Introduction

I am kind of a fan of learning in public. Not just because it keeps you accountable, but also you get to share whatever you learnt with your own unique spin on it. And the more disciplines you cover, you develop the ability to sense common patterns which other people don’t and be far more efficient and effective.

With this post, I aim to share my approach to book reading, as well as some of the books I read this year and recommend you to check out. So here we go!

Books Are Like Compressed Wisdom

Here’s the thing I like most about books. As I see it, non-fictional books are essentially documentation for the author’s journey, their failures and the wisdom they acquired as a result. If I pick up a book on starting a business, I not only get the final blueprint which the author perfected (probably after decades of failures), but also a summary of the many ways they failed, the actions which delivered less than expected results and how their experiences shaped their path. It essentially compresses decades of failures and mistakes and gives you the ideas which work, so that you don’t have to go through the same turmoil.

Ever since then, I have read books ranging from all sorts of subjects, be it on health, tech, food science, business, marketing, dating and relationships and even some fiction here and there.

Print Over Audiobooks

A little bit of disclaimer first: I am not a hardcore promoter of printed books. I personally find them a chore to carry around, and given my habit of making notes and highlighting important bits of text, I find it far too convenient to use kindle or any e-book reader application. Some of them like Amazon’s E-Reader even allow you to synchronize your notes across devices, without even needing to own a physical kindle device.

With that being said, Audiobooks also have a place of their own. But over the years I have realised that, at least for non-fiction books where I need to absorb information and ideas, to be taken action upon later, its much better to sit down and set aside dedicated time to read in a textual format.

It’s OKAY to not Finish a book

Sometimes you realise three chapters in that a book just isn’t for you, other times you lose interest, heck, sometimes you realise you already know most of what’s being covered. For each book that I list here for having finished, there are probably two or three more books which I picked up (or got gifted) that I didn’t bother finishing.

To give you one example of this, I was really inspired by David Goggins and the tough persona he has online and decided to pick up his book on audible. A few chapters in, I realised that while it was a good book, it was not for me. The themes covered and the repetitive nature of the chapters made me realise that I was already kind of doing okay on the toughness scale, and that there are better books to spend my time on. No hate for David Goggins, and most probably I will come back to this book sometime later, just couldn’t finish it this time.

Here’s a rundown of the books I have read this year. Note that these are the books that I finished more than 80% of at least (Most of them I have finished completely).

Finance

I Will Teach You To Be Rich | Amazon

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime| Amazon

Wealth Exposed: MJ Demarco| Amazon

Health and Fitness

Good Calories, Bad Calories | Amazon

The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook| Store Link

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman| Amazon

Human Psychology and Relations

How to Win Friends and Influence People| Amazon

Models: Mark Manson| Amazon

What Every Body is Saying| Amazon

Attached: the Science of Adult Attachment| Amazon

Business, Marketing and Productivity

The Indie Maker Handbook| Store Link

The 1-Page Marketing Plan| Amazon

The 4-Hour Workweek| Amazon

Zero To One| Amazon

Science

How the World Really Works| Amazon

Finance

Coffee Can Investing| Amazon

Creativity

Creative Confidence| Amazon

Wrapping Up

Hope you find some of the books listed here interesting and maybe you are now inspired to pick one of them yourself. Which were your favourite books to read this year? Let me know in the discussions 😁.

learning

My Book Recommendations from 2023