Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 1.2.23
It’s the first reading list of 2023, and I finished 3 books from some amazing authors. I re-read an incredible book about misconceptions we have surrounding happiness as well as a book about polarization and social media myths. I also read a great book on how to write better in the digital age. 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).
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while now because it was one of the first books I read when I really got into reading. I only remembered one or two major studies from it, and I’m super glad I gave this book another read. This is a must-read book that teaches the reader how we have a ton of misconceptions about happiness, and it’s extremely important. We’re often chasing the wrong things and overvaluing them along the way. Gilbert uses scientific research to explain why we’re wrong about happiness and what we can do about it.
Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing by Christopher Bail
This is a must-read book, and this was my second time reading it. Christopher Bail is the head of Duke’s polarization lab, and they’ve done so much research into social media and political polarization. This book debunks so much nonsense about why we’re polarized and how effective misinformation is. It pains me that people keep spreading the narrative that social media is the sole cause of everything going on when the data doesn’t back it. The reality is that polarizing people are a small percentage of people online, and people aren’t so dumb that they fall for misinformation constantly.
Read this book. Educate yourself. Tell a friend.
Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz
This is a short book (of course), and it’s about how to write in an attention-grabbing, impactful way while also keeping it short. This was written by the founders of Axios, and I loved it. I was already familiar with a lot of the writing strategies they discuss in this because I’ve worked in content marketing for years now, but there were some great refreshers.
If you’re long-winded like myself or struggle to get through to people in this digital age, definitely grab this book.
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