What I read the last year, or so

People fairly often ask me what I read to see things the way I do. I take that as a compliment (although I’m not sure if it’s meant that way). Well, I love to read, so I read a lot. And I thought I’d list the books I read in the last year, 15 months, or so.

As for non-fiction books, many of them with a lot of dog ears, this is it:

- ”All that is solid melts into air” by Marshal Berman

- ”How not to be wrong: the power of mathematical thinking” by Jordan Ellenberg

- ”Letters to a young mathematician” by Ian Stewart

- ”The Innovators” by Walter Isacsson

- ”Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman” by Richard Feynman

- ”Life 3.0: Being human in the age of artificial intelligence” by Max Tegmark

- ”Other minds: the octopus, the sea and the deep origins of consciousness” by Peter Godfrey-Smith

- ”Världen själv” by Ulf Danielsson

- ”Röda grevinnan” by Yvonne Hirdman

Regarding fiction, this is it:

- ”Red Sorghum” by Mo Yan

- ”The Yacoubian building” by Alaa al-Aswany

- ”Pachinko” by Min Lin Jee

- ”Elias Portolu” by Grazia Deledda

- ”Paradise” by Abdulrazak Gurnah

- ”Judas” by Amos Oz

- ”Razor´s edge” by W Somerset Maugham

- ”Morgonstjärnan” by Karl Ove Knausgård

- ”Slaughterhause five” by Kurt Vonnegut

- ”Neuromancer” by William Gibson (I simply felt had to re-read this with AI and all its aspects on the rise)

Not very much strategy, or change… Why, one might ask? I thought about that when I compiled the list. Well, when I do read strategy or change literature, I often read papers in academic journals. With the risk of sitting in a glass house throwing stones, there is seldom much new stuff in books. And more importantly, lately, I am increasingly interested in connecting things not yet connected, rather than going deeper in my own field. The most interesting things seem to happen where things that don’t typically meet, actually meet. So, I guess I am reading to increase my breadth of knowledge rather than my depth as this feels more rewarding.

Obviously what I read is reflected in my view of the world, organizations and strategy. But I don’t think all of these books have had a significant impression on my outlook on life. The books, or things, that genuinely impacted my view of strategy, management, and change, are parts of another story.

With summer and vacations on their way, what will I be reading? Well, mostly fiction. These are the books I ordered for my next sprint (I imagine I’ll be done by Thanksgiving).

- ”To the lighthouse” by Virginia Wolf

- ”Strangers on a train” by Patricia Highsmith

- ”Moby Dick” by Herman Melville (I never read this, oddly. Now I will).

- ”If on a winter’s night a traveler” by Italo Calvino

- ”Can’t stop, won’t stop: a history of the hip hop generation” by Jeff Chang

- ”A heartbreaking work of staggering genius” by Dave Eggers

- ”The demon-haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark” by Carl Sagan

- ”Being you: a new science of consciousness” by Anil Seth