Readings in Spring-Summer 2023

Last winter, my son decided that a summer of cricket wasn't enough, so he signed up for Winter cricket. He would carry on playing soccer on Saturdays in his school and join a club to play cricket on Sundays.

He was excited.

I applauded him for his enterprise and decided it would be nice to spend a few hours on chilly Sunday mornings rugged up in warm clothes, enjoying the company of like-minded cricket-loving parents while sneaking in a few pages of reading.

And I was not wrong most days.

Now, it wasn't so blissful for my son, who soon realised getting up at six in the morning in winter, playing on wet grounds, trying to catch a pull shot aimed at him with hands that quite hadn't woken up as yet - wasn't as fun as he expected.

Yet, the most uplifting part for me was to see these 11 to 12-year-olds who showed up every Sunday to play their hearts out. It was cold and often wet. There were games that were washed out, games they lost, and injuries they felt deep in their bones due to the cold - yet they came!

There is much to learn from these kids (and their parents).

Most days, I enjoyed a bit of reading at the games and discovered a few fellow bibliophages in the process. The picture taken above was a moment from one such Sunday morning.

Below are the twelve books I read in the last six months:

In reading order from July to December:

1. The Unicorn Project by Kim, Gene
2. Zen in the Art of Writing by Bradbury, Ray
3. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Zevin, Gabrielle
4. Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute
5. Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Syed, Matthew
6. So Good They Can't Ignore You by Newport, Cal
7. Bushido, The Soul Of Japan, Annotated Edition by Nitobe Inazō
8. The Last Lecture by Pausch, Randy
9. Little Fires Everywhere by Ng, Celeste
10. The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building by Mochary, Matt
11. Bird by Bird by Lamott, Anne
12. Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Grant, Adam M.

My top five books I enjoyed reading in no particular order are:

• The Unicorn Project by Kim, Gene
• Zen in the Art of Writing by Bradbury, Ray
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Zevin, Gabrielle
• The Last Lecture by Pausch, Randy
• Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Grant, Adam M.

I highly recommend the five books above for your bookshelf! If you have read and enjoyed them too, please share your thoughts in the comments. I look forward to reading them.

We are still determining if we will be back at the Winter Cricket in the 2024 season - the jury is still out on that. What I do know is that I will be back to share my next round of readings with you by then.

Happy 2024 to you and your loved ones. May there be many hours of reading for all of you!

Previous reading lists: 2018, 2019, Jan-Jun 2020, Jul-Dec 2020, Jan-Jun 2021, Jul-Dec 2021, Jan-Jun 2022, Jul-Dec 2022, Jan-Jul 2023