Random Reads

 Some books age like milk. Others age like a favourite quilt: a little worn at the edges, and warmer for it. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women belongs firmly to the second kind. First published in two parts in 1868 and 1869, it has never really gone out of print. It has been filmed, staged, adapted and argued over for generations. I think the reason is simple. Alcott wrote about the ordinary business of growing up, and she did it with so much honesty that readers keep recognising themselves in it. A book written almost against its author's will Alcott did not set out to write a classic. Her publisher asked her for a book for girls, and she was not keen. She was better known at the time for sensational stories, and she doubted that domestic life would make good material. She wrote it anyway, drawing heavily on her own family in Concord, Massachusetts. The four March sisters are loosely modelled on Alcott and her three sisters, and that grounding in real life is a large p...

 Every few years a business book arrives that refuses to dress itself up. No grand theory, no academic scaffolding, just a blunt claim about how money gets made. Myron Golden's B.O.S.S. Moves: Business Optimization Success Secrets from a Million Dollar Round Table is one of those books. At roughly 175 pages, it is short enough to read in a weekend. The ideas inside are simple enough to say in a sentence. Whether you find that refreshing or reductive depends on what you want from a business book. I'll tell you what I think at the end. Who is Myron Golden? Myron Golden is a business strategist, speaker and author who has built a large following by teaching entrepreneurs how to sell, price and scale. His YouTube channel has passed a million subscribers, and he now hosts the B.O.S.S. Moves Podcast , where he keeps unpacking the same framework in new ways. The book is the foundation for all of it. What does B.O.S.S. stand for? Business Optimization Success Secrets. The b...

  A shepherd, a desert, and the treasure that was closer than he thought There are books you read, and there are books that seem to find you at exactly the right moment. For millions of readers over the past three decades, The Alchemist has been the latter — a slim little fable that somehow manages to feel like it was written just for whatever you're going through when you pick it up. If you're in a season of wondering whether to chase the thing you keep dreaming about, this is one of those books people hand to each other with a knowing look. What It's About Paulo Coelho's international bestseller follows Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd who dreams repeatedly of a hidden treasure buried near the Egyptian pyramids. Encouraged by a series of mysterious encounters — a king, a crystal merchant, an alchemist — Santiago sets out across the desert to find it, trading the comfort and certainty of his simple life for the uncertainty of pursuing what he calls his "Pers...