Favorite Books of 2022

Reading is revolution. The reformation and the enlightenment don't happen without the printing press. It's the vehicle for the masses to access and engage with the world's greatest thinking and it's the conduit for the spread of ideas. No wonder oppressive regimes ban books and limit access to education.

In an age of disinformation and echo chambers, books have never been more vital. Big tech has unleashed and honed algorithms that train us to skim and scroll. Politicians serve up soundbites that prey upon our fears. We reach for our phones hundreds of times a day.

Books can be our antidote. We lose ourselves in books, delve deeply into issues, build empathy, and explore competing worldviews. Books lift us up and leave us breathless. I read some amazing ones in 2022. Here are some of my favorites: 

Books that Helped Me See the World Differently

From Strength to Strength (Brooks): I've spent a lot of time this past year contemplating my next chapter. I told myself that I needed to get lost for a while. That it would be a challenging journey. I couldn't quite put into words what I was feeling… until I came across this book. So many of us have been leaning into skills that we've developed for the first half of our life (often with a strong achievement focus). But what comes after that? How do we find meaning? And what are we best suited to pursue? Brooks does a masterful job of capturing what I've been feeling and has helped shape how I'm thinking about the next fifty years.

Waging a Good War (Ricks) I thought I knew a decent amount about the Civil Rights Movement. Wrong. Ricks lays out the major "battles" and helped me appreciate the sophistication in the planning. I also gained a much deeper appreciation for major figures (King, Carmichael, Bevel, Marshall, Lewis, Nash, etc.) and the toll this war of non-violence took on them. What incredible courage it took to spark and grow this movement. But beyond the history lesson, I marveled at the leadership lessons applicable to this age of constant disruption. How do you sense and respond, approach an adversary, learn at every step, empower others while maintaining a sense of control? Always more to do, but this book helped me understand how far we've come and how intentional people had to be to make that progress.

Some other great reads:

• Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (Waldrop): We have a tendency to see the world as linear and, as a result, assign causal links where they don't belong. Some brilliant thinkers decades ago challenged that notion in a range of fields. They went on to found the Santa Fe Institute. Some of the science is likely dated, but this book gave me great insight into systems thinking, emergent phenomenon, network effects, and the like. Helpful for understanding platform businesses, how organizations evolve, and why we might need to re-think many of our assumptions.
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Taleb): Early in the pandemic, I tweeted out: "Tough times don't last. Tough people do." Taleb suggests that's not exactly true. Toughness (or resilience) isn't, in fact, the opposite of fragile. It's actually Antifragileity, the idea that the only systems that survive are the ones that are not just tough, but able to evolve and get stronger through chaos and disruption. A great companion piece to Complexity and one that will make you think differently as a parent, leader, and citizen.

Books that Made Me Stop and Marvel at their Invention (aka, books that made me think, "God, I wish I could write like that!")

The Candy House (Egan): Jennifer Egan builds on her mind-blowing A Visit from the Goon Squad with this series of interrelated stories. It's a cautionary tale about memory and authenticity in the age of big tech and social platforms. She defies gravity, however, and the book never devolves into dystopian nihilism. The spell-binding tale is made richer by the diverse approaches to the telling (omniscient, first person plural, tweet-length entries, letters). Rarely does someone take so many chances and succeed at every turn. In this age of social isolation and the coming age of the Metaverse, it's a story of hope that reminds us of the power of connection.

The Trees (Everett): I took my first fiction writing class with Everett in 1991 and have read everything he's written since. He's one of the most prolific and interesting writers of the last half-century, and I've often wondered why his work hasn't found a larger audience. The Trees, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, might have changed that. Everett manages to make a book about lynching funny, insightful, and surprising. The book also lands a series of direct hits on the subject of race and racism in America. Everett attacks the notion that lynching was a Southern problem. I often recommend Everett to people. The Trees will now be my go-to book.

• Cloud Cuckoo land (Doerr): Doerr moves us from 15th century Constantinople to present-day Idaho to some future world with character-driven stories connected by an ancient text. I found myself caring deeply about the characters, particularly Zeno and Seymour who make up the Idaho sections. Massive in scope; it's a tour de force.
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath (Jamison): I picked up this book expecting a story of deep pain and ultimate redemption. You know, a recovery memoir. I didn't anticipate being so blown away by the writing and so sucked into Jamison's story-- an Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate trying to find her muse in recovery. It's a fascinating look at recovery and addiction with a particular eye to their relationship to creativity that covers not just Jamison, but other artists like Raymond Carver, Billie Holiday, and John Berryman.
• Harlem Shuffle (Whitehead): Part crime novel, part family drama, Whitehead gifts us a portrait of 1960s Harlem and the internal struggle of a guy trying to make it in the world. Whitehead's another writer that I can't get enough of. Loved the language and the characters. I look forward to the sequel due out in July.
• The Complete Maus (Spiegelman): When I read this graphic novel twenty-five years ago, it moved me to tears. This past year, it showed up on a number of banned book lists, and I had to read it again. It had the same chilling effect. It's about the Holocaust and it's about the human condition, fathers and sons, and how we all deal with our history. It's a story that needs to be told and needs to be read.

Books that Helped Me See the World through Different Eyes

Bewilderment (Powers): My cousin gave me Galatea 2.2 some 26 years ago and I've read every Powers' work since. But how do you follow up The Overstory, the sweeping, Pulitzer-prize winning novel that made me never look at trees the same way? Powers does so magnificently with this intimate portrait of a father and son trying to make their way in our flawed world. He tackles themes of climate change, neurodivergence, technology, and the cosmos, raising ethical questions about how we impact all of them. While Powers writes brilliantly about technology and science, his real strength comes from the humanity he invests in his characters.

Dear Edward (Napolitano): We are regularly exposed to catastrophic events and are often left wondering what it must be like to live through something like that. Ann Napolitano gives us a window into a 12-year old sole survivor of a plane crash. He makes his way through his teen years with the help of an unlikely cast of characters. This book will break your heart one minute and offer hope the next. People are hurting everywhere, yet there are strangers ready and willing to step up. Despite our angry, divided rhetoric, I'd like to think Napolitano is right.

• Nothing to See Here (Wilson): This is the story of a woman who takes on the governess role for some kids who catch on fire. Not sure I would have read this had I known that was the plotline. But Wilson pulls off Magical Realism in an hilarious and compelling way.
• Of Women and Salt (Garcia): Garcia gives voice to some strong women that span several generations. She offers a look at our immigration processes, cigar factory workers in 19th Century Cuba, and a woman battling addiction in present-day Miami. Her prose sings.
• Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama (Odenkirk): I was mourning the end of Better Call Saul when I picked up this memoir. What a fascinating look at the world of comedy. I had the notes app on my phone open as I made note of different comedians to explore and shows to watch. Odenkirk comes off as funny, smart, and self-effacing, a comic's comic who landed in two of the greatest dramas of our time.

Books with Practical Frameworks/ Advice

Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (Kahneman, Sibony, Sunstein): I've often described Allegis Group as a decision factory. The strength of the company depends on the quality of decisions made by tens of thousands of people every day. In some ways, aren't we all the sum total of our decisions? There is so much attention these days paid to bias and how it affects our decision-making. Kahneman (and team) explore the problem of Noise (erratic decision-making not rooted in bias). This has far-ranging implications for how we think about the future, moving from clinical assessments to algorithmic. While we rightly have major concerns about Machine Learning and AI reinforcing biases, we need to pay more attention to the gains made by eliminating noise from our decisions. This book offers some ways to do just that.

• Everyday Superhero (O'Driscoll, Zamchick): There aren't too many business books rooted in deep academic research that are presented as graphic novels. It's a cool, inventive way to bring concepts to life, but the real value comes at the end of the book, with the People Centered Transformation Framework. It's always about the people! And O'Driscoll and Zamchick remind us that heroes can live at every level of an organization.
• Making Numbers Count (Heath, Starr): All persuasion comes down to story-telling, yet we often drop in charts and graphs and numbers that have little impact on our audience. Heath and Starr explain how our brains process numbers and provide useful ways to re-frame statistics in compelling ways. A must-read for anyone who wishes to persuade with data.

Oh, and Joseph Hilger , with some extra time at my disposal, I'll take a run at Making Knowledge Management Clickable in 2023 even though Brian Hilger has recommended I hold out for the movie version!