The 30-Book Challenge: My reading list for 2024

Leaders are readers, as the adage goes, and although the opposite is not always true, I believe reading can help everyone with personal development, gaining new perspectives, igniting new ideas and for experiencing mindfulness-like relaxation.

One of my goals for 2024 is to finish reading 30 books, and I thought I would share the (meticulously) curated list of books along with some ideas for how you could reach your reading goals.

Setting ambitious and desirable goals

For some, reading 30 books is not a very ambitious goal. For me, however, being a father of two, having a demanding job, and frankly, being a rather slow reader, it is a clear stretch goal. Probably 3x what I usually read in a year.

I would like to read much more. I enjoy the full life-cycle of books, I love browsing for books, buying books, unwrapping books, organizing books, I sort of like the smell of books as well as the idea of reading them. I also want to inspire my children, leading by example. But given the growing backlog of books, it's clear that I'm buying books at a much faster pace than I'm reading them.

The idea behind setting a clear goal is to motivate myself, and I already feel energized and excited to pursue this goal.

Having a clear strategy/plan and measuring progress

I sampled a few books and it seems, on average, they are approximately 350 pages. So 30 books is about 10,500 pages, which, over a year is almost 29 pages per day which does seem achievable. However, it is still 3x what I usually read in a year so some change is needed.

I realized that to reach my target I need to do three things:

1. Freeing up time for reading: To me, a very simple and good solution is to spend less time on the iPhone. I recommend going in to the Settings > Screen Time to have a look at how much time you spend. It was an eye-opener for me.
2. Incorporating reading into my daily habits: I use a bullet journal to track my daily habits, such as sleeping, working out, drinking sufficient amounts of water, and recently trying out intermittent fasting. Reading is now part of the checklist, which will remind me every day to do my reading.
3. Breaking down the target and monitoring progress: To avoid procrastination, I have always found it great to break down big milestones into smaller more manageable milestones with separate deadlines. That means breaking down the target into books per month. Now, 30 divided by 12 is 2.5, so that will be my monthly target.

A possible number 4 on this list would have been to dive into speed reading, but I really prefer to take my time, especially reading non-fiction. To pause and reflect, to highlight and take notes is an important part of the process.

I have noticed that when you set a bold target and actually follow it up, you often end up beating the target. So far, at the time of this writing, I have read one book in ten days, which is a rate of 3 books per month.

(Goals also tend to be followed through if they are publicly announced, which is why I hope publishing my goal here will be an additional motivator.)

My current list / backlog

My current list of books includes a mix of work related books (I spent most of my professional life working with corporate strategy and business transformation) and more personal interests such as self-improvement, leadership, psychology, decision making, writing, storytelling, mathematics and wellbeing.

There are 34 books in the list, i.e. more than 30, and the list will likely grow during the year. I like having a choice in which book to read.

Here it is, the list of books in my backlog, in somewhat random order, including my expectations of the book. I hope you find it an inspiration:

• Not the end of the world: How we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet, Hannah Ritchie. Still waiting for this one from Amazon. It was on Bill Gates' reading list and I really liked his book How to avoid a climate disaster, and it should, among other things, highlight some of the advancements that is happening in climate tech.
• Deep Work, Cal Newport. A book about the advantages of focused work. I have always been skeptical about open offices due to the lack of focus it creates. I read somewhere (source forgotten) that the open space design leads to increased number of sick days, is bad for productivity and, surprisingly, leads to fewer social interactions.
• Change by design, Tim Brown. This is a book written by the founding father of design thinking.
• Strategy beyond the hockey stick, Chris Bradley. A lot of business cases, I have seen them live, contain projections that skyrocket after a few years. Although the investment as such could be sound, the exponential effect is seldom materialized. The issue is that the creation of hockey stick projections is a form of professional self-preservation. Without it, your business case will be down-prioritized.
• The crux, Richard Rumelt. Recommended by a close colleague of mine. It could be seen as a continuation or evolution of the book Good Strategy / Bad Strategy by the same author. The book describes how a strategy needs to focus resources on what truly matters, the "crux", in order to create a sustainable competitive edge.
• Authentic gravitas, Rebecca Newton. A book about what it is that makes many some people stand out in a room, commanding respect and owning the room by their mere presence. It is very common among senior executives. Not necessarily based on charisma, I believe, but on many small things such as body language, intonation, at which pace they speak, the words they use.
• Hidden potential, Adam Grant. Adam is a professor in organizational psychology at Wharton. I'm consuming everything that has the name Adam Grant written on it. I listen to his podcasts, I read his books, I read his blog posts, I follow him on LinkedIn. He is brilliant! If he decided to make clothing, I would probably buy it. This book is about how we can unleash our inner potential.
• Think again, Adam Grant. Same guy, so probably a great book. Think again is, I believe, about having an open and flexible mind.
• Unreasonable, Will Guidara. Lessons on hospitality and customer experience from the famous New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park. At EMP, they wanted to do with customer experience what other fine dining restaurants do with food, delivering something extraordinary.
• Build, an unorthodox guide to making things worth making, Tony Fadell. Life lessons from Tony Fadell, the legendary engineer/designer from Apple.
• Hj?rnbalans, Katarina Gospic. Swedish book on how our brains are affected by the digital development, building the case for a digital detox (I think).
• Tronstriden, Jens B Nordstr?m. Swedish book about the power struggle in Swedish investment firm Industriv?rden.
• How the world really works, Vaclav Smil. I know that Bill Gates reads all of Vaclav's work and that it underpinned Bill's book How to avoid a climate disaster. I'm hoping to get some new fact-based insights from this book.
• Our mathematical universe, Max Tegmark. Space, equally fascinating and scary.
• Awaken the giant within, Anthony Robbins. A classic personal development book that many claim to have changed their lives. From what I've read, it covers how to take more control over your life.
• Delivering happiness, Tony Hsieh. The book gives insight into the culture of the successful e-retailer Zappos.com. Supposedly, the book gives loads of insight into great customer service as well as about how to use happiness as a cornerstone in building a company.
• Made to stick, Chip Heath & Dan Heath. A book about storytelling, which is one of the areas I would like to improve in, and more specifically, what makes certain stories stick.
• The culture map, Erik Meyer. A book about working in an international context with different cultures. The book should give some insights into how to better understand and navigate through different cultures. It also gives some examples of misunderstanding that can occur from cultural clashes.
• Pre-suasion, Robert Cialdini. I read Robert's book Influence, an extremely good book on the seven psychological tactics used in persuasion (really really recommending that one). It is absolutely packed with cool insights. In this book, Robert describes how our state of mind influences our decision making.
• The wisdom of teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization, Jon R. Katzenbach. A deep-dive on the principles underpinning high-performing teams.
• This is lean, Niklas Modig. A book explaining the fundamental principles behind lean, written in an accessible way. I'm reading the Swedish version.
• Life 3.0, Max Tegmark. Max is brilliant, looking forward to reading this book on AI.
• Mindfulness i vardagen, Ola Schenstr?m. A Swedish about finding mindfulness in everyday life.
• The power of now, Eckhart Tolle. A classic book within the mindfulness space, i.e. being in the present, exploring for instance the difference between our thoughts and our true selves.
• Think faster, talk smarter, Matt Abrahams. A new book about becoming better at talking when you're being put on the spot, for instance when you get an unexpected question in an important meeting.
• The power of flexing, Susan J Ashford. A book about using small daily experiments to achieve personal and professional growth.
• How not to be wrong: The power of mathematical thinking, Jordan Ellenberg. I read another book by Jordan, called Geometry - The hidden geometry of absolutely everything. A 420-page book about geometry (I know, I know) which was surprisingly interesting.
• HBR Review top 10 On Managing Yourself (Swedish version). A collection on some of the top articles in self-management.
• Think and grow rich, Napoleon Hill. This one was written in 1937 and is still considered one of the classics among personal finance books. I recently read one of the other classics, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and despite having gone to business school, I found it refreshing. So I thought I would give this one a chance.
• Connect, David Bradford and Carole Robin. A book about building exceptional private and professional relationships.
• Impact players, Liz Wiseman. The book explains the mindset of the most influential business people and what they do differently. I come to realize that the book might be targeting young professionals, but I thought I might give it a go anyway.

Finally, three books on improving your writing skills, which is one of my goals for the year:

• On writing well, William Zinsser. A book that specifically focuses on writing non-fiction books.
• Everybody writes, Ann Handley. A guide on improving your writing skills. I think it is more focused on writing content for blogs, marketing, social media etc., but hopefully has some insights on business writing as well.
• Nicely said, Nicole Fenton. A book about writing for the web.