Hella Important, Mind-blowing, Super-useful and Fun: 100 books I read in 2016, Part I

At the beginning of 2016, I decided to devote more time to my favorite activity: reading. I set myself a rough target of two books a week, and got through about 110 of them. Below are capsule reviews and ratings of about 100 of those, categorized into the following 5 headings: Hella Important; Mind-Blowing; Super Useful; Fun & Fast; Loved it!; Heart-Expanding; and More. Note than I'm counting audiocourses as books, some of which are much longer than the average audiobook (36hrs vs 6hrs). If a book looks like it doesn't have a review, it means I put it in more than one category and the review's coming right up.

Enjoy, and please chime in with your own reviews, reflections and recommendations in the comments!

HELLA IMPORTANT!
These books aren’t necessarily the most fun to get through, but they’re talking about something super important that is probably affecting your life right now.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport ( ebook and paper ). The most behavior-altering book I read in 2016. Georgetown computer scientist Newport differentiates between deep and shallow work, making the case that a life of meaning has more of the deep than the shallow. A roadmap for fulfilling your purpose in life, which I intend to fully deploy in 2017 and beyond. 10/10

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Sherry Turkle ( ebook and paper ). We’re in the midst of a social revolution, and not in a good way: digital communication is eating away at face-to-face interaction, with measurable, scary and disastrous effects on our minds and relationships. Turkle places the problem in its proper apocalyptic context and proposes some solutions. 9/10

The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, Adam Gazzaley MD/PhD and Larry Rosen PhD ( ebook and paper ). You can’t multitask. Period. The authors, a renowned neuroscientist and a psychologist, provide the scientific evidence for how distractions and interruptions of high-novelty digital media degrade our brain function, productivity and relationships. An accessible and thorough presentation of an extremely important, timely topic. My full Amazon review here . 9.5/10

The Way of the Strangers: Encounters With the Islamic State, Graeme Wood ( ebook and paper ). Who really gets ISIS anyway? Even to an educated audience, they seem like a jumble of acronyms, leaders, factions and philosophies falling somewhere between incoherence and chaos. How did they come about? Are they real Muslims? What’s up with the beheadings, amputations, and sex slavery? What compels so many seemingly nice young men to leave everything behind and join them in Syria? This brand-new book places IS in an historical, religious, geographic and ideological context so by the end of it we can all say, “Aahh, now I get it.” The encounters are kinda amazing. Full review here . 9/10

Tribe: On Homecoming & Belonging, Sebastian Junger ( ebook and paper ). Pretty short as far as audiobooks go, but it packs a wallop. Junger gets deep into the human psyche’s need for affiliation and fellowship, and how that manifests (or doesn’t) in the modern world. 9/10

Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World, Srdja Popovic ( ebook and paper ). Loved this book! Enough to review it twice, push it on all my friends, and befriend the author. Srdja knows what he's talking about. As one of the founders of Otpor!, he masterminded the nonviolence movement that eventually toppled the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Later he and his colleagues consulted with the nonviolent movements in the Maldives, Egypt, and Burma. This book draws upon these frontline experiences: what worked, what didn't work, and how to do it better. Read my rhapsodizing review here . 10/10

Girls and Sex: Navigating the New Landscape, Peggy Orenstein ( ebook and paper ). Hoo boy. Sobering, sometimes terrifying stuff here. Our girls are in trouble, and Orenstein shows us why, mostly from the mouths of girls. Eye-opening stuff. 8.5/10

The Chrysalis Effect: The Metamorphosis of Global Culture, Philip Slater

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Davis ( ebook and paper ). A jaw-dropping work of investigative journalism so explosive that it subjected its incredibly ballsy authors to years of harassment and death threats, continuing to this day. You read it and think, “That didn’t actually happen, did it? People can’t possibly be that evil.” Oh yes it did, and yes they are. Remember these names: Competitive Enterprise Institute; Heartland Institute; Marshall Institute; Frederick Seitz; Bill Nierenberg; Robert Jastrow; Fred Singer. These are some of the denialist Cold Warriors and turncoat scientists who for decades defended the tobacco industry, denied the industrial origins of acid rain and ozone depletion, disseminated pseudoscience in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative, defended DDT, and are still trying to discredit the science of global warming. Another fantastic recommendation from Jesse Kornbluth’s Head Butler blog , and one of the most important books I’ve ever read. Know thine enemy. 10/10

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John Ratey ( ebook and paper ). Another life-changing book I’m embarrassed to have taken my sweet time to get to. Ratey makes a spirited case for exercise being the best thing you can do for yourself, ever. Fun to read and highly motivating. Exercise makes you smarter! 9/10

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer ( ebook and paper ). Where do fanatic nutjobs come from? Hoffer – an unaffiliated, self-educated longshoreman awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his writings – breaks it down in exacting and prescient detail. When he wrote this in 1952, WWII was still fresh in people’s minds, and folks like Mao and Stalin were still in power. With the 2016 US elections, fascism and nationalism on the rise, this classic is a timely read. 9/10

The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care, Angelo Volandes ( ebook and paper ). Have you talked to your parents about advance directives, living wills and other uplifting topics yet? What, you think they (and you) are somehow exempt from death? This is pretty important stuff, folks. Take-home message: the three end-of-life care choices are life-prolonging care (“Do everything, doc!”), limited medical care, or comfort care. After watching the videos, most people opt for comfort care. Watch the videos here in 20 languages. The book also has links to all the forms you’ll need. Every new book these days has the word “revolutionary” in the title, but this one earns it. Essential resource. 9/10

The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage, Brené Brown ( audiobook ). How good is this? Really, really good. 6 hours to shift your thinking and change your life. Screw perfectionism. 9.5/10

The Power Paradox: How We Gain & Lose Influence, Dacher Keltner ( ebook and paper). How is it is that to get power, you have to be nice to people, but once people become powerful, they tend to turn into jerks? Keltner is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and this book illuminates the relationship between kindness and power. Lots of useful, revealing tidbits about human behavioral quirks. 8.5/10

MIND-BLOWING
My reaction after reading these books was “Holy cow that was amazing,” whether due to content, style or both. Many of them would also fall under the “Important” or “Loved it!” categories.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Harari ( ebook and paper ). Deep insight into what it means to be human, from evolutionary beginnings to modern days, from micro to macro. Seriously mind-expanding stuff. Everybody’s read it, so why haven’t you? 10/10

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, Phil Knight ( audio , ebook and paper ). An intimate, revealing, moving, poetic, and often hilarious account of an extraordinary life. I cracked up listening to this book more than any other since Dave Barry. Knight may have missed his calling as a writer, but I’m glad he made some damn good shoes. A masterpiece of the genre. 10/10

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt ( ebook and paper ). Normally, I don’t read a lot of history, and I only came to possess this book through a Harvard January-term class taught by Greenblatt himself. Years later, I finally deigned to pick it up. It’s astonishingly, mind-blowingly good. There is a direct line from the modern world to the writings of the preposterously prescient Roman poet Lucretius. Greenblatt takes us through the history of classical Rome, re-creates the world of the Renaissance book fiend Poggio Bracciolini – quite possibly the only person who could have dug up a copy of De Rerum Natura – and makes it all relevant to our present-day lives. This book deserves its Pulitzer and every other accolade it ever gets. 10/10

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee ( ebook and paper ). I acquired the galley of this at Book Expo America six years ago, and thought I'd leaf through it before putting it in a donation pile. Except that I couldn’t put it down till I’d read the whole damn thing. Holy rumbling Krakatoa it’s one of the greatest books I’ve ever read! Sid Mukherjee is a brilliant scientist in his own right, and therefore supremely qualified to write on this topic. What he does above and beyond the call of duty is to tell a damn fine story, too. Humane, erudite, moving. Can’t wait to dig into his new one, The Gene . 10/10

The Chrysalis Effect: The Metamorphosis of Global Culture (2008), Philip Slater ( ebook and paper ). Every once in a while a book comes along and tilts your whole world such that you can’t but see it differently. This is one of them (like Sapiens). Slater is a deep thinker, and his formulation of Control Culture vs Integrative Culture has enormous explanatory power, especially in an age of rising authoritarianism. Read it and be blown away. Another Head Butler favorite. 9.5/10

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi ( ebook and paper ). For the three people who haven’t read this yet, Kalanithi was a hotshot neurosurgery resident with a wobbly relationship when he got diagnosed with lung cancer. With months to live, he decided to finish residency, get married, have a kid, and write this book. We’re really glad he did. Life-affirming, poetic, deeply moving. Next time someone asks, “What is the meaning of life?”, hand ‘em this book. 10/10

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, Sean Carroll ( ebook and paper ). It took me a month to get through this, and I’m glad I did. Sean is a brilliant theoretical physicist who has the distinction of being the only person to turn down a postdoc with Stephen Hawking twice. He’s also one of the best living popularizers of science, with a lively and funny delivery. This is a deeply rewarding book, if not one you can necessarily speed-read. You end up questioning your assumptions, and reconfiguring your worldview on almost every page. 10/10

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder ( ebook , paper , audiobook ) An amazing book! It's really a biography of 30+ people – not just Warren Buffett, but also Charlie Munger, Ben Graham, Susie Buffett, Buffett's grandparents, parents and children, Katharine Graham, all of Buffett's business partners, Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway, and the US economy in the 20th century. The vividness and empathy with which Schroeder describes them makes each character come alive, illuminating Buffett and his era through the prism of his relationships. You also get inside the head of one of the richest men who has ever lived. A masterpiece. 10/10

Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism, by Karima Bennoune ( ebook  and  paper ). The atrocities, inhumanity, resistance, bravery and hope that Bennoune describes in this 2013 collection of interviews and stories from around the Muslim world will shake you to your core, bring you to tears, and ultimately, make you hopeful for humanity's future. She collected these accounts at considerable risk to her own safety. Bennoune's father was a noted fighter of fundamentalism in Algeria, so she speaks from firsthand experience. Mind-blowing stuff. 9.5/10

The Perfect Meal: The Multisensory Science of Food and Dining, Charles Spence ( ebook and paper ). Once I had heard about Oxford’s Crossmodal Research Lab, I had to get this book written by its director. I used the book to design my first Neurodinner Party, and it worked magnificently. Required reading for neuroscientists and aspiring chefs. 8.5/10

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell ( ebook and paper ). Mitchell is a genius, and his book is a mad tour de force of novelistic craft. He re-creates or invents six worlds, getting the tone, diction, genre and feel for each one pitch-perfect. Who can sound convincing as a 19th c. sailor, a 1930s aristocratic English musician and a post-apocalyptic Hawaiian? Whether the novel itself is fun to read is another question entirely, and although it was mostly riveting, it was also a slog at times. However, my sense of the possibilities of fiction has been expanded, and the likelihood of ever writing a novel commensurately shrunk. 9.5/10

The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease, Dan Lieberman ( ebook and paper ). One of those awe-inspiring reads that makes you wonder what took you so long to get to it. Dan is the man. 9.5/10

Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science, Steven Gimbel ( Great Courses ) Prof Gimbel goes through the history of revolutionary scientific thought – micro to macro, from Aristotle to Copernicus to Galileo to Newton, Eintein, Hawking, Darwin, Freud, Kahneman – and how our view of the world reconfigured itself each time. Mind-blowingly good. Learned so much. 9.5/10

Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, Huston Smith ( ebook and paper ). To write a great memoir, it helps to have lived a great life. Huston Smith has lived at least five of those. Astonishing story from a generous, wise soul. Very sad that he passed away on 30 Dec at 97. 9/10

The Future of the Mind, Michio Kaku ( ebook and paper ). Physicist Kaku is a great popularizer, and this journey into cutting-edge neuroscience is exciting, accessible and thought-provoking. 8.5/10

SUPER USEFUL
I read a lot of personal growth books, and these are the ones I found particularly useful.

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Anders Ericsson & Robert Poole (ebook and paper ). A superb compendium of the work and thought of Ericsson, the undisputed god of high-performance studies and father of the misnamed 10,000hr rule. This book completely upended my notions about talent, achievement and expertise. Hard work beats talent every time. 10/10

Joy on Demand: The Art of Discovering the Happiness Within, Chade-Meng Tan ( ebook and paper ). You may be tempted to dismiss this book because of its goofy humor and non-sequitur cartoons. That would be a mistake. Meng, the Google engineer who founded their in-house meditation program, packs this book with transformative meditative practices, most of them new to this long-time meditator. I expect to re-read this one regularly. Full review here . 9/10

Money: Master the Game - 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom, Tony Robbins ( ebook and paper ). Tony’s first book in 20+ years. Wordy and exhortative in Robbins’ trademark good-natured hectoring style, this book makes all kinds of sense. Well worth the slog. 9/10

The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play, Neil Fiore ( ebook and paper ). One of the most popular books ever written on procrastination. And effective, too! Fiore decriminalizes the habit and provides some solid tactics for managing it. I’ll start implementing its suggestions next week. Maybe. 9.5/10

If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?, Raj Raghunathan ( ebook and paper ). This is the best book on happiness I’ve read so far because it’s so damn practical. The exercises are excellent. Take the free online course that goes with it. 9.5/10

The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown ( ebook and paper ). What with Oprah as a fan, all women seem to already know about Brené Brown. If not, this is where you start. Transformative thoughts on living a more self-compassionate, fulfilling life rid of perfectionism and other pernicious cultural afflictions. If you’re too lazy to read a whole book, start with this 27.7m view TED talk . 9.5/10

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating Like Your Life Depended On It, Chris Voss ( ebook and paper ). In business, parenting and relationships, we’re negotiating all the time, so we might as well be good at it. Voss, the former lead FBI hostage negotiator for 20+ years, spills the beans on how it’s done. With pithy maxims and riveting anecdotes, this book is both compulsively readable and eminently useful. Essential reference. My full review here . 9.5/10

Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Robert Cialdini ( ebook and paper ). I’ve been a Cialdini fanboy since 1997, and pre-ordered this, his first real new book in over 20 years. It did not disappoint. Full review here . 9.5/10

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, Shawn Achor ( ebook and paper ). Because of its practicality, this is one of the better happiness books I’ve read. And I’ve read ‘em all. 9/10

Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life, Susan David (ebook and paper ). One of the best personal growth books I’ve read in recent memory. David, a South African psychology instructor at Harvard Medical School, has seen and experienced a lot. Her storytelling and clear instructions for implementing change make this a standout. 9.5/10

The remainder of the Super Useful titles, as well as the remaining 50 books, are in the next post, Hella Important, Mind-blowing, Super-useful and Fun, Part II.