| Title | Author |
| 1. Never Finished | David Goggins |
| What I learned: | |
| I’ve known David Goggins for years now and I’ve followed some of the stuff he has done, so most of the stories in the book were not new to me. Despite that, it’s still remarkable to read in detail about some of the things he has achieved. There is plenty to learn about grit, courage and never giving up in this book. The guy is quite literally a savage, and I have massive respect for what he’s done with his life after what he went through.
Having said that, you can’t help but feel that he’s still not healed and that he would struggle to just sit with his own thoughts and emotions instead of almost killing himself in his next adventure (because there’s always a next adventure). But as it turns out, there’s also value in learning from that, so I have no regrets about having picked up the book. |
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| 2. Stillness is the Key * | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| This is the third or fourth time that I’ve read/listened to this book, and there’s always something new that I get out of it. One of my favourite parts is learning about historical events from the angle of stillness because that has made me interested in things that I never paid attention to (including the next book on this list). | |
| 3. The Diary of a Young Girl | Anne Frank |
| What I learned: | |
| First of all, this is not a book, obviously. It’s a diary, and written by a 14-year-old girl, so there’s certain things that you can’t expect to find here, like engaging writing. It’s a classic, and one of the most-read books in history, and so it has plenty of value, but it’s tedious and repetitive, so you have to value it for what it is. It’s also very authentic and honest, but does the entire world need to read it? I don’t know. There are probably more interesting books if you want to learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust. Still, no regrets about reading it. | |
| 4. The Body Keeps the Score | Bessel van der Kolk |
| What I learned: | |
| This is a fascinating book on the connection between traumatic experiences and physical and mental health issues, and how conventional therapy is often not a real solution. It’s not an easy read because it’s filled with horror stories of abuse and other things like that, but the techniques described to help people get better are really amazing. I would probably not read it again, but it’s still really interesting. | |
| 5. Elephant in the Brain | Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson |
| What I learned: | |
| It’s probably not that we needed someone to tell us, but pretty much everything that do has hidden motives behind it. This book explores that and, as much as it’s often painful to hear it, the reality is that most of the decisions that we make are based on selfish reasons. But it’s not as bad as it sounds, as being selfish is part of our DNA. What the book does is explain the motives behind our decisions in order to understand our behaviour and, hopefully, use that to make better choices. | |
| 6. Courage is Calling * | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| Having listened and read to this book about eight times by now, there’s not an awful lot that I learn from it, but I do make myself read it at least once a year because it’s a great reminder of what it takes to do good/great things. At this point, this book is just a source of inspiration for me and I’ll probably continue to read it over and over. | |
| 7. The Case Against Education | Bryan Caplan |
| What I learned: | |
| Imagine you sneak into college for four years without anyone noticing, learn absolutely everything there is to learn, nail every test you take, and leave knowing more than any other student. Now imagine you enrol into college, spend four years skipping as many classes as you can, barely passing tests, and partying most of the time. In the former case, you end up without a diploma. In the latter, you get your diploma, and so you are much more appealing to companies looking to hire someone.
That’s the premise of this book: Education signalling. If you have a diploma – any diploma – you are better off, regardless of how you got it. That’s why the author argues that the education model is broken, and it’s hard to argue against it seeing how many years you spend studying things that have no practical use. |
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| 8. Overcoming Anticipatory Anxiety | Sally Winston, Martin Seif |
| What I learned: | |
| Anticipatory anxiety is something that I’ve struggled with for most of my life, and it took me some four decades to recognise and do something about it to improve the situation. While it’s got better over the past years, it’s not something that just goes away, so revisiting books like this is always a good idea. One of my favourite parts about it is the metaphor it uses to describe the way in which you start to get better: This is like a tug of war between yourself and your anxiety in which the only way you can win is by letting go of the rope because otherwise, you are just getting more resistance the harder you try to pull. | |
| 9. Four Thousand Weeks * | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| I wish I could memorise this book in full. Every sentence is pure wisdom, which is why I’ve read it three times now. Despite the “Time Management for Mortals” sub-header, this book is not really about time management, but about how to live a better, more present life.
“Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie. You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.” |
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| 10. Letters from a Stoic | Seneca |
| What I learned: | |
| As you would expect from Seneca, these letters are filled with profound knowledge that can be applied to life 2000 or two years ago. Granted, it’s not the easiest book on Stoicism that you can read, and it does go off-topic and gets a bit repetitive at times, but it’s still super interesting. | |
| 12. El Deafo | Cece Bell |
| What I learned: | |
| This is a graphic novel for children. I read it because my daughter had to read it for school and she enjoyed it. It’s a really great story that’s also useful for adults. | |
| 13. The Obstacle is the Way * | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| “In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.” That’s probably the best summary of this book, which I really enjoyed reading for the first time when the pandemic started. Now that I’ve read it for a second time I’ve found that it’s somewhat simplistic, but still enjoyable and useful. | |
| 14. The Tools | Barry Michels, Phil Stutz |
| What I learned: | |
| This is the second book that I regret purchasing this year. While it’s not all nonsense, the nonsensical parts undermine the bits that could be of any value to anyone who reads this with sort of a critical mind. | |
| 15. The Self-Driven Child | William Stixrud, Ned Johnson |
| What I learned: | |
| There are many great things about this book: helpful ideas, theories backed by science, plenty of useful stories, and a lot of empathy and compassion. It should be read by any parent.
“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel. Think of how you want to make your child feel: loved, trusted, supported, capable, and above all else, let that be your guide.” |
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| 16. Fiber Fueled * | Will Bulsiewicz |
| What I learned: | |
| It’s very easy to underestimate the power of our microbiome if we don’t educate ourselves on the subject. Which is why I’ve come back to this book again. It’s filled with science-based information and tips on how to improve and keep a healthy gut, which is such a massive contributor to our overall well-being and longevity. I wouldn’t be surprised if this book is updated soon, though, because we keep finding new things about how our gut works. | |
| 17. The Gift of Failure | Jessica Lahey |
| What I learned: | |
| The premise behind this book is pretty simple: stop overprotecting your children so they learn to be more independent, and let them make mistakes so they learn from them and grow as a result. It’s a pretty simple concept, and the book includes plenty of examples that you might find relatable. Others… not so much. At the end of the day, several of the strategies might work in the sense that your kid gets stuff done alone, but resent you for it.
It’s a fine line, and I feel it might be too optimistic to think that your kid will thank you – instead of resent you – for letting them “learn from their mistake” after they spent ages working on a project but then forgot it at home, and you decided not to tell them about it so they would come up with a system to stop it from happening again (the author’s real-life example). As I said, it’s a fine line. |
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| 18. Soul Boom | Rainn Wilson |
| What I learned: | |
| Sometimes I like to read books that I know I’m likely to disagree with because I feel that it helps me grow as I try to understand a point of view that’s different from mine. So I knew this would be one of those cases because I’m not a spiritual person.
Although in the end, I didn’t really disagree with the main message that ‘Dwight Schrute’ is trying to send here: humans need more connection, whether it’s through spiritual means or whatever. I didn’t find the book to be particularly insightful or interesting, although the motivation behind it is very noble and hopeful. |
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| 19. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant | Eric Jorgenson |
| What I learned: | |
| This is a book for people who don’t really like to read books. I’m not saying that in a negative way: the book is filled with useful advice and common sense on many different subjects, but in the end it is just a summary of many other books about philosophy and self-development. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it also doesn’t go deep into any of the topics that he covers and the content is a bit all over the place. | |
| 20. Daily Dad | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| The Daily Dad is my favourite newsletter, and so this is one of my favourite books. Like The Daily Stoic, this is a book you read one page a day for an entire year. It’s just fantastic, and if you want to grow as a parent, the principles and lessons in it are invaluable. | |
| 21. Sapiens * | Yuval Noah Harari |
| What I learned: | |
| I’m always amazed at how intelligently this book is written. It’s just an outstanding book, and the second time I read it I found it even better than the first.
“Despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles – but nobody knows where we’re going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.” |
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| 22. Thing Explainer | Randall Munroe |
| What I learned: | |
| This book is written with the 1,000 most common English words, and so it uses words such as “sky boat” to describe a rocket, or “box that cleans food holders” for a dishwasher. It’s brilliant. It just explains very complex things in very simple terms, so what’s not to love? | |
| 23. The Courage to Be Disliked | Ichiro Kishimi |
| What I learned: | |
| Coming soon | |
| 24. Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet * | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| What I learned: | |
| While there are tons of books on the climate crisis, this is the one I feel like reading when I need some inspiration or strength without having to read about all the horrors that are coming as a result of inaction. It’s extremely peaceful and proposes mindfulness as the solution to most of our problems, be it climate change or anything else. | |
| 25. Living Without Stress or Fear | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| What I learned: | |
| First of all, this is not a book, it’s a series of talks from Thich Nhat Hanh put together in audiobook format. Now that’s is not a bad thing, but you could probably find the talks online without having to buy the thing, so you know. As with every Thich Nhat Hanh book, everything is about mindfulness, but this one is particularly serene and soothing because it’s himself speaking. As a downside, the audio quality is far from perfect and it’s quite hard to hear what he says sometimes. | |
| 26. Man’s Search For Meaning * | Viktor E Frankl |
| What I learned: | |
| The wisdom in this book, combined with the stories about Frankl’s life in a concentration camp, is pretty much unparalleled, but the two main things I get from it are 1. There is purpose in suffering and it can be incredibly meaningful (but no, you don’t have to go searching for suffering); and 2. The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. You can always choose your attitude: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” | |
| 27. The Art of War | Sun Tzu |
| What I learned: | |
| This is probably a book that you need to study, not just read, in order to get more from it. I just read it, and while interesting – especially considering it was written 2500 years ago – I didn’t find that many lessons that you can apply to life, contrary to what some people might make you believe. It just feels like one of those books people will read so they can brag about having read it because they think they look like badasses for it. | |
| 28. The Stoic Challenge | William B. Irvine |
| What I learned: | |
| This book is like a Stoic guide for day-to-day living: It applies Stoic principles to everyday situations and challenges. As such, I imagine it’s practical for someone who hasn’t read much about Stoicism or who doesn’t want to go too deep into it. That makes it both useful and kinda superficial. | |
| 29. Eat and Run * | Scott Jurek |
| What I learned: | |
| Scott Jurek was one of my inspirations when I decided to become both an ultrarunner and a plant-based person. I just love his story and his principles. They are a good reminder that we can all achieve great things regardless of how unlikely they might be. As a bonus, this book is filled with great recipes. | |
| 30. North * | Scott Jurek |
| What I learned: | |
| Another Scott Jurek book, this time about his attempt to beat the Appalachian trail’s fastest known time. This one is more about pushing your limits and suffering than about anything else. It’s not as good as the first one, and the parts written by his wife are sadly a turn-off, especially if you listen to the audiobook. Still great though. | |
| 31. Heart Minded | Sarah Blondin |
| What I learned: | |
| This book is not actually a book, it’s more of a very long meditation, and in order to appreciate it, you have to treat it as such. Also, the author is a meditation teacher and so it’s vital to listen to it rather than read it, mainly because her voice is amazing and so calming. | |
| 32. Get Out of My Head | Meredith Arthur |
| What I learned: | |
| As a serial overthinker, I thought I’d give this book a try seeing that you could read it in about an hour. It’s supposed to be a portable guide with resources to deal with your overthinking mind. It’s sort of useful, but there’s really nothing ground-breaking in it. | |
| 33. Regeneration | Paul Hawken |
| What I learned: | |
| This is a massive book, both literally and figuratively. It’s a compilation of every possible area that we can act on as a species to end the climate crisis in one generation. It covers everything, from energy to food, to afforestation, to banking…. it’s all there. The downside of books like this is that it’s filled with bad news about our future, but at least it has solutions for most of the problems we face, if only we act on them. | |
| 34. Contact | Carl Sagan |
| What I learned: | |
| This is a novel, so I didn’t go into it thinking about learning stuff. There’s naturally a lot to learn anyway, mainly about astronomy. Nevertheless, it’s one of those books that become a great movie, and I’d rather watch the movie than read the book, which at points gets a bit too dense and long. | |
| 35. The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down | Haemin Sunim |
| What I learned: | |
| This is sort of like a shorter and less in-depth version of a Thich Nhat Hanh book. It’s not bad or anything, but to me, it felt like it covered a lot of the things I had already read about in Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, except in a much shorter format. | |
| 36. Four Thousand Weeks * | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| We tend to think that we’ll eventually arrive at some magic point in our lives where we will finally feel like we’ve made it, that we can now relax, rest, enjoy life. We tend to think that it’s fine to be unhappy now, because the life we are meant to be living is waiting for us as soon as we manage to accomplish a certain amount of things. There is nothing else to do to justify your existence than what you are doing right now, and living any other way will lead to an unfulfilled life in which you are always chasing some unattainable goal.
This is now one of my favourite books and one that I like to read at least once every year. I can’t recommend it enough. |
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| 37. The Road Less Travelled | M. Scott Peck |
| What I learned: | |
| Nope. Another book that I went in with high expectations given its popularity and that ended with me being confused as to why it is so popular. It starts off well by talking about how we need to avoid instant gratification to live a better life, and ends up sort of denying evolution and sounding racist at times. I can only imagine it was popular back in the day, but it’s extremely outdated now. | |
| 38. Discipline is Destiny * | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| Work out. Wake up early. Do hard things first. Avoid superfluous stuff. Clean up your desk. Keep showing up every day. Work hard on the small things. Hustle. Slow down. Practice a lot. Seek discomfort. Manage the load. Sleep. Focus on the important stuff. Done is better than perfect. Get help. Say less than necessary. Curb your ambition. Don’t waste your money. Get better every day. Say no. Be kind to yourself. Make others better. Be strict with yourself and tolerant of others. Endure. | |
| 39. The Power of Negative Thinking | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| Worrying about how things can go wrong has massive benefits if you channel your energy in the right way. My favourite part about this book is probably the chapter about impostor syndrome, something everybody suffers from. It’s very short, so you can be done in less than two hours. | |
| 40. The Tao of Pooh | Benjamin Hoff |
| What I learned: | |
| I guess expecting to learn much from Taoism through a book starring Winnie the Pooh was too optimistic on my part. In the end, it left me more confused than anything, and I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t know anything about Taoism or because I never read Winnie the Pooh and didn’t know any of the characters in it. | |
| 41. Addicted to Busy | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| By trying to make our lives as efficient as possible, we are never really mentally present to live it at all, which is why we need to stop and think every day. It’s something that we struggle to do because it feels like doing nothing is not productive, when in fact is one of the most productive things we can do. | |
| 42. Good to Great | Jim Collins |
| What I learned: | |
| I think there’s a lot to learn from this book about how to run a company successfully. If you are not running a company or aren’t some sort of manager, you’d probably find less value in it (like it was my case). Still, the bottom line of the whole thing for me was that in any successful company, you first choose the right people and then worry about the rest, which is great advice. | |
| 43. The Upside of Stress | Kelly McGonigal |
| What I learned: | |
| The idea here is pretty simple: Change your attitude about stress and instead of seeing it as something negative, see it as a positive thing. I’m not completely sold on the idea, though, as I don’t think you can just convince yourself that a bad experience is actually a good experience if you try to change your mind hard enough. There are definitely some helpful ideas in the book, but overall I don’t think it needs to be over 300 pages to explain the concept. | |
| 44. Everything is F*cked * | Mark Manson |
| What I learned: | |
| I don’t know, I like this book. I know there’s quite a bit of criticism about how it oversimplifies a lot of things to make a point, but I still enjoy reading it, even though I can admit it’s a bit all over the place, starting with WWII and ending with AI. Still, I enjoy it, and what I get from it is that hope is not a great thing. We need to forget about hope and do the work (whatever ‘work’ means for you) because we find it meaningful. | |
| 45. The Antidote * | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| The worst-case scenarios that we often fear are almost never as bad as we fear, and realising that through negative thinking is a big step towards happiness. Optimism can be wonderful, but so can pessimism. That’s the whole idea of the book in a nutshell, and I love it. | |
| 46. Good Inside | Becky Kennedy |
| What I learned: | |
| There is some great parenting advice in this book, and the best part is that some of it can also be applied to any type of relationship, not just to kids. The downside (if you can call it that) for me was that 1) It’s for parents of very young children and 2) I’m fortunate that I’ve never had to face a situation in which my kids tell me that they hate me, which, judging from the book, is something that happens a lot. It offers a very stoic approach to dealing with the issues, although again, in most cases, they weren’t applicable to me. | |
| 47. Zombified | Athena Aktipis |
| What I learned: | |
| It turns out that zombies do exist in the real world. I picked this audiobook because I wanted something light and short (and free). It explains how we are zombified by several different things, including by our digital consumption, but it also touches on biology. It’s kinda fun and pretty smart, but I wouldn’t have bought it if it hadn’t been included for free on Audible. | |
| 48. Epidemics of a Modern Life | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| I gotta say I bought this one by mistake, although it wasn’t totally my fault. As it turned out, it’s four short essays, two of which I had already read, and two new ones. I really love Oliver Burkeman and I don’t regret reading anything else from him, but I paid for a full book to read half of it. | |
The books I read in 2023
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