BATB score: 7/10 🍳 a therapist shares five heroic stories of emotional recovery; aka the art of paying to talk things through Best to: the five individual stories were very sickening and thus very interesting - super fun to read like Black Mirror Best for: only if you are someone who is exploring a career path as a psycho-therapist or is someone who wishes to be better and is considering therapy as a remedy, this book is for you; otherwise, it’s too niche BATB lingering thou

BATB score: 7/10 🤓 Best as: a full-blown white paper research on the differences of the different generations under the premise that “the era when you were born has a larger effect on your personality and attitudes than the family who raised you does” Best for: the nerdiest of nerd; beautiful line graphs on almost every other page; quantitative surveys and qualitative deep dives 📈 BATB lingering thought: the only down part is that it is US-based; I wonder whether the result

BATB score: 6/10 🧡 *reader discretion advised* max advanced level reading skill required; this book about trauma can actual cause trauma in readers Best to: an in-depth analysis on how our toxic society makes us claim “this feels good. I want more” instead of the more valuable meaning of life “this feels good. I am contented. I am complete.” Best as: “The perceived need to be what the world demands becomes entangled with our sense of who we are and how we seek love.” - 500 p

BATB score: 8/10 🌸 *reader discretion advised* an advanced white paper making a breakthrough point on how the body says ’NO’ to a life spent living for someone else via chronic illnesses Best to: a sentence from the book that best describe the mood and tone and the premise of the book > “The dynamic interplay between social-conflict events and joint pain describe a homeostatic system in which negative social interaction is regulated through worsening of the disease.” Best fo

BATB score: 7/10 🥹 Best as: a forensic psychiatrist sharing her notes from speaking to 11 inmates: serial killers, pedophiles, murderer, stalker, abuser; pleading for a chance to hold our judgement and hear them out; this book could have been a 10/10 if it was written by a writer VS a doctor (select only 5/11 stories, thriller narration, highlight the who-what) Best for: for aspirational forensic psychiatrists > 11 case studies Best to: “society needs to condemn a little les

BATB score: 6/10 🫣 good stuff but needles in a haystack Best as: why your pupil dilates and why you look down when you flirt with someone you like; and how to catch a lie by only observing eye movement > doubles as a cool party trick, two truth and one lie winner forever Best for: how to catch your boyfriend cheating with just his eye movement > remembering image looks up, remembering sound looks sideways, remembering feelings looks down Best to: the most important business

BATB score: 8.5/10 👀 Best for: raise your hand if you agree with any part this statement: I, personally, feel that my attention span is fleeting, that I have difficulty concentrating, that my relationship with social media is toxic, and that my wrists ache from holding a mobile phone up too long. 🙆🏻‍♀️ Best to: the book acknowledges that we all have shorter attention spans and more difficulty with concentration; the book then explores twelve potential causes to why this is

BATB score: 8/10 👏 *reader discretion advised* this is not a book, this is a white paper research on how homo sapiens can better communicate with other homo sapiens *advanced reading level required* there are some very good chapters and some very meh chapters; the long, various his/her/their anecdotes makes it boring at times Best as: very well-researched, extremely academic, theoretical dump, nerdy read Best for: Yuval Noah Harari would love this book as it is advocating fo

BATB Score: 8.5/10 👏 *reader discretion advise* this is not a book; this is a white-paper research document proposing one single premise that mobile phone x the internet x social media, all from 2010 onwards is creating an anxious generation with weakening mental health and detrimental life consequences Best for: read this book if this is you - “The phone-based life makes it difficult for people to be fully present with others when they are with others, and to sit silently w

BATB score: 7/10 ⚠️ Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator, has all the legitimate street cred to write this book about How to Negotiate with Anyone Best as: however, this book was difficult to follow and hard to grasp any actionable insights; ie. from negotiating for hostage release to negotiating your salary within the same page, numerous anecdotes that at the end all sounds the same, difficult one-liner concepts too fast to hold onto Best to: is this a first draft? if y

BATB score: 8/10 👨‍🏫 hey hey not bad professor! short, concise, to the point, research-driven, fun, with key chapter takeaways, and super actionable 💯 Best as: listening to one of Professor Michael L. Platt, Director of Wharton Neuroscience Initiative, lectures Best for: as if you are an MBA student at Wharton Business School Best to: easy morning class and off you go, on to the rest of your day BATB linger thought: there is a clear gap between a researcher/professor and r

BATB score: 6/10 🫥 Best as: 65% Sam Carr’s memoir on loneliness; 35% other people’s telltale on loneliness Best to: in need of roughly 15% more scientific data, experimental reference, tangible substance or else it’s just storytelling Best for: this book is not worth your PhD 😬 Best quotes: “We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?” “There is cruel irony in the fact that the relationships that play such a critical role in def

BATB score: 10/10 👏 *Daniel H Pink is my favorite non-fiction author* Best as: nerdy, scientific, experimental, behavioral economics, entertaining, fun read Best for: you need to digest and think of further optimizing implementation from these insights or else it’s just useless fun read Best to: knowing that it is the last piece of chocolate, that last piece is the most yummy nom nom Best quotes: “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your st

BATB score: 6/10 😑 Best as: this book could have been an email - Morgan Housel were you in a rush to publish? Best to: wealth is “the family you’ve built, the friends you’ve found, the memories you have, and the wisdom you’ve accumulated” Best for: anyone who has yet figured out how much is enough Best quotes: “the goal was not to make a living; it was to make a life, and only a fool would sacrifice his actual life for the endless pursuit of an imaginarily better one.” “One

BATB score 9/10 🥹 Best as: honesty, if I have had her psychiatrist and had to endure these psychiatrist’s advices / conversations, I would have commit suicide too #RIP Best to: Korean psychiatrists is biased to the importance of keeping up with work you hate, guilt tripping quitting work, and ideal women’s appearances ie. Korean fat camp Best for: tough to be Korean Best quotes: “Do you think this depression, this helplessness, decreases interest or curiosity or fun in life?

BATB score: 6/10 🤔 a BATB re-read in memory of Baek Sehee #RIP Best to: we don’t know why Baek Sehee passed away at 35 years old though I do hope she passed away peacefully or at the very least at peace finally BATB lingering thought: from re-reading her book on her mental struggles - persistent depressive disorder - and her POV on free death, you have your suspicions but it doesn’t matter Best as: if that’s really the case, according to the details of the book, I don’t thin

BATB score: 8/10 reader discretion advised this is not a book, this is a white-paper research BATB summary: key point of the book > you weren’t allowed to explore and be your true self as a child, you model the ‘good boys good girls’ that your parents wanted you to be, all in exchange for parental ‘unconditional’ love; you were smart / gifted enough to comply, and thus, you grew up depressed and broken from living somebody else’s ‘good boys good girls’ life for no one but yo

BATB score: 10/10 🥹 Best as: finally a book that explains mothers, mother-daughter issues, and how daughter can work through them 👏 Best to: extremely practical with checklist to verify whether you do have a narcissistic mother and whether you have been an affected daughter ie. Do you feel valued by your mother for what you do, rather than for who you are? Best for: daughters who never felt that they were ever good enough for their mothers 🥹 Best quotes: “Because good girl