Books I'm reading
January 2023
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My friend Ashutosh texted me and asked what books I’m reading right now so I figured I’d answer him with a blog post so that I can share with you all.
Side note: Ashutosh is a wonderful, thoughtful human being and I recommend that you check out his company Sunsama. I’ve been a customer for several years now and love it.
How I read
“Finishing books is a vanity metric.” —Naval Ravikant
The way I read non-fiction books is by flipping around to what’s interesting and skipping over the stuff I’ve already encountered. I might have 50 random books on my Kindle that I’m reading at once.
This isn’t the case for fiction. I’ll give a fiction book maybe 50-100 pages before moving on to something else. Life is too short to read books that don’t do anything for you.
Here’s what I’m reading
“The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin, the legendary music producer. This is the kind of book that I would write. I am loving this book because he says that everyone is an artist, that everyone can create. We just need to change our perceptions about what art is and tune into Source.
“Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story” by Jim Holt. For me, this one is a page turner. It seeks to answer the deepest question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? I’ve been thinking about this question since I was a little boy and it has greatly fascinated me. Jim Holt brings in old and new perspectives from philosophers, religious teachers, physicists, comedians, and many more.
“A People’s History of The United States” by Howard Zinn. I’m finally getting around to reading this book—it’s beautifully written. [Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of - and in the words of - America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles - the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality - were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.] This has transformed the way I think about American history and helped me empathize with everyone who has contributed to this wild experiment.
“Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class” by Catherine Liu. The elite workers of the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) operate in a world where they publicly display their ability to perform ordinary tasks in exceptional ways, through performative identity and virtue signaling. Some of the ideas in this book aren’t totally fleshed out but I’m having a good time trying to understand.
“Daily Rituals: How Artists Work” by Mason Currey. This one is fascinating because it walks us through the daily rituals for many artists throughout history and ultimately reveals that there isn’t a “right” way to work. Oftentimes the way people do their best work seems completely crazy to others. It features people like Karl Marx, Woody Allen, Agatha Christie, George Balanchine, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Pablo Picasso, Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky.
I highly recommend all of these books so I urge you to check them out. Let me know if you pick one up and read it—would love to discuss!
