Mukul Ram

A lot funnier than I remembered.

I didn't follow much of the math Villani was working on, but the vignettes about famous mathematical problems and persons made the entire book worthwhile.

I quite like Cal Newport, and many of the core ideas of the book are worth noting, but the drawn out pacing, along with the somehow-novel-but-still-trite anecdotes that are just a tad too cute, make the book a slog with too few practical tips to make it worthwhile. A few good ideas - worth a read if you're approaching burnout or are deep in productivity-land, but for most people, read Deep Work instead.

I got less out of this book than most because I was already familiar with a lot of the ideas present. However, they're presented concisely, and so the book is probably worth a read for most.

Fun adventure romp.