As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share my favorite books list of the past year. Hope you’ll give one of these a try during the holidays.

The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football by S.C. Gwynne

If you love football and want to understand how the game evolved from a stodgy, run-first sport into one that relies more and more on passing and spreading the field, this book will take you on a very rewarding journey of Coach Hal Mumme and the founding of the influential air raid offense.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer Ph.D

Lots of great, actionable advice in this book about the power of thinking small. Ask small questions, seek small rewards, solve small problems, and keep at it. Over time, these amount to big changes and big results. I read this book around the time we were putting the finishing touches to our Microhabits e-book and was happy to see many parallels.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Gordon Livingston

I wrote a blog post where I highlighted my favorite quotes from the book and jotted down some thoughts. This is a timeless book with so much great wisdom about living life, enduring loss and grief, and constantly working to be a better person.

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice by Clayton M. Christensen

This book convinced me that we needed to embrace and offer a Jobs to Be Done customer interview offering at Barrel. I had always been a fan of JTBD and dabbled in it, but the book helped to solidify some of the ideas and concepts in my mind. We successfully completed a client engagement this year and established a process to offer it for future clients. This e-book from Intercom was also very helpful.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Harari

This follow-up book to Harari’s Sapiens explores a future in which technological advances introduce new questions of ethics and our understanding of morality and mortality. I wrote a short blog post with some excerpts from the book about spirituality and religion.

Tempo: Timing Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision-making by Venkatesh Rao

This book was a really fun mind trip into deconstructing everyday behaviors and looking at the concept of time and action through different lenses. I even made a graphic for one of the mental models that Rao discusses in the book.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Such an amazing novel. The story of Koreans in Japan and their struggles through the 20th century. Beautifully written, epic, tragic, and unforgettable.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

I began this book a number of years ago and then stopped before picking it up again this year and finishing it out. I think part of me didn’t want to read about Moses’s downfall. For all of the man’s faults (e.g. his racism, his corrupt dealings, his disregard for the poor, etc.), Moses shaped New York (both City and State) in ways that no one man ever had or has ever since. Any time I take a ride around the different boroughs, I’m reminded of the highways, bridges, parks, and buildings that were created under his authority.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

This is a very powerful book, basically a memoir, of Stevenson’s mission to serve those on death row (predominantly African-Americans) who may have been falsely convicted or were penalized unfairly. I found many of the stories in here to be heartbreaking, but Stevenson’s resolve as well as the toughness and resilience of his clients were very inspiring.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The other fiction book on my list. After spending my entire twenties reading mostly white male novelists (except for Ishiguro and Chang-Rae Lee), it was refreshing to read such a smart and incisive book. The story is about a half-Vietnamese, half-French communist double agent who comes to America after the fall of Saigon and continues his mission of spying on the anti-communist Vietnamese refugees. I wrote a blog post to reflect on some of my favorite lines from the book.

I feel fortunate to have read many interesting, fun, and eye-opening books this year. I’m hoping to finish up a few more in the coming weeks and excited to crack on my list for 2018. Of course, it doesn’t matter how many books one reads, but what we get out of them and how it helps us in our lives. I got a lot out of the moments when I could go back and write about a book or jot down some passages and my thoughts in my journal. That’s something I hope to do a lot more of in 2018.

You can always check out my on-going Reading List.