My Reading and Learning Resources in 2023
I start every year with a goal to read more than I did the previous year. I’m never sure whether I succeed or not as I don’t keep good track. I’ve always enjoyed Feyi’s book summaries so taking inspiration from him as his summaries inspire me to read more and helps populate my ‘to-read’ list. This also serves as a way to start to track how well I do on ‘reading more this year’
Every year I start with re-reading, How will you measure your life. The book by Clay Christensen should be essential reading for everyone. Reading it this year helped me better set priorities on longer term benefits rather than pursuits with shorter term feedback. I gift it a lot and gifted it to the lovely Banke in a Twitter book giveaway.
Once Christiensen’s book is completed I generally follow my curiosity in selecting the books to focus on. Generally this curiosity clusters around a number of themes. Last year was heavy on evolutionary biology and social psychology. The Scottish anthropologist Robin Dunbar of Dunbar’s number fame was a constant feature in the literature I consumed. This year psychology featured again.
Psychology and Relationships
My hidden chimp by Prof Steven Peters. This is a simplified kids version of a psychology book from an accomplished British psychiatrist. In it he breaks down the 3 main parts of the brain to help understand the drivers of our emotions so we can better control it. I read the book to my kids to help them understand that we’re not fully our thoughts and feelings as a lot of our emotions are a by-product of evolution. With training and practice we can identify and be more aware of the underlying drivers of our emotions and be more able to understand and control them. I learned about Prof Peters work from the “Diary of a CEO” podcast. Many of my reads this year were inspired by podcasts. More on podcasts later.
Attached by Dr Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. I first came across attachment theory in my psychology class in medical school. The theory originated in research done on childhood development by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. The latter did the early parts of her research in Ugandan mothers and their children making attachment theory generally applicable even to Africans. Since then, its been found that attachment style affects intimate adult relationships and applying the theory can help us better understand how we operate in close relationships. Per the theory, we can either be securely or insecurely attached dependent on how we’re parented, our personality factors and other experiences in our lives. If we end up with insecure attachment we can either be avoidant or anxious or disorganized. The book outlines how we can diagnose our own and other people attachment styles to help us foster closer and more fulfilling intimate relationships.
Staying with relationships, I read Mating in captivity by famous couple’s therapist, Esther Perel. She offers a unique and refreshing way to look at relationships and digs deeper into the tension between dependence and independence inherent in long term relationships. She covers how society has changed over the years to elevate monogamous romantic relationships as our central source of fulfilment, replacing the roles played by several other relationships. We now expect our significant other to be both our source of excitement and safety. Two opposing ideals that can stress our romantic relationships and set it up for failure if not carefully navigated.
The body keeps the score by psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk, a leading expert on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) provides a fascinating insight into the disorder. It covers how difficult situations particularly in childhood can lead to changes in the brain that reverberates throughout life. The book has an impressive insight to page ratio, I had to pause regularly to digest what I’d just read. The biggest value I got from this book is understanding that lots of times people’s negative actions are a result of the trauma they’ve experienced. Most of this trauma is pre-verbal and felt viscerally. To overcome it, significant work must be done to create self-awareness and provide alternative more healthy responses when traumas are triggered.
Economics
The Entrepreneurial state by Mariana Mazzucato. This book is another with an incredible insight to page ratio. It opened my minds to novel ways of thinking about how a state can and should be run to bring about prosperity and wellbeing for its citizens. The key ideas here are around the importance of state capacity and the role governments can play as the investor of first resort to crowd in investment into key innovative sectors that spur the economy along. This book should be required reading for all people involved in government.
Triumph of the city by Edward Glaeser. In this book, the Harvard professor writes about the progressive shift of humanity form rural to urban life. He illustrates that this trend will persist and should be viewed as progress for humanity, a triumph even. He argues that the urban poor while indeed poor are better off than rural poor. He makes a point I’ve personally seen of how a heart attack in the middle of New York city will have much better outcomes compared to one in rural Wisconsin for instance. This is due to the strength the city has in pulling together resources to provide the best services. This book somewhat changed my views towards being more optimistic and welcoming of cities. We have no choice anyway, cities are our future. The future is urban and urban poverty is a superior experience to rural poverty and perhaps even rural riches in some instances.
Gambling on Development by Stefan Dercon. This book from an academic turned policy advisor as chief economist of the FCDO makes for interesting reading. It gives a plausible underlying basis for development compared to the unsatisfactory explanations many other development theories provide. In it he surmises that development is based on the elite consensus and bargain of a country. Where the elites prioritise the country over their own gains, the country is more likely to develop. If however plunder and pillage is the elite focus, development is unlikely. The ability for a country to learn and create an elite bargain that prioritizes inclusive development is the only way development happens.
Business and management
The Making of a Manger by Julie Zhuo. Many people that manage teams within startups are often doing it for the first time. These first time managers are often stellar individual performers. Being a manager is however a different job from being an individual contributor in that field. This switch can be challenging for the otherwise stellar performer who now has to learn an entirely new set of skills. Being humble and approaching the learning of the rudiments of management as a novice is key to succeeding as a manager. This book is a good primer on key skills and approaches to becoming a good manager. I bought this to audit it for the managers on my team and also to get tips on how to better train and support first time managers.
The dip by Seth Godin. This is a neat little book that I read in 2 sittings. In it, Seth encourages one to quit things all the time. We often hear the mantra, ‘winners never quit and quitters never win’ but that is not the full truth. Winners quit things all the time, they recognise where they are not good at and where putting in extra effort will not provide significantly better results and forego them. This allows them focus their energies in areas of strength to become the best they can be. An example is Lebron James who was by many accounts an excellent high school footballer. However there was no way he would have ever become one of the all time greats in basketball if he didn’t quit football. This is an easy example to understand but in our lives we equivocate in many pursuits and contend with mediocrity so as not to be seen as quitters. Seth says to quit things and quit them often so you can focus on your strengths.
Politics and Nigeria
It was political season in Nigeria so I revisited two books from my Library. How Democracies die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblat and Formation by Feyi Fawehinmi and Fola Fagbule. These two books harboured a lot of lessons to be learned from the divisive way Nigeria’s elections turned out. Tweeted my learnings at the time.
These learnings combined with the literature I’d consumed on evolutionary biology led to me writing an article on how redefining ethnicity beyond traditional kinship can help change Nigeria. This was published on Republic, my first paid article.
Who rules the world by Naom Chomsky. Over the year, I’d been enamoured by the idea of a declining America, the emergence of China and the increasingly multipolar future that beckons. This book captured some of these ideas in relation to the decline in America’s power and how the world order is evolving.
Stepping on toes by Hadiza Bala Usman. I read this book on Kindle and was an eye opening look into the challenges of life as a public servant in Nigeria. It weaved a narrative that illustrated the corruption and incompetence that pervaded Buhari’s administration. Some quotes:
The new management inherited a backlog of unaudited financial statements from 2013 to 2016…
Imagine running a massive public institution without audited accounts for years, oh wait that seems to be the norm now in Nigeria that includes the country’s Central Bank.
…The Authority also acknowledged the point about port congestion, which got worse with the closure of Nigeria’s borders with neighbouring countries like Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger in August 2019. By the end of 2019, things got so bad that some vessels waited at anchorage, unable to berth for 25 days or more.
Smoking gun that shows the dastardly effects of Buhari’s border closure
Upon investigation, we discovered that while the NPA charged GRML the sum of $104,821.95 USD (One hundred and four thousand, eight hundred and twenty-one United States Dollars, ninety-five cents) per annum for 11.2426 hectares, the company obtained $9,000,000 USD (Nine million United States Dollars) per annum, from SHI-MCI over the same parcel of land.
Corruption of the highest order. Perpetrated by people with friends in high places of course.
He (Buhari) expressed surprise at the zonal imbalance and asked if it had always been like that. I reminded him that he had approved the dissolution of the board earlier in the year which had as its chairman a person from the South-West but still no representation from the South-East and approved the appointment of a new board in accordance with the request of the Minister.
True to form, Buhari is never aware. A president who has to be reminded of the imbalance of his own appointments.
An insight this book gave me as an indigene of Akwa Ibom state is the folly that the proposed deep seaport in Akwa Ibom state represents. With all Nigeria’s non-lagos ports operating at below capacity, the chances that the potential billion dollar investment will succeed is quite slim. It seems however that the project will soldier own thanks to sunk cost fallacy and the vested interests that gain financially from it progressing.
Summaries
I like books that summarize key concepts. Whenever I come across one in topics I’m interested in I generally buy it. Did this for 2 titles summarizing key concepts in economics and psychology.
In some ways my love for summary titles is a cop out for my lack of dedication to keeping my own reading and book notes. I tried to adopt the zettelkasten system this year but failed. I switched intermittently between a card based and a digital system, often forgetting to take proper notes and format them. I aim to refine my note taking system this year for easy retrieval of ideas, pursue my curiosities and help me find gaps in my knowledge.
Authors I met in person
I met a number of authors in person at different events in 2023 and made a point of buying their books. First was Dr Ike Anya’s Small by Small, a memoir of becoming a doctor in Nigeria in the 1990’s. Dr Anya, is a revered senior public health doctor and founder of TEDx Euston so had to make the trip to London for one of the launch events.
I have an extra copy of the book and would love to find it a new home. Reach out if you’d be interested in getting my extra copy of ‘Small by small’
I also met Abi williams, Dr Ebun Joseph and Jane Egerton-Idehen. All female African authors who wrote on leadership, African studies and career development respectively. I admire authors of African extraction who write as they provide a unique African perspective that’s not represented adequately in published work.
Tsundoku
Buying books is a favourite past time of mine. I say buying books in contrast to reading them as I have a huge and growing unread section in my library. The Japanese term tsundoku captures this well recognised phenomenon. Related is Nassim Taleb’s idea of the anti-library, ones owned yet unread books, that helps to inspire humility and curiosity. Additions to my anti-library this year include:
The deficit myth by Stefanie Kelton — I first learned about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in the planet money podcast. With the new Nigerian president’s manifesto talking about decoupling revenue from spending, ergo larger budget deficits, I saw this book in a book store and wanted to gain a deeper understanding of MMT so picked it up.
The Man who mistook his wife for a hat by Oliver Sacks — A classic volume written in 1986 by a neurologist about the curious neurological cases he’d come across in his career. Grabbed this as it was on sale in a bookstore and had always wanted to read it.
The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer— The author is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and renowned biographical writer who ghost wrote Prince William’s ‘Spare’, Phil Knight’s Shoe dog and Andre Agassi’s autobiography. I learned about him in the publicity leading up to the release of ‘spare’ so bought this book, his memoir about growing up with his single mother. The book is critically acclaimed and has been turned into a movie.
Non book learning resources
Books were not the only source of learning. I spent a lot of time reading research articles, research reports among other things. A regular source of learning and book recommendations were podcasts, these were the most resourceful podcasts I listened to this year.
- Diary of a CEO
- Huberman lab
- Freakonomics
- Lenny’s podcast
- HBR ideacast
- Planet money
I also consumed substacks a fair bit and found myself regularly returning to Rob Henderson’s substack. His article on status was my first exposure to his insightful mind and engaging writing style. He has a memoir coming out in 2024 that I look forward to reading. Honorary mention to Solace Chukwu’s chaos digest that looks at football with a historical and analytical lens.
And that was my year in reading and learning. Here’s to reading more in 2024.
