What should I read in 2018?
Re-discovering a love of learning
I just finished 3.5 years at Northwestern. It’s incredible how being at a University — even a school as intellectually rigorous as NU — can stifle learning.
Why?
Because the things I was learning were prescribed by my syllabi. Not by me. And, as it turns out, I wasn’t that interested in the subjects I was learning about in the first place.
I was pretty good at affective neuroscience. I was OK at cellular biology. I even did pretty decent in organic chemistry.
But I didn’t care about them. I wasn’t intrinsically motivated to learn more about those subjects. I didn’t get excited about attending class, and I definitely was not excited by the idea of dense, technical readings on those subjects.
For me, one of my biggest revelations was picking up books on my own for personal enjoyment. Even writing that seems obvious. Duh! Of course you are going to enjoy reading about books you have picked up yourself, because they are about subjects you are already interested in. Even if those books are other dense, mundane topics — at least they’re your choices!
Some of the books I’ve read in the last few years have totally re-shaped my world view. I have learned more about myself and others in the last 2 years via personal reading than virtually any textbook I studied at Northwestern.
Anyway, the last two years I’ve accelerated my personal reading. I keep a running list of my master Reading List, but I am always looking to add more and focus attention. This year, I am looking to add more fiction (as long as it’s not too heavy or dense) and more books on diversity & inclusion in both organizations and broader in society.
So far, here is my reading list for 2018:
2018
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris (in progress)
Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday
The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse by Tom Verducci
Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change by Ellen Pao
What else? What other books should I prioritize for 2018? Leave a comment below and I’ll check it out!
The books below were completed in the last 2 years. I assign a semi-arbitrary score to the book, which roughly corresponds to “how much did I enjoy reading this?” The score comes from a mix of informative and fun — some books, while less informative, are more fun; others are more informative and less fun. There’s no science behind it, just my subjective opinion:
2017
Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson — 7.5
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis — 7.0
Originals by Adam Grant — 7.0
An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Robert Kegan & Lisa Lahey—8.5
Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock — 9.0
Time, Talent, Energy by Michael Mankins — 6.5
Great by Choice by Jim Collins — 7.5
Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates by — 8.0
How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins — 7.5
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz — 10.0
The Hitchhiker’s Guider to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams — 8.0
The Lean Startup by Eric Reis — 9.0
Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis — 9.0
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari —8.5
The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni — 8.0
Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger — 6.0
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown — 8.5
Trevor Noah: Bord a Crime by Trevor Noah — 9.0
Bend the Curve by Andrew Razeghi — 8.0
Ways of Seeing by Jon Berger — 7.0
The Present Age by Søren Kierkegaard — 7.0
The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood — 7.0
2016
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie — 9.5
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi — 6.5
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg — 7.5
Start with Why by Simon Sinek — 8.5
Good to Great by Jim Collins — 10.0
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow — 10.0
Angels & Demons by Dan Brown — 10.0
Built to Last by Jim Collins — 9.5
Notice a trend? As a result of my transition from pre-med to the “real world,” I have been playing catch-up and reading as much as I can about the subjects I naturally gravitate towards — organizations, leadership, culture, and their intersection with strategy and operations. In other words — how do we build the machine, and how does the way we build the machine affect the things the machine actually produces?
My average rating is 8.1, which is noticeably high. I think this is probably because of several factors:
- I’m interested in the books I select, and therefore enjoy them quite a bit
- I only pick “good” books with high rating from other people. I don’t waste my time with a book that receives a “meh” response from others (generally ~3 stars on Amazon)
If you have any suggestions about books I should add to my list or focus on for 2018, please let me know! I am looking to read more fiction (as long as it’s not too heavy or dense) and more books on diversity & inclusion in both organizations and broader in society.
