened my eyes.

To give you a couple of the foundational elements…

The Abrahamic religions all share some very common foundational elements, like the creator of the universe is outside the universe, the creator of the universe has favorites, hands out rewards and punishments.

In an Abrahamic tradition, a concept of good [00:36:00] versus evil…

That makes complete sense because those are two things and they are constantly in conflict with each other.

From a Vedic perspective, the only reason we know things, is because they’re in contrast with things they aren’t.

The only reason that we know about hills is because there are valleys.

The only the only reason we know about hot is because there is cold.

Et cetera.

So from a Vedic perspective, the idea that good might ultimately triumph over evil, it doesn’t really sense because they exist in contrast to each other.

So no matter how much good vanquishing evil occurs in the world, there there will always be a contrast between this and that, and they will always coexit because they literally define each others existence.

That’s a Vedic concept.

I guess the best representation of this concept would be the Yin Yang symbol. But you get the idea.

[00:36:57] Emanuel: Listeners probably know even better [00:37:00] than than us, what we mean. And there’s definitely worth studying and there’s people who have dedicated on that.

But to keep it real, what were those three books and why? If you were to be stranded on an island? Yeah, let’s say not for the rest of the rest of your life because you still have a hundred something years on by, let’s say for the next 15 years, 20 years, what were, let’s say three books that you don’t mind rereading it that many times.

[00:37:31] Kevin: I’m going to cheat because one book is going to be the complete works of Douglas Adams. Now that’s like six or seven books, right? But it’s in the one book. So they go.

[00:37:43] Emanuel: And why?

[00:37:46] Kevin: Oh, he’s just great. H ow do I describe it? He writes philosophically deep comedy SciFi.

I know that sounds like a ridiculous combination, [00:38:00] but he really pulls it off.

[00:38:04] Emanuel: I remember a joke. That’s why I’m trying to remember completely after what you just said about Abraham Religions, but I’ll let you finish the other book.

[00:38:15] Kevin: I’ll take the combined book of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, like that’s a book that I will reread as I will, Douglas Adams.

I’ve got to think hard about the third one. I’ll get back to you later on the third one. So I got two down.

[00:38:33] Emanuel: Okay.

[00:38:34] Kevin: What three books would you take?

[00:38:37] Emanuel: What three books would I take?

Well, I’ll start with the Bible because it’s probably the most fundamental book that influence everything and the world that we live in right now. I’m also Christian myself, so I believe, and it’s the fundamental book, but there I always turn [00:39:00] to, to it as well when I make comparisons or reference, stuff that are, are going on right now around the world or for me.

But although I come up with a question, I was actually thinking myself and it’s hard, you know, which are, are your favorite? Which children?

I would say Don Quixote, Cervantes, because it has everything. It’s a beautiful piece of knowledge. Now the question is, which edition right? Which translation will I bring it in Romanian? Will I bring it in English? I have an advantage over you.

[00:39:47] Kevin: That question occurred to me. Did you read it in Romanian or English?

[00:39:51] Emanuel: I haven’t read it in English. I don’t speak Spanish, so I haven’t read it in Spanish. Probably if I would read it in the original Spanish version or any book [00:40:00] that you could, you would read in the original version. It’s very, very difficult.

Side note, Romanians love Shakespeare, a lot. One of the reason is because we had excellent translators, even in more contemporary times in the sixties and seventies, even in the Communist period, we had excellent translations of Shakespeare which is a fairly…

[00:40:18] Kevin: He’d be tough to translate too.

[00:40:20] Emanuel: And it’s hard to read even right now, right? You watch a play or I used, we used to study him in English and at English, and it’s hard, right? It’s not the English that you and I speak today.

[00:40:32] Kevin: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:34] Emanuel: But most likely Don Quixote, probably I’ll stick to the Romanian version because I understand it and that’s the one that I speak.

As for the third, that one, I don’t know, maybe if I can get the Kobo, my Kobo and some sort of some tools where I can recharge the battery, come up with, I know something, since it’s a [00:41:00] deserted island, I’m assuming at least there’s a lot of sun there, so I can somehow make.

[00:41:06] Kevin: Take a solar cell with you.

[00:41:07] Emanuel: Yeah, because I have a packed battery pack that charges solar, so I would take that with me and the Kobo so I’m all set.

But I would say the Bible, Don Quixote, and something that would keep me sane as well. But yeah, it’s difficult. It probably, it’s easier when you choose just one, but when you are up for three. Then it comes down. Well, none of the business books or self help books would do any justice there. Right? How to win friends and influence people.

That will be fun.

[00:41:42] Kevin: I have another question.

Have you ever started a book that you felt was kind of important but was so badly written that you couldn’t make it through?

[00:41:56] Emanuel: It was also part of the translations, Keyne [00:42:00] ‘s economic book. I forgot the name, but Keynes.

[00:42:05] Kevin: Oh, John Maynard Keynes.

[00:42:06] Emanuel: Yes John Maynard Keynes. I’m looking to see if I have it there.

[00:42:09] Kevin: Yeah, he was not a great writer.

[00:42:12] Emanuel: He influenced a lot of the things that we’ve well, we influence our economic life for sure. But also the translation and the printing was bad as well.

Not the translation. The adaptation and the printing was bad. It had some weird characters and all that. And I understand later on that his writings are not let’s put it this way. He’s not the best storyteller for sure. Whereas Churchill…

[00:42:35] Kevin: Yeah, he’s not a good storyteller.

[00:42:37] Emanuel: Churchill could talk, you know, he’ll make the most boring subject interesting. Because he had that gift.

[00:42:45] Kevin: And Keynes could make a really interesting subject, boring.

[00:42:50] Emanuel: Funny enough, because there were more or less contemporary. Contemporary, and I had big influence. But you know, it gives myself some food [00:43:00] for thought perhaps for the, for the next time. Have you thought about one your third book?

[00:43:06] Kevin: Not yet.

[00:43:07] Emanuel: Or maybe in another episode because we went over the allocated time that we thought this one should take. But hey, I had a lot of fun. I have one more for you. What was the first book you remember reading?

[00:43:28] Kevin: I don’t know. As I mentioned in the intro episode I learned to read at a very young age, and I think my mother must have taught me. She was an elementary school teacher.

I actually have a very kind of vivid memory when I went to kindergarten, the teacher gave us all a reading assessment. This is is back in 1965 when the ratio of teachers to students was much better and a teacher and a teacher’s [00:44:00] aid had 20 students.

So she could take us aside one one at a time and assess us. And back then Dr. Suess books existed, but but they weren’t part of the school curriculum.

So it was like the Dick and Jane books. See Dick run, see Jane run, see Dick and Jane run, you know those kind of books, right?

[00:44:21] Emanuel: And many people around the world are not familiar with Dr. Seuss, which is a controversial, character right now. But many people don’t know, so it’s good that you give explanation of who he was.

[00:44:35] Kevin: Dr. Seuss, his real name was Theodor Geisel, and he basically took a bet, a $50 bet that he could write a children’s book that used no more than 50 words or something like that. I may have the details kind of wrong. Maybe it was 60 words, maybe it was a hundred.

But but that was the bet. So he wrote The Cat in the Hat.

Now, I can see [00:45:00] why these books really only works in English because he makes extensive use of rhyme, and that’s going to vary from…

What words rhyme with what words are gonna change a lot from language to language.

And his books became incredibly popular.

In fact people have at various times asked me what is the most effective business model you’ve ever heard of?

And I’m like, oh, I like the Dr. Seuss model, which is go to the mailbox and get the check.

[00:45:28] Emanuel: Okay.

[00:45:29] Kevin: After he wrote his books, the royalty checks just kept coming in for the rest of his life. Right? So basically his business model was go to the mailbox, get the check.

So back to my question, right, so she started with Dick and Jane books, and moved to progressively more different stuff. And I have a distinct memory and it was like a moment of realization.

Because at some point she reached into her purse, pulled out a paperback book she was reading and handed to me, to see if I could read it.

And in that moment [00:46:00] realized that… I could read. I didn’t think that was a thing, until she showed it to it to me and I realized that there were other kids in the class who couldn’t read.

So, when did I learn to read? I don’t know.

I have no memories prior to kindergarten. I know that I read books at home, but I don’t remember what books I read. I don’t remember how often, and I don’t remember from what age.

I don’t remember learning to read, but if my mother didn’t teach me, who else did? So it had to be her.

[00:46:36] Emanuel: Well, my first book was Tom Sawyer, Detective.

[00:46:45] Kevin: I don’t know that one. Is that a Mark Twain book? Or is that a fan fiction type book?

[00:46:47] Emanuel: Yeah, I think it’s more of a fan fiction type book adapted. It was for kids. It has like, had like 20 or 30 pages, but it was for kids essentially and I receive it as a gift or some, sometime early on. [00:47:00] And I remember, yeah.

[00:47:03] Kevin: Oh, I got my third book. It’s got to be complete works though. It’s the complete works of O Henry.

[00:47:07] Emanuel: Complete works of O Henry. Okay.

[00:47:12] Kevin: O Henry was an American writer from the early part of the 20th century who wrote very predictable short stories.

Every story about like similar arc, and a surprise ending, but but he was incredible wordsmith.

So people reject him because his story arcs are all the same.

But I like him because his wordsmithing is just great. He’s really a good writer.

[00:47:41] Emanuel: Heard the name. I’m not familiar.

[00:47:43] Kevin: There’s a huge irony in my mind about this guy. So, I don’t know, in the late 19th early 20th century, he worked in a bank somewhere in central Texas.

[00:47:55] Emanuel: Funny again.

[00:47:56] Kevin: And he embezzled money from the bank.

[00:47:58] Emanuel: Oh.

[00:47:58] Kevin: And when he [00:48:00] learned that this became a known fact, he skipped town, went down to South America, lived there for a while, decided that, you know, he really needs to return to the States and pay his debts to society and blah, blah, blah. So he started writing in prison, because had nothing else to do.

[00:48:21] Emanuel: Talking about rehabilitation, right?

[00:48:23] Kevin: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:25] Emanuel: Last thing before we jump off is I do want to mention something that influenced me more than I realized up until recently. Recently, during the pandemic.

The first English book I read was in high school, well blown from start to finish, and it was Dune. I was a big fan of the Dune universe.

I used to play during the video game. I read the couple of books, but in Romanian. They were fairly popular. People had that, the communist regime was very oppressive, but somehow [00:49:00] books managed to go through there. Also, we were lucky that you know, the Russians, the Russian literature, which is fairly, fairly important.

And I think The Brothers Karamazov would be my third book. Either that or Demons by Dostoevsky. But I think The Brothers Karamazov. All volumes somehow would be, would be my third book if I were to choose.

[00:49:27] Kevin: I’ve read those books. I’m of the opinion that they are super depressing,

[00:49:33] Emanuel: I enjoy, and again, maybe English or the way that you can reference them are not familiar for me.

[00:49:43] Kevin: Maybe.

[00:49:45] Emanuel: It’s still, and especially there’s a scene there and I’m not spoiling anything. Also Crime and Punishment could be one, but that’s probably more and more depressing. But I can reference that. And it’s the way I grew up, or you know, my grandparents were, or let’s say [00:50:00] when somebody died, right?

I remember when Father Zosima, I think there’s this character of priest in there, you know, and how when, when he passed away and what were the expectation and what really happened. I’m trying not to give away too many things, but speaking of wordsmiths, there’s a few better than Dostoevsky.

I was lucky enough, because I can have the Romanian version as well, which can be sometimes better the than the English one.

As you said, you need to have somebody who either is from there and lived in in the west or somebody from the west who lived there to understand and to make the transition. But Dostoevsky would be my third book.

I was coming and jumping back to Dune in the Dune universe. Was a heavy book too, and you can’t understand all the concepts in there with a 15-year-old mind, essentially a pure mind, let’s say maybe 15 year olds today are a little bit [00:51:00] more, let’s say mature in terms of knowledge of the things that he was referencing there, right?

The spice and what it entails. How would you consume it? And so forth. But I was thinking when I I was telling somebody we were having a conversation about books and I was saying, I read Dune. I probably wouldn’t reread Dune now as an adult.

Boy was I wrong, because in 2021 Denis Villeneuve, a Canadian director put out the movie.

Excellent movie, excellent adaptation of the book, and not just the movie, but I like to read about the directors. I like to watch all the interviews and the way he described it, it reminded me of the same passion I used to have when reading those books, and especially the Romanian ones, which I could relate more.

So I actually reread the first book Dune in English during [00:52:00] the pandemic. And now it’s on my list amongst The F oundation series as well. Those I read in Romanian. But, I take the opportunity right now to say, Hey, you know what? I haven’t read them in English. Let me just reread them. And when English contemporary authors those books are obviously more intangible, I can understand better what they’re saying.

So, pro tip, if there’s been a while since you’ve read Dune or you haven’t read it. Even if you’re not a SciFi, it’s so much relatable to today’s today’s events in the entire world. Because back then it was the Cold War, right? So the US and the Soviet Union. So right now, unfortunately, the topic, the narrative is kind of like the same, but I think we’re, we had a very interesting conversation.

We’re close to the one hour mark. Any last things to add before we sign off for this [00:53:00] episode?

[00:53:03] Kevin: I mean kind of, but I kind of hesitate to bring it up because it could potentially like extend the conversation.

But sociologists and guys who do these kind of studies and stuff, they have shown that there a strong correlation, between literacy, economic complexity, and prosperity.

[00:53:24] Emanuel: I can attest to that.

[00:53:25] Kevin: I remember an essay, this is quite a while ago, I probably read this 10, 15 years ago, although in anticipation for this discussion, I went to Perplexity and said like, what is the basis of this claim? And it turns out there’s numerous.

So the question put forth is if there was….

Is there any one that can be done within a society, which causes the society develop a greater level of economic complexity, a greater level of economic prosperity, a less willing political [00:54:00] elite to commit to war casualities, and a reduction in the birth rate of the society.

Is there there one thing that can be done that sets all that in motion?

And the answer is… teach girls to read.

[00:54:15] Emanuel: I feel like I shouldn’t say anything after this. We should end it with that powerful statement.

Everyone read, go pick up a book. You know, just set, set some time. I promise you, your life will be better. Pick up a good book and stick to what you like. You know, we all have our guilty pleasures.

I won’t ask you about what you read as a guilty pleasure, as now. Maybe some other time.

If people want to find more and listen to more episodes, they should go to curiouspundits.com. Over there on our website, they should see links to all the platforms where we’re available and wherever they listen to our podcast.

Apple Podcasts Spotify, [00:55:00] or Stitcher or whatever it is out there. YouTube as well.

Make sure you hit subscribe. Make sure you hit like, make sure you leave a comment. If you have an opinion or disagree with us as well, why not?

And give us a five star rating because we need that. We live in the world t his is one of the currencies as well.

Until the next episode. This is Emanuel.

[00:55:24] Kevin: This is Kevin.

[00:55:27] Emanuel: See you on the next episode.

[00:55:30] Kevin: Okay. Take care.