“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” – Descartes
The truth is, this blog is written for me more than you. You’ll find my reviews somewhat meandering. I’m not trying to make them hard to follow, but my goal isn’t to summarize the contents of the book, go to SparkNotes for that. Instead, I’m trying to capture my reaction to the book. You might find that helpful; you might find that it says more about me than the book. Still, I hope by skimming this you’ll find a compelling reason to read more and read more broadly. Better yet, I hope that some of the things I say resonate enough to steer you towards the best books and away from space wasters.
I’ve read a lot of books. Ok, so I listened to most of them, that’s how I find time to get through as many of them as I do. I read/listen to two books at a time; one more on the entertaining side and one more on the intellectual side (following the principle of interleaving discussed in Make it Stick). If I follow a roughly a 2-week timeline per book and stagger them, I end up finishing a book roughly every week. Here’s the list from 2019
As you can see, I’m not a devotee to one genre; I believe there are things worth learning from the classics, self-help books, historical fiction, and just plain fantasy. That’s not to say that all books are worth devoting serious time to read. For example, I think that Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings presents a more useful lens for thinking about social class interactions and the fabric of hierarchy than even Brokerage and Closure (an academic book on the subject), but Harry Potter was entirely fried froth to me (I know Marriott School Dean Bridget Madrian would disagree with me on the merits of Rawling’s fiction).
There was a time when I thought I should focus my effort on reading just immensely practical and intellectual books. Fortunately, I had a chance to interact with Mark Gottfredson, a partner at Bain and Company. We were talking about the best business books to read (I was currently holding a copy of his book The Breakthrough Imperative in my hand) but he recommended I read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables next. He explained how Hugo tells you more about how people respond to various stimuli than any economics book he could think of. I tend to agree.