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📖My 5 Favorite Books From 2024

What does a book need to do to qualify as one of my favorites?

To make it on the list it has to do one of 3 things:

  1. Impact my actions significant way,
  2. Have ideas I keep thinking about
  3. Or is simply a ton of fun to read.

So, here is the short list from this year.

My Favorite Books From 2024 (no particular order)

  • Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield falls into category’s 2 & 3. The 2nd time I’ve read it. An epic story about the Spartan stand at the hot gates. A book I will certainly come back to again. My top recommendation for friends looking for good fiction.
  • Endurance by Alfred Lansing was so good I made this kids book off the story so I could read it to my son. It details Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica where his crew survives for 17 months after their shipwreck. Inspiring what humans can endure. This job description he posted to recruit sailors belongs in the hall of fame.
  • Genghis Khan and The Making of The Modern World was tremendous. One of the few books on Asian history that I’ve read. The impact the Mongols have on modern society is more than you’d think before you read it. But what I keep thinking about the most is how, in the 1200s, they effectively used written propaganda to scare their opponents who lives in highly literate societies.
  • The Comfort Crisis by Michael Ester is a critique of our modern existence. It will leave you inspired to do something hard. I happened to be reading it during my annual camping trip this fall. Perfect timing. 
  • Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan is a fantastic read for any aspiring business owners. The chapter on validating your idea before building your business would have saved me a lot of time over the years had I come across this sooner.

Honorable Mentions

Good Inside was the best parenting book I read. The Anthology of Balaji by Eric Jorgenson has one of my favorite lines: “Things change, tech advances, and the mythical Icarus is succeeded by the very real Wrights”…many great turns of phrase in that book.

Previous Years

Everything else I read this year

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