The 2019 Reading List
So that’s a wrap! I started reading one book a week on December 24th, 2018[1] and a year later I’ve read 58 non-fiction books. Originally I had intended to write a long post on a summary of what I learned in every single book, but that’s definitely longer than one post can handle. So I decided to make a short(er) length post on the list of books I’ve read this year with a concise sentence on the summary of the book, or what I learned/found great (20 words or less). I’ve ordered the books from most enjoyable and practical/useful to the least below[2]. So let’s kick it off with the below:
1. When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi) –Neurosurgeon with terminal cancer teaches give a beautiful memento mori. We all must die, but some forget to live.
2. From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophical Quest (T.Z. Lavine) – Understand philosophy through history to understand the present, as we are shaped by the past.
3. Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work (Chip Heath, Dan Heath) –Decision making models for those chronically indecisive (me –decisions are hard!)
4. The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win (Jocko Willink, Leif Babin) – Leadership in combat, business, and life is about balancing extremes, taught by Navy SEALs.
5. Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win (Jocko Willink, Leif Babin) – Leadership over life (combat, business and personal) is about owning every aspect of our world.
6. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (James Clear) –Practical methodology to build practical habits.
7. Man's Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl) –Holocaust survivor shows that everything can be taken from man, except their choices and will to meaning.
8. Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life (Charles Duhigg) –Groundbreaking work on habit building, less practical than Atomic Habits but very engaging with case studies.
9. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Jeffrey Toobin) –Will make you lose faith in the Supreme Court, but why was there any confidence anyways? –judges are human.
10. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (Christopeher McDougall) –Fun book, will make you want or actually love running.
11. 12 Rules for Life (Jordan Peterson) –Take responsibility, clean your room, and take control of your life.
12. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) –Teacher with terminal illness teaches about the meaning of life.
13. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People (Joe Navarro, Marvin Karlins) –Understand body language in others and yourself.
14. King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (Robert Moore, Doug Gillette) – Jungian Archetypes in everyday life, how the archetypes reveal our personalities from strengths to flaws.
15. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it (Chris Voss) –FBI hostage negotiator teaches practical negotiation tactics.
16. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (Mark Manson) –Care less about unimportant things, prioritize yourself and important people/things and stop worrying.
17. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America (Warren Buffett) –Great broad business lessons from management, investing, accounting, and tax.
18. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (David Epstein) –Don’t be afraid of trying new things, having broad skillsets is useful in an unpredictable world.
19. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph (Ryan Holliday) –Embrace the obstacles in life, they are integral to our successes.
20. The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great (Ben Shapiro) –Short history lessons, conservative thought from Jerusalem to Athens as the bulwark of Western thought.
21. Show your work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (Austin Kleon) –Share your work to improve your work, get noticed, and give back to the world.
22. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William B. Irvine) –Stoicism 101
23. Moonwalking with Einstein (Joshua Foer) –Any average person can become a memory champion. It just takes practice.
24. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (Iris Chang) –Stories of inhumanity in some and heroism of others. We remember what is evil, as to not become it ourselves.
25. If This is A Man & The Truce (Primo Levi) –Holocaust account without Frankl’s “meaning”, see the god of chance at work.
26. The Cost of Discipleship (Dietrich Bonheoffer) –Pastor involved in Hitler’s assassination attempt teaches what it means to follow Christ.
27. The Gulag Archipelago (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) –The absurdity of communism and finding meaning in an absurd world. Humbling, a reminder that everyone has “good/evil” inside.
28. The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings (Peter Kreeft) –Tolkien’s philosophy behind his creative genius.
29. Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) –Groundbreaking work on cognitive biases.
30. The Doctrine of Justification (A.W. Pink) –What does it mean to be justified before God, this text explores in depth.
31. Man: The Dwelling Place of God (A.W. Tozer) –A call to better more authentic Christian living.
32. How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie) –The title says it, a classic book, delivers and does not disappoint.
33. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (John Krakauer) –How human error, hubris, and the perfect storm led to a disaster on Everest.
34. Can't Hurt Me (David Goggins) – Goggins, from child abuse, obesity, heart defect –defies the odds, becomes a Navy SEAL and ultramarathon runner.
35. The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance (Josh Waitzkin) –International Master (Chess) and Martial Arts Champion applies learning principles to all areas of life.
36. Tools of the Titans (Tim Ferriss) –Compendium of the thoughts and strategies of the biggest gurus of our time.
37. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a world that can't Stop Talking (Susan Cain) –Embrace the strengths of introversion and better understand their weaknesses. |
38. The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker) –Profound thoughts on how humans structure their lives to deal with the thought of death.
39. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) –What is the Flow state and how we can achieve it for a more fulfilling life.
40. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (Greg Lukainoff, Jonathan Haidt) –The culture of safety (safety-ism) in our society is making our generation weaker.
41. How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (Jordan Ellenberg) – Mathematical/rational thinking is powerful but also has its limits in analysis. The book admits it is difficult to be “right”.
42. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (Cal Newport) –A philosophy for creating better and more focused work.
43. The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others (Tali Sharot) –How people are influenced and how we can influence others.
44. Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery (Eric Metaxas) –Wilberforce abolished the slave trade first by God, second by surrounding himself with like-minded friends, third by his tenacity.
45. Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet (Jesse Itzler) –Funny stories and grueling workouts while living with David Goggins (Navy SEAL).
46. On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Antonin Scalia) –Late Supreme Court Justice’s lessons on faith.
47. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Timothy Keller) –Basic and compelling arguments for the existence and reasons for God.
48. Learning to Love the Psalms (Robert Godfrey) –The utility and beauty of the Psalms in our life.
49. The Brain that Changes Itself (Norman Doige) –The human brain is an amazing machine and capable of change, even late in life. Research proves that you can teach old dogs new tricks.
50. Pensées (Blaise Pascal) –Pascal’s thoughts on faith, defense for Christianity, and human existence.
51. The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything (Neil Pasricha) –Why are we never taught how to happy? Pasricha gives simple advice on being happier.
52. Anatomy of An Epidemic (Robert Whitaker) –The compelling case of how medicating for mental illness is causing the very illness to proliferate.
53. The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win your Inner Creative Battles (Steven Pressfield) –Motivation to break through your creative blocks and get to work.
54. Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World (Mark Williams, Danny Penman) –Exercises and techniques to live more in the present.
55. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Peter Drucker) –Classic management book on how to manage people and yourself better.
56. The Undiscovered Self: With Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams (Carl Jung) –A short and scathing critique of communism and primer on symbols and the unconscious.
57. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know (Malcolm Gladwell) –We misinterpret people because people are unpredictable.
58. Kant: A Very Short Introduction (Roger Scruton) –Kant’s insightful and cryptic philosophy explained, but still very confusing.
That’s it folks. Thanks for everyone who has stuck around and supported me in this journey of learning. I’m always down to grab a coffee and talk good books, so if you’d like shoot me a message and I’d love to connect. Stay tuned for more summaries and what I learned from all the specific reads above. I’ll be making longer in-depth posts in the future.
[1] Got to start off strong, when you decide what your goals are just do it, there’s no need to wait for January 1st.
[2] I tried to read only good books –whether that is well rated, or books of high importance/renown, or what I was particularly interested in. I tried to make my ratings somewhat objective and standalone for each book by tracking the average of what I considered to be the book’s (U) Utility and (E) Enjoyableness. Having said that, I realize that this rating system is still very flawed and subjected to my biases. For instance, if a book was just a great historical narrative there may be a lower Utility but it would be very enjoyable (so I would give the Utility some buffer as not to damage the entire rating of the book). All in all, maybe books are not meant to be rated, and we are just to learn what we can from them and discard what is not useful. As Bruce Lee has said, “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own”. What I absorbed, discarded and added to will come in more detailed posts per book. I still did however, order the books by its ranking just because I didn’t want to show the books by the date I read it, as there were some books I truly found duller than others. But, I don’t display my ratings as I don’t want that to be the focus in any way.