The 10 Best Books I Read In 2021
2021 was another year that was largely dominated by COVID, which meant lots of time to read some great books. I continued my near-obsession with books about Navy SEALs and books on surviving in the ocean. Not sure what that's about. Anyway, here’s this year’s list. Find past lists here.
1/ The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. This is a great book on the history of the corporation. It tells the story of how and why humans formed LLCs and joint-stock companies from ancient Mesopotamia to the multi-national corporations of the 1980s and 1990s. In short, without these structures, we'd have very few of the innovations we enjoy today. Entrepreneurs need legal protection to be able to take risks and innovate. This is a brilliant summary of the history of how we organized ourselves around these ideas. I only wish it was longer and went a bit deeper.
2/ A Speck in the Sea: A Story of Survival and Rescue by John Aldridge and Anthony Sosinski. I'm not sure what it is about these survival stories, but I love them for some reason, and this one was great. It tells the story of a fisherman thrown off a boat in the middle of the Long Island Sound in the middle of the night while his friend was sound asleep below deck and the subsequent search-and-rescue mission. It's a well-written, enjoyable read. I can't imagine what he went endured out there alone at night in the middle of the ocean in complete silence.
"You forget that you hear waves only when they ride up on the shore; in the middle of the ocean you hear nothing. The silence is deafening."
3/ The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer by Steven Kotler. I really enjoy Kotler's books. Really interesting, motivating, and data-driven research on human performance and people accomplishing things they never thought they could through what he calls a quartet of skills — motivation, learning, creativity, and flow. The book talks a lot about meaning and purpose at work, which is so important for leaders to remember. From the book:
Once people feel fairly compensated for their time—meaning once that number starts to creep over $75,000 a year—big raises and annual bonuses won't actually improve their productivity or performance. After that basic-needs line is crossed, employees want intrinsic rewards. They want to be in control of their own time (autonomy), they want to work on projects that interest them (curiosity/passion), and they want to work on projects that matter (meaning and purpose).
4/ Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself by Rich Roll. I've been listening to Roll's podcast for a while now and finally got around to reading his memoir. A well-written account of his transformation from an out-of-shape 40-something to an ultra-endurance athlete living a plant-based lifestyle.
5/ Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. I've been meaning to read this for a few years now, but I didn't expect how great it would be. Awesome book. A really enjoyable story, even if you're not interested in shoes or business.
6/ Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail by Ray Dalio. In this dense and somewhat disturbing book, Dalio studies the repeating patterns of the major underlying shifts in wealth and power over the last 500 years. A very, very important book for investors to internalize to have a point of view on how things might play out in America and other highly developed countries over the next couple of decades. From the book:
”I've learned that one's ability to anticipate and deal well with the future depends on one's understanding of the cause/effect relationships that make things change, and one's ability to understand these cause/effect relationships comes from studying how they have changed in the past."
7/ The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance by Rich Diviney. Diviney is a former Navy SEAL commander that argues in this book that we need to evaluate people on attributes rather than skills or experience. Things like grit, drive, teamability, mental acuity, and leadership. I've become really interested in Navy SEAL training and how they weed out candidates. This book gives a glimpse into how it works. SEAL's go through a training period called 'Hell Week' where they weed out the majority of candidates. They keep recruits awake for most of the week. They'll make them carry huge logs across a wet sandy beach for hours in the middle of the night and then tell them that they can rest once they're done with the log training. But then they change their mind and tell them to do a 2-mile swim in the cold ocean in the pitch dark. I'm fascinated by the type of person that doesn't just quit but instead wades into the water to complete the swim. What do those people have in common? The book doesn't fully answer that question, but it does give some great insight into what separates the highest performers from the rest of the pack.
8/ The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. This is a very dense and masterful deep dive into the ingredients involved in successful urban planning. As someone that has lived in big cities for the last 20+ years, I found myself nodding in agreement at the endless insights inside this book. Really well done.
9/ How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley. This is a book about the conditions that drive innovation, from antibiotics to automobiles. He argues that innovation doesn't come from top-down, corporate or government programs. Instead, it comes bottom-up via entrepreneurial capitalism through relentless tinkering and iteration. An easy read with countless useful examples.
10/ Angel Investing: The Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups by David S. Rose and Reid Hoffman. This is the bible on individual investing in startups. A really comprehensive guide that covers every topic you need to know related to this extremely risky investment category. Written in 2014, the book is somewhat dated given the madness surrounding venture investing over the last few years, but all the fundamentals are covered with some great frameworks on how to manage risk.
Finally, I didn't read a lot of fiction last year, but I did get around to reading Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Obviously not the most uplifting book, to say the least, but the writing is just phenomenal. Highly recommended.
Hope you enjoy some of these.