Food for Thought 2021 - The Life-Sparring Books of the Year (now also as a Podcast)
If 2020 was the year that turned life upside down, 2021 was probably the year where we settled into the new normal. At least for me, it sure feels that way.
2021 was a year of routines and consistency. Of course, a year devoid of any travel made it much easier to stick to habits, but the consistency was also by choice, at least to some extent. When so many things are outside my control, it feels good to focus my energy on things I can actually influence. Hence, I was disciplined with my gym workout regime, ran for the first time in my life more than 1,200 km (745 miles) in a year, and of course, I also reached my reading goal of 24 books+ quite comfortably.
In terms of reading volume, there was not too much difference between this year and the previous years. According to the Goodreads app, I read 25 books with combined 7,570 pages, vs. 6,750 pages across 26 books in 2020. As I explained in the past years, my reading patterns seem pretty stable. I mostly read at night, in bed, before sleeping, likely also a factor why my reading volume is so steady.
And it is without saying that in a year of routines, I am not breaking with the tradition of the annual book review. After all, this is already the 7th consecutive edition of Foods for Thought.
Since 2021 was the year of the Life-Sparring Podcast, and through the year I produced a “Food for Thought” podcast segment, I thought it would be fitting to record a special edition of the Podcast, dedicated to the books of the year too. So, to vary the content a bit from this blog article, I invited Executive Coach and friend of Life-Sparring David Siu to review and discuss our top three books.
You can find the page for the podcast episode here or watch the video version on YouTube.
If you prefer Food for Thought in written form, as audio or as a video podcast, the choice is yours. Whichever format you choose, let me know your feedback and share your favorite books of the year.
I linked the Goodreads pages of all books in this article for further information. In addition, I also added affiliate links to Amazon, in case you are tempted to buy one of the books for yourself or as a gift and would like to support Life-Sparring (without any additional costs for you).
If you have read previous editions of Food for Thought, you know that this Top 5 list is compiled from the books I finished reading within 2021, disregarding when they were initially published. So while some books on the list are newer releases, others are decades or even centuries old.
So without further ado, here are the five Life-Sparring books of 2021:
5th Place: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson, 2017
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
Life is a never-ending quest to make sense of the world around us, and a good book can be like a key, unlocking completely new areas of knowledge. I love books that provide lightbulb moments when a unique insight sinks in.
I have to admit, I never got physics; it was the first school subject I opted out of when I was allowed to after grade 9. So, astrophysics doesn’t come easy to me.
I read “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” because I expected “in a hurry” to be synonymously for “for dummies.” I looked for a book, making a complicated topic accessible, and who else, if not the great explainer Neil deGrasse Tyson could successfully introduce me to the basics of astrophysics?
Neil deGrasse Tyson does a good job explaining what we know about the universe and how the different puzzle pieces contributed to today’s knowledge of astrophysics.
I can’t say that I immediately got all the concepts deGrasse Tyson covers in the book. Some things are still beyond my imagination, and in many aspects, the book raised more questions than it answered.
At the same time, even astrophysicists are still missing a lot of answers to such elementary questions like “what happened before the big bang?” or “what exactly are dark matter and dark energy” that combined makeup 95% of all mass-energy in the universe?”.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry left me a bit more knowledgeable but not the least bit discouraged about the parts I did not immediately understand to the fullest. As deGrasse Tyson says early in the book, “the universe is under no obligation to make sense” to me.
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4th Place: Home Remedies, Xuan Juliana Wang, 2019
“Theirs was a Chinese love. It was not about making each other happy. It was about sacrifice. It was a love devoted to suffering for the beloved. They were supposed to sacrifice over and over again for each other, each getting a turn to give up something he or she did not want for the other, until one of them died.”
The relationship between China and the West has been dominating the headlines of Western news outlets over the past few years. There is barely a single week where there is no new area of conflict getting highlighted.
Maybe the decoupling of China and the West that is currently underway was unavoidable and is just a return to the mean after globalization overshot a sustainable level of integration?
I find this divergence trend disturbing because I believe that geo-strategy aside, we are just people on both sides of the conflict lines, people with very similar needs and aspirations. The more we learn about each other and communicate, the more we realize how much there is that connects us.
Xuan Juliana Wan’s book Home Remedies is a collection of short stories about China’s millennial generation. They touch on generational conflict, entitlement, immigration, live-streaming KOLs, homosexuality, and the search for identity.
Sure, aspects of the Chinese millennial experience are distinct from the West. Still, overall, Wang’s stories serve as a reminder that millennials in Beijing probably have more in common with peers in New York City than with their parental generation.
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3rd Place: The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, Michael Lewis, 2021
I am sure eventually there will be a lot of books written on the COVID pandemic, looking at all aspects of how the virus changed our lives. Michael Lewis, in typical fashion, provides an early entry to the genre, just like he did with The Big Short on the financial crisis. After all, Lewis, a book-writing journalist, and his books usually follow the pattern of good magazine articles: they look at an episode in contemporary history through the eyes of different protagonists. Lewis always explains history by telling the stories of individuals close to the epicenter, turning an abstract event into something much more approachable.
This signature style of non-fiction storytelling is highly effective and has made Michael Lewis one of my all-time favorite authors. I pre-order every of his book releases and rarely manage to turn them down, binge-reading any of his books within a few days.
The Premonition is another Michael Lewis masterpiece. It essentially tells the story of how the US developed the first comprehensive plan to deal with a pandemic through the work of amateurs and health experts, introducing new measures like social distancing and mandatory school closures. With these emergency plans in the drawer, the US became the country best prepared for an epidemic outbreak of a communicable disease. But, unfortunately, The Premonition also tells the story, how the very same country fumbled the reaction to the outbreak of COVID-19 and failed to activate any of the pre-determined measures in time to protect the US population from the pandemic effectively.
“You cannot wait for the smoke to clear: once you can see things clearly it is already too late. You can’t outrun an epidemic: by the time you start to run it is already upon you. Identify what is important and drop everything that is not. Figure out the equivalent of an escape fire.”
Michael Lewis’ is a storyteller, so don’t expect him to provide you with definitive answers to your questions. But Premonition truly provides food for thought. Undoubtedly, Donald Trump’s narcissistic leadership played a significant role in the US’ COVID failure, but a different administration would likely have failed quite similarly.
In a way, this is also the most powerful rebuttal of all COVID conspiracies. The biggest weakness of all conspiracies is to believe that a coordinated effort of multiple government organizations in absolute secrecy is even possible. In reality, even the simplest forms of cooperation between different actors are incredibly difficult to organize.
COVID also showed clearly, that even 756 years after the Wheat and Chessboard problem was mentioned for the first time by Ibn Khallikan, humans still have a massive issue wrapping their minds around exponential growth problems.
With just 2-3 deaths and a few dozen cases on record, pulling the trigger on measures that severely affect the lives of most of the population, such as social distance measures and school closures, seems outrageously out of proportion. Yet, at the same time, precisely these outrageous measures would have been the correct reaction to slow a pandemic and win time for medical research.
A pandemic threat requires a swift, bold reaction by a central authority, probably why China eventually could contain the pandemic reasonably well. But, at the same time, democratic countries with decentralized medical systems and decision-making processes failed to achieve the same.
Read the book, draw your own conclusions. I enjoyed a piece of vintage Michael Lewis storytelling and, having seen the formula a few times enacted, practically visualized the movie adaption while reading the book.
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2nd Place: A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving, 1989
“Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you—and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!”
I read more non-fiction than fiction. In a way, that makes me appreciate good novels even more. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, is a masterfully crafted novel of epic proportions. Essentially it is 617 pages of a coming-of-age story that felt like a much shorter book. I binge-read the book within 10 days, even commuting with my Kindle, which I rarely do.
A Prayer for Owen Meany is not a new book, it was published in 1989, but it is a timeless classic and the all-time favorite book of my Cousin Edith, to whom I had promised to read it eventually.
I previously read John Irving’s Hotel New Hampshire, and it is not difficult to see parallels between both books. Both stories are set in New Hampshire; both are coming-of-age books with philosophical takes on life. Both features uncontrolled teenage sexuality, loss of loved ones and innocence, stuffed animals, and unique characters so well crafted that they form in your head when you read the book.
I believe that you can learn as much for life from a great novel as from a non-fiction book, and Irving is great at building true gems into his works. Take, for example, this one: “Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you—and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you.”
Religion is a central theme of A Prayer for Owen Meany, and so is politics.
The story plays in the 1960s and early 70ths and 1987, criticizing simultaneously the American role in the Vietnam War and the Iran-Contra Affair of the late eighties. But even beyond its’ historical commentary, the book is as scarily prophetic as the main character of Owen Meany is regarding his own life. “THAT IS WHERE THIS COUNTRY IS HEADED—IT IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING—FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT’S HIM, THAT’S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT!” claims Owen Meany on all-caps.
Keep in mind that the book was published in 1989. If that alone doesn’t make you want to read the book, you are probably a lost cause.
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1st Place: Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle, 2019
Silicon Valley is a fantastic place. So many disruptive innovations and business models are originating from this little area of fewer than 47 square miles, proofing how powerful network effects are in creating a knowledge-based economy.
Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle tells the story of “Coach” Bill Campbell. The latter advised dozens of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and top managers and likely was one of the most influential nodes in the Silicon Valley network, from the late 1990s to his death in 2016.
The book is an unusual business book, part biography, eulogy, and leadership advice. This mix is likely caused by the authors trying to write a book honoring the late Bill Campbell without having the Coach turn in his grave.
Bill indeed was a unique character, a manly man known for his affectionate bear hugs and his f-bomb loaded to the point speeches; he was the role model for authentic leadership. His hearty personality, so utterly contrary to the stereotypical emotional inept Silicon Valley founder CEO, was part of the Coach’s appeal to young entrepreneurs.
“Failure to make a decision can be as damaging as a wrong decision. There’s indecision in business all the time, because there’s no perfect answer. Do something, even if it’s wrong, Bill counseled.”
Reading about Bill reinforced a lot of my core believes about leadership: compassion, honesty, humility, decisiveness, principled thinking, generosity, letting people go with their heads held high, establishing psychological safety, and being unbiased when it comes to gender and other non-performance related characteristics.
Trillion Dollar Coach is not a thesis-based management book and not a book containing anything you did not previously know about leadership.
But the story of Bill Campbell is an example that outstanding leadership is possible and that we all can be better leaders if we follow the Coach’example.
The books we read and how we perceive them are always a reflection of ourselves. If I look back on past editions of Food for Thought, I can see why certain books made the top 5 list in that particular year.
Professionally, 2021 was a year where I reflected on leadership, with my team steadily growing and our operations maturing. In addition, Ray Dalio’s Principles You leadership personality test also got me thinking, how my leadership style has been changing over the past. The blog I wrote about the Dalio test was the most viewed Life-Sparring article this year.
So, apparently, Trillion Dollar Coach was the right book at the right time and is a very deserving Life-Sparring book of the year.
Support Life-Sparring, and buy Trillion Dollar Coach via this affiliate link!
What were your books of 2021? What moved you and provided the most insights? Did you read more or less than in previous years? And what is your reading list for the upcoming year? Share your tips and follow me on Goodreads to see what I am currently reading and reviewing.
Still hungry for more “Food for Thought”? Here is a rich buffet with the past years' renditions: Food for Thought 2020, Food for Thought 2019, Food For Thought 2018, Food For Thought 2017, Food For Thought 2016 & Food For Thought 2015.
All book-themed links, articles, and Podcasts are also linked in the Books section of this website.
