Pages Turned
I don’t read a book; I hold a conversation with the author.
— Elbert Hubbard
| Book | Thoughts |
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| Built to Move Kelly & Juliet Starrett September 2024 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I had read the first several chapters of Built to Move last year (near when it came out) but ultimately felt like it just didn’t fit my season at the time. This year, however, it felt much more fitting. As I’ve been focusing on developing life-long goals and new life patterns of consistency, this book slotted in great. Ultimately there are things we should be doing every day we breath to help us live a happier, healthier, life. Things that we ought to be doing to keep our physical bodies in good health. This book covers 10 of these things. I will not be integrating these 10 things 😅. But I might get three or four. And that would be a really big win. Walking, being the most paramount! Nonetheless, I enjoyed this read this time around and felt like it contained some good, foundational life advice. |
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| The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry John Mark Comer September 2024 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Oh yeah, I read it again. A little over a year since the first time through, I just needed a refresher of that good, good slowness. JMC has such a wonderful way of intertwining real-world productivity stuff (e.g. slowness, focus, and intentionality) with spiritual truths and Jesus’y stuff. Comer’s the only author I’ve found that writes on how the two overlap. It’s so good. A worthwhile repeat on this one. And, ironically, finished it while Kalika and I did our first real Sabbath (as suggested in the book). It was sweet. The book was sweet. It’s all just really, really good stuff. This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| The Things We Make Bill Hammack August 2024 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) I ended up bailing out about three quarters of the way through this one. I just didn’t love it. It had a couple of neat moments but this turned out to be a pretty non-narrative book. It had some through-lines about how engineering works (and a pretty big opening intro about what engineering ~is~ ✨) but overall it felt more like a collection of totally disparate stories. Just didn’t hold my attention. |
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| The Secret History of Food Matt Siegel July 2024 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) This book was okay. Each chapter felt like a disparate story, totally disconnected from others, and the whole book felt like a collection of little history bits that didn’t make for a bigger picture. I didn’t feel like there was a grand narrative, but rather that these were just little vignettes that were, in some cases, interesting, but not particularly relevant to any specific place in my life. |
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| Ultra-Processed People Chris van Tulleken July 2024 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Phew boy. Where Magic Pill was an interesting exploration into the new GLP-1 drugs and only touched on the issues in our modern food system, this book blows the doors wide open. It’s hard to describe how jarring this book is, especially as someone with a history in body weight issues. The modern food system, whereby we manufacture food (“manufacture” shouldn’t be associated with “food”…) does its best to not bring attention to any of its ingredients, how things are made, and what’s actually good and bad for your body. No, that would degrade sales! Ugh. This book brought me so much knowledge and comfort in understanding my own history with foods; it also equipped me with an understanding of what I needed to change. This book is an excellent read and one of the primary suggestions I keep at hand for the age-old, “if there’s only one book you’d suggest reading, what would it be?” This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| Magic Pill Johann Hari June 2024 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Happy to be on a streak of excellent reads! Magic Pill is Johann Hari’s exploration of this new world we call GLP-1 antagonist medicines: Ozempic, Wegovy, and others. Both as a participant (he’s taking Wegovy) and as an external observer (though obviously not totally unbiased), Hari presents a really challenging and compelling case for and against GLP-1’s. We don’t know all the risks yet; we don’t know what we don’t know… but we do know that remaining obese carries much, much bigger risks. So it’s a balancing act of something unknown versus something certainly very bad. This book explores the experience of being on these drugs, both from a scientific and subjective/experiential standpoint, and forced me into a lot of thought. It was also the beginning of my own new chapter in my body weight journey, which I wrote about here. |
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| This Is Your Brain on Birth Control Dr. Sarah Hill May 2024 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) What an absolutely fascinating book. I found this after hearing Sarah Hill talk on the Jordan Harbinger podcast and, while obviously not very applicable to me, it remained a fascinating read with a ton of interesting points to make. It seems so obvious that toying with any human’s hormones would bring about more side-effects than we could scientifically anticipate… but Dr. Hill just blows down the gate here. There are so many fascinating, relevant, and important insights in this book. Truly a powerful read. |
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| Slow Productivity Cal Newport May 2024 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Being already a big fan of Cal Newport’s work and a long-time practitioner of Slow Productivity even before he coined the label, I crushed this book quick! While I do already practice my own slow productivity, this book helped clarify and give words to so many of the ideas and premises that have otherwise been vague or floating in my world for a couple of years. Tons of quotes. Tons of highlights. Several concrete strategies that I’ll be implementing in the coming weeks! Love this one as a foundation for a career. |
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| The Algebra of Wealth Scott Galloway May 2024 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) This was a neat book! Totally not a traditional personal-finances book and very much not in any single category, this is more-so a meandering reflection on life and collection of advice for folks entering adulthood. Written fairly dry but with some witty humor throughout, this book contains a lot of wisdom ripe for the picking. I especially appreciate the long-term, pragmatic approach to wealth-building that Galloway illustrates, and I really value that he constantly talks about ‘wealth’, not ‘income’, as so many do when setting a target. This was a good one! |
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| Practicing the Way John Mark Comer February 2024 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) While I enjoyed this read (and getting to keep up with the latest from JMC), I think I’m learning that I prefer to read only one book from a given author/voice at a time. Back-to-back’ing two books from the same author (especially if they’re closely related in topic) tends to end up feeling like too much input to really receive and process well from that single voice/author. |
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| Live No Lies John Mark Comer January 2024 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Where Comer’s first book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry was a beautiful call to slow down and live a life of peacefulness, calmness, and slow thoughtfulness, Live No Lies is a more direct read seeking to illuminate the areas of our lives where modern culture has seeped in. These are the great kinds of books — the ones that challenge you to affirm what you believe in and why. Comer doesn’t shy away from some of the toughest questions of our time, from either side of the political aisle, and stresses that we always turn back to the teachings of Jesus to guide our steps forward in all of the above. A really fantastic read. Looking forward to reading his newest! |
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| 2023 | |
| The War of Art Steven Pressfield December 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) A gift from a friend, this was a great read. I usually don’t enjoy books that are a collection of disparate thoughts… I tend to prefer a book that follows a narrative and has long-form chapters. And that’s true here, this book wasn’t my preference as far as reading style goes. But the narrative that was put together throughout these micro-vignettes was so powerful. The Resistance. The known, yet unknown, force that permeates all of our efforts. This book was brilliant. A totally unique and different take on what ‘productivity’ is, but this is an awesome little book. |
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| Sure, I’ll Join Your cult Maria Bamford December 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Hm. This one was sort of an odd read. It’s definitely a personal memoir, and I appreciate Maria’s frank candidness with readers about her experience and trials… and no doubt there are some funny licks as we read — she is a comedian. But there were several moments in reading where I found myself hoping that she finds self-worth and a new path forward. I guess that is to say, there were parts of the book that are just sort of… depressing. And sure, real life can be that way sometimes. And sure, the point of an author’s autobiography (or at least memoir) is to be honest. But this one just didn’t resonate with me too much in those moments. 🤷♂️ |
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| Stolen Focus Johann Hari November 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) This book was actually in my queue for a long time and I’d become a little lukewarm on the potential of reading it. I’ve read so many productivity and focus books over the last few years that it felt likely to be repetitive and similar to those I’d read prior. Luckily, I was wrong! I’m writing this now about a month after I actually finished the book so I don’t have as intimate a perception of its details as I did then, but I felt very moved and persuaded by several points in this book. I think it helped give verbiage and illustration to many pieces of the daily focus grind that I personally experience. I was thankful for that. |
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| The Canceling of the American Mind Greg Lukianoff & Rikki Schlot November 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Another great read from this camp, and fresh off the presses into its spicy era 🌶️. Essentially a freedom-of-speech book, which I highly support, this book makes so many well-founded cases for protecting, promoting, and standing behind freedom of speech, even when you don’t agree with the ideas at hand. Really enjoyed this one. |
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| The Coddling of the American Mind Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt July 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I feel like I read this book after it lefts it’s super-spicy 🌶️ era. As in, had I read this book closer to when it was originally released (2018), I might have enjoyed it even more. Which is an interesting thought because I enjoyed it quite a bit! I feel like this book captures small details so well. I felt and experienced many of the things documented in these words before I’d graduated school (2017) and I know they continue to grow. Like Excellent Sheep (and frankly a not-too-distant cousin), I recommend this book! |
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| The Gospel According to Jesus John MacArthur July 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) In short, a challenging, important, clarifying read around what Christian faith is and how it contrasts with many of the modern messages given about it. What is ‘saving faith’? What does it even mean to have received salvation? What is salvation? MacArthur covers so many of these questions with great detail and, most importantly, nuance. This is a fantastic read. This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry John Mark Comer June 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Goodness, what an absolutely brilliant and needed book. I absolutely loved this one. This is the book that I’d been hoping to find at some point — the narrative that ties together both the logistics / practices of minimalism (‘a focused life’) with the foundational faith ties that life is built upon. Having the former without the latter always felt like something was missing. The case for minimalism and focus in faith itself, as backed by scripture, was so wonderful to read. Not to mention that, even faith aside, exploring the very word “hurry” as the basis for so much of our emotional exasperation in moments of stress is just perfect. Distilling it down to a binary of “hurrying” or “slowing” feels like a necessary simplification for me right now. Even in all of my digital minimalism and focus over these last few years, I’ve still felt it easy to split into moments of hurry — even if fabricated. It feels like almost everything around us is constantly trying to push us towards hurry. This book is a set of tools and keys to side-stepping that push and finding a place of slowness. This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| The End of Solitude William Deresiewicz May 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I love both Dr. Deresiewicz’s writing style and general message of internal growth, building a true self, and seeing beyond aesthetics and name-brands. Though I generally don’t like collections of shorter essays as books (I strongly prefer full-length narratives and constructions), this one was pleasant to read. I found most of the essays compelling and interesting. Some less so, but easily skippable. Dr. Deresiewicz has a lot of really positive messages and beliefs that I agree with. This was a nice walk through a diverse park. |
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| The Great Dissent Thomas Healy May 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) What a neat book! Towing the careful and thin line that exists between a non-fiction narrative and a pure history book, Healy presents Holmes plainly — in all that he was and wasn’t. Perhaps most impacting to me is the context in which the free-speech discussions and debates took place back in the 1910s. The US wasn’t nearly the bastion of speech freedoms that it is today, it was actually significantly more limited and punishable. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one. I’m grateful and better off having a deeper understanding of how Holmes’ great dissent came to be and have a much greater appreciation for the “liberal” movements at the time. How far things have come. |
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| Built to Move Kelly & Juliet Starrett May 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) I ended up halting on this book about half-way through. I just didn’t enjoy reading it all that much. Could be a seasonal thing; some books definitely fit certain seasons of life while others don’t… but I didn’t want to continue on in a state of drudgery. Too much yet still to read this year! While its ‘10 essential habits’ certainly would be helpful for my body’s flexibility and longevity, I’m not sure yet if I actually want to integrate them into my routine. I definitely have that little voice of rebellion when reading this book’s “basically you have to do these things to maintain good body health” recommendations. Finding time and space for new habits is tough! Even if they are a net positive. I want to go back to my happy world of intellectually challenging books, not physically challenging! |
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| Excellent Sheep William Deresiewicz April 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Ahhhh what a brilliant book! This book is an absolute love-letter to the love of learning, the honing of a person’s sense of self, and the genuine (NOT ‘prestigious’ / hottie) enlightenment that only comes from real learning, real teachers, real passion, and new understanding. Not from gaming test scores, caring about This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| The Next Millionaire Next Door Sarah Stanley Fallaw April 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Could just be canon fatigue in the subject but I found that this one wasn’t quite as good as Sarah Stanley’s father’s prior pair. Lots of good stuff here, just not quite as potent or impactful as the prior two. I’ll have to get around to reading The Millionaire Mind at some point and see where that sits! Lots of good data here; lots of good figures and statistics. A nice update to the current pieces of the world (notably the technology changes). And nice to have feedback from readers over the course of 20+ years imbued into the text of this new edition. Just not quite as captivating as the original. |
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| Stop Acting Rich Dr. Thomas Stanley April 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Only after finishing this book did I learn that Thomas Stanley passed away in 2015 and this was the last full book he wrote. Tough to hear since this was another excellent read and worth absolutely every penny. Now my second read from him (first being the iconic and classic ‘Millionaire Next Door’), this one brought a lot of implementation details and myth debunking that undergirds the ideological stances introduced in MND. So good. This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| Stolen Youth Bethany Mandel + Karol Markowicz March 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Not my favorite read. The content is… tough. It’s hard to read things that just make you infuriated the whole way through 😕. Beyond that, the authors’ tone in this book is more of an elongated op-ed and less of a refined author. Not my favorite. I didn’t fully finish it; halting at about 2/3rds for something less annoying. |
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| Ketones: The Fourth Fuel Travis Christofferson March 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) A very tough, but really, really good read. The first 2/3rds of this book may as well be a chemistry text-book. Essentially an overview of cumulative scientific understanding of the human metabolism over the last several hundred years, few compromises are made when discussing the details of the reactions, molecules, and individual atoms between. Not being a chemist or biologist, some of that was a little tricky to follow. But as an engineer, the machinery makes sense! This book opens up a fascinating door of what our bodies are capable of and what many think they ought to be doing, were it not for the modern American diet. |
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| Atomic Habits James Clear February 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) You know, not every book is for every person. I know it may discredit me to say that a book that’s remained in Amazon’s #1-4 spots for years non-stop is just sort of.. ‘eh’. But I just found it sort of ‘eh’. I’ve read a lot of stuff in this canon and the “just get 1% better every day” take feels a little worn. Aside from obviously being mathematically impossible, it just feels a bit reductive and unhelpful, practically. Glad that a Denison grad is at the top of the hill though! |
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| Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art James Nestor February 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Hah. What an interesting book! Some really fascinating pieces of information in here that are worth pondering and experimenting with in my own personal life, but there’s also plenty in here that may approach the “you’re talking a little crazy” side. All in all I’d call it an entertaining book with pieces of interesting information that certainly pique the interest and I may experiment with. Keep your mouth shut! |
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| BS Jobs David Graeber February 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) I ended up leaving this book about 2/3'rds of the way through for the sake of just.. depressing content. The first half of the book is centered around describing ‘what’ and ‘why’ particular jobs and roles fall into the “BS” category — this is all fine and well. One does need to define the class of thing they’re talking about after-all. But instead of moving in any sort of positive direction thereafter, or possibly suggesting advice to those who may be caught in those roles, the book instead shifts to a much more macro approach. Less of a ‘practical advice’ take and far more of a “look how modern capitalism did this”, and/or “modern politics is the culprit here” take. Which is fine, but not really what I was looking for. My suspicion and understanding after seeing some other folks’ reviews is that David Graeber tends to be a little more on the macro-polarizing side of opinions than the micro-/personal-advice side. Wouldn’t say he’s my favorite author 😉 |
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| Irresistible Adam Alter February 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Not a bad book; going to give this one the ‘good’ mark. Full of great statistics and reasonably-backed data points that do indicate a large-scale, unprecedented cultural issue — but I’ve already read a lot in this space so I wasn’t particularly surprised by that. Unfortunately this book didn’t end with any sort of hopeful outlook or personal strategies; how to grow beyond the irresistible nature of things, how to better oneself, how the future of our culture might look. Instead it was more like “here’s all the realities, here’s how the world is going. Okay talk later, bye!” 😅 |
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| The Millionaire Next Door Dr. Thomas Stanley February 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Phew. This was really a challenging read for me. Not in the comprehension or readability sense — it’s written well by two professors… and it reads like two professors wrote it. Pretty straight up data and meat! No, it was challenging because it forces me to ask the question “what have you done with your income?” You either spend money on consumables that provide no lasting value (but keep the appearance of wealth alive and well) or you build wealth. I’ve definitely, like most Americans, been in the first camp. A timely message for me. Some great perspectives, some helpful strategies, and a whole lot of kick-in-the-pants. Recommend this read for sure. This book is currently one of five in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| Love & Respect Dr. Emerson Eggerichs January 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I read a portion of this one right about the same time that Kalika and I got married back in 2020 and I ended up putting it away because I don’t think I really needed it yet. It provides so many helpful tools and asks deep, reflective questions and that are tough to cope with. It’s genuinely a toolbox and introspective challenge.. I just wasn’t in that place in 2020 at the high of our wedding and honeymoon! Not to say that we’re ‘low’ now, but I’m glad to have read it now. I’ll still give it a 4-star rating instead of 5 because Dr. Eggerichs tends to be repetitive and sometimes terse… but the content is worth pushing through. These are important, pivotal, ideas. |
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| Killing Lions Sam Eldredge & John Eldredge January 2023 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Like I said, more Eldredge books a'comin’ after how good Beautiful Outlaw was. This too was a fantastic read. A back-and-forth conversation between John and Sam (father and son) that covers so many foundational questions and feelings that men face as they reach their twenties. This one is so practical I feel like you could just use it as a hand-book 😅. Really, really liked this one. |
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| Beautiful Outlaw John Eldredge January 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) What a neat book and what a lovely author. Being my first Eldredge book, I hadn’t yet experienced John’s fun, personal, and deeply honest writing style yet. It’s fantastic. Aside from being a great read that opens up the personality and accessibility of Jesus, the way it’s written alone made it so easy to consume. I’ll be reading more from the Eldredges! Really loved this. It came at a timely point in life and brought so many good revelations about who Jesus is and how to connect with him beyond the myriad of religiosity that seems to consume so many churches these days. |
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| Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide Dave Ramsey January 2023 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) I’ll leave this one at five stars not because it just changed my world view, but because it’s a book I continue to come back and reference over the years. I first read this book back in ~2014 when I was in college and have been letting it speak into my life and keep me on a strong path since. I haven’t always followed it to a tee, and I too had my reckless credit card phase… but I gave this another read-through while on vacation this January. Each time through brings its own little revelations and reminders. Dave’s a character, for sure, but his common-sense points remain true day by day. |
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| The Great Revolt Selena Zito & Brad Todd January 2023 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) I ended up walking away from this one about half way in. It has some really interesting stories (it’s a collection of interviews of those who voted for Trump in 2016, essentially) and some important conclusions (namely that the 2016 election was won by a collective of voters that came together for reasons we (as a country) didn’t expect and for reasons we still won’t fully accept) but ultimately felt a bit dated. Tough to fix that problem… it’s a book entirely about the 2016 election voters being read in a world that no longer resembles that time at all. I’d probably have finished the book and enjoyed it more if it were still 2017, but alas. |
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| 2022 | |
| Lead Yourself First Raymond M. Kethledge & Michael S. Erwin September 2022 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Lead Yourself First was an okay book. I read about 70-80% before deciding to put it down — it’s not my favorite type of book. It’s more of a collection of stories than a narrative of its own. Granted, these are great stories and illustrate moving events, but their presentation of various leadership traits is less backed by logic and argument than it is presented as valuable purely by implication. Obviously not a terrible way to go, but not my favorite type of thing. |
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| The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains Nicholas Carr September 2022 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Kind of a scary book in its implications — definitely makes me glad that I’m not the user I’ve been previously! But the book does open up with a really cool walk through the history of how humanity has used various technologies (even including the very premise of language and writing). A very compelling, interesting, and honest read. I’d recommend this one! Maybe as a follow-up to Digital Minimalism 🤣 |
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| Digital Minimalism Cal Newport July 2022 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Sometimes you just have to read a book again to refresh your mind on its topics. It strikes me as similar to why we go to church on Sundays — repetition and reaffirmation of things we know to be true. This was a good read for me this time around though. I’ve been doing this digital minimalism thing for well over a year now and I continue to learn new things about it and myself in the process. Why do I feel the little ticks and urges I do? Where are the feelings of aversion and distraction coming from? Why is it so difficult to dial in and focus ona project sometimes? All questions I’ve had many times over the last couple of years. I took a lot of notes while reading D.M. this time through. I also specifically switched to reading a hard-copy and writing all of my notes by hand in a separate notebook. I do think this proved to be more valuable than the Kindle format (just tap and hold to highlight..). I’ve always believed strongly in the memory value of writing things with pen/paper. No different here — I think my notes wrote deeper into my memory than a simple highlight. I’ve got a lot of thoughts and personal reflections following this re-read. I’d like to write another ‘digital minimalism follow-up’ blog post that iterates some of these thoughts, my experiences along the way, and the difficult parts of what it all means (I know, getting real existential here). This psycho-analytical / emotional road is deep, but it’s one that I hope to explore deeper — if only to better understand myself and find new peace in that understanding. |
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| The Case for Keto Gary Taubes May 2022 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) This is one of those “ugh, that was such a good book” moments. This was such a good book. As Taubes puts it, “This book is a work of journalism masquerading as a self-help book”, but something about that just worked for me. While pursuing the keto diet (and losing tons of weight along the way), this book helps shade in the less-defined areas of “how it all works” quite well. It’s well, well worth a read if you’re curious about the “how” behind keto in any form or fashion. So good. |
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| Undistracted Bob Goff May 2022 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I would call this a solid Bob Goff book, but very much a Bob Goff book! He’s a wonderful writer and constantly shares neat and inspiring stories, but can be tough for me in seasons where I’m after precise details and complex thoughts. That said, there are some really great faith notes and love notes in this book. Bob has a remarkable way of seeing and approaching the world and never fails to encourage us to walk out our purpose. That said, this is not a book about getting rid of modern social-media-driven and technology-driven distraction as I went in thinking it may be about. Guess I’ve read too many of those lately! |
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| The 5am Club Robin Sharma May 2022 Score: ★★☆☆☆ (Bad.) This book has some valuable information and is occasionally interesting but has to be written in the most annoying, degrading, and generally make-you-hate-this-book sort of way. I can’t even describe all of the ways the writing style in this book is annoying. It’s about real-world things but written as a totally fictional novel with needless “magic” happening all over the place to help make the content feel stronger (?) while continuously referring to the main characters as “the entrepreneur”, “the artist”, and “the billionaire”? As if 1) people don’t have names, and 2) you need to specifically note (HUNDREDS OF TIMES) that the mentor-person is a billionaire to help reinforce that your methods are valid? What an annoying read. A few interesting bits of information that might help morning productivity, just delivered in the worst possible way. It’s a book that’s supposed to be real-world, applicable information… delivered as a terrible novel. An Amazon reviewer described it well: “I couldn’t get through 100 pages in this book because it’s so bad. The content is delivered through a story of people looking to make radical changes to their lives, the only problem is that it’s not relatable, poorly written, and completely derails the message of this book.” |
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| Sidekiq in Practice Nate Berkopec January 2022 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) What a great, solid primer and check-down of making a Sidekiq installation responsive, quick, and ready to scale to massive job loads (or even small job loads but on micro-infra). I enjoyed this one! I also renamed our job queues fairly quickly after finishing it 😆 |
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| 2021 | |
| Full Time RV Living Jerry Minchey December 2021 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Well the content-matter is/was on par with our life at the time — being that we’d be transitioning to full time RV-life at the very beginning of 2022, but this was a good heads up of a few different styles and tactics before setting out on the journey. Jerry’s written a number of RV-related books and has plenty of experience-driven tips to share. I hope to meet him someday! |
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| 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos Jordan B. Peterson December 2021 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I’ll be honest, this was a really tough read. Not in the sense that the content was particularly difficult or challenging — I think Jordan Peterson renders really fascinating points and supports them in novel and logical ways that are both intuitive and hard to refute. I think I found it challenging instead because you must remain intensely focused on the content to track along with it as you read through the chapters. It’s constant high-level, meta, ethereal concepts that are fascinating to mull through and ponder, but losing focus for only a sentence or two could pull you fully out of the context of the discussion! That all said, I like this one. I’d like to come back and read it again in the future. There’s a ton to grok and while Peterson (somewhat-?) successfully compiles his broad range of thoughts and analyses down into 12 rules, each sub-discussion is worth its own mindful, internal consideration. |
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| Salt Fat Acid Heat Samin Nosrat November 2021 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Cooking books can be tough. This is by far the best I’ve read and I super appreciate that this book offers the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind the basics fundamentals of cooking rather than just throwing a hundred recipes at you, but as with any form of cook-book, it’s tough to fully appreciate the book unless you’re cooking all the time when you read it. I haven’t been cooking too much lately. Still, I’ll go back to this one time and again until I memorize the basics 😆. |
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| Modern Cast Iron Ashley Jones November 2021 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I love cast iron. I personally think it to be the best thing for cooking anything, I love the way it looks, I love how heavy it is — I’m a cast iron fanatic. This book is a fun exploration of the history of cast iron, a reiteration of some mechanics and logistics behind using cast iron, and a treasure trove of classic cast-iron-famous recipes! |
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| Indistractable Nir Eyal September 2021 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Continuing in the line of depth and focus, this book helped shape and give words to some of the harder parts of staying focused: distractions. Particularly ‘internal triggers’, as Nir calls them. The rest of the book felt a little repetitive to some of the prior content I’d read so I moved pretty quickly through those sections, but the internal triggers section was helpful and valuable. I’ll likely read that section again in the future. |
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| A World Without Email Cal Newport August 2021 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) While I’m happy to have read Cal Newport’s major books and will probably end up reading Digital Minimalism again, I was less enthused by A World Without Email. Compared to the two prior, this one was less driven by personal ethos and outlook, instead taking more of a handbook style approach to implementing the ideals of the formers. Given that I already use email somewhat infrequently and work for a business that is fully async and not email-driven, I didn’t find quite as much value out of this book. Where Digital Minimalism and Deep Work both seek to convince you of a new idea, this read is a bit more “okay now let’s implement it” if you already believe those ideas. Similarly to It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work, this is probably also best read by those at higher leadership roles within an organization (who can make decisions around the the org should do email). |
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| Digital Minimalism Cal Newport July 2021 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) So I suppose I’ve become a fan of Cal Newport. This was another very thought-provoking book and, while time consuming to read, was worth the effort of grappling with the complex topics he writes on. While Deep Work focused on more of the logistics behind large, successful professional pursuits, Digital Minimalism is much more focused at transforming our personal / at-home lives into a …deeper experience. One fueled by intentional, depth-based relationships rather than digital networks. Credit to Newport though, where I’ve personally taken more of a ‘totally drop social media’ approach, he does give a nuanced view and approach to utilizing social networks in a very strategic way — one that (ideally) avoids the negatives of the networks while gaining the positives. I’d consider this a fantastic handbook for most people in 2021. |
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| It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work Jason Fried & DHH June 2021 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Overall a pretty good read but definitely more tailored to mid-to-large business owners. It follows a similar instruction-manual format as Remote but those instructions are primarily intended for those who maintain enough cultural sway at a company to notably change the culture and/or processes. It’s more-so a book of ‘How to run a calm company’. That said, I enjoyed reading it and it certainly made me appreciative of many of the practices and processes at Agent Pronto! We run a calm company, and I’m happy to say that! As an employee though, I’d rather read Remote. It’s more person-focused rather than organization-focused. |
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| Deep Work Cal Newport June 2021 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) This book is thick, lengthy, and challenging. Challenging to my habits and derived personality and challenging to grok the depth of Newport’s finer points. All in all, it’s quite riveting. It, among other inputs in my life, has encouraged me to try going deep. I’ll probably read it again at some point after having tried to live a little deeper for a number of months, but wow. Overall quite impressed and moved by the Cal Newport’s ideas and mindset. After getting married and transitioning to remote development in 2020, this book came at just the right time. This book is currently one of six in my Books Hall of Fame. |
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| Remote Jason Fried & DHH May 2021 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) I really enjoyed Remote. Although I’ve been working most of this year remotely and will continue to for the foreseeable future, this book does give a lot of practical tools, workflows, and process insight into how to handle working remotely well. Tons of applicable content, a friendly writing / reading style that’s conversation more than prescription, and lots of implying content revolving around the premise of ‘deep work’ and working remote’s propensity for deep workflows. |
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| Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets J. K. Rowling April 2021 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) Though notably much shorter than the first, and repeating some of the first in a few places, this too was an interesting read. Unfortunately I felt as though I wasn’t fully enjoying the series to the extent that one should a fiction novel. Since I’ve known the faces of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint along with the scenery, setting, and layout of the Harry Potter universe since I was young, I found it difficult to create the wondrous fantasy world in my mind. The world was already created; the faces already assigned. It just took some of the wonder out of it. I decided to watch the rest of the novels in movie format so that I could fulfill my desire to see the series play out but not continue to feel like I wasn’t getting the most out of the books. I guess that’s why they say ‘read the book first’ when a film is released! |
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| Harry Potter - Sorcerer’s Stone J. K. Rowling March 2021 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) Sometimes after some really dry dev content (looking at you, Rails Guides), you just need a bit of fantasy and comedy. I hadn’t ever actually read the Harry Potter novels, and it’d been years since I’d seen any of the films — to which, I never finished the series. I thought I ought to just jump in to the first book! |
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| The Erosion of Deep Literacy Adam Garfinkle February 2021 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) Okay, this is an essay rather than a book… but it’s one that I’m tremendously glad to have found and will retain as a reference for years to come. It’s provocative, challenging, and damning toward social media trends and behaviors at-large, but raises points that would be difficult to refute. Both relatable on a personal level and empirically sound on a psychological level. Toward the latter half it makes some pretty bold claims that are conjecture at best, but nonetheless stand as fascinating thought experiments. |
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| The Rails Guides Rails Core Team January 2021 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) A bit of an ongoing read since The Guides are a collection of walk-throughs, references, and informationals, but the content itself is great. Earlier this year I became frustrated at my having been a ‘rails developer’ for a couple of years but still not fully grasping the (somewhat hand-wavy) ‘Rails Way’. While I’d been told much earlier on to read the Rails Guides, I never did - though I’d mention that a great deal of The Guides will be better understood once you have some legitimate time spent developing in Rails for the sake of context. Having now read most of The Guides, they’ve been just fantastic. It can be a bit dry as far as reading goes, but these guides will explain the ‘Rails Way’ and have made me feel way more comfortable and skilled since. Don’t sleep on the Rails Doctrine either. |
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| 2020 | |
| Love & Respect Dr. Emerson Eggerichs October 2020 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) This book is particularly for those who are married or soon will be, and I think it gives a lot of valuable insight into how spouses can value and care for each other while respecting their individual differences and imperfections. Probably something I’ll come back to in the future, once we’ve been married for a while longer. |
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| High Performance Browser Networking Ilya Grigorik August 2020 Score: ★★★★★ (Excellent! 🎉) This book is just flipping fantastic. Starting from the very bottom of the layers (touching on the physical with pragmatic intelligence), going up through TCP/UDP, TLS, HTTP/1+2+3, and various Browser APIs (XmlHttpRequest, WebSocket, WebRTC, etc.), this book is a *phenomenal*primer on … how the web works. Understanding all of these layers in tandem is extremely complex but Ilya gives a number of reasonable and reliable insights into managing client/server interactions and their side effects effectively. One of the books I believe every developer ought to have / read. |
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| RAGBRAI Greg Borzo July 2020 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) One of my good friends gifted me this book (guess who) and it’s not a serious book by any means. It simply aims to pull you back to riding RAGBRAI and enjoying the Iowa summer with a few Busch Lights and good company. The imagery, stories, and histories of the teams make for a fun read and blissful memory-session. Ride on, friends. |
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| The Modern Web Peter Gasston May 2020 Score: ★★★☆☆ (Decent) This book isn’t a deep cut algorithm or theory book, it doesn’t provide the why’s and how’s of current React architecture or Vue logic, and it doesn’t cover the impetus for why the web is the way that it is today in any sort of depth. What it does do is give you a great overview and initial outline of many of the newly-available (in the last few years, anyway) APIs available to front-end code. Things like media queries in CSS, mobile-browser APIs in Javascript (location, battery, connectivity, etc.), and other reasonable APIs for writing more portable applications. It’s a great primer to understand what’s possible on… the modern web! (See what I did there? 😉) |
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| Everybody Always Bob Goff April 2020 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) ‘Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People’. This book is a constant reminder that everyone is called to operate in grace and give forgiveness freely. Definitely one of the few ‘feel good’ books I’ve read this year, Bob Goff never fails to bring out the absolute best in humanity. The man is the written form of a hug… and who doesn’t need a hug sometimes ☺️ |
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| The Compound Effect Darren Hardy March 2020 Score: ★★★★☆ (Great!) A well known classic in the motivation and improvement district, I did indeed find The Compound Effect to be full of great advice for achieving great things. Writing this summary many months later has me wondering how much the principles of the compound effect (the premise of the book, not the title) intertwine with the premise of ‘Deep Work’… Regardless, it’s a great read. It gives both the inspiration and the tools to create change in one’s life, though it makes no promises on the easy-ness of that change. |
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| You’ve reached the end! 🎉 I started this list in 2020. Prior reads were omitted. |
Tl;dr: if you scrolled straight to the bottom without reading any of these entries, it’s okay! Feel free to check out my Books Hall of Fame — my top five reads of all time.