I read a lot. I always have. I have also always been an obsessive reader. As soon as I was old enough to read the Harry Potter books on my own, I started finishing them in a day. That was how I went on to read most of the books in my life: in one or two days.
Of course, 2020 was different because we spent nearly the entire year inside, I took I think ten graduate classes during the year, did ethnographic fieldwork, joined two honors programs, applied to PhDs, started writing a book, and still managed my day-to-day responsibilities as a wife, mother (to Igneous and Sed), family member, friend, and of course, a semi-sane self. I have had an intense year and made it all the more intense by doing as much as I could during that time.
My ability to do so is wholly because it helped me get through each day, which I recognize is not what everyone needs to get through this time. This is just my coping strategy.
That being said, I somehow managed to read 34 books on top of all of that.
Nonfiction – Lifestyle, productivity, popular science
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
You will love this book if: you find yourself running low on time, if you find yourself losing your day in your email inbox, on social media, or simply unable to get to the things that you want to in your day.
This was the first book I read of 2020 (before the pandemic). I can 100% say I want to, and will, read this again because I need a refresher.
Essentialism encourages us to identify the important, or essential, things and focus our attention on them and saying no to others. This shift in mentality allows us to put more effort into the necessary tasks in our lives and helps with prioritizing them. By reducing the number of things we do, books we read, or commitments we make, we can dedicate more to the ones we need to or have more free time to relax.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
You will love this book if: you are looking to alter some of your habits or build new ones. This is great for you if you have something you want to pursue in your life but always find a way to do something indulgent instead.
I know people rave about Atomic Habits by James Clear, and I enjoyed Atomic Habits as well. Maybe because I read the Power of Habit first it stuck with me more. But The Power of Habit explores how habits form and how we can rewire them based on the feelings of reward we get after completing a bad one.
The Power of Habit incorporates multiple narratives that illustrate how leaders and individuals change and build the habits that help them succeed.
Curation: The power of selection in a world of excess by Michael Bhaskar
You will love this book if: You are overwhelmed by the choices available or are interested in finding ways to help with decision making processes in the future for yourself or as a potential career.
Bhaskar takes the concept of curation, previously reserved for art collections and content and brings it into the everyday life where we can use it or observe it in our everyday lives. In coffee shops, the selection available can be curated, or selected based on what the shop wants to sell, featuring 6 specialty blends selected by specialized staff to contribute to the experience.
This sounds a bit pretentious, which Bhaskar acknowledges, but when we think about the overwhelming amount of options available to us, it is time-consuming, if not impossible, to make all of the best possible decisions without help. Instead, if we are presented with a narrower set of options, it can be easier for us to make decisions. This can be seen in the growing trend of capsule wardrobes or CEOs wearing a uniform.
Curation presents us with examples of companies that do this for us: Spotify with their playlists, Netflix with its recommendations, Social media platforms, Etaly. The list goes on. It would be impossible for one person to go through the growing number of products, services, and content available. These companies help to do it for us. Bhaskar argues that this curation is the answer.
4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
You will love this book if: You aren’t sure the regular 9-5 is for you.
I do not often laugh out loud when I read. But the opening to this book was amazing. Tim Ferriss’s writing is really engaging and has me convinced I can do anything I want to in life. This was one of my most recommended books of 2020.
4-Hour Workweek takes the traditional understanding that we work for 40-60 years, make a bunch of money, then travel and spend a bunch of money later in life and flips it on its head.
Ferriss offers a roadmap on creating a business that can almost operate itself to provide you with enough of an income to allow you to pursue your different interests at any age.
Nudge: Improving Decisions by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
You will love this book if: you are interested in science exploring human decision-making and the different ways it can be applied on a business/policy-level.
If you knew of a way to influence everyone in the world’s behavior to help them be 1% healthier without them knowing about it would you do it? Is that ethical?
Nudge explores how the findings of different experiments about human decision-making as well has how it can be applied to improve overall well being.
Fun fact: I found out after reading this book that one of the authors is a kind of mentor to Jesse’s boss. So I am only 2 1/2 – 3 degrees of separation from him, which is pretty cool.
Blink: The power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
You will love this book if: you love engaging writing that distills complex ideas into a more digestible narrative form. Also if you are interested in human decision-making processes
I always love reading Malcolm Gladwell (I say after fininshing my second of his books). He is an author I am trying to read a book from at least every year because I have an idea of what to expect and I lived Blink almost as much as I loved Outliers.
Blink discusses how our snap judgements and first impressions are often more correct than we thought.
Brilliantly Written Narratives
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
You will love this book if: you love classic literature, if you have ever felt like you were on the outside looking in, or if you want
I am almost ashamed to say it has taken me this long to read Frankenstein. But it was a fun read for a million reasons, one being of course Mary Shelley is an exceptional writer who captures the pain of being an outsider so well. Also, I listened to an episode on the Lore podcast that talked about her father that made this even more interesting. So if you love this book, I recommend that episode.
Something else that is brilliant about this is how she came to write it. While staying in a castle with her fellow romantic writers, Percy Bysshe Shelley (her husband), Lord Byron, and John Polidori, they had a competition to see who could write the best scary story. She wrote Frankenstein for that competition.
Another reason is shortly after finishing this, we had to drive through Switzerland in winter so I could imagine the world where part of this was happening.
Frankenstein is not the story many people think it is. If you have not read this book, just read it.
In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio by Philippe Bourgois
You will love this book if: you are interested in real-life challenges and inequalities within the US. If you enjoy well-written narratives that deal with heavy subjects.
Bourgois’s beautifully-written monograph follows the daily lives of drug dealers in East Harlem. Through his relationships, he and his participants discuss the challenges faced by street drug dealers in finding legal work that did not challenge their sense of self.
Bourgois discusses the structural challenges, particularly racial and economic, that make returning to dealing and living off of social support systems more economically beneficial choices than keeping a legal job.
Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil by Nancy Scheper-Hughes
You will love this book if: You love beautiful writing and can handle narratives about the true horrors of hunger.
Scheper-Hughes presents the inciteful, beautifully written account of the hunger of the residents of a contemporary plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata in Northestern Brazil. She describes the way their hunger plays out in their everyday lives and is medicalized but not resolved.
Her writing honors the weight of the subject matter but writes with a connection that encourages you to read on because these stories need to be heard.
Book I Read for Class but are Worth Reading
Anthropology off the Shelf edited by Alisse Waterson and Maria D. Vesperi
You will love this book if: you are interested in reading about other people’s experiences about writing.
This book is not heavily anthropological. It is a very accessible read for anyone where writing is part of their job. It is a collection of articles written by established anthropologists about their experiences writing and publishing their work and the challenges that arise. These established professors write about not knowing what to write about, not having time to write, the challenges of publication, and how external factors can influence writing among many more essential topics for any writer.