Books I’ve Read — 2018

2018 is a year I won’t forget. It was the year I became a father.

Parenthood brings with it many personal changes. The first, I’ve recognized, is an immediate desire to learn and better yourself. Almost overnight the conversations with my partner have become discussions around the values and behaviors we hope to instill as we start to form our shared identity as parents.

Another adjustment that parenthood brings is there now exists a natural anchor to routine and rhythm. Depending on how you look at it, this can be seen in a positive or negative light. I’ve chosen to view my life now revolving around the schedule of the smallest one in the room as very positive. Routine offers an opportunity to make experiments with flow.

Both of these adjustments have led me to a regular habit of reading.

These are some of the books I’ve read and my thoughts on how these have shaped my world view in 2018.

The New Father

By Armin A. Brott

This is the sequel to The Expectant Father. A complete, helpful, month-by-month guide of dealing with the ups and downs of fatherhood. Each chapter shares a fluid description of what to expect for the next month of your child’s development as well as how things can tend to evolve with the relationship with your partner. I’ve found Armin’s writing enjoyable and highly relatable, particularly since this is one of the few books speaking specifically to fathers and about the emotions that comes with fatherhood. That said unlike The Expectant Father, which does well to bring a cadence to preparing for a drastic life change, The New Father is a book to jump around with, rather than reading sequentially since so much of the first year of raising a baby requires “Just in Time” learning.

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership

By James Comey

Before James Comey became a national punching bag and seen as the individual who ‘single-handedly’ shaped the outcome of a national election, he was the FBI director. I found this book highly illuminating and it brought me a fresher perspective into the story of James Comey’s reasons for making the choices he made during the 2016 Presidential election. The conclusion I took from it was that Director Comey was thrust into a situation that put him between a rock and a hard place and tried to have his convictions guide him. Sometimes, doing the right thing is the hardest, worst choice that will bring a life of pain and hardship. I’ve come to admire Comey for it. I’ve been able to draw a lot from his book, learning about Comey’s upbringing and how he views leadership. A lot of his beliefs parallels my own philosophies on leadership and after reading his book, I have a hard time fully faulting Comey. In fact, I might have made the same decisions if I were in his shoes.

Reading Comey’s book reminded me why I love autobiographies. It is the best way to understand the life and perspective of another person — this is especially powerful to help shatter preconceived notions of that person.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

By Atul Gawande

Atul is a great writer and I’ve always enjoyed his short-form pieces. This book gets you thinking of what it means to be human, and how we generally confront our mortality — at both a societal level and an individual level. It’s an uncomfortable book on an uncomfortable topic.

This puts to words much of my half-formed thoughts around how medicine works currently. We as humans can often forsake the bigger picture for our narrow view. The same is very much the case in medicine. With advances in technology, we often think the best outcome with a suboptimal diagnosis is to prolong life as much as possible. Atul uses the experience he went through, caring for his father, who is also a doctor as a way to offer a different perspective. He blows the lid on the notion that the best outcome is likely treatment at all costs, and how unfortunately so much of the way the medical system currently works is to incentivize this approach rather than ask: ‘What’s the best thing for the patient.’ Best will always be subjective — Atul reminds us of that.

This book brought me much to think about, both as I get older and think about my own mortality, and that of my family’s.

When Breath Becomes Air

By Paul Kalanithi

This book is hauntingly beautiful. I cried a handful of times reading this.

Paul Kalanithi was given a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, just as he finally finished his long, grueling education and reached the pinnacle of his young career in neurosurgery. He wrote this book in the last year of his life where in that year he became a father. (this particular fact stung me deeply)

Paul is an incredible writer. This book reads as if it’s prose. He pours out his thoughts on what’s important in life and his shares his view on going from doctor to patient with a terminal illness. This reads really well in tandem with Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.

After reading this you can’t help but have the feeling that the world had lost someone truly special.

Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

By Thich Nhat Hahn

This book, and others by Thich Nhat Hann is something I tend to come back to every couple months. In particular becoming a father has brought a new dynamic to life. New dynamics means new emotions.

One of these new dynamics and subsequent emotions as a parent is the feeling of lack of control. A parent’s experience and feelings are controlled by someone else — particularly a tiny baby.

For all the incredible highs and joy we’ve felt this year, there were equivalent times when my partner and I have felt fearful, helpless, annoyed, or frustrated.

Recognizing all of this, I’ve tried to use this year as a way rediscover an awareness of how my emotions and manifest, and how those emotions can result in actions. I can’t say I’m good at controlling emotions, but this book helps a little.

Mindfulness is hard and is a continual practice. Thich Nhat Hanh does so well to relate how mindfulness, especially critical in western culture, is an important part of bettering ourselves.

The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama Whitehouse

By Ben Rhodes

We see the world, not as it is, but as it should be.

This is a quote Barack Obama would often share with his staff, originating from his days as a community organizer in Chicago in his early 20s.

This book, written by Ben Rhodes, the former Deputy National Security Advisor and Barack Obama’s personal friend and speech writer, is one of the first truly deep inside looks into how the Obama team operated. Ben is an excellent writer (no surprise given he’s behind some of Obama’s most important speeches and landmark policy). It’s a refreshing memoir of seemingly better times.

In particular, I’ve found Ben having to reconcile with the fact that optimism and hope gets encumbered with a swift, sad sense of reality in Washington fascinating. It’s a complex tale for progressives, who while having accomplished a lot in the 8 years of holding the Executive office, have to now grasp the reality of the ‘populist’ response that lead to Donald Trump in the office and what that means for the Obama administration’s legacy. It chronicles what happens when idealism meets reality.

That said, Ben’s book offers a grounded perspective to where we are and some reassurance to those fearful of that progressive legacy not lasting. Ben shares that Obama would often quote the phrase: There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on a beach. What I take from this is that progress operates on larger timescales than we as individuals can comprehend in the present. Two steps forward one step back is the game.

Skin in the Game

By Nassim Taleb

Nassim Taleb’s is a very smart, and witty writer. His cynical (and often derisive) world view is a departure from how I typically think and from most of the authors I like to read from, but nevertheless I am open to it and enjoy the change. Skin in the Game is a book discussing the importance in having the right incentives to establish well functioning systems. This is a theme I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. While the idea is obvious, it is clearly very hard to get right, and almost all worldly problems have the root cause of either wrong incentives in the first place, or incentives that are established with best intentions as the start and are naturally gamed and devolve.

Symmetry and balance is generally key to a functioning system. Forces and opposing forces work hard to beat each other, but in the end, the effective counter balance of each other creates a positive-sum system (ie. value increases as the system grows) Taleb talks about how while this is true, there are underlying faults in certain systems which cause this assumption to be broken. We must be wary of listening to those who aren’t truly part of the game (whatever game that may be. eg. consultants, pundits, advisors etc.)

I don’t agree with everything Taleb describes, but it’s a good book to help with an expansion of the reader’s world view and understand how we’re all part of a system and establishing balance is critical.

From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia

By Michael McFaul

Michael McFaul was the US Ambassador to Russia during the Obama Administration. He has seen Russia’s evolution from the beginning of the end of the Cold war. His historical perspective from the 80s through to today gives an comprehensive look into how, unlike the relatively successful Marshall plan in rebuilding Europe post-WWII, Russia’s evolution towards democracy was always rocky and has devolved entirely to where it is today — a ‘Hot Peace’.

McFaul is a genuine optimist when it comes to Russia. He was one of the original authors and proponents of the Russia Reset effort, a 2009 Obama era initiative to start anew with Russia. He ends with natural skepticism and sadness to the state of where things are today, especially with Putin in power. It’s a good primer to anyone who is genuinely curious of the complexities of Russia’s relationship with the world and what Russia is capable of with Putin at the helm.

The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations

By John McCain

John McCain’s last memoir is a deeper look into a remarkable man and patriot. While, I don’t share all personal beliefs with him, I still highly respect the man. Through this book, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for who he was and what he stood for.

McCain was a prisoner of war, and he shares his account of what that was like for him and how it shaped him. To see your good friends die along side you, is something that never leaves you.

McCain’s reputation as a maverick is emboldened in this book where he shares the tough choices he’s made as a moderate, sometimes alienating friends from both sides of the aisle. He’ll be forever recognized and appreciated in my book for being the sole person to ensure the Affordable Care Act isn’t repealed without any viable plan forward. McCain shares his experience of surprising everyone with that nay vote in 2017.

I love reading about the perspectives I have general disagreements with. This brought me closer to someone who was strongly opinionated, yet could arguably be seen as a unifier. I wish he did more to prevent a now deeply divided country, but his book brings me more understanding to the beliefs he’s had and the choices he’s made.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

By Neil Degrasse Tyson

This is a super fun read. Sidenote: I highly recommend the audiobook where Neil Degrasse Tyson’s soothing and passionate planetarium voice helps guide the reader on this journey through the cosmos. (Also see Cosmos on Netflix).

This book goes through all the building blocks to give everyone an understanding of what are complex theoretical phenomena.

Tyson reminds me that no matter how complex a topic is, any idea can be taught well through breaking down the fundamentals into easy to understand analogies. Tyson takes you through some of the most important concepts in Astrophysics. It brings a higher level perspective into how and where we fit, both as individuals and as a larger world in the coordinates of space and time.

Becoming

By Michelle Obama

I am still in the middle of this one. I’m reading this one purposefully slow — it’s worth it.

Michelle Obama’s book so far is beautifully written and offers an in-depth personal journey to how Michelle Obama became who she was. I’ve found it incredibly profound and I’m in awe of how she takes every experience with her to learn from. From her humble beginnings growing up in a typical working-class, yet loving family in the South Side neighbor of Chicago, to being one of the fortunate few to go to Princeton and then Harvard Law. She shares the tough emotions she faced when deciding that the cookie-cutter world of corporate law wasn’t right for her, but that to make a larger impact, she’d had to sacrifice the comforts that comes with that world.

She offers a close look into how she and Barack Obama lift and inspire each other. At the same time, they’ve had many struggles we can all relate to. It’s without a doubt that Barack Obama would not be who he is and who the world knows without Michelle — and vice-versa.

We can relate a lot to what the former first lady writes about. Struggles with that choice of impact vs comfort; Being a strong smart woman all her life defined by her own impressive achievements, yet all of a sudden having to be defined by what her husband does; A calling to pay-it-forward and not be comfortable with the status-quo, yet at the same time having responsibilities to family wellbeing.

She does so well to remind us that the Obamas are not super-human, or otherworldly. They are us.

The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World

By Lawrence Osborne

This was a recommendation from my brother-in-law. He gave it to me five years ago and I finally sat down to read it this year.

The Accidental Connoisseur is a fun read to learn more about the wine world. Fun is putting it lightly, it almost felt like a guilty, gluttonous pleasure. I couldn’t help but look at wine a little differently while reading this first-world-problem book.

Lawrence Osborne writing style is thoroughly enjoyable, almost the right type of slightly pretentious writing style to sustain a book solely about wine. He details the history and the evolution of Napa Valley, California and sits down to drink a few bottles of wines with some of Napa’s iconic winemakers. My enjoyment of the book was fueled by the fact that I lived an hour away from Napa for 7 years and have been lucky enough to visit a number of the wineries Osborne talks about.

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

By Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Ki

This book is the culmination of a four year research study done by the three authors and the DORA (Devops Resarch and Assessment) group. The authors surveyed thousands of organizations and used cluster analysis to identify common traits and patterns exhibited by low, medium and high performing software/technology organizations.

This book was a concise yet thorough read and put science and research behind some of my empirical beliefs in what separates good software orgs from the rest of the pack.

As a someone who operates in the intersection of people management, organizational & process design and technology, I’ve found myself naturally inclined to first focus on the devops/infrastructure teams and work my way up. This book solidified my belief that this is a high leverage approach.

Some high level themes that the authors describe are why:

• More frequent deploys lead to higher quality of software. (vs. less frequent/more process around deploys) Also why having fast roll-back procedures are key.
• Why supportive leadership that understands how software is made is critical towards success. The lines between technology and organizational design are blurred. Barriers between developers/devops and execs can often lead to bad outcomes.
• The closer developers are to understand the underlying production systems, the better.
• Establishing a blameless culture of learning through incidents and failure helps ensure a sustainable and effective development organization.
• Strong monitoring of how production is behaving is what leads to high reliability of systems.

Some of this may appear to be obvious, however my time working at the Department of Veterans Affairs over the past year and a half has brought me new humbling perspective into how non-intuitive some of these ideas may feel. At the VA there are some systems that get deployed twice a year, with “change advisory boards” that have several hundreds of people involved 😱.

Managing software is hard. This book helps to break down best organizational and devops practices to assist software leaders.

Children’s Books

My partner and I are excited to help make reading a habit for the little one that joined us this year. These are some of our favorite books we’ve discovered and read together so far. ❤️

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
• Touch and Feel: Never Touch a Dinosaur
• Never Touch a Monster
• Goodnight Moon
• Guess How Much I Love You
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo
• Strictly No Elephants
• Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo
• Baby University Four-Book Set (Physics for Babies)
• Scientist, Scientist, Who Do You See?
• Where the Wild Things Are
• The Runaway Bunny

Over to you

As I look back on 2018, I’m grateful for the time I’ve had to expand my horizons and learn from these wonderful authors. What are the books I’ve missed out on that you’ve enjoyed? Please share your list.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful 2018, and wish you a happy 2019!