A Year in Books - 2020
35 (plus one) books and quotes that shaped and inspired me in 2020
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” — Jhumpa Lahiri
With actual travel being a bit of an issue in 2020, books have become even more of a medium to journey into distant lands, and enter the minds of brilliant thinkers past and present.
Personally, books have always been a central part of my life. But this year, this relationship got taken to another level.
In May this year published my own book Time Off: A Practical Guide to Building Your Rest Ethic and Finding Success Without the Stress together with my co-author John Fitch and our amazing illustrator Mariya Suzuki.
The book immediately became an Amazon bestseller in multiple categories, and we’ve been extremely humbled by the positive feedback we’ve received.
So while I only read 35 books this year, compared to 49 books in 2019 and 38 books in 2018, this year more than any other has been a year of books for me.
As I’ve done in the past two years, I want to share with you below the books I read and a memorable or interesting quote from each. I hope you find as much inspiration in them as I did.
Non-Fiction
Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality (Anthony de Mello)
“Think of the loneliness that is yours. Would human company ever take it away? It will only serve as a distraction.”
Stillness is the Key (Ryan Holiday)
“Remember, there’s no greatness in the future. Or clarity. Or insight. Or happiness. Or peace. There is only this moment.”
The Purposeful Planning Method: How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination, and Regain Control of Your Time (Matt East)
“The reason for planning and prioritizing your time is not to do more stuff each day just for the sake of doing more. It’s the opposite. The purpose of planning is to identify what’s most important and meaningful to you so you can use your time and effort effectively.”
Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (Esther Perel)
“Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationship to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?”
Perennial Seller: Making and Marketing Work that Lasts (Ryan Holiday)
“Art is the kind of marathon where you cross the finish line and instead of getting a medal placed around your neck, the volunteers roughly grab you by the shoulders and walk you over to the starting line of another marathon.”
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (David Epstein)
“Knowing when to quit is such a big strategic advantage that every single person, before undertaking an endeavor, should enumerate conditions under which they should quit.”
Lifespan: Why We Age — and Why We Don’t Have To (David A. Sinclair)
“Aging is a disease. This is so clear that it seems almost insane that those four words need to be repeated again and again. […] And not only is it a disease, but it is the mother of all diseases, the one we all suffer from.”
Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual (Jocko Willink)
“There is one type of person who can never be a good leader: a person who lacks humility.”
Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business (Paul Jarvis)
“To add more is basically an effort to fix an existing problem without first looking at its causes.”
The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work (Natalie Nixon)
“I define creativity as the ability to toggle between wonder and rigor in order to solve problems and deliver novel value.”
What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength (Scott Carney)
“Humans of this millennium are overstuffed, overheated, and under stimulated. […] Effortless comfort has made us fat, lazy, and increasingly ill in health.”
The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer from People Who’ve Lived the Longest (Dan Buettner)
“Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile.”
Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen (Donald A. Miller)
“Customers don’t generally care about your story; they care about their own. Your customer should be the hero of the story.”
The Way of the Runner: A Journey into the Obsessive World of Japanese Running (Adharanand Finn)
“Welcome to Japan, the most running-obsessed nation on earth, where: a long-distance relay race is the country’s biggest annual sporting event; companies sponsor their own running teams, paying the athletes like employees; and marathon monks run a thousand marathons in a thousand days to reach spiritual enlightenment.”
The Effective Manager (Mark Horstman)
“If you’re a manager, your key to long-term success is to master the art of delegation.”
Heart, Breath, Mind: Train Your Heart to Conquer Stress and Achieve Success (Leah Lagos)
“Most adults have a dominant sympathetic nervous system and an underactive parasympathetic nervous system. […] You’re driving a car that has no trouble reaching a high speed but is incapable of slowing down.”
The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention (Nicolas Cole)
“The Curiosity Gap is what tells the reader what this piece of writing is about, who it’s for, and what it’s promising — all without revealing the answer.”
The Drama of Being a Child: The Search for the True Self (Alice Miller)
“No one can heal by maintaining or fostering illusion.”
Rise of the Youpreneur: The Definitive Guide to Becoming the Go-To Leader in Your Industry and Building a Future-Proof Business (Chris Ducker)
“Nobody likes being sold to, but we love to buy.”
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters (Ryan Singer)
“The solution doesn’t matter if the problem isn’t worth solving.”
The Practice: Shipping Creative Work (Seth Godin)
“Art is what we call it when we’re able to create something new that changes someone. No change, no art.”
Fiction
The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follet)
“Excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.”
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
“People will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning.”
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino)
“One reads alone, even in another’s presence.”
Sourdough (Robin Sloan)
“The internet: always proving that you’re not quite as special as you suspected.”
World Without End (Ken Follet)
“It was said that pilgrims should not spend too much time planning their journey, for they might learn of so many hazards that they decide not to go.”
East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”
Hippie (Paulo Coelho)
“When things happen without planning or expectations they are that much more enjoyable.”
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz)
“It’s never the changes we want that change everything.”
High Fidelity (Nick Hornby)
“What came first — the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”
The Overstory (Richard Powers)
“The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
Others
How to make friends with strangers and stay friends until you die (chris — simpsons artist)
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking (Samin Nosrat)
The World Atlas of Coffee: From Beans to Brewing — Coffees Explored, Explained and Enjoyed (James Hoffmann)
American Sfoglino: A Master Class in Handmade Pasta (Evan Funke)
If you still haven’t had enough quotes, here are my lists from 2018 and 2019.
I hope you found some inspiration in these quotes and are maybe considering picking up a few of the books yourself.
And of course I would be extremely happy if you would pick up a copy of my book Time Off to put on your reading list for 2021.
With that, I wish you all a happy 2021! May it be a year full of wonderful book discoveries and reading experiences.