Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 10.23.23
This week we have four books from some amazing authors. The list starts off with a book about how to get better at failing and making mistakes so they turn into learning experiences and opportunities. Then, we have a must-read book on cancel culture as well as a book about being a late bloomer. We also have a super popular book about networking the I finally read. Enjoy!
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
The Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson
This is a fantastic book. We all screw up, make mistakes, and fail. Fortunately, Amy Edmondson has been studying failure for years now, and she wrote a fantastic book about what she’s found from her research. Each time we make a mistake or fail, it’s a learning opportunity, and as Amy explains in this book, there are “intelligent failures”. In this book, you’ll learn how to make mistakes better while also learning what leads to much bigger mistakes. The book has a great combination of research as well as anecdotes, and I absolutely loved it.
The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All—but There Is a Solution by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott
This is legitimately the only book you need to read about cancel culture, and I could go on and on about how amazing this book is all day. I’ve read plenty of books about cancel culture, and I actually wrote a book about cancel culture after being canceled in 2019 and having it ruin my life for a number of years. Most books on cancel culture are either right-wing people whining about cancel culture and labeling everything under the sun as cancel culture or people on the left either saying cancel culture doesn’t exist or it’s “just accountability.
Lukianoff and Schlott to an incredible job explaining what cancel culture is, what it looks like, and how both the left and the right partake in canceling things they don’t like. The book also has plenty of stories in it about people who have had their lives ruined by cancel culture, and for once, I finally felt like some authors actually understood what happened to me in 2019.
If you want to know why I read hundreds of books each year, it’s because of what happened to me. All I’ve been trying to do is better understand why people are like this and what we can do about it. I wish this book was around in 2019, but I’m glad it’s here for people to learn about it now and learn some solutions as well. It’s not fun, and people don’t understand that it can literally happen to anyone. Everyone thinks they’re immune, but this book shows that even the wokest of the woke can get canceled as well.
Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And the Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi
I’ve been hearing about this book for years, so I finally bit the bullet and gave it a read. It’s decent, but as an introvert, 99% of this book is my worst nightmare. The book is all about the value of networking and making connections with others. I fully understand this, and although I’m an introvert, my dad taught me at a young age to network, and it’s one of the primary reasons I’ve seen any success in my life because so much is about who you know. As mentioned, Keith Ferrazzi takes networking to the extreme, and I couldn’t imagine doing half the things he recommends in this book like regular dinner parties and calling so many people regularly just to stay on their radar.
I personally think this book’s a little overrated, and it’s just your standard self-help entrepreneur hustle culture book about how you can become rich and successful. There’s little to no science in this book, so it’s mainly just anecdotes and tips. As you read the book, you can clearly start to see how luck and opportunity play a major role in this. For example, the author went to Yale, and that alone gives you major networking opportunities and sets you on a path of success that most people will never see. If you’re a Yale graduate who goes on to work for Deloitte, how can you even tell how much of your networking habits are really the source of your success and how it’d work for others who didn’t come from an Ivy League school like this?
Lastly, there are some major contradictions throughout the book. One thing I realized many years ago is that reciprocity being part of human nature is not nearly as common as people like to think/say it is. Ferrazzi basically says that anyone, regardless of who they are should have a sit down with you and help introduce you to people, and if they don’t, they’re not doing it right. He even shares a story of when he was younger and this happened to him and then goes on to assume the person is no longer successful because they were “keeping score”. Then, later in the book, he discusses how he constantly has young people reaching out to him but they don’t have anything to offer him in return because they don’t show their value. Like…what?
Business-minded hustle culture folks love books like this because they give you a false sense of control. People and the universe are chaotic and random. While the book has some solid advice, don’t think that by spending all of your time networking you’ll be successful. I can’t tell you how many people I know who do nothing but network, spend money traveling to network, and they’re making like no money because they’ve made this such a huge part of their life.
Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement by Rich Karlgaard
I’m 38 years old and trying to learn a few new skills. I randomly saw someone mention this book on Twitter, so I picked it up. It’s a decent enough book and definitely gave me some motivation. A decent chunk of this book mainly discusses how our culture glorifies people who are super successful at a very young age. The primary thesis of the book is that you can still become successful later in life and there are plenty of people who have done so. The book also has a decent amount of research to back its claims.
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