Books lined up for 2022

“I just sit in my office and read all day.” — Warren Buffett

While 2021 may have been the biggest year in terms of number of books that I read, I have been a reader for as long as I remember. I let my curiosity guide me in terms of what books to read. The big difference between reading in previous years and in 2021 has been the serious intent on learning. I made notes while reading — sometimes formal, sometimes casual, I thought and ruminated on the concepts being presented in the books — there was a “deliberate effort” on my part to learn. Proof of learning is in its application in every-day life. Now I can see that I have started to see things differently, I’m being lot less impulsive and lot more comprehensive in my decision making and have been able to take few bold steps in my life with calm, composure and poise that I never knew I was capable of.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that just reading books could almost be a meaningless pursuit (on the “learning” dimension) unless there is “deliberate effort” of learning and one is focused on specific topics of interest.

• Deliberate effort: I get a strong sense of indescribable joy when I learn something new. It is accompanied by quaint excitement and palpable jubilation but when this learning is not followed by efforts to fix the new found knowledge in the mind, I have noticed that knowledge is easily lost. New neuron grooves (synapses) remain flaky and get untethered in no time. Deliberate learning is essential to make “reading” the powerful habit that it is meant to be.
• Focus: There is no end to what one can learn — particularly in today’s digital era. But with widely dispersed interest, we may end up not learning anything well. At any point of time, I think it is important to immerse oneself in a narrow list of focus areas, get deep insights and then move to other areas.

“If you can set your life up in a manner which gives you large chunks of time to do reading, but reading not from the context of ‘I’m going to do an investment’, but reading from the context of getting better at knowing how the world works. You get to wisdom which is different from just being smart. You can build up an advantage over your peers” — Mohnish Pabrai

Earlier I shared the list of books I read in 2021 (this year), here is the list of books that I’m intending to read and learn from, in the coming year. This list is a relatively small subset of the wish list I maintain with Amazon — I’m afraid, wish list may remain wishful interest.

Currently reading or immediately to be read

1. Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky

I have had multiple go’s at this book. For my abilities and background, I found this book a little too technical for smooth reading. But this is such a worthwhile book — I can’t possibly exaggerate its importance and power. I have heard multiple interviews of Robert Sapolsky on various podcasts to get used to the technicalities in the book. This book is about temporal view of factors that influence our behaviour — factors from few milliseconds before the behaviour to minutes before, hours before, days before, years before and even millennia before. As of now, I’m about 30% into this book.

2. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

At the risk being unfair to Yuval Noah Harari, I think Guns, Germs and Steel is a scholarly version of what the book “Sapiens” (written by Yuval) seemed to have meant to address. While Sapiens reads like a magazine story, this book reads like scientific speculation — it does not just give you meaningful information about human evolution but also gives us the means and methods of thinking about it. As of now, I read about 30% of this book.

3. Risk Savvy: How to make good decisions by Gred Gigerenzer

This is the book that I’m actively reading right now. Gred is an accomplished German Psychologist with refreshingly original views on role of heuristics in our decision making. He demonstrates amply how “rational” methods may help with arriving more optimal decisions when risks are known but in an uncertain world with unknowable risks, “rational” methods are many times not just less optimal than “gut” but may lead us to erroneous decisions with potentially tragic consequences.

4. Influence by Robert Cialdini

This is a very popular book which distils life’s work of Robert Cialdini who is an academician in the field of psychology. His research techniques are interesting and lend lot more credibility. This book details how evolution hard-wired our brains into making everyday decisions that are not necessarily suitable for today’s world. This book is as much informative as it is entertaining. I’m about 25% into the book.

5. Fortune’s Formula by William Poundstone

I came to know of this book from “The Dhandho Investor” by Mohnish Pabrai. I have been recently enamoured by “Kelly’s formula” and in that context as well, the name of this book kept cropping up. I’m yet to begin reading this book and can’t wait to get it started.

6. Poor Charlie’s Almanac by Charlie Munger

This book is all things Charlie Munger. Many great contemporary investors consider this as their life’s guide book. I’m about 25% into this book.

7. Structures: Or Why things don’t fall down by E Gordon

I had been keen on reading this book for more than six months now but could not find time yet. My motivation to read this book is to hopefully borrow design and engineering principles behind human-made and natural structures, into fortifying my own life’s structure.

8. Strangers to Ourselves by Timothy Wilson

If you think you know who you are, be prepared to be surprised and then read this book. Armed with the light thrown from latest research in social psychology, this book speculates on what goes on within our unconscious mind and how we build narratives in our conscious mind to create coherence and meaning in what we do. I’m about 15% into this book.

9. The Atomic Habits by James Clear

I know that this is a popular book. I read a short article on a mental model (“entropy”) by James Clear and liked his style. As such, I have personally seen and appreciate how cultivating good habits can help with crowding out bad habits. I’m yet to start reading this book.

10. Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner

My interest in this book to get a perspective on “Zen”

11. The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (re-read)

Back in the naïve and impressionable age of my twenties, I read this book umpteen times but haven’t looked at it in well over a decade. I want to reread this to discover why I liked it so much so many years ago.

12. Antifragile by Nicholas Nassim Taleb

I have read quite a bit about the concept of “antifragile” and have tried to incorporate its principles in my life (primarily in personal finance and career). I am interested in reading this book to get a well-rounded view on this subject.

13. What is Karma? By Eknath Eswaran

Well, this is a subject to keep coming back to, to reinforce the method and its application.

14. The Heartfulness Way by Kamlesh Patel and Joshua Pollock

Curious and hence want to read

15. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Curious and hence want to read

16. Upanishads by Eknath Eswaran

To get a rounded, high level view on this subject matter

17. Content Inc by Joe Pulizzi

Now that I inadvertently got into creating content, I want to learn from Joe’s experience

18. Simple Heuristics that make us Smart by Gred Gigerenzer

My most favaourite interest area and hence want to keep learning

19. Wealth, War and Wisdom by Barton Biggs

Well, despite the global financial crisis of 2008–09, the COVID-19 pandemic and the various wars and acts of terrorism in between, our lives (for most of us anyway) have been doing well. Prosperity is increasing and people are generally getting richer. With free money being printed by governments across the world, it does worry me immensely that we may be living in a bubble and what if it is actually a bubble and it were to burst? I want to learn from history how nations and societies performed during crisis and hence this book.

20. The Art of Learning Josh Waitzkin

I believe that this is a book on growth mind set by a practitioner par excellence. An absolutely must read for me.

21. A Century is not enough: My rollercoaster ride to success by Saurav Ganguly

Thankfully this is an autobiography — not a biography. I’m quite keen to understand how champions deal with their vulnerabilities, anxieties and setbacks and hence this book.

22. Open: Autobiography by Andre Agassi

For similar reasons as the book above, I want to read this book as well.

23. Exercised: The Science of Physical Activity, Rest and Health by Daniel Lieberman

A subject matter close to my heart and hence I want to read this book

24. Narada Bhakti Sutra by Swami Chinmayananda

Subject area of interest and hence I would like to read this book

25. Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland

Rory talks about how irrational we are in our thinking and how stories and narratives are significantly more powerful than cold logic in influencing people’s minds — a certain area of interest for me.

26. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Subject area of interest and hence I would like to read this book

27. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins

Jeff Hawkins is a computer scientist and also a neuroscientist. This book is about his speculation/proposal of how brain works, apparently a radical proposition but one that is able to explain some of psychology’s most stubborn problems. Intriguing topic and hence this book.

28. Filters against Folly: How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent by Garrett Hardin

A book on thinking clearly, filtering noise and making good/better judgments in life- something I’m keen on learning.

Few books from 2020 that I found very impactful

1. The Joy of X: A guided tour of Mathematics by Steven Strogatz

This book is essentially Mathematics made fun. Steven introduces readers to all the big concepts of mathematics and gives a historical perspective and hence gives us a sense of the need and evolution of this essentially abstract subject

2. Infinite Powers: The story of Calculus by Steven Strogatz

Similar to the previous book but a deep dive into calculus — Steven gives calculus a soul.

3. Carving a Sky: A perspective on Life by Samarpan

This is a short story on priorities of life — simple and easy yet profound.

4. Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies — Geoffrey West

This book blew my mind away. It talks about universal laws of scaling — that are applicable to living organisms and Cities — a book full of insights.

5. Why We Sleep: The new science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

A complete guide on what really goes on in our body and brain when we sleep. A must read for everyone in this sleep deprived world. As someone who always had troubled relationship with sleep, I found this book very useful.

“We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.” — Charlie Munger