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The Pursuit of PerfectBook

by Tal Ben-Shahar

Who uses, recommends or left The Pursuit of Perfect, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Programmer and educator. Keeps a public bookshelf with a short comment on every book.
read

Many people call themselves perfectionists, but, to be honest, most of them aren’t in most cases. But every once in a while there is a time, a certain set of circumstances where you can’t do anything but strive for the impossible. This is a great little book about perfectionism. And yes, I will end this sentence with a comma,

On his public bookshelf, with his comment.

2026-08-16·rakhim.org ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.