Okay, I'm gonna do the entire video
balancing these on one finger.
Nevermind.
Hey, what is going on guys?
So today I thought I would do
another book recommendation video,
but I do want to tell you up front,
that this is a little bit different
than my previous book recommendation video,
which was all about books I think
that every student should read.
By contrast, this is a list of the best books
that I personally read this year,
so while every book on this list is educational
and I found to be very useful,
I'm not necessarily going to say that you
have to read this book if you're a student,
but I do think that you'll find a lot of the books,
on this list interesting no matter who you are.
Case in point, the first book on my list
is The Code Book by Simon Singh.
Now, this is a book that teaches you all about the history
and the ins and outs of cryptography,
the science of encoding and decoding messages.
The book basically gives you
a comprehensive overview of this topic
and it starts all the way back in Roman times
and goes over Caesar ciphers
and monoalphabetic substitution ciphers,
moves onto polyalphabetic substitution ciphers
and then goes into the modern day
and covers things like Diffie-Hellman key exchange
and public private key cryptography
and even quantum cryptography.
Now, the book is lacking a little bit in practical details
about how to secure your online life,
though we did do a podcast episode all about that
that you can check out in the description down below,
but it is an absolutely fascinating read
and I could not put it down once I started reading it.
Second on my list is Essentialism:
The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
and we did have to look up how to pronounce that
on Forvo before making this video,
so I'm pretty sure I have that right,
but if you're Irish, then you can correct me.
It is an Irish name, right?
- [Man] No idea.
- Boy, now I have to look that up.
- [Man] Also, one of them said McKeown.
- This book talks all about how to prioritize
the most important things that you're doing in your life
and focus on those things, how to work without distraction
and this book was really important for me
because as an entrepreneur and a creative person,
I get a ton of ideas and if I don't keep my mind restrained
a little bit, I'm easily able to just go off
and get distracted on a new idea
before finishing something that I'm already working on,
so reading this book really shifted my mindset
and made me take single-minded focus on an important task
a lot more seriously than I had in the past
and this was one book that we did talk about on the podcast,
so if you want an overview or a summary of it,
I'll have a link in the description down below.
The third book on my list is a big one.
Debt: The First 5,00 Years by David Graeber
was a fascinating read, and admittedly,
I'm actually not done with this book yet,
but I am about halfway through
and it is really really interesting
if you have any sort of inclination
towards reading about economics.
I actually heard about this book
back when I watched the money episode
of the Crash Course World History Series with John Green
and the idea that it explores is really fascinating.
Basically, in classical economics
they teach this idea that before money there was barter.
Basically, before you had coins to trade with,
you took your cow to the market
and you lopped off part of its leg
and you traded that for some rice,
but the thing is while this theory is taught
in most intro to economics textbooks,
anthropologists have found almost no record
of any society that ever used pure barter
before the development of money.
Instead they used informal debt bonds,
which eventually became formalized by the development
of money and IOUs and banking and so forth.
Anyway, again, this is not the kind of book
that's gonna help you balance your own checkbook
or save more money efficiently,
but it is a fascinating introduction
into how economics really works.
Next up on my list is the Elon Musk biography
by Ashlee Vance and you may have seen this one coming
since I did make an Elon Musk video pretty recently.
I've been getting more and more into reading biographies
and in the past couple of years I've read biographies
on Jeff Bezos, on Steve Jobs, and on Elon Musk
and I have to say the one on Elon Musk
inspired me the most and I came away with more respect
for him than I did for the other two.
Obviously, all three of these men
are or were wildly successful
and they all definitely had glaring flaws
that I don't wanna emulate, but out of the three,
I came away with the feeling that Elon Musk has this
just driving motivation to improve humanity as a whole.
That's the reason I made my video on Musk in the first place
and listening to his biography,
because this is one that I did listen to as an audiobook,
was really motivating for me.
It made me wanna put more effort into my own work.
Book number five on my list
is The Big Short by Michael Lewis.
Now, if you've seen any of my conversations
with my friend Taha on Twitter,
you will know that The Big Short
is my favorite movie of all time
and earlier this year, after watching the movie
for probably the third time, I decided it was high time
that I actually read the book that it was based on
and this book is an excellent overview
of exactly why the financial crisis of 2008 happened,
so if you have any interest in recent history and economics
and why the markets all crashed the way they did
and how corrupt the system really was,
this book is a fascinating read
and it's honestly a lot of fun to read as well,
though it will probably also make you mad.
All right, book number six on my list
is How To Not Be Wrong:
The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg.
Like the title implies, this is a book about math,
but before you go clicking out of this video
if you don't like math, it is not a math book.
You're not gonna have to work on problems.
It is a simple introduction to certain math concepts.
In fact, he has one page that teaches you calculus
in one page, at least the fundamental concepts of it,
and moreover, this book spends a lot of time talking about
statistics and how statistics are misinterpreted or misused
by the media or by people who have an agenda to further,
so by reading this book, even if you don't go pick up
a math minor in university or study the concepts further,
it is going to give you a more intuitive understanding
of statistics and you're gonna be able to more accurately
interpret the ones you see in your everyday life.
Book number seven on my list
is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
and this is another book that we covered on the podcast
this year and it is probably the best book I have ever read
for when you are struggling with procrastination.
This book is basically a meditation
on the work of an artist, the daily consistent work
put in over years and years.
It deals a lot with the concept of resistance
and how to defeat it, and honestly,
if you have a lot of trouble putting inconsistent
daily work into things that you're striving to do,
this is a really good read.
Book number eight on my list
is Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
and I picked this book up because,
as you might have heard in my previous video,
I've been really into cooking recently.
Now, this book, while wildly entertaining,
is not a how-to on the science of cooking.
There actually is a book called The Science of Cooking
which I also picked up but am not doing with yet,
but this book is more of an exposé on the life
of a professional cook and if you've ever watched any
of Anthony Bourdain's TV shows before,
you will know that he is an incredibly entertaining guy
and that definitely transfers over to his writing.
Now, I will say that this book did teach me
a couple of things, which is why it's on this list.
If it was just entertaining,
I probably wouldn't have put it on there.
It actually has a chapter that talks about
why restaurant food tastes different than the food
you make at home and he also talks a little bit about
some of the basic tools that you can add to your kitchen
to be a better cook yourself,
but for the most part, the book is mainly full of stories
of Bourdain's time as a cook and eventually a chef,
and because it's Anthony Bourdain
and because he does narrate the audiobook,
I highly recommend listening to it rather than reading it.
And finally, the ninth book on my list
is Good To Great by Jim Collins
and this book was really useful to me as an entrepreneur
because it's all about how companies
go from good or mediocre to great.
The entire book is based on a five-year-long study
that looked at data from hundreds of different companies
and identified the ones that spent a really long time
in the mediocre zone and then finally had a transition point
to greatness that was sustained
and I took a lot of lessons away from this book
that I tried to apply to my work
and to my own company, but one of the most important
was the concept of Level 5 Leadership.
The book explains that a Level 5 Leader is somebody
who embodies two incredibly important characteristics.
First, they have an indomitable will and work ethic.
They're willing to put in whatever it takes
to further the goals of the company,
but at the exact same time, they are humble.
They live by that excellent quote from Harry Truman.
"It's amazing what you can accomplish
"if you do not care who gets the credit."
After I read that, I took that to heart.
I realized that I run a business
where my face is basically on everything,
but there are a lot of elements
that I have been able to let go
that have actually improved because I've done that.
So guys, that is my list of the best books
that I've read this year and I would love to hear from you.
What are the best books that you've read this year?
Let me know down in the comments.
Also, I have all these books linked
in the description below, so you can check them out
if you want and for the ones that we did happen to analyze
on the podcast, I will have links
to those podcast episodes as well.
Beyond that, if you enjoyed this video,
you can give it a thumbs up and you can also subscribe
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when I publish new videos and you can also click right there
if you wanna get a free copy of my book
on how to earn better grades.
You can also find our latest podcast episode
right there where we recapped 2017
and kind of did a little year in review
and if you wanna find one more video
on this channel, click right there.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.