The Most Interesting Books I Read in 2022
I consumed a lot of books this year. When my wife found out how many, she said, “Maybe you should do a little less reading and a little more work.”
Looking back at the list of books, it’s an interesting combination of going down a rabbit hole on business meeting practices, reading books about food for culinary school, and nerding out on data visualization. I knew I was in too deep when I read A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication, which is probably the least practical thing to spend time on.
In any case, the books below were those I found to be most impactful for my thinking—i.e., they helped me think differently, or connected dots, or provided practical wisdom that I could share.
CEO Excellence
Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra
From three senior partners at McKinsey, this book contains a lot of practical tools that leaders can use to develop, communicate, and drive strategy. It also includes a bunch of great insights like this one from Intuit’s Brad Smith: “My executive coach often said, ‘No one has ever lived to outwork the job. It will always be bigger than you. No matter how much you think you got here by hard work, you are not going to outwork it.’ ”
Shop Class as Soulcraft
Matthew B. Crawford
The book is a great essay on the power of having a craft. It’s relevant for anyone who lives in the world of abstract knowledge or whose daily output is mostly about influencing others. A great line from the book: “The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on.”
Ideaflow
Jeremy Utley, Perry Klebahn
This book contains advice on how to improve the flow of ideas we have as individuals and on how to lead in a way that increases ideas. The authors write: “Leaders who don't understand how creativity works struggle to nurture it in others, let alone leverage its power for the organization. [...] In most cases, the flow of ideas gets disrupted not by the individuals on a team but by the well-meaning, misguided leader who is so fixated on feasibility and relevance that every divergence from the status quo gets immediately quashed.”
Modernist Cuisine at Home
Maxime Bilet and Nathan Myhrvold
Modernist Cuisine is basically an encyclopedia of cooking techniques. It also comes in at over 2,400 pages over 6 volumes. Modernist Cuisine at Home is a much shorter version, but it provides great insights for anyone looking to deepen their scientific knowledge about food and build their cooking toolkit. You’ll be convinced to buy a blow torch by the end of it. Also, the photos are amazing.
A quick note: I’m taking next week off from Monday Musings, so this is the final post for 2022. I wish you a great and restful end of the year, and a happy new year!
Thanks for reading!
Charles
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