BATB score: 8/10 🏆 Dear Stephen A. Schwarzman, you are such an interesting and an incredible self-made human being. I feel so humble to have read through your journey to one of the richest man on earth. 🖤 Best to: definitely an uphill battle from being Lehman Brothers' low-life form employee, starting Blackstone with your mentor at Lehman, diversifying the business wherever the opportunities are, taking it global, and becoming an advisor to the US Presidents. #dayum All tha

BATB score: 6.78/10 🌎 the world is my oyster 🌍 Best to: hands down the best introduction to geo-politics and the major subcontinental dynamics books for dummies trying to understand the world Best for: wanderer of the great planet or candidates for the United Nations Organization (UN) - you better read this book before the interviews; or blind date conversation starters 'so what's your thought on the disputed borders in the Middle East?' Best as: high school geo-politics co

BATB score: 1.7/10 👎 Best to: it was 71 things that doesn't really matter and that were just quick thought FYI. ie. that the tallest people are Dutch, that chicken is the most economical poultry, that Tokyo is the biggest megacity with 37.5 million population, that Italians are drinking less wine and more beer, or that the happiest country is Finland. Best for: I bet Vaclav Smil is one brilliant mind to deserve the respect of Bill Gates; but this book was not one of his resp

BATB score: 4/10 🌧 cloudy with a chance of murky brain Best to: this is not a book, this is an encyclopedia; 200+ MBA concepts dump into one thick-ass book in 200+ short introductory snippets - too brief for in-depth understanding and too shallow for any practical adaptation Best for: personally, pursuing an MBA and/or climbing the corporate ladder has nothing to do with how many MBA concepts you get to learn and remember Best as: a smart-ass encyclopedia that makes your she

BATB score: 5.5/10 💲💲💲 a very specialized book on managing a sales organization 🙋🙋‍♀️ if you are big boss enough to relate, then this book is made for you; profitable business or die Best to: a blueprint manual on how to make money for your business; conceptual, anecdotal, and directive do's and don'ts; freemium to premium -> hypergrowth takes 7 years Best for: c-suite, executive level, business key decision makers on how to build an aggressive sales team, a motivational

BATB score: 7.7/10 💛 Jeffrey Pfeffer is a one of a kind author who writes about unpopular truths of office politics and leadership blah blah. Best to: you know how other leadership books discuss about godlike outlier kings and queens of perfect leadership? well, that feels good, uplifting narrative is depressing; this book is taking on a stance on the distrustful, disengaged, dissatisfied, despairing flip side Best for: actors in leadership positions as acting is essential t

BATB score: 5/10 not all of Mitch Albom's book is a 10/10 Best to: so jelly to have Mitch Albom write one's eulogy in the form of a globally sold book; Rev Henry, your life story from a rough start to jail to redemption to singing in the hospital is truthful to one's complicated life Best for: you don't have to be religious to relate to this book Best as: if you are going to read Mitch Albom's books, you might as well read all of Mitch Albom's books

BATB score: 7.8/10 🧠 *Reader discretion advised* this a theoretical, thoroughly-researched, serious academic book. This book is smarter than all of us combined. I feel the blood, sweat, and tears; the discipline, determination, and passion of Jonathan Haidt in writing this comprehensive piece. #bravo Best to: 90% chimp 10% bee; fundamentally, we are competitive selfish hypocrites 🙈; yet, we morally can collate for the good of the group 🐝 Best for: debaters, political leade

BATB score: 8/10 🤎 Best to: true living definition of having a growth mindset, intellectual curiosity, trial and error approach, societal behavioural economics at work, define and re-define life, and laughing at oneself - Mr. Feynman! you are one hell of a character! Best for: if you like The Big Bang Theory series, Mr. Feynman is pretty much half-Sheldon, half-Leonard, and a little bit of Penny Best as: how could one person be a technician, a safecracker, a nuclear bomb sci

BATB score: 10/10 📕‼🔺 well-written 👏 the different lives of North Koreans: the selected Pyongyang elite, the starving Chongjin shameful caste, the defectors, the loyalist, the real tears and the saliva ones Best to: the best introduction to North Korea's communism rule, dictatorship regime, 360 propaganda, blinded loyalty, flawed management, starvation, hopeless deaths, and survival act of defectors Best for: politics and human rights aside; North Korea's Kim-family dictat

BATB score: 6/10 🙏 an intensive spiritual book on the art of being in the now - preach Eckhart Tolle preach! amen good night 🌝 Best to: realize deeply that the present moment is all you have; but how? okay. close your eyes and say to yourself "I wonder what my next thought is going to be" .... and in that wait you are free of thought and in the now ta da! Best for: your ego is stuck in the past of who you were and in the future of you might be - key is, you will be happier

BATB score: 8.8/10 💜 BATB Fact: Mitch Albom's non-fiction biographies 👏 are way better than his overrated and redundant fictional tales Best to: Mitch Albom ⭐ Top 5 ⭐ definitely but do check out "Finding Chika" first and foremost Best for: all of us; who hates our mom at one point in our teenage and midlife years; okay 'hate' is a strong word, allow me to rephrase, annoyed of, dislike, conflicted with, offensive of, angered about mom, mommy, mother. Best as: a memoir to all

BATB score: 8.5/10 💙 a brilliant biography about the making of someone and the meaning of life Best to: the fact that James R. Doty, MD is a bad academic student with an unaccommodating family upbringing, an exceptionally neurosurgeon, a 75M USD business investor, a CCARE philanthropist, and an author of his own enlightenment makes him relatable 360 Best for: anyone who is asking 'what's the meaning of life'? 🙋‍♀️🙋 Best as: this book is "The Secret" Rhonda Byrne mixed with

BATB score 6.6/10 😴 Started out exceptionally strong on the basics to business and blitzscaling; unfortunately, things went downhill from Part III onwards… Best to: Reid Hoffman is a legit business guru who writes well in conveying business concepts; from his latest 2021 work “Masters of Scale”, this oldie 2018 book proves that Hoffman does write better every year or so Best for: business students as university course required read - a perfect mixture of principles, business

BATB score: 10/10 🏆 the most important money book in mankind about having 'enough' and so anything more is mere incremental but I am already comfortable Best to: clarity in 'JOMO' joy of missing out when your friends post on social media about their high gains on crypto and/or stock investment as it's probably because of pure luck that can not be repeated Best for: all of us; questioner of 'meaning of life' and one's relationship with money Best as: the best investment strat

BATB score: 6.7/10 ☂️ a very niche book on design flaws, design frameworks, and practical designs catering to humans' common sense use Best to: blame the machine and the design! they are at fault when humans had to take some time to read the manuals to comprehend 'how to turn on/off device' when it should have been intuitive #duh Best for: product designers in the making of user-centric devices Best as: the examples about the 4 table stove knobs, the push/pull door, the QWERT

BATB score: 7.7/10 🇺🇸 this book makes you proud to be Asian #asianpride Best to: a book that more than half of the world's population can relate 🌏 61% of the world to be exact - I am just that kind of Asian 🤓; our tough love upbringings, the American culture shock, our parents' expectations of a thousand successes, the "Pursuing your dreams is for losers. Doing what you love is how you become homeless." Best for: 'have yet to make your parents proud' Asians, Asian immigra

BATB score: 4.5/10 😒 Adam Kay, I love you but this book was definitely trying too hard to be funny; the overloading cheap jokes on every page, here and there and everywhere, made this book painful to read Best to: be grateful for our healthcare and medical advancement from our historical medieval (sparkle times) doctor's recommendation to consume a hot cup of pee 🟡 and a pinch of poo 💩 when you feel unwell #healingproperties Best for: collectors of Adam Kay's books 📚 Best

BATB score: 10/10 💕 the best autobiography written in mankind, the making, the struggles, the crack, the enlightenment of Will Smith 😎 very clever that Will Smith wrote this book, I respect his legacy even more 💪 Best to: it's about not wanting to be second in anything, about being a dreamer with wings that outshines your family/marriage, and about 'enough' happiness after tremendous success Best for: if you think Will Smith was a great actor in the movie 'The Pursuit of H

BATB score: 3/10 😡 *and this score is me being nice; unpopular book review alert* redundancy at it's best, he said, she said, same shit Best to: this book is like a consultant; thoroughly researched (did their homework), professionally written/presented (tactful), saying all the right things, but OMG they're just quotes, nice concepts, impractical, fake, and fluffy OK?! Best for: plenty of instagramable quotes - urgh, it's so fake, I can not. Honestly, I believe I tackle my