| Title | Author |
| 1. Tiny Beautiful Things | Cheryl Strayed |
| What I learned: | |
| One takeaway that probably everybody will get from this book is that, no matter how shitty you think you have it, there’s always someone who is worse off. Some of the stories are a bit too hardcore, and it’s not an entirely happy book to read, but it’s still worth it. | |
| 2. Training Essentials for Ultrarunning (*) | Jason Koop |
| What I learned: | |
| I learned plenty of things about ultrarunning the first time I read it. I realise this book is for a very limited number of people, but if you are intro ultrarunning, there’s probably not many books that beat this. | |
| 3. Why We Sleep | Matthew Walker |
| What I learned: | |
| You know how the Internet is filled with content along the lines of “You are [insert activity] wrong”? Well, this book shows you that we are sleeping wrong, or more specifically that we are not prioritising sleep enough to lead a healthy life. You could dismiss it as “Meh, I already sleep enough”, but this gives you a great insight into the importance of consistent, quality sleep. It’s actually fascinating. | |
| 4. Selfie | Will Storr |
| What I learned: | |
| It’s a shame that the title of this book is misleading, because you start it with certain expectations that it fails to live up to. It’s got nothing to do with the digital era and our self-obsession, so I ended up being disappointed by it. | |
| 5. The Comeback Quotient | Matt Fitzgerald |
| What I learned: | |
| A book about comebacks, mostly (actually, entirely) in sports, but there’s lessons about grit and perseverance that you can apply to absolutely everything in life. There’s a ton of inspiration in it. | |
| 6. The Rudest Book Ever | Shwetabh Gangwar |
| What I learned: | |
| Spoiler: It’s not the rudest book ever. It’s a short little book with tips on how to actually think as a smart person. It’s a bit delusional at times, but it’s so short that it’s worth checking out. | |
| 7. The Daily Stoic | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| As a fan (is that the right word?) of Stoicism, I have only positive things to say about this. It’s a book with Stoic reflexions for each day, so it takes a full year to finish. Worth it though. | |
| 8. Breath (*) | James Nestor |
| What I learned: | |
| As with sleep (see above), we could easily think we have nothing to learn about breathing. Wrong again. The book shows the importance of nose breathing with real data and studies (and a crazy one from the author himself). Warning: You might end up doing stuff like sleeping with your mouth taped and your wife will think you are insane (but it was worth it). | |
| 9. Fear | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| What I learned: | |
| I’ve read a few books from Thich Nhat Hanh before, and this one gets a bit repetitive. It’s no that it’s not beautiful, because it is, but you are better off trying to learn to meditate, because it’s the bottom line of the whole book. | |
| 10. The Demon-Haunted World | Carl Sagan |
| What I learned: | |
| Carl Sagan was ahead of his time and this book kinda proves that. Having said that… it’s not my favourite from him, because it spends too much time busting myths and nonsense. With science, granted, but still. | |
| 11. Make Time | Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky |
| What I learned: | |
| This is basically a guide on how to spend your time wisely, especially if you are one of those people who say “I don’t have time for…”. For me, as it turns out I already do a lot of the things included in the book, it wasn’t super helpful. | |
| 12. Flow | Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi |
| What I learned: | |
| For starters, I learned how to pronounce Csikszentmihalyi. This is a book to take notes from. It’s like a manual for life on how to be happy more often. I listened to it, but it’s probably best to buy as a real book. | |
| 13. Ego is the Enemy (*) | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| Our ego stops us from doing so many things, or it hurts us while doing others. This book is full of examples of that and comes with lessons that, if you can apply to your life, will make you a better, less self-centered person. Like nearly every Ryan Holiday book, it’s based on Stoicism, so I could be biased. | |
| 14. The Art of Less Doing | Ari Meisel |
| What I learned: | |
| I picked this up for free on Audible because I wanted something to listen to during a long run. It has a similar message to many other books (including some of the above), but I would recommend you read Essentialism if you want to learn about this particular topic. | |
| 15. The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho |
| What I learned: | |
| This is like a self-help book disguised as a novel. It’s a decent book, don’t get me wrong, but I have the feeling many people hype it up because it’s supposed to be a classic. | |
| 16. What Makes Sammy Run? | Budd Schulberg |
| What I learned: | |
| No, it’s not a book about actual running (I knew that going in). It’s actually a book about out-of-control ambition, written in 1941, but still relevant to this day. It’s interesting in so many ways, and yet I was kind of disappointed about the ending, which leaves you feeling like the writer got bored and wanted to wrap it up. | |
| 17. Stolen Focus | Johann Hari |
| What I learned: | |
| I have read quite a bit about how mankind is losing its ability to pay attention, and this book is sort of a cocktail of all the things that are causing that. If you want to know how big tech, sleep, pollution, stress or nutrition is destroying your ability to stay focused, this book is for you. And you really should read it, because we all need to be aware of the things that are messing with our brains. | |
| 18. Spark | John J. Ratey |
| What I learned: | |
| When you read many books on simliar subjects, eventually they start overlapping, and so while this one is interesting, I didn’t find an awful lot of new information on it. But the bottom line is still good: Work out, because it will not only make you healthier, but also smarter. | |
| 19. Food Choice and Sustainability | Richard Oppenlander |
| What I learned: | |
| I know how I sound when I say this, but it’s hard to overstate how doomed we are as a species, and books like this are either eye-openers if you haven’t yet faced the realities of climate change, or – if you’ve read about this before – a sad reminder of where we are headed as we continue to use animals as a main source of food. This book is from 2013, which makes its case even more terryfying considering we are in 2022 and pretty much nothing has changed since it was written. So you know, pick up a copy and enjoy! | |
| 20. No Cure for Being Human | Kate Bowler |
| What I learned: | |
| This is a memoir of the author, who gets diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. It’s not that it’s not emotional, and it’s not that it’s badly written, but – and it might be an unfair but? – there’s really not a lot of depth to the story beyond the fact that cancer sucks. Her story is not extraordinary or remarkable, and while it’s touching because cancer sucks, there’s not an awful lot more to it. | |
| 21. The War of Art | Steven Pressfield |
| What I learned: | |
| Sometimes I have a tendency to misunderstand what some books are about, especially if they are wildly popular and rated as highly as this. Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand what this book is supposed to be, but it feels pointless and empty to me. Except for like five inspirational quotes, I don’t know what the point of the whole thing is or how it’s become so popular. | |
| 22. Effortless | Greg McKeown |
| What I learned: | |
| Our modern life has created this culture that spreads the message that only hard things are valuable and easy things are trivial. This book challenges that notion and offers examples and ideas on how to simplify things we struggle with. It’s a good read, but like with all these books, it won’t get you anywhere unless you start putting the ideas intro practice. | |
| 23. Happy Money | Ken Honda |
| What I learned: | |
| The idea here is that depending on how you use your money, it will be happy or sad money, which will obviously impact your own happiness. The concept sounds pretty obvious but, like with most things, there’s a ton of caveats and lessons to apply to life to improve your relationship with money, whether you have a lot or very little. But yes, the author admits it’s better to have money than to not have it. | |
| 24. Tust Me, I’m Lying | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| Working in media, I’m aware of how both media is manipulated and how media manipulates, but this book explains the huge impact a simple rumour can have on organisations and people. As someone who stopped reading news sites years ago, I feel vindicated (and sad) by all the revelations in the book. It’s quite an eye-opening read. | |
| 25. This is Vegan Propaganda | Ed Winters |
| What I learned: | |
| It’s not that I learned a lot from this one, because I have already read so much about the problem with the production and consumption of animal products. Having said that… this is probably one of the best books on veganism a person could read to understand all the issues with eating animal products. It covers all topics in a way that makes it nearly impossible for anyone to disagree with them, regardless of what you eat. It’s a book that should be in schools. | |
| 26. The Storm Before the Storm | Mike Duncan |
| What I learned: | |
| Considering I didn’t know anything about the Roman republic, and that this is a book entirely about the fall of the Roman republic, I can say I learned a bunch of stuff. However (and as good as this book is), it took quite some effort to power through to the end because I’m not a history buff and the book is painfully detailed. It’s probably a fantastic book if you are into this stuff, though. | |
| 27. Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss |
| What I learned: | |
| This may sound way too obvious, but one of the main things you learn when you read about topics you are not familiar with is how underrated some things that you have never paid attention to are. So you (ie, I) may think, what’s there to learn about negotiation? A lot, as it turns out. Many things is this book make an awful lot of sense and can be put into practice in so many situations in your (my) life. | |
| 28. Hot Mess | Matt Winning |
| What I learned: | |
| Climate change mixed with comedy. It’s a new take that I hadn’t read before, which is sort of refreshing. The author also talks about the conflict he faces raising a child in a broken world that’s headed towards disaster, which is something I could relate to and with which I’ve often struggled as well. | |
| 29. Courage is Calling | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| I’ve read this book four times already, which tells you how I feel about it. More than anything, this is like a motivational speech after which you feel you can do stuff you are afraid of. The only issue is you actually have to do the stuff you are afraid of, because it turns out that just reading the book won’t solve anything. Who knew. | |
| 30. This is Marketing | Seth Godin |
| What I learned: | |
| Marketing is everywhere, for better or worse, so learning how it works is a good idea in order to avoid falling in the traps of the marketing aimed at making you do the wrong thing. In that sense, I found the book quite useful because it’s filled with tips and tricks that companies and people use, and that you can use yourself, not only to market something you want to sell, but to grow your audience for a positive impact. The downside of this book is that it reads sort like a bunch of blog posts all put together, so sometimes you end up feeling like he is just rumbling about nonsense. | |
| 31. Dopamine Nation | Anna Lembke |
| What I learned: | |
| As a result of our endless pursuit for pleasure, we are drowning in dopamine, which means we now need bigger rewards to feel pleasure and less injury to feel pain. This book is about that, and it does a great job of showing you the ways we are addicted to all sorts of things that give us pleasure while we try to avoid pain. But here’s the thing: Constantly seeking pleasure just leads to pain, which is why we need to find a balance. One of my favourite lines from the book is: “The rewards of finding and maintaining balance are neither immediate nor permanent. They require patience and maintenance.” | |
| 32. For Small Creatures Such as We | Sasha Sagan |
| What I learned: | |
| I found this book was great at teaching me how to appreciate many big and small things, especially rituals from cultures all around the world. She keeps such an open mind to all sorts of rituals – including religious ones when she’s not actually a religious person – and it’s impossible not to feel like you are learning to be a more tolerant person as a result. And here’s a part I loved: “No matter what the universe has in store, it cannot take away from the fact that you were born. You’ll have some joy and some pain, and all the other experiences that make up what it’s like to be a tiny part of a grand cosmos. No matter what happens next, you were here.” | |
| 33. Amusing Ourselves to Death | Neil Postman |
| What I learned: | |
| We live in a culture of distraction, which means we no longer pay close attention to anything that doesn’t entertain us, and struggle with anything that requires our full attention for longer periods of time. The author warned, in 1984 (!), about the dangers of television, which back then was the hottest thing because there was no internet or smartphones. With that in mind, it’s quite shocking to see how relevant all his warnings are some 40 years later, now we have myriad ways to get distracted. The best summary I can offer is this: In George Orwell’s 1984, he feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World worried the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. That’s the world we live in now. | |
| 34. The Practice of Groundedness | Brad Stulberg |
| What I learned: | |
| Achieving balance and sustainability in life requires a structured plan and consistent, positive behaviours, otherwise you are screwed. This book is a series of practices that help serve as a reminder of that. It’s sort of like Atomic Habits, but with more practice advice on the steps to take to find groundedness. Yes, it’s another self-development book, but it’s one of the best I’ve read. | |
| 35. Active Hope | Joanna Macy, Chris Johnstone |
| What I learned: | |
| The struggle with climate change anxiety is real, and will only get more real in the coming years. It’s inevitable. I’m one of those people struggling with it, so in order not to lose my mind, I’ve been trying to find ways to look at the situation from a more constructive (and somewhat positive) perspective. This book is exactly that. Does it help? A bit. Like with everything, it’s not just a magic pill, but a process you need to work on. The book is a tad outdated but it’s a good place to start. | |
| 36. Deep Work | Cal Newport |
| What I learned: | |
| Ironically, it took me ages to write this bit about what I learned from this book, which goes to show why I needed to read it in the first place. Deep work is the ability to focus without distractions, something that is incresingly rare in this day and age. This book makes you value the importance of developing that skill and it offers sort of a training programme to help you. | |
| 37. The Paradox of Choice | Barry Schwartz |
| What I learned: | |
| The idea here is pretty simple: Studies have found that the more choices you have, the less satisfied you are with whatever it is you choose, because you’ll always be left wondering if something else was better. In a time where you can choose between 500 different anythings at any given moment, you will always be second-guessing your decisions, which leads to more dissatisfaction. Bottom line: SIMPLIFY EVERYTHING. | |
| 38. Generation Dread | Britt Wray |
| What I learned: | |
| As the climate crisis deepens and we all begin to see and feel its catastrophic effects, I feel that being able to cope with the anxiety and the fear that comes with it will have a MASSIVE importance in the near future. But getting to the point where you don’t just decide to sit in a corner and cry for days is no easy feat: This is a process, and it takes work and discipline. This book is so important in helping with the whole process. The entire book is so on point I had to read it twice back-to-back so I could take notes. I can’t recommend it enough. | |
| 39. Surrounded by Idiots | Thomas Erikson |
| What I learned: | |
| As complex as this book tries to be, there is really not a lot to it. The idea is that there really aren’t idiots out there, but just people who are different than you, and that we are all either a red, blue, yellow or red type of person (not a new concept if you’ve ever read about Hippocrates’ four temperaments). It’s filled with generalisations and written in a childish way. So meh. | |
| 40. Longpath | Ari Wallach |
| What I learned: | |
| Imagine living your life around the idea of thinking long term. Like, really long term. The book calls it “transgenerational empathy”, and it basically means focusing on doing good stuff that will benefit people long after you are gone. It’s a wonderful concept and one that we need to embrace more than ever in the times we live, especially as we face the climate crisis and wonder what we can do to avoid feeling powerless. | |
| 41. The Growth Delusion | David Pilling |
| What I learned: | |
| What doesn’t get measured, gets ignored, which is why things like our impact on the environment are so hard for people to pay attention to. The world is always celebrating economic growth (GPD) because that’s what we’ve decided to measure, and so we neglect a lot of things like our well-being. Economic growth for the sake of it is unsustainable and unhealthy: “Only in economics is endless expansion seen as a virtue. In biology it is called cancer.” | |
| 42. Discipline is Destiny | Ryan Holiday |
| What I learned: | |
| Discipline is everything. If you master discipline, you’ll master yourself. This book, in combination with Courage is Calling, will make you a better person if you put some of the lessons into practice. So to sum up: Clean your desk, wake up early, take care of your body, wake up early, learn to say no, keep showing up, enjoy the process not the outcome, wake up early, keep showing up, and wake up early. | |
| 43. What We Owe the Future | William MacAskill |
| What I learned: | |
| The concept that the world doesn’t stop after you are gone is one that is hard to grasp. I mean, yes, you know that people will keep existing after you die, but we don’t usually make it a priority to think and act as if billions of people will live after you have left the planet. Like Longpath above, this book is about long-termism, and about how we should be acting today in order to steer the destiny of millions of future generations. In theory, few things sound as altruistic as acting in the best interest of people you or anyone you know will never see or meet. In practice it’s a bit harder what with everything you and the people you care about have on your plates. But it doesn’t hurt to try. | |
| 44. Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| What I learned: | |
| “Recognise what you need to do. Do it, and you’ll be at peace.” I’m sure there’s not a lot of people who would believe you if you told them that the solution to the climate crisis – and everything that makes us feel – is mindfulness. If everybody read this book and larned from it, I’m pretty sure they would agree. This book is wonderful, but it has just one flaw: The people who most need to read it probably never will. | |
| 45. Saving Us | Katharine Hayhoe |
| What I learned: | |
| The most important thing we can do about climate change is talk about it, but that’s often not easy because we clash in our views or are too attached to our indentities. This book offers excellent advice on how to talk about climate change without losing your mind or going to war with everyone you speak to. There are some really great ideas in it. | |
| 46. How to Have Impossible Conversations | Peter Boghossian |
| What I learned: | |
| Apparently the author of this book is controversial, something I had no idea going in. And I don’t really care. With every book, I try to take what’s useful for me, and this wasn’t different, regardless of the author’s views on other stuff. And honestly, this book has a lot of useful ideas on how to have positive conversations with people no matter how opposed you are to their views. But the main thing I got out of this is the concept of going into conversations with the idea of trying to understand the other side instead of trying to ‘win’ the conversation. Imagine what a world it would be if we all did that. | |
| 47. Essentialism (*) | Greg McKeown |
| What I learned: | |
| If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will do it for you. That’s the main thing you need to learn from this book. Do you need an entire book to realise that? Maybe not, but it includes a lot of scenarios in which different people might see themselves, in which case the book will help them. The down side is that it’s another one of those books that are useless unless you put the things you read into practise. Damn you, books. | |
| 48. Four Thousand Weeks | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| Hope is a curse. To hope for a given outcome is to place faith in something outside yourself and outside of your current moment. To give up hope is to reignite the power that you actually have. We no longer have to hope, we just do the work, and in doing the work we find meaning and purpose. This is supposed to be a book about time management, but it’s so much more than that. | |
| 49. The Antidote | Oliver Burkeman |
| What I learned: | |
| While optimism is awesome, we’ve developed the habit of overvaluing positivity in how we think about happiness, at the same time undervaluing negative thinking (such as actually spending time considering our own mortality, failures or feelings of unease). The main concept here is that instead of trying to be positive all the time, we spend more time considering the worst-case scenarios and realise that, most of the time, they could always actually be worse. The book doesn’t just bash positive thinking, but rather explores the many benefits of following the negativity path. | |
| 50. The Doors of Perception | Aldous Huxley |
| What I learned: | |
| I don’t know, really. Something, something about what you feel while taking drugs? This book is too… cerebral and weird for me. I would need an entire year to try to understand any of it. | |
* Re-reading
Leave a Reply