My top 10 books for 2020

2020 has been a year! We have had to struggle and fight like never before. I set out to read at least 24 books this year and I am proud to say I am about to start book 25. I have never read so many books in one year so this is a personal best.

In no particular order, here are my top 10 reads for 2020

1.      Talking to Strangers - Malcolm Gladwell

2.      The Billionaire who wasn’t - Conor O’Clery

3.      Atomic Habits - James Clear

4.      Inheritance - Dani Shapiro

5.      Wuthering Heights - Emile Bront? 

6.      Year of yes - Shonda Rhymes

7.      Night - Elie Wiesel

8.      Things fall apart - Chinua Achebe

9.      Nigeria’s coup culture - Max Siollun

10.  From Third World to First; The Singapore Story - Lee Kuan Yew

Book numbers 5 and 8 are fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed. Number 5 was slightly creepy and dark but I liked it. 8 is set in Southern part of Nigeria and you may get a tiny glimpse of the Igbo culture.

I was interested in number 9 because unfortunately, I do not know jack about my country’s history. I want to change that. The problem is I may never find one that is unbiased. Everyone has a story to tell from their own side.

Number 10 was the longest but oh boy was I blown away by the sheer determination to transform an entire country in one generation!

7 was an account of a Holocaust victim. People have gone through such horrible stuff and it is heart breaking to know some people are still going through terribly difficult times.

3 is a great book. Tiny habits done consistently and deliberately with increments over time can lead to phenomenal results. I am a procrastinator and a perfectionist. It is a terrible combination.

Finding out a big part of your existence is a lie is what 4 is about. I am a fan of Dani Shapiro. She just knows how to put emotions into words that we all can relate with.

Book 6 hit me with not letting things I think are ‘flaws’ stop me. Like Shonda, I have an extreme fear of speaking in front of people, I am a half empty kind of person and I am stuck way up in my head. Unlike me, Shonda has found a way/ways of doing what needs to be done. It is funny

Some people are rare. Imagine making so much money and giving pretty much all of it away without wanting public praise or your recipients to know where it came from. That is number 2

If you do not read any book, read number 1. I recommend! Malcolm Gladwell is a great writer and I have read all his books. You know things you didn’t know you didn’t even know. We default to the truth, strangers are harder to read than we can imagine, facial expressions and non-verbal cues are not universal.

What is your favourite book(s)? What book(s) would you definitely recommend? It is not to early for me to start compiling my reading list for 2021.