I read a lot of books, because I’m always, selfishly trying to improve my brain. In 2016, I read 41 books. Looking back, my 2016 reading list consisted of poetry, philosophy, self-help, history, political theory, social commentary, current events, spirituality, and martial arts manuals. Here’s a few words on my favorites from this year, and why I think they are worth your time.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens is my #1 book of 2016. It is mind-blowing. It starts with the Big Bang and the creation of matter and thus chemistry. It then proceeds to the tell history of humanity, both evolutionary and cultural. And the fact that we have both is what makes us unique. This is Harari’s point – humans were middle-of-the-food-chain scavenger apes; how did we ever come to conquer the earth? The answer lies in a variety of revolutions: Cognitive, Agricultural, Scientific, Industrial. The most crucial of these was the cognitive revolution which lead to the rise of fictive language – we could use words to discuss fictional concepts (money, empire, gods) and coordinate behavior. This fiction is what we call culture. This cultural history is on top of our biological history, allowing us to progress orders of magnitude faster than evolutionary process allows. Harari has told the story of humanity in remarkably clinical yet compassionate terms. This book has too much mind-melting truth for me to do justice to it here, so please, if you read one book from this list: Sapiens.
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS – Joby Warrick
This is a history of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Second Iraq War, and the rise of an Islamism so extreme even al-Qaeda denounced it. It is an essential book of our time. It captures a multi-dimensional, cross-cultural conflict across the span of several decades. It provides a sweeping narrative and character-driven history of the War on Terror. As we spend the next few decades dealing with the fallout of the Iraq War, learn a little about how it devolved into religious violence, all because of one unspeakably evil Jordanian and two bumbling American administrations. It’s a horrifying and frustrating book with no easy answers, only important questions.
Sailing Alone Around the Room/The Trouble with Poetry – Billy Collins
One of the great discoveries of my year was the poetry of Billy Collins. I hope you’ll forgive me for cheating and including both of his collections. I would rather be a dirty cheater on my top 10 list than have to pick a favorite between these books. Both are moving, hilarious works well-worth your time and money. Collins is a singular voice. He is Everyman. His is the poetry you would write, if you were just a bit smarter and more attentive. His work is universally understandable, with a deeply personal voice. There’s humor and heartbreak in his lines. Collins has complete command of imagery and metaphor. You will tear through his books of poetry, wishing there was more, and then you’ll be glad I put two of his books on my list for you.
All The Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
I don’t read a lot of fiction, but when everyone smart around you recommends “All The Light We Cannot See,” you take note, then you read it yourself. Now I am playing catch up, and recommending “All The Light We Cannot See.” It’s a brilliantly composed and structured work of art. It opens with two characters – a young, blind French girl and a sensitive Hitler Youth – trying to survive a bombing raid on the last German stronghold in France. It then jumps throughout time and across a colorful cast of characters to explain how they got to that moment. Marie-Laure and Werner are both memorable protagonists: wide-eyed and curious kids growing up in a time of great technological change, social change, and terrible war. The mysterious, hypnotic power of the radio is the central image of this book. This power can be used to broadcast Nazi propaganda or to coordinate resistance fighters. And there’s a whole plot about a cursed diamond and the Nazi obsessed with tracking it down so that he can live forever. Great book that jumps between a variety of perspectives, characters, and voices.
When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
The reflections of a dying man do not make for uplifting reading. This book made me cry a lot. But it is undoubtedly one of the best things I read this year. It is the reflections of a brain surgeon who was diagnosed and eventually defeated by cancer. These are his reflections of mortality from both sides of the medical system. Kalanithi tells his life story, how he came to medicine, how he battled with death and dying on the front lines. He tells a story of how as a doctor, you become numb to a lot of the tragedy and you try to act professionally. You take care of people, you work with them, but you try to remain detached. But then Kalanithi got sick, and his perspective totally changed. As a doctor, he was hesitant to give a patient any timeline, feeling that it was irresponsible and intellectually dishonest to do so. As a patient, Kalanithi realized that any decisions he could make would be in the context of how much time remained. A heartbreaking examination of death and dying, something we will all face. Kalanithi wrestles with these most fundamental human questions bravely and honestly. A book that will make you upset the author is dead.
The Phoenix Project – Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, Georg Spafford
This one is kind of for nerds who work in tech, but I’m a nerd who works in tech, and this book was fire. This is a textbook disguised as a novel. The subject matter is DevOps and running an Information Technology shop. It’s a book on best practices in how to coordinate multiple departments needed in IT delivery. This tells the story of Bob, who is thrust into an IT leadership role and sets about learning the skills that will transform his company. By following his journey, you also get those skills. The interesting bit here is that running IT is essentially like running a factory, you’re just running a knowledge factory. The goal is to have all the departments on the same page about success criteria and pulling to the same metrics. Then you can identify constraints within the process and manage to exploit those constraints. Really interesting stuff, especially if you’re involved in IT in any way.
Striking Techniques Vol 1 – Lawrence Kenshin
This was the best martial arts manual I read this year. It almost doesn’t feel fair to count this as a book, because it is also a collection of embedded videos and linked YouTube videos. The material covered here is wide and deep, across all Muay Thai. You’ll get knees, elbows, punching and kicking combinations, tons of stuff on principles and concepts. This book is like having a portable world-class Muay Thai coach. I think Muay Thai has great self-defense value because it spans so many weapons and ranges. Lawrence Kenshin has created one of the best technical explorations of striking that I’ve come across. Highly recommend to any student of the fight game.
The Denial of Death – Ernest Becker
So one of my friends took me up on my earlier recommendation, Sapiens, and had an unexpected result: he said that it made him deeply depressed about his place in things. This friend should avoid “The Denial of Death” at all costs, because this book is all existential terror. This is a masterwork of philosophy, existentialism, and evolutionary biology/psychology. Becker’s main point is that man is a being tortured by a dual existence as a spirit and a creature. We feel like souls, spirits, eternal symbols that are unique and unchanging. At the same time, we’re trapped in meat cages that constantly poop. The disconnect between the two existences is maddening. Becker points out the trap of self-consciousness. We know the creature will die, and this is terrifying. And so, we come up with terror management systems, ways that we can repress the mortal thoughts and distract ourselves from death. This is a book that explains cogently one of the most maddening paradoxes in human nature. Not that Becker resolves it. There is no resolving it – just seeing it clearly. And seeing things clearly, Becker argues, is the essence of madness. So in a way, this book will help you lose your mind. And I recommend the trip.
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – Nathaniel Branden
This is another work that I would call existential philosophy. Branden was a psychologist who once dated Ayn Rand. As one of my mentors said, “That’s how I knew he’d be qualified to teach about self-esteem.” Jokes about Objectivist Ice Queens aside, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem was assigned to the instructors at my capoeira academy, and I am glad that it was. This book is like an owner’s manual to your life; probably the best self-help book I’ve read. It pulls no punches. It states that self-esteem is a measure of how competently you face the challenges of your life. So if your self-esteem is low, it’s probably because you’re sucking at life. To improve your self-esteem, improve your life. It’s simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. Branden gives you the blueprint to follow, building practices of living consciously, with self-acceptance and self-accountability. This is basically a relationship book, but it is about how to improve your relationship with you. And who do you spend more time with than that?
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating Like Your Life Depends On It – Chris Voss with Tahl Raz
I view rhetoric as a practical superpower, and I am fascinated by people who wield it. I try to learn anything I can from these wizards, be they classical orators, conmen, salespeople, or hostage negotiators. Chris Voss is the last of this catalogue, and Never Split the Difference is his experience distilled into practical life lessons. It’s a fascinating book about how to succeed in negotiation, and most interesting, it is basically a book on how to politely say “No” over and over again until your negotiation partner cracks. It uses ample open-ended calibration questions to wear down your competition. Anything they ask for, you respond, “No, I can’t do that. How am I supposed to do that when [X]…” and then you insert some type of real or imagined logistical impossibility. The idea is that you are an honest interlocutor, trying to help them get what they want, but you can’t do the impossible. Then you get them thinking about all your impossible problems, and they feel silly for asking for so much from you, and de-escalate. You just continually politely deflect. It’s brilliant. There’s obviously much more to it than this, and this book has plenty more tricks, including things like “Late Night DJ Voice” and using odd numbers in negotiation ($500 is an offer proposed off-hand, but if I offer you $413. 97, I reasoned to that number). Then there’s also tons on the value of research, including looking for “The Black Swan” – the one piece of information that totally recontextualizes the conversation. Great place to learn some practical rhetoric.