My Top Reads of 2020

Before every summer and new year’s break, I enjoy checking out the top 5 book recommendations of Bill Gates and others. This year, I thought I would pay it forward because we could all use a few more book recommendations to bring variety to our daily social distancing. These are my best reads of a tough year. Although, most are rather recent, this just means I read them in 2020, not that they were published in 2020.

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

I started the year with Edward Snowden. He accompanied my runs in the fields of Liechtenstein back when travel was still part of my routine. It’s a very personal story, especially as the audio version is read by the author. I have no clue how much of it can be trusted to be true, but it’s guaranteed to make you think and reassess all the information about yourself that you’re spreading online, knowingly or unknowingly. It’s a fascinating story whose ending is still to be told.

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries by Safi Bahcall

I first heard about Loonshots on an innovation podcast where Safi Bahcall joined as a guest. I immediately ordered the book and it sat in my bookshelf for a few months before I took it out in February for our winter vacation, right before the world changed. It’s full of insights while being highly entertaining. What stuck with me the most was the comparison of innovation to phase transitions: at 0 degrees Celsius, water starts turning into ice. How can you tweak the environment to keep the desired liquid state instead of freezing innovation in your company or team? I want to come back to it to re-read some parts.

Recursion by Blake Crouch

When the first lockdown hit I needed good comfort reading to escape to in the evenings. I found Recursion in my kindle library, waiting from the previous summer’s reading list. I love stories about time travel, especially the variant where there is only one possible timeline. Recursion brings a nice twist to it. The only problem was that it was such a page-turner, it was all over in a few days!

Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos by Darrell Rigby, Sarah Elk, Steven H. Berez

In the second half of lockdown, I started reading tons of business books. This was one of my favorites as I found it has a few good pieces of advice and tools that I am eager to test with my management team. It’s not a book to read cover to cover though: pick the parts pertinent to your situation and you’re sure to get a few ideas that will make you rethink how you do or re-do agile in your organization.

Imagine it Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock

This is the audiobook that accompanied my runs in the last quarter of the year. It’s so long it’s actually two audiobooks, and since I wasn’t driving at all during the period, it took me a while to get through it. I was expecting a book full of business advice on how to drive innovation. It’s actually more of a personal memoir. It still makes the list for me because it was pleasantly different to the business books I’ve been used to. I found her journey very rich and inspiring. It gave me a few ideas and will forever change how I think about cheese ??.

Other good reads from 2020: The Warehouse by Rob Hart, Atomic Habits by James Clear, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, Nine Lies about Work by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion.

Happy reading and safe start to 2021!