The Best Books I Read In 2020
6 unputdownable books to end your year on a high
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After what feels like an epoch, 2020 finally draws to a close. For many, myself included, this has been a long, arduous and trying year. This has also been the first year — at least in my lifetime — where all of humanity has endured a unique and common foe. And that’s why my recommendations this year focus on a common theme: the human condition. What it means to be human, what are our intrinsic motivations, how our intuitions work, how we’ve evolved over time and how our futures might look. So, this holiday season, take some time out to read any (or all!) of the books below. You’ll end the year on a high and learn a little about how resilient our species really is. You have my word.
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Right vs Wrong, Left vs Right, Liberal vs Conservative, Us vs Them — partisanship impacts our discourse every day, more so in these times of rampant tribalism. But are our political views rational or intuitive? Emotional reactions or calculated responses? How did we, a slightly advanced breed of a chimp, glean obscure concepts such as morality? From what age do we let bias (conscious or otherwise) seep into our psyche?
This book is simultaneously both assiduous and urgent that I can easily recommend to anyone on the planet and an innately personal journey that will make you question your beliefs, assumptions and political stances on every issue.
Key takeaways
Does Eating Dog Make You A Liberal?
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Our hyperbolic imaginations powered by our gossip-loving, intuition-driven brain, renders us unable to estimate the prevalence of the most basic issues affecting our planet. Rosling’s book, written in collaboration with his son and daughter-in-law, explains the pitfalls of our logical reasoning and attempts to develop a fact-based framework to view humanity’s standing…
