52 Books In One Year (2021 Edition)
This is not a new concept, but 2021 is the year that I am committing to making this happen. With so many ways to consume books…
This is not a new concept, but 2021 is the year that I am committing to making this happen. With so many ways to consume books, there’s not much of an excuse anymore, so I’m documenting it here to hold myself accountable.
This includes physical books as well as audiobooks, the latter being something I can also do while I work out, walk the dogs, deliver hot sauce, etc.
What am I hoping to get out of this? More knowledge, a broader understanding of how folks think, more resources to share with others, some fun thrown in as well. Most of the list will be non-fiction, but I’ve sprinkled some fiction in to make sure I’m not taking things too seriously overall. For each, I plan on doing some version of a write-up to put my thoughts somewhere. I have a terrible habit of reading and remembering very little after a few months.
Below is the current list and while it’s completely filled out, I reserve the right to change things up. After all, there could be additional items that spike my curiosity or take precedence over what lies below.
The List for 2021
Rewire — Richard O’Connor
Brotopia — Emily Chang
Sacred Cow: The Case For Better Meat — Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf
Escaping the Build Trap — Melissa Perri
The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work — Scott Berkun
Outcomes Over Output — Josh Seiden
Inspired: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love — Marty Cagan
Think on Your Feet: Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Impromptu Communication Skills On the Job — Jen Oleniczak Brown
Bored and Brilliant — Manoush Zomorodi
The Politics of Coaching — Carl J. Pierson
Will Write For Food — Dianne Jacob
McIlhenny’s Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire — Jeffrey Rothfelder
HBR Leading Virtual Teams
HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategy (including featured article “What Is Strategy?” by Michael E. Porter)
The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work — Peter Block
Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence — Daniel Goleman
What You Do Is Who You Are — Ben Horowitz
Smartcuts — Shane Snow
The Making of a Manager — Julie Zhuo
Browns Town 1964 — Terry Pluto
The Art of Sportscasting — Tom Hedrick
Bossypants — Tina Fey
Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them — Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini
Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work — Jeff Schwartz
Delivering Happiness — Tony Hsieh
The Talent Code — Daniel Coyle
The Icarus Deception — Seth Godin
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage — Alfred Lansing
Foundation — Isaac Asimov
Siddhartha — Hermann Hesse
You Win In the Locker Room First — Jon Gordon and Mike Smith
Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe
The Education of a Coach — David Halberstam
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Thi1ngs Done — Lawrence Bossidy and Ram Charan
Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us — Seth Godin
Liar’s Poker — Michael Lewis
A Town Like Alice — Nevil Shute
The Caine Mutiny — Herman Woulk
Lead From The Outside — Stacey Abrams
Lincoln on Leadership — Donald T. Phillips
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk — Ben Fountain
A Thinking Man’s Guide To Pro Football — Paul Zimmerman
Finding the Winning Edge — Bill Walsh, Brian Billick, James A Peterson
Above the Line — Urban Meye and Wayne R Coffey
Chop Wood Carry Water — Joshua Medcalf
Eleven Rings — Hugh Delehanty and Phil Jackson
Have other thoughts on what I should read? Feel free to send me a note or add a comment below!
Other Books I’ve Heard About Over The Year
Out of The Crisis — W. Edwards Deming
The Procrastinator’s Handbook: Mastering the Art of Doing It Now — Rita Emmett
Point B — Drew Magary
Think Like a Monk — Jay Shetty
Rework — David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention — Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings
Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell
The Go-Giver — Bob Burg
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance — Angela Duckworth
Leadership Is Language — L. David Marquet’
Laziness Does Not Exist — Devon Price
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management — Will Larson
The Culture Code — Daniel Coyle
Every Tool’s a Hammer (Savage)
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (Hadfield)
The Design of Every Day Things (Norman)
How to be an Antiracist (Kendi)
The Color of Law (Rothstein)
The Ghost Map (Johnson)
The Visual MBA (Barron)
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (Hamming)
Think Again (Grant)
The Little Book of Talent (Coyle)