What reading 12 books in 12 months taught me

The 12/12 initiative began as a new year resolution at the beginning of 2019. Taking this journey thought me few things.

• Selecting the book is more important than reading the book
• Reading too many books affects the quality of knowledge you gain from it. Quality over quantity is a mantra.
• Abandon the book if its irritating and not enjoyable. Given that its frustrating you will probably not remember anything from it anyway. If you are a victim of sunk cost fallacy then I suggest you to fast read the book and skim certain sections of it.
• Don't be fooled by expertise, one of the strategy to select a good book is to follow famous personalities. This method has sometimes frustrated me and hence then I switched to ratings.
• Books with high dictionary lookup procedure needs patience
• Summarize each of these books at the end of the year to test what important points you retained; This article is exactly about this point.
• Being from the data world I have rated these books accordingly on the scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being extremely good. Vocabulary score of 10 tells you that you do not need a dictionary to read the book. Impact is measured on how it changed my way of thinking (This one is biased) and helped me in my career, personal and emotional life. Lastly Stretchiness score of 1 tells you that the author has dragged a point way to much leading to increase in the number of pages.

1. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

• Overall - 10
• Vocabulary - 10
• Impact - 10
• Stretchiness - 10

Nike co-founder`s memoir tells you in simple English the journey and the challenges he faced. My favorite parts are the spiritual quotes peppered through the story, Respect he had for his friends, coach and love for his family and most importantly the business lessons we can learn from him.

Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.

2. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

• Overall - 9
• Vocabulary - 9
• Impact - 9
• Stretchiness - 10

Each page dissects biases which are effecting many of our decisions. Succinct description of biases, examples and research on the same are the book`s plus points. Swimmer`s body illusion, Loss aversion, Novelty bias, Availability bias are few of my favorites.

If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems will be nails

3. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

• Overall - 8.5
• Vocabulary - 8
• Impact - 9
• Stretchiness - 7

It tells the story of rise and fall of theranos. I was amazed as to how perseverantly the founders floated this fraud for years fooling investors and elite personalities. This book further reiterated my belief in numbers to tell the truth than stories.

It doesn't pay to ignore warnings. Even when they don't make sense.

4. Range by David Epstein

• Overall - 8
• Vocabulary - 8
• Impact - 9
• Stretchiness - 7

Drawing his experiences from sports, personalities and businesses, the book stresses the importance of generalism. Carter case study, T shaped personality, Nintendo`s lateral thinking are few of my favorites part of the book

If we treated careers more like dating, nobody would settle down so quickly

5. Good Charts by Scott Berinato

• Overall - 8
• Vocabulary - 8
• Impact - 8
• Stretchiness - 8

One of the most overlooked aspects of dashboard design is principles and rules of visualization. Scott goes through design best practices. Ink Ratio, Coloring, Sizing of visual elements, annotation, eye movement in dashboards, Dashboard layout and above all the importance of context are few of my takeaways.

There is no such thing as a right chart, You could show me a chart and say this one is better than this, but its all about context

6. The man who solves the market: How Jim Simons launched the quant revolution by Gregory Zuckerman

• Overall - 8
• Vocabulary - 9
• Impact - 7
• Stretchiness - 8

It is an excellent example of utilizing data science and mathemagic to reap billions from financial markets. It is a tale which tells you how difficult data science projects are to succeed and when it does, its powerful.

Patterns of price movements are not random however they are close to random

7. Factfulness by Hans Rosling

• Overall - 7.5
• Vocabulary - 8
• Impact - 7.5
• Stretchiness - 7

Hans popular bubble plot tells an incredible story of human progress despite the negativeness. Population remaining the same, Fertility rate falling, the Gap instinct which evokes binary thinking, Urgency instinct are some important takeaways.

If you really want to change the world you must understand it

8. Dollars and sense by Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler

• Overall - 7.5
• Vocabulary - 8
• Impact - 7.5
• Stretchiness - 7

Enlightens us on the complex nature of money and our own failure in understanding it. Relative pricing, anchoring, discounting, risk aversion, effect of rituals on price (shaking wine glass to increase price) are some of my main take away.

Fundamentally, when we value effort over outcome, we’re paying for incompetence or Don't mistake busyness with productivity.

9. Farm don't hunt by Guy Nirpaz

• Overall - 7
• Vocabulary - 8.5
• Impact - 6.5
• Stretchiness - 8

As economy tightens in the information age, relationship holds the key to growth. It is based on the principle of starting agriculture instead of leading a hunting life. It explores how large organizations with the help of success-play and data analytics leverage farming on existing clients.

Images and Emotions, not Arguments. From Screaming to Whispering

10. Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

• Overall - 7
• Vocabulary - 8.5
• Impact - 7
• Stretchiness - 7

Taking the mantle from the world`s richest man to turn around an ageing Microsoft into a force. Satya nadella tells the story of empathy and how it can be used to turn around a large conglomerate and in his personal battle of his son`s condition .

Success can cause people to unlearn the habits that made them successful in the first place

11. The Billionaire Raj by James Crabtree

• Overall - 6.5
• Vocabulary - 7
• Impact - 6.5
• Stretchiness - 6

James Crabtree compares India`s transformation to America`s Gilded age. He gives a detailed account of the reclusive billionaires, power brokers, shadow politicans dramatizing their crony capitalism that exist in the world`s largest democracy.

You can't weed corruption out of the system completely. In India, it's almost inbred

12. Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society by Nicholas A. Christakis

• Overall - 5.5
• Vocabulary - 5
• Impact - 5
• Stretchiness - 6

It talks about stories of shipwrecks & communes, sociology of networks, Our innate quality for love exhibited through polygamy, polyandry, monogamy in different types of people. Friendships and Network, Genes effecting Culture.

Genes do amazing things inside our bodies, but even more amazing to me is what they do outside of them. Genes affect not only the structure and function of our bodies; minds or behaviors; but also the structure and function of our societies.