My stats tell me this was a bad reading year. I read less books than I have in any other year I’ve tracked. I read 20 less books than last year. I’ll explain why I’m okay with this below, but first I’d like to highlight my favorite reads:
My 3 favorite books
Middlemarch by George Eliot: Reading Middlemarch felt like watching a top-tier HBO series—full of intersecting storylines, richly drawn characters, and enough thematic depth to reward multiple re-reads.
Fortune’s Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt, by Arthur T. Vanderbilt: How the Vanderbilt family lost their tremendous fortune. I liked this for a few reasons. First, the story itself is fascinating, involving the most expensive house ever built, fights between “old money” and “new money,” and many affairs. It also has lots on human nature: how money and “things” cannot create happiness (and often destroy it), how “keeping up with the Joneses” can be ruinous. Finally, as a financial history, it was interesting in that they didn’t lose their money to a Ponzi scheme or bad investments - they simply spent way too much ($500 million on a summer home, of which two-thirds were for the imported marble).
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen: A minute-by-minute account of what would happen if a country launched a nuclear missile at the United States. In her estimation, the world would end: while the original attack would cause tremendous damage, any response would lead to additional responses and “preventative” attacks from additional countries. You can’t really “shoot down” nuclear weapons and given their speed, governments have minutes to make decisions. Most large cities in the world would be nuked and any survivors would envy the dead. I spent a lot of time thinking about this book and reading arguments against it. Most of the counter-arguments are effectively “nuclear war is very unlikely to ever happen, so this is all hypothetical. And we need nuclear weapons for deterrence.” While these might be true, the fact remains that any use of nuclear weapons would be really, really bad for everyone on the planet.
Other books I enjoyed but didn’t write about
Hits and Misses: Stories by Simon Rich: Short story collection. I found myself laughing out loud multiple times
The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems - and What to Do about It by Bob Cross and Karen Dillon: “Microstresses” are small moments of stress that compound and build. Somebody sends you an unpleasant email at work, which stays on your mind after you leave for the day. As a result, you are impatient with your kids at home…which makes your spouse mad at you. I thought this book captured the stress of modern life - juggling work, family, and some semblance of time for yourself - well. The authors offer a few concrete suggestions:
Eliminate microstresses: Reduce time with draining people and say no to unwanted commitments
Be aware of the chain: Microstresses multiply when we pass them on to others. When we avoid doing this, but make life much easier for ourselves and those around us
Embrace dimensionality: Cultivate multiple meaningful areas in life (friends, hobbies, religious activities) to buffer against daily stressors. The authors found that people with multiple dimensions to their life dealt better with these stresses, as they were able to “rise above” and get out of the day-to-day. To reduce stress, some people trying working more, reasoning that they’ll be able to stay more on top of their to-dos and not fall behind. I’ve noticed this can back-fire: as work becomes a larger part of your life, you become more sensitive to any hiccup or stress it causes.
Why I read less books this year
Halfway through the year, I read How to Read a Book, which challenges people to read books that are “out of their league” and a bit hard. Reading for information, the authors asset, doesn’t stretch your mind or make it grow, but simply makes it “fuller of facts.”
I decided to take on the challenge and have been primarily reading “Great Books” since then. These usually take longer to finish given 1) they’re longer; 2) they’re denser; and 3) they require time and concentration to read - I found it hard to read 5 minutes on a Kindle on the train. I’ve so far read Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. I’ve also tried to read other “classics” and wiped out halfway through (Oliver Twist, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). I think the trick is to find books that you find at least somewhat readable. I’ll probably try doing this for a few more months and then revisit. But, it’s a nice break from reading “useful” modern nonfiction about businesses, relationships, and productivity.
In any case, a big thank you to everyone who’s read and shared their thoughts or recommendations with you. You make this fun!