There was a time – not many years ago – when I would set myself ridiculously daunting challenges such as reading 50 books in a year.
Little did I know at that time that unless you possess the reading speed and the processing ability of Bill Gates, such numbers are hard to achieve. I kept missing my target, needless to say.
When my friends asked me why I missed it, I would talk up the importance of the process, how the process was the God and that the end results didn’t matter. Basically, it was my way of weaseling out when somebody tried to put me on the spot.
Those days have long passed. Reality has tempered my beginning-of-the-year enthusiasm. In 2022, I intend to read less for more.
Setting a number against the books I would read in a year seems frivolous to me now. These days, I go at a relaxed pace, immersing myself in the books, unperturbed since I no longer carry any self-imposed target.
I have realized that sauntering through a book – you know, when you read and pause to contemplate and imbibe – helps you get more out of a book than rushing through it to earn a fake prize on Instagram. Reading should be akin to deep work.
You retain much more than when you are hurtling through books.
While choosing which titles to read nowadays, I try to go for books that help me build on the existing knowledge in my head. Let me explain. I want to read Cathy O’Neil’s upcoming book The Shame Machine because it ties in with Jaron Lanier’s book I read last year and The Social Dilemma documentary that I watched. It will be a logical progression.
In 2022, I intend to run my reading arc from subjects like Entrepreneurship, AI/Web 3.0, Philosophy to a bit of Self-help and Personal finance. I also wish to read research papers that deep-dive into entrepreneurship and innovation as interdisciplinary fields. While I pursue the said topics, there is a list of titles that I definitely want to read in 2022.
Below I am listing down 10 books that are already there on my reading list:
- The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation by Cathy O’Neil (2022)
- Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart J. Russell (2019)
- Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at any Age by Bruce Feiler (2020)
- The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs (2011)
- Arguably by Christopher Hitchens (2011)
- Lifespan: Why We Age – And Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair (2019)
- The Daily Laws by Robert Greene (2021)
- A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel (1996)
- The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman (2013)
- Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (2018)
So that’s about me. What are the books or genres you plan to read in 2022? Please let me know by mentioning it in the comments box below
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