Looking through my book list from 2019, it’s interesting to remember where I was when reading each of these titles, what was happening in my life that drew me to certain books. Some I read in a climbing gym in Basel, others while working to open Barcode’s first show in Prague. Eiger Dreams sent me to the mountains, Deep Work had me buried in a notebook in Paris with the electronics off and stuffed under a pillow in the other room.
Whatever book I’m currently reading colors how I see the world, some for longer than others. These were the stand-out titles that swept me up and stayed with me, ones I found myself recommending and talking about throughout the year.
You can find the full list of books I read throughout 2019 and whatever rough notes I jotted down about them below these top seven, stars indicate that I liked them. The top 7 were, in retrospect, the most powerful to me, but the rest of the starred books are worth a peruse. Feel free to check out 2018’s list, and to send me your top recommendations for me to read in 2020!
Top Seven
How to change your mind- Michael Pollan
Fantastic, albeit dense. A history and exploration of natural psychedelics, both from the authors’ perspective and first hand experience with the drugs and thorough research into the people that pioneered them, their place in different societies, studies done on them and governments’ relationships with the drugs. Thoroughly researched, a great journey. LSD therapy was the most successful cure for alcoholism at one point, and more… Highly recommended, and makes me want to try psychedelics. Found on the NYT top 10 list of 2018.
American Prisons- Shane Bauer
Terrific. A journalist goes undercover in an American private prison for a number of months; reports on his experiences, alternating chapters with the history of American slavery and how it evolved into the private prison system under the 13th amendment. Highly recommended. Check out the documentary 13th for more on the same theme.
The Anatomy of Story- John Truby
Great. A “how to” for telling stories (in this case, specifically, through writing screenplays), but dives into telling organic-feeling stories (as opposed to rote, 3 act structures and hero’s journey structures), analyzing motivations, character change, obstacles, opponents, steps necessary for satisfying story. Check out the Youtube Channel Lessons From the Screenplay for a some great references and lessons from the book- if you like that you’ll probably like the book. That said, I’m currently working on writing my own book while reading this one, so I have a lot to think about and actively do while reading. Maybe reading this book in the abstract it would be less satisfying than if you actively have a project at hand you’re looking for tools to help you with.
Eiger Dreams- Jon Krakauer
A collection of articles on mountains and men by the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. Needless to say, introspective, playful, extremely well written and insightful, every last piece. Each article is an escape into the overlapping worlds of high altitude climbing, risk, being stuck in a tent for weeks on end, piloting climbers to inaccessible faces in small airplanes, and more. A series of quick, enjoyable reads, highly recommended.
The Overstory- Richard Powers
Fantastic. The “story” takes a while to get growing, so it doesn’t really start pulling you through until about halfway, but the words are always beautiful and powerful…. the whole novel is based on trees and feels a lot like living with a powerful, gorgeous ancient tree for the time it takes you to read it. It’s not always in action, sometimes it’s just there… but it’s always interesting, and smarter and older than you are. I’m not doing it justice. It’s a great, poetic read, about a subject that’s important. Fresh.
Deep Work- Cal Newport
Biggest kick in the pants yet this year, as if written for anyone that feels overwhelmed with how to produce quality work when constantly burgeoned with responsibilities (emails) that don’t feel significantly important enough to give a sense of accomplishment, yet feel constantly necessary and impossible to ignore. How can you cultivate a habit of doing important, quality work? This book is about developing this habit, both the act itself and all the other contributing factors and habits that we have in this age of distraction that can hurt your ability to focus deeply on something important to you. Highly recommended. (Fun side note- when I started reading this book I read both it and Hangdog Days in under a week, both over 250 pages. It lights a fire.)
Digital Minimalism- Cal Newport
In this follow up to his second book, Deep Work, Newport examines our relationship with technology outside of work. He proposes a philosophy/ life strategy of being critical to adapting technologies just because they might have “some benefit”, and to remain wary of the tricks that that the companies that profit off of their users’ attention deploy to keep them stuck to their screen. He proposes strategies to minimize our “low quality leisure time” and to replace it with “high quality leisure time”, and proposes that this will lead to a better life through historical and philosophical arguments along the way. An easy read that feels relevant, engaging, useful, motivating and satisfying. Highly recommended.
Full List from 2019, Chronologically
1. Paris to the Moon- Adam Gopnik.
A collection of essays on living in Paris as an expat in the late 90’s early 2000’s. Solid, observant and charming writing, for the most part on interesting subjects, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was reading a bunch of back issues of the New Yorker on subjects I might not normally choose to read about (French politics, mostly). My mom said she loved it since we were living in France during that time period so it felt very relevant and nostalgic to her, I, however, was 12 at the time and didn’t relate much. Worth a read if you’re interested in Paris.
2. Training for Climbing- Eric Horst.
Technical book about training for climbing. Exercises to do, injury prevention and recognition, training scheduling, cross training, nutrition. A good book to make you think about how you train anything, really, how to be productive in your training by taking a conscious, scientific approach to it. Fairly lengthy, but if you’re looking to improve your climbing I have to think this will help more than just climbing occasionally, which is what I’ve been doing for the last many years without much substantial improvement. Learning about the neural systems definitely convinced me to be more methodical on attempts at new problems (giving yourself 3-5 minute rests between attempts so that the ATP can recharge, otherwise you’re going to be going again with sub-maximal power in the system in your hands that can produce the strongest grip). Also talks about improving technique over strength for quicker gains and gives exercises to practice. Also, fnigerboarding, etc. A solid book for a very specific subject.
3.****How to change your mind- Michael Pollan.
Fantastic, albeit dense. A history and exploration of natural psychedelics, both from the authors’ perspective and first hand experience with the drugs and thorough research into the people that pioneered them, their place in different societies, studies done on them and governments’ relationships with the drugs. Thoroughly researched, a great journey. LSD therapy was the most successful cure for alcoholism at one point, and more… Highly recommended, and makes me want to try psychedelics. Found on the NYT top 10 list of 2018.
4. ** There There- Tommy Orange.
Hits you hard in the way good fiction can that non-fiction can’t. The emotion and the dialect and the sense of ‘being there’ that can be hard to convey or can feel “improper” in non-fiction; but while still throwing in a lot of history and facts you probably didn’t know anyways. Great characters, an intertwined plot that’s tricky, but every character is distinctive enough that you can keep track of it with a little effort but not a strain. Really strong, a great read. NYT Fiction of the Year top 10 2018.
5. *****American Prisons- Shane Bauer.
Terrific. A journalist goes undercover in an American private prison for a number of months; reports on his experiences, alternating chapters with the history of American slavery and how it evolved into the private prison system under the 13th amendment. Highly recommended. Check out the documentary 13th for more on the same theme.
6. **Washington Black- Esi Edugyan.
Winding, speculative, melancholic. A slave boy is smuggled away and given freedom by an eccentric scientist in a hot air balloon; they travel and he tries to understand his uneasy freedom, the contrast between it and his history, the way men struggle between their best and worst impulses, how we can’t know others’ motivations. Very good.
7. 10 Rules of Writing- Elmore Leonard.
Don’t know that I can even count this as a book, there’s hardly enough words to even qualify it as an article. 5 Minute read, mostly illustrations. Don’t buy it, but if you happen to be in the writing section of the library or bookstore, worth a peruse.
8. Good to Great- Jim Collins.
“Why some companies make the leap… and others don’t.” Basically Jim and his colleagues studied 11 companies that met the criteria “good to great”- they followed the stock market average for 15 years, then beat it by more then 3.5x for 15 years. There were further criteria (publicly traded in the US, etc), but basically it gave them a snapshot of what changed in companies to make this transition from good to great. Level 5 leaders (basically, humble but great leaders that want to make the company better, even after they’re gone), The Hedgehog Concept (find a concept that you’re passionate about, is in your economic engine, and that you can be the best at; then reduce everything that’s not that. This concept gives some room for leeway since they all have different concepts, so it’s a bit of a catch all, but they do well to back it up; and they didn’t set out looking for these traits, they came out of the research), A culture of discipline (get the right people on the bus in the right seats and the wrong people off the bus- because everyone there is there for a reason, and they are all guided by the hedgehog concept there is little need for a disciplinarian), Technology Accelerators (technology can accelerate this, but is not a key factor), The Flywheel (keep pushing forward, one revolution at a time in the direction of your hedgehog concept, and it’ll gain momentum). The one thing I question of all these sorts of books is if there was another way to measure success than the stock market; but even Patagonia, a company I admire, admits that if they’re not profitable they’re not going to be doing much good for long. An interesting read; maybe you could find a summary online if you want to go deeper.
9. Sweet Thursday- John Steinbeck.
Happy to read Steinbeck, I think I heard a quote about Hooptedoodle of his in Reading like a Writer, and I was in the mood for a novel. After that, this didn’t do a lot for me. Fun little story, fun characters in a funny little universe, but can’t say I took a lot away from it.
10. *Educated- Tara Westover.
Hard read because of the subject, but very good. Hard for a long time, shocking, and as she becomes her own woman you’re so thankful, yet still so amazed the power of a controlling, gaslighting family can have over such an amazing mind. We all want to be proud of our parents. Important to understand her life growing up to see what she had to struggle to get over, I would have liked even more in the second half, as she becomes a more independent thinker. Really interesting to see an extreme example of how families (or small groups, communities, whatever) influence each other, and the sometimes illogical math we use to justify our need for their love/support/ vindication/ acceptance, even of people that hurt us. I listened to this one as an audiobook, I’d recommend it.
11. There Are No Children Here- Alex Kotlowitz
True story of the life of one family growing up in the projects in Chicago in the 80’s. Not much of a “story” since it was really just following their lives, specifically the children’s, but a good portrait of life in a very hard situation and the seeming inescapability of it. Over the course of the books the children see shootings, wrongful arrests, and are even themselves given records for crimes they did not commit at under 14 years of age. It offers no solutions; it is a picture of a time and situation not so long ago that probably still exists in a number of similar guises today.
12. Climbing Free- Lynn Hill
Autobiography of one of the great women climbers of the 80’s and 90’s (and of all time). Hill talks about her experiences in sport climbing, freeing the Nose on El Capitan, references to a woman’s experience in a male dominated climbing world, a bunch of friends that died along the way. Seems like a positive, driven woman that did a lot of incredible things. A good read.
***13. The Anatomy of Story- John Truby
Great. A “how to” tell stories (in this case, specifically, through writing screenplays), but dives into telling organic-feeling stories (as opposed to wrote, 3 act structures and hero’s journey structures), analyzing motivations, character change, obstacles, opponents, steps necessary for satisfying story. Check out the Youtube Channel Lessons From the Screenplay for a some great references and lessons from the book- if you like that you’ll probably like the book. That said, I’m currently working on writing my own book while reading this one, so I have a lot to think about and actively do while reading. Maybe reading this book in the abstract it would be less satisfying than if you actively have a project at hand you’re looking for tools to help you with.
14. Upstream- Mary Oliver
Pulitzer Prize winning poet’s book of selected essays. Not really an autobiography, more of a collection of short pieces about her life, mainly involving nature. Lovely, poetic writing. Reads like a walk in the woods.
15. To Shake the Sleeping Self- Jedidiah Jenkins
On his thirtieth birthday Jed rides a bicycle from Oregon, USA to Patagonia. At the time of deciding to this, he didn’t even own a bike. A good travel story, with insightful moments to the truth of travel and how it makes you feel that hit home with me, being a traveller myself. Besides the travel we also see Jed grapple with his faith and homosexuality as the main themes of the book. I wouldn’t recommend it over Jupiter’s Travels; but it felt like a younger generation attempting, and sometimes succeeding, at thoughtful travel writing in the same vein. It felt weird to have these insightful moments next to words like “dude” and “instagram”; but it also felt honest. A good read.
****16. Eiger Dreams- Jon Krakauer
A collection of articles on mountains and men by the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. Needless to say, introspective, playful, extremely well written and insightful, every last one of them. Each article is an escape into the intersecting worlds of high altitude climbing, risk, being stuck in a tent for weeks on end, piloting climbers to inaccessible faces, and more. A series of quick, enjoyable reads, highly recommended.
17. Never Split the Difference- Chris Voss
Negotiating advice from a former head of international hostage negotiations for the FBI. When you have hostages you can’t “split the difference” with the hostage taker- “you take half and I take half.” A fun and interesting read, focusing the stories on his time in the FBI, but also anecdotes about business situations, buying a car, and more. A good read, especially for a “business-y” book.
18. Give and Take- Adam Grant
“Why Helping Others Drives our Success”. A nice contrast to the last book about negotiating- in this one Grant argues that the most successful (and happy) people are the ones that give freely without expecting anything in return, more than the “takers” or the “matchers”. There are some caveats so as not to become a ‘doormat’, but otherwise it seems like a good philosophy for life. Rather than a “get the biggest possible piece of the pie” mindset, Grant advocates for a “make the pie bigger for everyone” mindset. A decent read, although like most books of this type a summary would probably get you to the same place just as well. But it was nice while reading to be constantly put in a mindset of seeing how you could help those around you. Decent.
19. Drawn, The Art of Ascent- Jeremy Collins
“A graphic adventure narrative that delves into why we pursue the wild outdoors.” Kind of an illustrated journal of Jeremy’s climbs- to the North, South, East and West. Atypical, and not quite as good a writer as Krakauer, but he doesn’t try to be, and doesn’t fill up a book with useless purple prose as some climbers have done. Instead, Collins plays to his strengths and delivers fun excerpts, enough to get the adventure and make you want to keep turning the pages, all scribbled or typed over beautiful drawings and photographs. Really feels like diving into your extremely creative friends’ journal which also happens to be concise and cohesive. A nice little thing.
20. Advanced Rockcraft- Royal Robins
More good stuff from Royal, the heart of which is found in his musings on ethics and style. “With the best equipment in the world, the man with poor judgement is in mortal danger, whereas he who has sound judgement is safe with nothing but tennis shoes because he will not venture beyond the limits of his equipment and capabilities.
“If we are keenly alert and aware of the rock and what we are doing on it, if we are honest with ourselves about our capabilities and weaknesses, if we avoid committing ourselves beyond what we know is safe, then we will climb safely. For climbing is an exercise in reality. He who sees it clearly is on safe ground, regardless of his experience or skill. But he who sees reality as he would like it to be, maybe have his illusions rudely stripped from his eyes when the ground comes up fast.
“We are, of course, all mixtures of sanity and folly, of clear vision and murky romanticism. Such conflicts are the mark of the human condition. And we climb because we are human. The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength. We wouldn’t touch rock if we were perfectly self-controlled. And he who would climb and live must continuously wage this battle and never let folly win. It’s an outrageously demanding proposition. But I never said it would be easy.”
Royal Robins
21. Buried in the Sky- Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan
“The extraordinary story of the Sherpa climbers on K2’s deadliest day”. This is the story of the day 11 climbers died on K2, of about 30 that attempted the peak. Apparently western media covering the accident largely ignored the story of the Sherpas that were climbing with the foreigners, this book spends nearly the first half of the book talking uniquely about their backgrounds and the history of sherpa-ing. The second half of the book talks about the climb itself, which is a terrifying cascade of errors that resulted in eleven climbers losing their lives. The first half, having no real narrative but instead jumping around from sherpa to sherpa is interesting but disjointed, the second half is a riveting, fast paced read. A good story.
22. High Crimes- Michael Kodas
“The fate of Everest in an age of greed.” Kodas was a journalist that took an expedition on Everest and along the way saw a lot more of humanity’s dark nature on the mountain than he had expected. While it would be easy to write off his unsuccessful summit bid as bitterness (and it reads a little like that), it is still a well investigated story into much of the evil that the mountain has attracted- theft, broken promises, inexperienced guides, corruption, etc. An interesting story, although except for a few highlights it misses a lot of what makes adventure stories fun to read- that is to say, noble, selfless acts and heroics. Still, I read it quickly and it was a good reminder that often the best adventure is the one you choose rather than the one many people say you “have to do/ see”. A broad perspective into the mountaineering world and how some of the more expensive operations have to end up bailing out the cheaper expeditions, and what those cheaper expeditions really look like. I would start with Eiger Dreams or something by Chouinard, but if you’ve read them all then this is still an interesting read.
23. The Weekend Millionaire’s Secrets to Investing in Real Estate- Karlton H. Sheets
Pretty standard title in the real estate section of the library (we pulled out another one called “Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Investor” by a different author). Basically it’s advocating sound principles of Buy and Hold (and rent), plus creative ways to finance deals. A good primer on real estate investing, and at least for me, interesting to see how the price of the house is not the only thing that determines what makes a good buy (he compares different rates of financing with different prices to show that your ROI and out of pocket expenses can be the same with a variety of different ways to structure a deal). Nothing special.
24. BRRRR- Buy, Rehab, Rend, Refinance, Repeat- David Greene
What the title says, a real estate strategy for long term wealth broken down. Felt detailed and thorough; I guess I’ll see when I actually start the process of buying a house, but it definitely feels good to start by being armed by a lot of solid information.
****25. The Overstory- Richard Powers
Fantastic. The “story” takes a while to get growing, so it didn’t start pulling me through until about halfway, but the words were always beautiful and powerful enough that I didn’t worry about it…. the whole novel is based on trees and feels a lot like living with a powerful, gorgeous ancient tree for the time it takes you to read it. It’s not always in action, sometimes it’s just there… but it’s interesting, and smarter and older than you are. I’m not doing it justice. It’s a great, poetic read, about a subject that’s important. Fresh.
26. The Nickel Boys- Colson Whitehead
Ok. A story of a brutal “reform” school for black boys. Based on true accounts, but it feels like in terms of story he didn’t do much except write them out, the plot opens one door and quickly closes it. So it’s a fast read, but I feel like the episodes could have pulled you through a bit more, or a bit more cohesion could have given the book more sense. But maybe that’s the point. There wasn’t a lot of sense to what was going on, and is still going, with racism in the US. It just happened and for the people it happened to, they just had to get through it. This one ended up on a lot of top book lists for 2019.
27. Hangdog Days- Jeff Smoot
A history of climbing in the US, primarily the scene in Yosemite and the old school traditionalists and their ethics vs the new wave of sport climbing tactics (hang-dogging, rappel bolting, etc). Some fun stories, but mostly a lot of controversy over an issue that has since found some sort of equilibrium. I would recommend Valley Uprising (the movie) over this book, as it covers a lot of the same ground but you get to watch people climb. If you’re really into the history of the US climbing scene from the 50’s onwards, this book gets into the weeds of it. If you just want to read some good climbing writing, go with something by Krakauer instead. Chouinard also talks about the ethics of climbing in a way that feels more interesting and less niche.
****28. Deep Work- Cal Newport
Biggest kick in the pants yet this year, as if written for anyone that feels overwhelmed with how to produce quality work when constantly burgeoned with responsibilities (emails) that don’t feel significantly important to give a sense of accomplishment, but yet feel constantly necessary and still impossible to ignore. How can you cultivate a habit to do important, quality work? This book is about developing this habit, both the act itself and all the other contributing factors and habits that we have in this age of distraction that can hurt your ability to focus deeply on something important to you. Highly recommended. (Fun side note- when I started reading this book I read both it and Hangdog Days in under a week, both over 250 pages. It lights a fire.)
*29. This is Not a Drill- An Extinction Rebellion Handbook
A series of short essays by members of the Extinction Rebellion, climate justice movement started in England. Through two parts (Part One- Tell the Truth, and Part Two: Act Now), activists share stories of what is currently happening around the world. Firefighters, indigenous people, politicians, activists that have been arrested, scientists, organizers and more. Despite all of this I’m still not sure what to do to help, specifically (5 quick tricks to save the planet!), but it’s a good reminder to get your ass in gear and starting figuring out a way to do better than we’re currently doing.
*30. The Name of the Wind- Patrick Rothfuss
I’ve read this one already but wanted some fantasy after the last run of nonfiction, and this is a great escape. Magic, bards, adventures…. good fun.
*31. A Wise Man’s fear- Patrick Rothfuss
Book two after Name of the Wind, real fun. Rumor has it that the third and final book is (finally) coming out this year, as well as movies, TV shows, etc. Get on the book train before you have to watch the compromises. My one quibble with this series is despite it being about a 15-17 year old boy, it can feel heavy-handed on the character’s interest in women and all their curves etc. Otherwise a very fun story, excited for the final book to come out.
*32. The Man Who Planted Trees- Jim Robbins
A man has a vision to clone and plant some of the world’s oldest trees, the “Champion Trees”. He figures their resilience might have something to do with their genetics being stronger, and we’ll need all the trees we can get in the coming climate crisis. Jim Robins, NYT journalist, is an eloquent guide that takes us through David Milarch’s (the man who planted trees) vision and journey as well as giving brief overviews of many different types of trees and their beneficial properties. A quick, engaging read, recommended.
*33. Some Stories- Yvon Chouinard
Beautiful book, beautiful stories, a beautiful life. If you haven’t already, go read Let My People Go Surfing. This is a nice follow up- more of Yvon’s rough and tumble life and inspiring photos to go with it, all in his simple, grounded style of storytelling. Recommended.
*34. Range- David Epstein
“Why generalists triumph in a specialized world”. Kind of the antithesis to the 10,000 hours rule that has been trotted out so many times, basically saying that that rule makes for a tidy bit of advice, but most success stories come from people that change often and follow a myriad of passions that allow them to put the pieces together and make connections beyond their individual thin “trench” of knowledge. Certainly more hopeful advice than “just pick one thing and do it for an insane amount of time.” Although that is undeniably part of getting very good at stuff too. A good read.
****35. Digital Minimalism- Cal Newport
In this follow up on his second book, Deep Work, Newport examines our relationship with technology outside of work. He proposes a philosophy/ life strategy of being critical to adapt technologies just because they might have some benefit, wary of the tricks that that the companies that profit off of their users’ attention deploy to keep them there. He proposes strategies to minimize our “low quality leisure time” and to replace it with “high quality leisure time”, and shares historical and philosophical arguments along the way that this will lead to a better life. An easy read that feels engaging, useful, motivating and satisfying. Highly recommended.
36. The Uninhabitable Earth- David Wallace-Wells
“It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible.” So reads the inside jacket of The Uninhabitable Earth, and it delivers on its promise, breaking down all the dangers and how climate change will exacerbate them by chapter: Heat death, hunger, plagues, unbreathable air, climate conflict, etc. The second section of the book talks about why it’s hard for us to deal with climate change: our storytelling, our relationship with capitalism and technology, etc. It’s not an uplifting book, or a particularly hopeful one, but it’s well written and works as a call to immediate action. For a sample, he has an article by the same name as the title out since a few years available online somewhere.