Recommendations, reviews, and assorted digital flotsam and jetsam
Hi, all.
Welcome to a special Jolabokaflod edition of the Omnivorous Reader! If you’re planning on celebrating this phenomenal Icelandic holiday tradition, these recommendations might be of interest!
Why You’re Getting This: This reading list is going out to old and new friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. If you’re receiving this, I thought you might appreciate it.
Feel free to unsubscribe–obligatory reading is the worst.
If you know a fellow reader who might enjoy it, please pass it along.
What's Jolabokaflod?
This literary holiday originates in Iceland and is roughly translated as “Christmas Book Flood.” To celebrate the holiday, you give books to friends and family on Christmas Eve. Here are some good choices to consider if you’re going to celebrate this holiday yourself (or if you’re just looking for some good book titles to give as presents):
For Clearer Decision Making...
Try Anne Duke’s Thinking in Bets, an enjoyable look at probabilistic thinking. Considering the readership of The Omnivorous Reader, I think I’m 65% sure you’ll enjoy it.
For Better Negotiations...
Check out hostage negotiator Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference.It’s amazing how far mirroring will get you when trying to build rapport…
Consider Adam Savage’s Every Tool is a Hammer, both a memoir and manifesto for making from the co-host of Mythbusters.
For Graphic Novel Fans...
Try Compendium One of Brian K. Vaughn’s Saga series–it remains the best graphic novel series I read this year.
For Stephen King Fans...
Consider his new(ish) novel, The Institute. It’s a fun, easy read and better than his last 4 books.
For Fans of Neuroscience and Flow...
Listen to Steven Kotler’s new audiobook Mapping Cloud Nine (also available for free on Hoopla or for “free” with a subscription to Audible) that takes you through the science of high performance, spirituality, psychedelic experiences, and flow. (Spoiler: fMRI suggests that they’re all the same thing from a neurological standpoint).
For Fans of Eastern Philosophy...
Try Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh’s The Path. Puett is anaward-winning Harvard professor who shares his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy. I’m much more of a Confucianist that I realized!
For a Look at Gratitude...
Try A.J. Jacobs’s book Thanks a Thousand where the author decided to thank every single person involved in producing his morning cup of coffee. This mission of global gratitude is a quick, heartwarming look at what the Stoics called sympathia: The interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe.
I hope you’re all doing well and that you can find (or make) the time to read whichever of these books catches your interest–and I hope that you quickly abandon it if it turns out to be something that’s not for you. And if you know of a good book that you’d recommend, please pass it along.
