Best Reads of 2023
I’m sitting on a train, enjoying a smooth journey home for Christmas. Unfortunately, all the snow is gone, so let’s blame the climate crisis. I’m listening to my niece’s album (listen on Spotify) and gathering my thoughts about the year that is about to conclude. After a few quite crazy years, I’ve been able to return to my goal of reading 20 books a year. It doesn’t always work out, especially when I lose myself in an exciting project. You see, I’m a workaholic who learns through doing and thus I acquire new skills constantly. The downside to that is that my brain just doesn’t have the extra capacity to absorb new knowledge from new books sometimes.
Anyways…as usual, I’d like to highlight three great reads from this past year that come from slightly different categories. I’ve already recommended these books to several of my friends, so if you’re reading this, I know you’ll enjoy them, too.
Stolen Focus
by Johann Hari
“Democracy requires the ability of a population to pay attention long enough to identify real problems, distinguish them from fantasies, come up with solutions, and hold their leaders accountable if they fail to deliver them.”
Yet another great book by an author I previously recommended — this time, he explores why it’s so difficult to focus. There are many reasons for that, the major one of them being screens — all the electronics that have thousands of people behind them designing those devices for the most attention consumption because that is how the economy works. While we already have good data on this and the fixes would be fairly simple, companies can’t change due to their bottom line and shareholders. Ok, but tech is only one aspect of the focus issue…he talks about few other good ones, too.
Hari’s writing just works for me — his narrative is personal yet filled with real-life examples and good amount of data. This book has been…let’s call it pre-pandemic inspired, and I can only imagine what the last few years have done to our attention. But let’s start with acknowledging the problem first.
Scaling Up
by Verne Harnish
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”
Once you’ve read 10+ business books, most of them cover similar topics and very little is truly new. However, this one rang close as I was recently part of a Series A startup and could explore the topics through that contextual lens. Almost similar to such a book like “Good To Great”, the author focuses on various strategies that impact business growth the most — people, strategy, execution, and cash.
My experience around cash hasn’t been the biggest, but a lot about people, strategy, and execution.It was valuable to review my experiences with recruitment, people management, and compensation. Ultimately, execution is everything! Sales is the king, and execution is the …I don’t know a good similarly connected metaphor…but the execution is everything! Especially in the startup world, ideas are great but not as valuable as getting them done. If you’re one of those with a V or C in your title, this book is a must-read.
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
“Once again I’m struck by melancholy. I want to spend the rest of my life studying Eridian biology! But I have to save humanity first. Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.”
My niece Linda recommended this book, as we geek-out on the sci-fi genre. And she wasn’t wrong. It’s one of the rare books that I finished very quickly, using every free moment I had, and maybe even some moments when I should have been working instead. It’s a stress-filled, magical sci-fi journey of a lone astronaut on a mission to save Earth from an extinction-level threat caused by a mysterious astrophage consuming the sun’s energy. From the first pages, you’ll notice a similar vibe to The Martian, well, because the author wrote that book too.
I can’t think of another book where I’ve laughed, giggled, or cried as much in shock when a character (possibly) dies. That should be enough of a recommendation from me… we can cut this short, ha!
The common theme is perseverance — whether it’s about doing your best to improve your focus, or the solve for how to save humanity, or doing all you can to scale your business. They all require persistence in doing something while others have long given up.
Another year bites the dust. And before it finishes biting, I have to do my annual purge of the reading list as there are books that I’ve added over the years that have lost their relevance. As always, if you think there is a book I’d enjoy, send the recommendation!
