As the year winds down, I am excited to share my “best of” reading list for 2020. Books are a great distraction right now so I hope you find something for you or a loved one in the titles below.
Happy reading!
20.In Praise of Slow: Challenging the Cult of Speedby Carl Honoré. I bought this book years ago and never found time to read it. Quelle surprise! Still the most common question I get on my reading lists is “How do you find time to read so many books?” My answer in HBR articles here and here. I believe this book is a mirror we all need right now. If you’re feeling pandemic sluggishness this book will smile at you warmly, pat you on the back, and help you settle deeper into your slower, wiser, more meandering self. And if you’re the opposite, if you feel like the treadmill you’re on is cranked to 10, then this book will force you to stop and reflect. Chock full of research and wonderfully narrated by the incredibly warm Carl Honoré in the same “sitting beside you on the bus” style of Quietor So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, I felt like this was the book I have needed for years. It's time to slow down and read this wonderful book.
19.The Old Manby Sarah V & Claude K. Dubois. Homeless rates are spiking. The parks are full of tents and there are more people on the streets where we live. This simple but striking kids book with beautiful watercolor art explores homelessness with great compassion. A man wakes up wet and freezing in the morning. He rummages through trash cans looking for food. He sees a mail carrier and remembers he used to be one. He goes to a shelter but can’t remember his name when he’s asked so he leaves. He’s kicked out of a park. He’s offered a sandwich and a smile from a little girl. The book is marketed to 5-7 year olds but I think anybody would love it. Published by the independent Gecko Press based in Wellington, New Zealand. I linked to them above but it should be sold everywhere.
18.Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Artby Madeleine L’Engle. I admit whenever I hear a book described as “a meditation on…” I sort of hear it as “a bunch of loose, semi-coherent rambles on…” This book completely changed my view. It is indeed a meditation but it’s the furthest thing from loose and semi-coherent. With the powerful high beamed mind of Madeleine L’Engle (probably best known for A Wrinkle In Time) the book dives down into the deeper, colder, darker waters far below other well-structured or well-researched or well-organized books to explore, really meaningfully explore, the murky depths underpinning those massive overlapping circles of faith and art. As you read the book you’ll feel connected to a wise, patient, enlightened guide calmly and patiently showing you the meaning of all things. Mandatory reading for anyone creating art in any way. Most of us! Closest book I can compare it to would be The War of Art by Steven Pressfield but I liked this one more. (Note: This is one of creative wonder Brad Montague’s most formative books. I had a lovely chat with Brad here.)
17.The Body: A Guide For Occupantsby Bill Bryson. “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power,” says historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens. I was thinking about that quote while reading this incredible top to bottom look at our fleshy homes. The early chapters on “The Brain” and “The Head” alone are worth much more than the price of admission here. Short excerpt: “Don’t forget that your genes come from ancestors who most of the time weren’t even human. Some of them were fish. Lots more were tiny and furry and lived in burrows…. We would all be a lot better off if we could just start fresh and give ourselves bodies built for our particular Homo sapiens needs – to walk upright without wrecking our knees and backs, to swallow without heightened risk of choking, to dispense babies as if from a vending machine. But we weren’t built for that. We began our journey through history as unicellular blobs floating about in warm, shallow seas.” And it goes from there.
16.Walkable City: How downtown can save America, one step at a timeby Jeff Speck. Who else has had a big walking year? Maybe the most walking you’ve ever done? I love five-hour walks and I try and spend a day or two a week going untouchable and bringing out my inner flâneur. I loved this book about walkability and its power to completely transform our health, our planet, our economies, and our communities. Jeff Speck presents The General Theory of Walkability which explains how, ‘to be favored, a walk has to satisfy four main conditions: it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting’ and calls pedestrians ‘an extremely fragile species, the canary in the coal mine of urban liveability.’ I have no idea how urban living will change post-pandemic but we spread ourselves too far from one another at our peril. As Jane Jacobs said “By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.” Cheers to living in strange, dense, and surprising environments for decades to come. (PS. Anne Bogel tipped me off to this book in my last live 3 Books chapter before the pandemic. We recorded in Union Square and then inside The Strand in Manhattan. I was then lucky enough to get Jeff to come on the podcast to help push the pleasures of pedestrian propinquity.)
15.Bad Feminist: Essaysby Roxane Gay. Roxane Gay’s writing flows like a river: calm, smooth, burbling, and then you hit the rocks. She offers accessible welcome mats into complex and thorny issues like her essay “What We Hunger For” on the emotional trauma of sexual abuse told through her love of The Hunger Games. (That full essay is online here.) The essays are short, easy to read, and have a huge range of topics as one moment you’re hearing what it feels like to be a typical first year professor and the next you’re discussing the issues with Sweet Valley High or Django Unchained. Playboy calls her 'the most important and most accessible feminist critic of our time' and she’s also the #2 ranked best reviewer on all of GoodReads. Check out my recent conversation with Roxane on lessons in love and the lethal lure of likeability.
14.The Invisible Pyramidby Loren Eiseley. Naturists, anthropologists, environmentalists, philosophers, teachers, lend me your ears. This is the book for you! Loren Eiseley lived from 1907 to 1977 and is listed as all of those things in his online biography. Those diverse backgrounds and experiences come together wonderfully in this powerful series of essays offering a sense of wild vertigo as Loren masterfully zooms us across spacetime to give us a sense of place in the cosmos. Did you ever read that “Pale Blue Dot” passage by Carl Sagan? I wrote about it in The Happiness Equation. If you liked that passage, you’ll love this this series of lectures Eiseley delivered at the University of Washington in 1969. It was just after the moon landing and these lectures tap right into the interstellar dreaming zeitgeist of the time. I feel like this is the book I was always hoping to find whenever I picked up A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking which I could not work my way through. A great book for people who loved The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell.
13. Black Beautyby Anna Sewell. While lying in bed as an invalid in the 1870s, Anna Sewell wrote this book. She died five months later but was alive long enough to see the book take off en route to becoming the worldwide classic. A wonderful first-horse view of life from the mid-1800s which includes many simple and profound lessons about kindness, friendship, and animal rights. This is the book that first opened Temple Grandin’s eyes to animal rights issues before her many decades fighting for their quality of life. If you don’t know much about Temple Grandin, she's just incredible. I'd recommend starting with the award-winning film starring Claire Danes and then listen to my chat with her on mixing minds making magic.
12.The Boy & The Bindiby Vivek Shraya. I was listening to an interview with Vivek and the host asked which words she uses to identify herself. It was a long list! Artist, trans, queer, bi, person of color, brown. I first found Vivek when her book I’m Afraid of Men jumped out to me at a bookstore. I found it brave, challenging, and mind-expanding on a lot of levels. This children’s book is a rhyming story of a young boy who takes interest in his mom’s bindi. It’s an activist and gender creative book that doesn’t slip into the trappings of trying to argue gender norms but simply allows a young boy’s curiosity towards a traditionally female-sporting dot to grow into a natural love. Pairs well with I Love My Purse by Belle Demont. Listen to Vivek trashing traditional trans tropes here.
11.Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit & Wisdom of Charles T. Mungerby Charles T. Munger. Shane Parrish of Farnam Street and The Knowledge Project told me to buy this book and I admit I groaned when I picked it up. Seriously? The multibillionaire longtime partner of Warren Buffet compiles a giant 500 page trophy to his accomplishments? But then I opened it and couldn’t stop flipping around. It’s chock full of wonderful commencement speeches, book recommendations, and his famous mental models. One of the densest compendiums of wisdom you’ll find. If you know very little about Charlie Munger (as I did) this article is a great place to start. If you’re intrigued from there, I’d highly recommend this book.
10.Murder on the Orient Expressby Agatha Christie. I walked into The Mysterious Bookshop earlier this year and said “I don’t know any mysteries! What’s your best gateway drug?” and the bookseller passed me this book. “Really?,” I thought. “Agatha Christie?” Turns out she’s sold two billion books for a reason. (Tied with Shakepeare for #1 fiction sales of all-time. No biggie.) When the elegant Orient Express is stopped by snowfall a murder is discovered and Hercule Poirot’s trip home is interrupted to solve the crime. After a slow start out of the station with fifty pages of mood and landscape setting, this book took off like a bullet train. It kept me up reading night after night.
9.Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How To Stop Yelling and Start Connectingby Dr. Laura Markham. Do you yell at your kids? I do. And then I feel terrible afterwards. It’s embarrassing. What am I doing? How do I let my buttons get pushed by a three year old refusing to put on his shoes? Enter this book. Dr. Laura Markham’s work is deeply empathetic, connected, and loving. I can confidently say this book has turned me into a better father by offering a simple three-step approach to be a more peaceful parent. Step 1. Regulating Yourself, Step 2. Fostering Connection, and Step 3. Coaching not Controlling. She says that discipline never (never!) works and offers many solutions using games and connection to coach behavior instead. I also recommend Dr. Laura’s fantastic newsletter and I was lucky to sit down with her in her living room in Brooklyn to discuss prioritizing presence to parent peacefully.
8. The Bluest Eyeby Toni Morrison. I can’t recall a book this emotionally and racially charged since I read To Kill A Mockingbird when I was 15 years old. And I liked this one better. Toni Morrison died last summer at 88 years old after winning a Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, and a slew of other awards. This is her very first book, published in 1970, and she didn’t become well known for years afterwards. I loved imagining that when I read it. Her first book! Released without fanfare! It all takes place in Northern Ohio after the Great Depression and tells the story of a young black girl in an abusive family told from the point of view of another girl in her class. Some reviewers say the book could be triggering for people who have suffered physical abuse so I’ll leave you with that warning. (It has been banned a lot.) But if you are up for an enchanting book that sets your mind firmly somewhere else while sharing a briskly paced story with an unbelievably poetic voice … I highly recommend this.
7.Berlinby Jason Lutes. I remember visiting my friend Chris Kim at his Boston apartment years ago when he passed me his copy of Maus by Art Spiegelman. That OG graphic novel about the holocaust completely blew me away. I sadly never had a chance to return it so it sits on my shelf and has since been joined by work by artists like Alison Bechdel, Adrian Tomine, and Chris Ware. However, I am almost positive I’ve never read a graphic novel with the level of emotional, character, and plot complexity of this nearly 600-page wonder. I am not surprised Jason Lutes spent 22 years writing and illustrating it. (22 years!) If you’re like me, the graphic novel will take 50-100 pages to get into as new people and storylines keep popping out of nowhere but once you get a loose grasp on the dozens of characters you will truly get lost in it. Berlin was the progressive center of Europe during the Weimar Republic of 1918-1933 where ‘creativity, political thought, and sexual liberty burned bright before being snuffed out under the boot heel of fascism.’ If you have a craving to walk onto the Holodeck right now, press a button, and live somewhere completely different for a while, this is the book for you. I am already excited to read it again.
6.Halfbreedby Maria Campbell. A coming of age memoir by playwright, filmmaker, and Métis Elder Maria Campbell on her experience growing up in the middle of Canada through the 1940s and 50s. Originally published in 1973 with “missing pages” detailing her rape at the hands of the RCMP, the 2019 edition (pictured) has been restored with full manuscript as well as a breathtaking Afterword written by Campbell last year. Much First Nations history shared through memorable exchanges with Maria’s 104-year-old (!) Cree great-grandmother Cheechum and braided with bleakness, horror, and revelation. A story I can’t stop thinking about.
5.Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugarby Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl Strayed was the victim of severe abuse as a child, lost her mother in her early 20s, became addicted to heroin, and then walked alone up the Pacific Crest Trail for three months over more than a thousand miles. Somewhere along the way she developed the incredible superpower to see inside people’s souls and conjure up potions to heal their rawest wounds. She wielded this superpower in the form of anonymously writing a column called “Dear Sugar” for an online literary magazine called The Rumpus about a decade ago. This book is a collection of those columns and they will completely shatter you as she somehow manages to solve the question people didn’t ask her every single time. Here’s an example to give you a taste.
4.Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMHby Robert C O’Brien. Mrs Frisby is a mouse with problems. She’s a recent widow after her husband was eaten by the cat. Her son Timothy is bedridden with a nasty chest cold. And the farmer is going to plough the field she lives on in two days which will destroy her home. Cue an epic 48-hour adventure involving flying crows, wise owls, dangerous cats, and genius rats. Completely absorbing. Beautifully written. And can you recall any other book with a single mother of four as the star of the show? The back says it’s for ages 8-11 but I think we can safely stretch that up many more decades. This is one of poet Nikki Giovanni’s three most formative books.
3.Lie With Meby Philippe Besson. Translated from French by Molly Ringwald. “Yes, that Molly Ringwald,” read the handwritten cue card on the Staff Picks wall at Toronto indie bookstore Type Books. That’s where I was first introduced to this gem about a hidden love affair between two teenage boys in rural France in 1984 which time warps from the past to today told as a first-person memory by the author. That summary means nothing, though. This book will squeeze your heart in many ways and I think could have the most exquisite final page of any novel I’ve ever read. André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name, says “Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.” This book is a true masterpiece.
2.When More Is Not Better: Overcoming America’s Obsession with Economic Efficiencyby Roger L. Martin. Do you feel like the whole system is rigged? Like there’s nothing you can do to really get ahead or help affect true change? This is the book to read. It masterfully zooms up into the stratosphere of the entire democratic capitalist system we live in and pulls back the curtain on all the junky, rusted-out parts inside. Roger Martin was Dean of the Rotman School of Management for a good decade and a half and named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50. I’ve followed his strategy books over the years (Playing To Win, The Opposable Mind) but I think this is his best book. This book calls shenanigans on, well, nearly everything, and then outlines refreshing approaches on how to fix it. Most business books spend 300 pages outlining the problem and 50 pages on the solution. This book is the opposite. All ideas are filed under go-dos for business execs, political leaders, educators, and citizens. As an example, educators should temper the inclination to teach certainty, stop teaching reductionism as if it’s a good thing, help students appreciate the power of directly observable data, and elevate the appreciation of qualities (over quantities). Citizens should ‘multihome’ by consciously spending money away from the monopolists to avoid the deep structural and customer abusive situations that follow. (Another great argument for supporting independent bookstores.) Each point is backed by numbers and tightly screwed into lean and logical prose.
1.Utopia Avenueby David Mitchell. I’m going to come right out and say I think David Mitchell is the greatest novelist alive. He’s probably most famous for Cloud Atlas which is six Russian-dolled novellas spanning centuries with a connected soul. An easier entry point may be Black Swan Green which is the wonderful coming-of-age tale of a 13-year-old stutterer growing up in 1980s England. Or you can walk in through A Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a historical fiction masterpiece set in Japan in the late 1700s. If the range between books isn’t enough there’s also a broader multiverse at play connecting all his books through characters and their relatives taking on different identities and forms across centuries. Sounds overwhelming? Maybe in concept but not in execution. As David says: “Art should be an anti-snobbery force.” Every David Mitchell book sends you somewhere else in vivid and often vertiginous ways. (No wonder five of his books have been long- or short-listed for the Man Booker and TIME has called him one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People.) Utopia Avenue is his newest and it tells the story of a British psychedelic folk band formed in SoHo in 1967. The story twists, turns, and then hits hyperdrive in the final act. It’s all woven so deeply into history that it really feels like you can hear the band playing. I promise you won’t want the music to end.
