23 Books I Read in 2023
Many people ask me why do I spend so much time reading Books and getting lost in another world.
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” – This quote by Mark Twain sums it all up.
Books have enriched, upgraded and saved my life.
…when all was well, great books strengthened my creativity, artistry, productivity and jubilation.
…when things were hard they delivered hope, guided my way and offered a literary lighthouse that helped me navigate rough seas.
The single-finest way to lead your field is to increase your skills relentlessly.
If you truly want to become good at what you do, then you have to read every relevant book you can get your hands on, so that you grow into a genuine master of your craft.
I Buy More Books than I Can Ever Read. Investing in a book is reaching for your promise.
I buy more books than I know I will read in my lifetime.
It makes me happy to get a book. It gives me hope, activates my energy and allows me to assemble a library that will be a legacy for my children.
I purchase books on a variety of subjects; productivity, history, psychology, emotional healing, staying positive, executing on high-value targets, scaling a business and on the lives of great human beings.
I Go for a wide range and try to read works that push me to think differently so that I can produce uniquely.
I generally Highlight and Take Notes of the most interesting & relevant portions.
When I read, I read slowly and deliberately. I highlight, generally with a yellow or green marker. I also make notes in the margins and do diagrams on those few pages at the end that publishers leave blank.
Live and breathe your experience with the book, let it change you.
I read books of different genres – depending on my mood.
On some days I’m in the mood for a book that will kickstart my A-game. On others, I wish to read fiction or poetry. I’m not dogmatic about what I read. Instead, I allow The Muse to lead me into what I need to learn or enjoy.
On finishing a book, I generally write out the best insights in my journal. ‘What you capture becomes cemented.’
My favourite pastime is browsing in a library or a bookstore. Arrive early at the airport, and after check in, it is straight to the book store and look for new titles which invariably end in a buy.
I have always felt that a book is a bargain at any price – if you can’t get access to great, famous people to be your mentors, reading books written by them is the next best alternative.
Many CEOs and great leaders in the world would not hesitate to purchase a book. For the value which a book can bring, they are considered to be a bargain.
A Rs 500 book could change your life. If a book you read just gives you one idea that changes your perspective, it’s worth it.
Here is my list of favourite reads of 2023. You may find it tilted towards the personal finance and Investment world, but that is what I actually enjoy reading and implementing the learnings
1. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
2. Storyselling for Financial Advisors
3. The Laws of Wealth
In ‘The Laws of Wealth’, psychologist and behavioral finance expert Daniel Crosby offers an accessible and applied take on a discipline that has long tended toward theory at the expense of the practical. Readers are treated to real, actionable guidance as the promise of behavioral finance is realized and practical applications for everyday investors are delivered.
Crosby presents a framework of timeless principles for managing your behaviour and your investing process. He begins by outlining 10 rules that are the hallmarks of good investor behaviour, including ‘Forecasting is for Weathermen’ and ‘If You’re Excited, It’s Probably a Bad Idea’.
He then goes on to introduce a unique new classification of behavioral investment risk that will enable investors and academics alike to understand behavioral risk in a coherent and comprehensive manner. The Laws of Wealth is a finance classic and a mustread for those interested in deepening their understanding of how psychology impacts financial decisions.
4. The Most Important Thing
Legendary investor Howard Marks is chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, which has $100 billion under management. He is sought out by the world’s leading value investors, and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, we can benefit from Marks’s wisdom, concentrated into a single volume that speaks to both the amateur and seasoned investor.
Informed by a lifetime of experience and study, ‘The Most Important Thing’ explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Utilizing passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today’s volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways.
5. THE BIG BULL OF DALAL STREET
‘Respect the market. Have an open mind. Know what to stake. Know when to take a loss. Be responsible,’ this is what Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, India’s iconic stock market investor, often used to say.
This book looks at the life of India’s big bull, as Rakesh was famously known, both as a person and as a professional. Providing a fascinating account of his journey, it analyses the records of Jhunjhunwala’s investments and interviews he has given over the years. More than just a biography, a large section of the book is devoted to understanding the stocks that made him rich and the mistakes he made. Looking at the journey of the legendary investor, the book offers retail investors some useful insights—-benefits of long-term investing, mistakes one should avoid in the stock market, risk associated with leveraged trades, among others
6. Happiness to Live By
7.Pandeymonium: Piyush Pandey on Advertising
8. How Come No One Told Me That?
9. The Ikigai Journey: A Practical Guide
10. Same As Ever
When planning for the future we often ask, “What will the economy be doing this time next year?” Or, “What will be different ten years from now?” But forecasting is hard. The important events that will shape the future are inherently unpredictable. Instead, we should be asking a different question: What will be the same ten years from now? What will be the same one hundred years from now?
Knowledge of the things that never change is more useful, and more important, than an uncertain prediction of an unknowable future. In Same As Ever, Morgan Housel shares 24 short stories about the ways that life, behaviour, and business will always be the same.
11. LIMITLESS
The world is full of possibilities.
Each of us has infinite potential to fly.
This book tells you how to soar.
What do you do when you are rejected for your dream job and can’t deal with one more person telling you to be strong? What stops you from asking for that big role at work when you know you have a shot at getting it? For most of us, the world of work isn’t easy to navigate and life’s challenges rarely have simple answers.
12. TAO OF CHARLIE MUNGER
13. The E-Myth Revisited
In this new and totally revised edition of the over one million copy bestseller, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business.
Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business – from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed – and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vial, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. This book will truly enable you to grow your businesses in a predictable and productive way.
14. GIVE AND TAKE
Everybody knows that hard work, luck and talent each plays a role in our working lives. In his landmark book, Adam Grant illuminates the importance of a fourth, increasingly critical factor – that the best way to get to the top is to focus on bringing others with you.
Give and Take changes our fundamental understanding of why we succeed, offering a new model for our relationships with colleagues, clients and competitors. Using his own cutting-edge research as a professor at Wharton Business School, as well as success stories from Hollywood to history, Grant shows that nice guys need not finish last. He demonstrates how smart Givers avoid becoming doormats, and why this kind of success has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organisations and communities.
15. The Go-Giver Leader
16. Do It Today
Are you also tired of putting off your dreams until “tomorrow?” Guess what! Tomorrow never comes. This book teaches us that we all have limited time on our hands and we’re getting closer to death every single minute, but that shouldn’t scare us but it should motivate us as the Time is limited and that’s why we must do the things we want: Today.
In this “best of” collection, 30 articles teach us to overcome procrastination, improve your productivity, and achieve all the things you always wanted.
17. Let's Talk Mutual Funds
In the past two decades, mutual funds have emerged as the preferred investment option for Indians. They offer liquidity, and ease of entry and exit, along with potentially higher returns. This, in turn, makes mutual funds a natural choice over traditional investment options such as gold, real estate and fixed deposits.
However, while the popularity of mutual funds has increased in India, the ability to use them to our advantage has not. Investors are frozen by the choices they face with thousands of mutual fund options. Monika Halan, one of my favourite financial writer demystifies Mutual Funds and shows us how to make the best use of them to achieve Financial Goals.
18. Just Keep Buying
Everyone faces big questions when it comes to money: questions about saving, investing, and whether you’re getting it right with your finances.
Unfortunately, many of the answers provided by the financial industry have been based on belief and conjecture rather than data and evidence-until now.
In Just Keep Buying, hugely popular finance blogger Nick Maggiulli crunches the numbers to answer the biggest questions in personal finance and investing, while providing you with proven ways to build your wealth right away.
You will learn why you need to save less than you think; why saving up cash to buy market dips isn’t a good idea; how to survive (and thrive) during a market crash; and much more.
19. Co-Opetition
Co-opetition is a business strategy that goes beyond the old rules of competition and cooperation to combine the advantages of both. Co-opetition is a pioneering, high profit means of leveraging business relationships.
Intel, Nintendo, American Express, NutraSweet, American Airlines, and dozens of other companies have been using the strategies of co-opetition to change the game of business to their benefit. Formulating strategies based on game theory, the authors have created a book that’s insightful and instructive for managers eager to move their companies into a new mind set.
20. How to Talk to Anyone
Perfect your people skills with his fun, witty and informative guide, containing 92 little tricks to create big success in personal and business relationships. In ‘How to Talk to Anyone,’ bestselling relationships author and internationally renowned life coach Leil Lowndes reveals the secrets and psychology behind successful communication.
These extremely usable and intelligent techniques include how to: Work a party like a politician works a room, Be an insider in any crowd, Use key words and phrases to guide the conversation, Use body language to connect. This is the key to having successful conversations with anyone, any time.
21. The Defining Decade
22. HBR's 10 Must Reads 2024
A year’s worth of management wisdom, all in one place.
The ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review are presented in this collection to keep you up to date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Satya Nadella to Lynda Gratton and company examples from Nestlé to TikTok, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations to us.
23. Office Secrets
The corporate masks we wear hide many a secret. The most potent are not the secret financial numbers or confidential strategy documents hidden away in locked drawers or in safes but the simple ones-good filter coffee generosity and thirty minutes of me-time.
This book offers a selection of fascinating and useful secrets that can help you be far more successful at your workplace. As a bonus they can make you happier as well. You will find within a range of subjects-whether the best methods of fighting exhaustion organizing your work desk the power of listening why kindness is so important workplace lessons from Hercule Poirot and what you can learn from the cookies that your colleagues eat.
Out of the close to fifty books, I read in 2023, The above 23 were the ones which I really enjoyed and they left a mark. I hope you enjoy reading them too. Pick the genre you like and dive right in and get immersed in the World of reading and learning.
Knowledge is powerful, and books are great teachers. Learning is endless, but as they say “The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”
“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you.
If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.
The only way to improve the world is by improving yourself.”
Keep learning, keep upgrading. Keep Reading..and have a great 2024 full of learning and reading.
