A Note on Book Reviews
I am guilty of scouring the best seller lists on Amazon, and Goodreads(now owned by Amazon) to find the best rated books to read. I’d spend hours scouring those lists, combing through books that have thousands of reviews. If a book has an above 4-star average rating on Goodreads, surely that means I’ll like it, right?
In pre-covid days, I’d use my phone inside Barnes and Noble to lookup reviews of books in-store.
I’d agonize over a handful of 1-star contrarian reviews on a book everyone else has raved about in hundreds of 5-star reviews.
I would let other peoples opinions determine if I should read a book or not, not caring very much about what the book was about as long as it was within my preferred genre.
It’s an exhausting process.
My new process is much simpler: if the book looks interesting, I read it.
If it’s a New York Times bestseller, great.
If it’s not, also great.
What matters is what I think about it. And if the book turns out to be crap, who cares?
With that frame of reference, here are my 4 favorite books from this year, split evenly between for-business books and for-fun books.
Business Books
Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
Writing well is the most important skill anyone can develop. Good writing is clear, concise, and often persuasive.
Good writing isn’t limited to just blog posts, it’s an email, it’s a Slack message, its a thank you card.
In business, good writing can be the difference between your idea being actioned on or ignored. It can be the difference maker in how you’re perceived and recognized at work.
Like most skills, few people are born amazing writers. Thankfully we have folks like Ann Handley to help us get there.
This book is split into 6 parts:
- How To Write Better
- Grammar and Usage (dry but important)
- Story Rules & Publishing Rules
- Things Marketers Write (e.g. writing for email, writing for LinkedIn)
- Content Tools
It’s not meant to be read in one sitting. Instead it should be digested slowly over time and used as a reference book.
I have it next to me now as I write this post, and not because I’m writing about it.
It’s become my permanent writing companion.
Buy Everybody Writes on Amazon
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan
I’m obsessed with learning everything there is to know about a given topic. I’ll dive deep into new hobbies, like playing guitar, programming, or lawn maintenance.
I am the typical lone-wolf. I can do everything myself and don’t need your stinkin' help.
This is also true in my professional career. My first instinct is to figure out how I can do something myself, because in my head it’s faster to figure it out rather than involve other people.
I’m learning this is the wrong approach. I can’t do everything myself and it’s detrimental to my goals.
I now manage a team of 8 people at work. A mix of full-time employees and contractors.
I don’t have time to do everything by myself. And I wouldn’t be a very good manager if I did.
Who Not How isn’t a book about traditional management, but I’m applying its lessons to that aspect of my career.
It’s about finding the right who to get the job done. In fact, the author isn’t the originator of the idea. He’s writing on-behalf of Dr. Ben Hardy.
Who Not How is Dr. Hardy’s idea, but he wasn’t the right person to write the book about it. Dan Sullivan is Dr. Hardy’s who.
The book teaches you why finding whos can help you achieve your goals in a better, faster, and more accountable way than doing it yourself.
It’s helped transform my approach to management and doing all the things I want to do.
Even if you’re not a lone-wolf like me it’s still a valuable way to reframe your approach to getting stuff done.
For-Fun Books
I don’t read business books for fun. I read them to learn how to be a better writer, marketer, and manager. I read them to help grow my skills so I can grow my career.
I can’t read business books all the time. Often I’m reading a business book at the same time as I’m reading something for fun.
Not literally at the same exact time, but during the same time period.
Fiction books are my pallet cleanser between heavy business books.
These are two of my favorite fiction books of the year.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
I don’t often read straight fiction. My preference is usually towards fantasy or science-fiction.
This time I purposely sought a regular fiction book. No dragons or space travel here.
Anxious People is a story about a group of strangers that get trapped in an open-house showing by a bank robber. The house overlooks a bridge, and as the story unfolds we learn about each of the characters, their histories and anxieties, and how they have more in common than they thought.
And we also learn why the bridge is important.
It’s fantastic. It has enough twists and turns to stay interesting without becoming a confusing and complicated British spy novel. The characters are deeply written and the dialogue is legit funny.
A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik
This blurb from Amazon says it best:
…the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.
A darker, female-centric, Harry Potter-esque novel full of magic and mystery, based in a school. Except the students are trapped, and monsters roam the halls.
Instead of the usual celebratory graduation with speeches and thrown hats, seniors have to fight for their lives as they escape. Monsters gather in the graduation hall all year, and students spend all their time learning and practicing magic in order to survive.
I won’t say anything else to avoid spoilers, but I really enjoyed this one. The second one comes out this June.