It’s been way too long since I’ve had a book lists update. I think that was because I was experimenting with taking a sabbatical from book lists. Well, I think the real reason is that I always told myself that if I just waited another week, I’d finish another book. That may or may not be true. Who knows. But as much as I can remember, the books I’ve read over the past 5 months:
- Stringer: A Reporters Journey into the Congo
- Never Have I Ever: My Life So Far Without A Date
- Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action
- The Love Queen of Malabar
- Vagabonding: The Uncommon Guide to Long Term Travel
- Brick Lane
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers
- A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea
Ugh, sort of pathetic that I could barely do a book a month, but whatever. I’m working on being less judgmental- apparently that applies to myself as well. Stringer was absolutely fantastic, and it half made me want to be a journalist and/or do something adventurous and/or at the very least visit the Congo. I mostly bought Never Have I Ever because she basically wrote the book about what I thought I could write about (so really I bought it because I was jealous that she wrote this book before I did), and I wanted to see what she had to say. It was pretty decent- she put words to some of the things I felt (and thought I was just crazy), and there were some parts that I was skimming over, but overall I liked the message a lot. Which is that female friends are awesome. I concur. Start With Why is a great book for someone starting a business. I’m not sure when in the business you should be before you read it (I think there’s a lot more crucial books to read) but I guess it depends on what you’re struggling with. There’s a TED video that basically sums it up, but the book was useful as well (i.e. the timing was good for me). The Love Queen of Malabar was great- I learned so much about the elite women of Kerala, and about feminist literature in India, generally. Highly recommend it. Vagabonding was pretty decent as well. It was a while ago, so I don’t remember much, but I remember thinking, that was a cool book (clearly there was less actual learning that came out of it). Brick Lane was amazing and brought me to tears (but then again I cry for the Cinderella Story with Hillary Duff so my standards are low). But it’s about a Bangladeshi woman in London and I loved it. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is one book I think every entrepreneur who has raised money (and is in the middle of trying to raise more money/getting to the next milestone) should read. It doesn’t make much sense if you are just starting out, but it was a perfect read for me this month. I couldn’t put it down. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea was amazing, and was sort of a magic realism-ish look at the life of a girl in post revolution Iran. Loved it, highly recommend it. Again, tears were there (but again, low standards with that).
I have decided that I’m going to be less clinical about this whole book thing, and just read what I find fascinating. I’m swapping out my trashy TV time for books, so I think we’ll see a lot more fiction on this list. I’m going to try and substitute actual travel for books (when I can’t actually leave my location and/or don’t have enough money to do so) so we’ll see how it goes. Therefore no ‘what I’m reading now’ list. Just…what I finish. I think that may give me more freedom (at least in my head) to do what I feel like. Lets see if that changes anything.
Let the experimentation begin
So I Quit My Job and Moved to India 