My Process For Reading (And The Books I Read In 2016)
From A Guy Who Always Hated Reading
“If you did the reading, this quick three question quiz will be a piece of cake.”
Whenever a teacher said that in school, my heart started racing — because I never did the reading.
Nope.
I hated reading in school.
So I would typically bomb all of those pop quizzes — and try and hide when the English teacher would randomly call on students to get their “thoughts on Chapter 3.”
And every summer, I would try to bargain with my teachers — I would read books in the summer, but not these books on the reading list (I would read sports books, of course).
But now, I love reading.
Because I finally get it: you don’t read to memorize and report back on every single word and chapter like they teach you in school. You read to get one key lesson from a book. One new idea. Or even just to get clarity on something you already knew the answer to.
And I’m still not one of those super readers, but reading has had a huge impact on my thinking, my creativity, and my copywriting since I committed to reading this time last year (I try and read two books/month; 20 minutes every morning on my train ride to the gym before work, and 20 minutes before bed).
So, in case you’re a regular ol’ reader like me and needed a few book recommendations this time of year, here’s a list of the books I read in 2016.
I don’t feel like linking them all, so just look them up on Amazon 😊
PS. We talk about books/reading/learning frequently on our podcast at Drift. I just try to keep up with David Cancel.
Quick Notes On My Reading Process
- I read about 99% non-fiction. Actually, 100%. The only fiction book I’ve read that I can remember is The Martian.
- Sometimes I read one book at a time, sometimes I read a bunch (I’ve noticed it takes longer to finish books and I don’t go as deep into a book when I read this way, but I often get better ideas by hopping around). Some people prefer to read like this. It’s David Cancel’s go-to method for example — and what James Altucher calls “idea sex.”
- Even though I only read non-fiction, I often have a non-business book in the rotation that I read before bed — otherwise I’m taking notes and writing down ideas and I thinking of things to remember for the morning. For example, right now I’m reading “Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever.” I wouldn’t read a tactical marketing/copywriting book before bed, but I would be OK reading something like “Tools of Titans.”
- I read on a Kindle paper white and prefer it because I can highlight things and then save the highlights as a little book report in Evernote. If you highlight things on your Kindle, you can view all of your notes online by going right here. I like taking notes so I can apply what I’m reading to work/get new ideas, and reading on the Kindle makes it super easy to get text and quotes verbatim vs. scribbling notes in a paperback or your own notebook along side a book.
- I try and read two books/month. That comes from reading 20 minutes every morning on my train ride to the gym before work, and 20 minutes before bed. I don’t always hit those goals, but it’s a habit I try to push vs. picking up my phone and spending my whole commute on Slack or Twitter or Snapchat.
- If I’m not interested in a book immediately (i.e after the first 20 minutes) I stop reading it.
- I keep a list of book recommendations in Evernote, but only trust a handful of people with book recommendations for better or worse (since I only read non-fiction I stick to recommendations from people I admire, people I want to be like, successful people in marketing and business, etc.)
- I keep a list of all of the books I read by month in Evernote so I can look back at what I’ve read, and I just copied and pasted the list below to write this post.
Update based on the pro tip from Dharmesh Shah: each book is ranked 1–5, 1 meaning I didn’t enjoy the book, 5 meaning it was one of the best books I’ve read.
January
Behind the Cloud: The Salesforce.com Story — Marc Benioff (4)
Hooked — Nir Eyal (2)
February
Living With A Seal — Jesse Itzler (4)
Purple Cow — Seth Godin (3)
The Ultimate Sales Machine — Chet Holmes (3)
March
Ask — Ryan Levesque (2)
Boys In The Boat — Daniel James Brown (3)
April
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up — Marie Kondo (2)
7 Habits of Highly Effective People — Stephen Covey (3)
May
Amazon: The Everything Store — Brad Stone (5)
Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution — Jonathan Abrams (4)
June
Shoe Dog: A Memoir By The Creator of Nike — Phil Knight (5)
From Impossible to Inevitable — Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin (4)
July
Ogilvy On Advertising — David Ogilvy (5)
New One Minute Manager — Ken Blanchard (2)
Ego Is The Enemy — Ryan Holiday (2)
August
Marketing: A Love Story — Bernadette Jiwa (3)
Scientific Advertising — Claude Hopkins (5)
Boron Letters — Gary Halbert (5)
Cashvertising — Drew Eric Whitman (5)
Andre Agassi: Open — Andre Agassi (4)
September
Breakthrough Advertising — Eugene Schwartz (3)
October
Hatching Twitter — Nick Bilton (3)
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion — Robert Cialdini (3)
The Copywriter’s Handbook — Bob Bly (4)
November
Permission Marketing — Seth Godin (3)
Grit — Angela Duckworth (1)
December
Deep Work — Cal Newport (1)
The Ultimate Sales Letter — Dan Kennedy (4)
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs — Garmine Gallo (5)
Thinking Fast & Slow — Daniel Kahneman (3)
Currently reading: Tools of Titans and Dream Team.
If you liked this post, you’ll like our podcast at Drift. It’s called Seeking Wisdom, and once a week we publish a 15–20 minute episode talking about life, learning, startups, and what we’re learning building the company.
