Book Notes is where I keep the books I have actually read, in the order I finished them, with the parts that still made sense a week later. I do not write notes on books I have not finished. If a book is half-read I will say so, and if I have not opened it at all I will not write about it as though I have.
The first cluster here is Thomas Erikson, whose two books are on my own shelf. Surrounded by Idiots is the one that changed how I send a message at work. Surrounded by Psychopaths is the narrower sequel about the colleague who is charming on purpose.
If you make videos, take the story beats from any of these pages. Every one has a reel or video section with three beats that can be filmed in sixty seconds each. Use them with a credit to siddharthvira.com and a link back to the page you took them from. Do not republish a full page or lift whole sections into a script.
Surrounded by Idiots
- Surrounded by Idiots: what Thomas Erikson actually says. The argument in five points, the four colours, and who the book is not for.
- The four colours explained: red, yellow, green and blue. What each colour is like at work, what stresses them, and the thin science underneath.
- Seven things the book changed about how I handle a difficult colleague. Office scenes, and the small changes that actually stuck.
- How to tell someone’s colour in the first ten minutes. Four signals to watch in any meeting, plus three things that will fool you.
- Red and blue clash more than any other pair. Speed against accuracy, worked through a real deadline.
- What Surrounded by Idiots gets wrong. The labelling risk, the missing research, and why I still hand the book to people.
- Surrounded by Idiots vs Surrounded by Psychopaths. Which to read first, and which problem each book solves.
More books will land here as I finish them. If a note looks wrong to you, tell me and I will check the page against my copy before changing anything.