My Best Reads of 2022
reflection on the best books I read last year
Here’s a reflection on the best books I read in 2022. Included is a lesson or two I learned from each of the self-help books (in the bottom section).
Technology
- The Lazarus Heist: From Hollywood to High Finance: Inside North Korea’s Global Cyber War by Geoff White
- Privacy Is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Véliz and Rachel Perry
- Kill It with Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones) by Marianne Bellotti
- Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition by Marijn Haverbeke
- Engineering Production-Grade Shiny Apps by Colin Fay
- Own Your Tech Career: Soft Skills for Technologists by Don Jones
Emergency Preparedness
- Practical Doomsday: A User’s Guide to the End of the World by Michael Zalewski
Reasoning
- Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin D. West
- A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
Personal finance
- The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel
- Just Keep Buying: Proven Ways to Save Money and Build Your Wealth by Nick Maggiulli
- Buy This, Not That: How to Spend Your Way to Wealth and Freedom by Sam Dogen
Clinical research
- The Comprehensive Guide to Clinical Research by Dan Sfera and Chris Sauber
Personal development
- Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins
As you move up, don’t forget to train your humility. No one cares what you did yesterday. Instead ask yourself, what have you done today? Take inventory of your scars and use them as fuel. Demand more of yourself on a daily basis.
- The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter
Understand that you have a slot machine in your pocket. You’re designed to do hard shit and need daily exercise instead of sitting around getting screen time.
- The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg
Your true worth is how much you give in value than you take in payment. To give effectively, you must be also open to receive.
- Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
We have infinity pools in our pockets and homes. Infinity pools are the endless distractions caused by always available and always new entertainment. They are the new default. The book advocates four daily steps of finding time — the daily highlight, laser, energize, and reflection. Acknowledging that there is no one size fits all solution, the book provides many different tactics for the reader to choose whatever combination s a good fit for them. My personal favorites were to create barriers to distraction, play a laser soundtrack as a queue to focus, exercise for 20 minutes everyday, and meditate for 3 min everyday.
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Here are some of my takeaways: focus on who you want to become, get after it by focusing on the small wins that correspond to that identity, enable successful habits by designing your environment to make it easy, and work ethic is about who can handle the boredom and still show up.
- When Violence Is the Answer: Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life Is at Stake by Tim Larkin
There’s no alternative to real world information. Get real world experience. Practice. Drill. Free spar. Train slow. The focus should be on perfect form and technique. Less is more. Just do more perfect reps.
- Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKweon
Establish clear conditions for what done looks like. Create a done for the day list. Reduce complexity in life by seeking single choices that eliminate future decisions.
- Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke
Boredom is very anxiety provoking, but it is important and necessary. Intentionally seek out difficult or painful things to dial back your dopamine set point.
- Howard’s Gift by Eric Sinoway
Choices have an investment and opportunity cost. Recognize both the things you do and don’t do with a choice. Find a match between what you’re really good at, what you like, and what the career demands.
