I got an email from my friend Rob Shurtleff of Divergent Ventures this morning that said “So I looked at your bookshelf for ideas. It is a bit like walking into a library without an idea of what I want to read. So here is the challenge, we are driving to Yellowstone for 4 days of hanging out at old faithful before xmas. I would like to grab a few books on my iphone for the drive 12 hours each way. How about putting up two lists: The Ten Non Fiction books you really should read and The Ten Fiction books.”
I’ve read 72 books so far this year – I’ll probably be around 90 given my typical book a day rhythm when I’m up in Keystone. So I’m only going to list the top five non-fiction and top five fiction (ok – approximately five) from this year since that’ll be less than 20% of what I’ve read. Here you go – you can’t go wrong with any of them if you are a reader.
Non-Fiction
Zeitoun: New Orleans + Katrina + Muslim American + Heavy Bad Stuff
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else: Successful Ad Exec finds himself in the dumps later in life. Fixed by a job at Starbucks.
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves: The Financial Crisis of 2008 unfolding in great detail.
Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska: Actually, in really remote Alaska.
Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital: The story of General Georges Doriet and the start of the venture capital industry.
Fiction
The Scorpion’s Gate and Breakpoint: Brilliant contemporary spy vs. spy stories by Richard A Clarke. Yes – I realize this is two books – read them in order.
The Player of Games: An Ian Banks classic. Particularly interesting if you are addicted to Zynga games.
The Orpheus Deception and The Echelon Vendetta and The Venetian Judgment: David Stone is my favorite new mental floss writer. Three books – read them in order.
Daemon: Easily the best cyberthriller I’ve ever read.
Supreme Courtship: Anything by Christopher Buckley always makes the list. Especially poignant given my Supreme Court visit this year.