193. Books I read this year, 2024
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” — Stephen King
I discovered the joy of reading at the age of seventeen when I joined college. I devoured all the books that I could lay my hands on. Mostly novels by Jeffrey Archer, Robert Ludlum, Alistair Maclean and a bunch of others. Later I tried my hands at the classics but with little success at getting through them. Then more novels until I discovered the joy of reading what are generally lumped under the category of non-fiction. I read self-help books, books on marketing, strategy, religions etc. This was followed by an intense phase of spiritual books. Then I started to read on the more recent themes in my life like systems thinking, complex adaptive systems, randomness, antifragiliy, basic physics etc. But the big difference I noticed over the years, and particularly this year, is the speed at which I read books. I was never much of a fast reader but, even so, my speed has come down considerably this year and I believe for good reason. I think I moved on from reading for ‘fun and learning’ to reading for ‘understanding and improving’. Now, I read with a critical mindset. I try to latch on every intriguing sentence and think about it deeply until I think I understood it well. I mostly read quality books all my life but the way I read was not of good quality. I read and learnt a lot but did not improve much as a person. Now, I read, more like study, and as a result, am changing as a person. The learning from the books is manifesting organically in my thinking process. I developed lot more confidence in my stances and am more steadfast in my beliefs. This is allowing me to take bold actions with confidence and conviction. With an earnest hope that such a blessing bestows upon you too, here is a list of books that I read this year.
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” — Mortimer J. Adler
First off, my usual word of caution on books
While reading books may be one of the best ways to multiply knowledge, knowledge does not readily translate to wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience. So, it makes sense to be careful that reading, as powerful as it can be, does not crowd out opportunities to apply knowledge. I believe that this equally applies even if you read books just for fun and enjoyment — too much indulgence in such enjoyment may become a vice in itself. With this pithy observation out of way, I wish you a happy reading time this Holiday season.
“The Halo Effect … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers” by Phil Rosenzweig
This book exposed my own complicity with survivorship bias. Well, I surely knew about survivorship bias and thought I was largely immune to it given my conscious awareness of it. This book gave a startling or even shocking exposure of an easy tendency to attribute to heroism, what, lot more likely, may have caused by purely random factors. After reading this book, I’m sure you will start seeing world differently at least for a while.
“Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin” by Stephen Jay Gould
I’m currently reading this book and a good way into it. Somewhat similar to “The Halo Effect”, this book also brings out the largely ignored role of randomness in how things shape up. I think a bigger import for me from this book is the flip side of this argument — how we try to see design, plan and directed action in essentially random happenstances. How our obsession for the central tendency of a population (average values) makes us blind to the real powerful insights that can be gained by understanding from the study of variation around the average.
“Fooled By Randomness: The hidden role of chance in Life and in the Markets” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I reread this book recently after about fifteen years. From what I remember, the first time I read it, I got a sense that I was onto something fundamental but I could not really put my finger on it. This time around, I had a much better experience. This book is a mini (but an essential) treatise on the powerful effect of randomness in everything that happens in our lives and in the world around us. This being the third book I read which addressed the broad topic of randomness (or dynamism of the world) makes me wonder if it was purely random or was there an invisible hand that directed me to these three books. But then, I should know better, particularly after reading them 😊
“A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class” by Joseph Nocera
This book chronicled the story of the financialization of the American society in an engaging and gripping style. Financialization definitely meant increased standard or material living but it also meant burden of debt that funded this better standard of living. I see this same story playing out in India right now. Easier availability of credit, while leading to positive productive economic development, seems to be also weighing down portions of the population by increasing burden of debt.
“How Nature Works” by Per Bak
This book focusses on one of the most defining features of complex adaptive systems called criticality. I believe Per Bak may be considered one of the founding fathers of the modern, formal and rigorous approach to the a relatively new field of study called complex adaptive systems. This book was a fascinating and insightful adventure and one of the most enriching experiences of the year for me.
“Cynefin — Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World” by Dave Snowden and Zhen Goh
This is yet another book on complex adaptive systems, specifically on a framework to navigate such systems. I understood from the book that Cynefin is a Welsh word that loosely means habitat in English. The book lays down the Cynefin decision making framework with practical applications and case studies. It helped me deepen my understanding of complex systems.
“How Do You Know? A Guide to Clear Thinking About Wall Street, Investing, and Life” by Christopher W. Mayer
I have been a fan of Chris Mayer ever since I read his book “Hundred Bagger”. I had listened to few podcast episodes in which he was interviewed. I find his thinking clear, simple, fundamental, practical and even humble. This book “How do you know” forced me to examine critically my own thinking process and improved my perception of reality. The biggest boon that this book endowed upon me is that it introduced me to the field of “General Semantics” that was developed by Alfred Korzybski in the 1930s.
“Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics” by Susan Presby Kodish and Bruce I. Kodish
This book marked my formal foray into “general semantics” (GS) — a perceptional and thinking framework that readily and immediately puts one on a path of self-improvement. What exactly is GS? You will have to discover it by yourself but here are a few orthogonal references to entice you:
- A GS perspective takes process view of the world — we really live in a world of change ‘thinging’ as opposed to things ‘changing’
- If the above is confusing, in the words of Korzybski himself, “the Map is not the “territory” captures the core tenet of GS
“She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity” by Carl Zimmer
This is an enlightening book on the history and mechanism of heredity. As the subtitle suggests, this book brings out, in a rather engaging way, the powers, perversions and the potential of heredity. In the world where gene editing is not uncommon, this book can give a non-technical reader a helpful perspective on the potential beauty and horrors of everything genes.
“I contain Multitudes” by Ed Yong
What a treasure trove this book turned out to be. In line with the “general semantics” way to thinking, this book brings to light the fact that we are not really individuals separate from the environment around us. We are, instead, more like ecosystems within wider ecosystems. Now I know that I don’t have an independent identity. I’m resultant entity of symbiosis between “my” body and the enormous world of microbiome that thrives within me. An interesting question to ponder on is do I manipulate the microbiome within my gut for my benefit or does the microbiome manipulate my body so that it can thrive?
“A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers from Warren Buffett” by Peter Bevelin
“The Tao of Charlie Munger” by David Clark
These two short books are compilations of Buffet’s and Munger’s views on investing and life. The respective authors espoused these sayings with their own perspectives. These books contain useful nuggets on living a good life. Absolute must read.
“What I Learned About Investing from Darwin” by Pulak Prasad
Practical and intellectual; Years of experience shared in terms of metaphors and analogies; A wonderful book on investing by an Indian for the world. Miss this book at your peril (particularly if you are on the wealth creation journey).
“Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing” by Larry E. Swedroe
An absolute gem of a book on investing. Short and practical. The author debunks a lot of common misperceptions in investing.
“How much Land does a Man need?” by Leo Tolstoy
This is the shortest book I read in a while, perhaps ever. Surprisingly I never heard of this book until recently. It hardly takes any time to read this book but if you are not driven by the speed of reading it, the essential message from this book may linger on for a long time after you complete reading it.
“Quality Investing: Owning the best companies for the long term” by Lawrence A Cunningham, Torkell T Eide and Patrick Hargreaves
I reread this book to prepare material for a “stock valuation” series (of virtual sessions) that a few of us meet up for, once every 2–3 three weeks. This book is a classic on stock valuation — interestingly and importantly, all valuation dimensions in the book are qualitative.
“Multibagger Stocks” by Prasenjit Paul
A heady, practical and no-nonsense book on the author’s personal experiences with picking multibagger stocks. Author shares what he learnt in his journey in terms of what worked for him and perhaps more importantly, what did not too.
“The Quark and the Jaguar Adventures in the Simple and the Complex” by Murray Gell-Mann
What a fabulous book on many things, and importantly for me, also on complexity. What an illustrious career this author had and what a humble person he comes across as. Although it is a wonderful book on complexity, you may read this book just to marvel at how such a great mind thinks and makes accessible such “complex” topics. Pure pleasure, this book!
Unfinished Business
I read the following books partially and had to halt for various temporary reasons. I must have read anywhere from 25% to 75% portions of these books. The reason I’m still mentioning them here is because based on whatever time I spent on these books, I am convinced that these are wonderful books in the sense that they hold potential to evoke a sense of wonder in anyone who is curious about how world/nature/Universe operates.
“Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future” by Ed Conway
“Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made” by Vacla Smil
“Embracing Complexity: Strategic Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence” by Jean G. Boulton, Peter M Allen et al
“Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility” by James Carse
“Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Understanding Statistics and Probability with Star Wars, Lego and Rubber Ducks” by Will Kurt
“Worlds hidden in Plain Sight: The evolving idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute 1984–2019” by David C. Krakauer
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