This is a guest article by Wolf Pup #0 highlighting some of his recommended reading materials for 2023.
I like to read. There are phases of my life where I will read 4-5 hours a day. Before making my recommendations for the Guardian Academy 2023 reading list, there are some caveats.
- It’s always better to read a good book again than it is to read a new one. You are a difference person and it will hit you differently. I re-read a lot of stuff.
- The books I read the most are not the book I recommend the most. Some of them require a base knowledge before reading and others are super dense. In either case, I recommend them, people rush out to buy them and then people get mad at me because they find it boring or don’t quite understand it.
For those reasons, this list is organized by category and prioritized by leverage. Ie a book like “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is high leverage; it’s a force multiplier as it can be applied it every single aspect of life. So this list is organized from highest leverage to lowest leverage. Except for the Fab 5 which are the 5 books that I have re-read the most.
Fab 5
All of these require the ability to open a loop and leave it open, most of them address the nature of a long time preference vs a short time preference. Some of them I read 5-6 times a year.
- Filters Against Folly by Garret Hardin
- Finite and Infinite Games by James P Carse
- Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Outwitting the Devil by Napolean Hill
- The Process Therapy Model by Dr. Taibi Kahler
Power vs Force would have made this any other year, I just didn’t pick it up for some reason this last year.
High Leverage
These are high leverage in that they explain core concepts and principles. If they require a base knowledge or are unusually dense, I have a recommendation that is an easier read.
- Diffusion of Innovation by Everett Rodgers
- Substitute with How To Fly A Horse by Kevin Ashton
- Rigging The Game by Dan Nicholsdon
- Substitute or supplement with How To Not be Wrong by Jordan Ellenburg
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Bumpers (duh) by Nic Peterson
- What’s In It For Them by Joe Polish
- Substitute or supplement with How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Range by David Epstein
- Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke
- The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
- The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen
- Power vs Force by David Hawkins
Medium Leverage
Great books, some are better than the list above, but have less universal application
- 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari
- A World Without Email by Cal Newport
- Mastery by Robert Green
- Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnneman
Low Leverage
Amazing books with more specific application
- Flip the Script by Oren Klaff
- The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert
- The Entreprenuers Guide to Getting Your Shit Together by John Carlton
- Overdeliver by Brian Kurtz
To be honest, this list could go on forever. If you want to see my whole reading list you can see it right here. I stopped updating in the middle of last year, so there are some things missing but if they are really good things, they made the list above.
I know, I know. You want specific recommendations to deal with specific problems or issues. And that is one of the reasons people are such poor problem solvers; looking for top → down solutions. The high leverage recommendations above will improve all areas of your life by helping you see the underlying structure instead of the manifestation of the problem.
You can read more about why i don’t like to think in niches or domains here.