Final 2023 Reading Targets
Since I’ve been blogging a ton here and on LinkedIn, I don’t feel I need any personal introduction this time, but the clock is ticking…
Since I’ve been blogging a ton here and on LinkedIn, I don’t feel I need any personal introduction this time, but the clock is ticking. I’ve got A LOT of books to wrap up before the end of the across a wide range of topics. Fortunately I’ve got a couple of weeks of PTO coming up. Having scratched the World Wars itch with my trip I’ve been focusing on other topics that I really haven’t touched for a while — or ever.
My wife has been active in the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies and I have been attending in person and online sessions on Anti-Semitism and how Christianity and Judiasm adopt the Sabbath.
As part of her fellowship through our church, she attended a Reconstructionist service that uses the space of an Episcopal church we used to attend. This has gotten me interested in the writings of Mordecai Kaplan and Abraham Joshua Heschel. I read Karen Armstrong’s History of God (and The Battle for God) in the Early 2000s as as we know from the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Isreal, we need more interfaith dialogue not less.
This is also the first time I’ve read two novels in the span of a few months having read The Sympathizer and The Committed, the latter which is set in Paris of the early 1980s and that was part of the appeal since I just went to Paris.
Lastly, I heard about the John Brooks when I was reviewing The Soul of New Machine and that led me to buy a couple of his history’s of Wall Street which (because they were less than 5 buck) and I’ve found it super interesting. In particular how the 1960s bubbles and pops (and corruption) seems eerily similar to the 2020s. Capitalism never changes, I guess.
Fiction
- The Committed (The Sympathizer Book 2) by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2021)
- The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)
Theology & Religion
- The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan by Mel Scult (2013)
- The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel (1962)
- Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion
by Nick Spencer (2023)
Org Health
- Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification by Gene Kim, Steven J. Spear (2023)
- Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility
by Jonathan Smart (2020) - Organizational Culture & Leadership by Edgar H. Schein (2017)
Productivity
- Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results
Shane Parrish (2023) - Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by
Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz (2022)
Financial History
- The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street’s Bullish 60s by John Brooks, Michael Lewis (2014)
- Once in Golconda: The Great Crash of 1929 and its aftershocks by John Brooks (2014)
Previous Lists from 2023
