A couple days ago I published an article entitled The Best Non-Fiction Books of 2023. If you'd like to check that out you can do so here. But I believe reading fiction is just as important as reading non-fiction. And it's awesome! I get just as inspired reading a good story as learning something new. Check out the list below!
By now all the Christmas presents have been opened and hopefully you've had some good R n' R with family and friends. Did you get any books? Hopefully you did, but if you've got some Christmas cash or gift cards burning a hole in your pocket and you want to know what to read check the list below. There are books on learning better, some history, science, psychology, and memoirs. There's sure to be something to whet your appetite for learning and knowing more about the big wide world we're living in.
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by veteran biographer Walter Isaacson, covers a multitude of areas related to the exciting field of gene editing. Although not strictly a biography of Dr. Jennifer Doudna, the book does center on the Nobel prize-winning biochemist and continually returns to her story as she and her lab worked to discover and engineer a system that can perform genome editing.
It's inspiring, action-packed, and gives an expert historical perspective of the least known Special Operations community that is the incredible group known as Air Force Combat Controllers. But it also includes the complexities and lessons of the cautionary tale that Operation Anaconda would become.
Although I rarely spend an entire day just reading, I would happily do so if I didn’t have other things I want to accomplish. Once upon a time, I had to force myself to read, like a kid who doesn’t want to take his medicine. Now, it’s one of my favorite things to do. Sometimes a reward at the end of the day. And nearly always the first thing I do every morning.
David Epstein's book is solidly grounded in the non-fantastical real world. It makes the case that people who have experience in a number of different areas (generalists) have some advantage(s) over those with deep expertise in a single field (specialists). This is the case even as many career fields insist that their professionals get ever more and more hyper-specialized. This can cause those specialists to miss new ideas or connections to other fields which would have been beneficial.
What I like about the advice given in Essentialism is that it isn't some trite quick fix. Instead, it seeks to give the reader a foundation for determining what is actually worth devoting time and energy toward. Spoiler- not most things. If you've been into the self-improvement niche for a while, you've probably heard the phrase, "If you don't decide what to do with your life, someone else will" or some variation of this. But how many of us continue to say yes to our boss, our friends, etc when offered yet another project, another "opportunity", another activity?
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I have 30-50 minute commute to and from work everyday. During that drive I like to draw inspiration from a number of different sources, to include talk radio, music, and audiobooks. I typically pick something that’s not just going to be fun to listen to, but that’s going to put me in the right mindset to perform and achieve my goals at work and in life in general. To that end, the medium I keep coming back to most often are podcasts. What a great option to explore all kinds of topics, from health and fitness, to productivity to understanding how we learn! I LOVE PODCASTS.
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