2022 my reading emails turned more personal.
It was rather scary at times.
It still is.
Yet my list is growing and my reading musings have struck a chord. I believe reading is an intimate conversation. It’s a conversation between you and the author. And the more you engage with a book, the more intimate it gets. So naturally, my emails and articles relating to reading have gotten more intimate. Which I would say is the theme of this reading recap for 2022.
I’m going to recap the best books I read in 2022 and share some honorable mentions and other musings.
As of this writing, I read 44 books in 2022.
I may squeeze in two more before 2023.
I read two books twice, Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell, and The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.
And two books took time to read due to length and their nature, Don Quixote by Cervantes, and The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith.
I threw one book in the trash, The Art of X-Ray Reading by Roy Peter Clarke (I mention why I did here). I’m not joking, it’s sitting in a trash heap somewhere in Colorado. The two biggest letdowns, The War on The West by Douglas Murray (I detail a little bit why here; as time goes on, that book gets more blasé), and Land of Wolves by Craig Johnson.
I’ll detail Johnson’s letdown for the superfans of mine. Johnson created the Longmire series. I enjoy the series. Some stand out, some are filled with too many insider jokes, and some feel phoned in. But Land of Wolves was a big letdown. I nearly stopped after fifty pages. But being stubborn and a fan of the series, I endured it (albeit I read a lot of it at a lightning pace). Why a letdown? In the previous novel, Longmire takes out an entire cartel to rescue his daughter. And in a way, to avenge the death of an unborn daughter with his girlfriend. The story in that novel walks a bit past the boundaries of plausibility — Walt Longmire would be in his seventies and manages to eradicate a drug cartel in Mexico — but it’s enjoyable. The theme of protecting the women in his life stands out. Land of Wolves he comes back to Wyoming and all the women dislike him for what he did in the previous novel. Even his daughter is pissed off at him. Which makes no sense. A man goes deep into Mexico to rescue his daughter, and nearly gets himself killed, but pulls off a miracle and the women look at him like some sad little wimp. In real life, women would hurl themselves at Longmire for this action. And Longmire for most of the story is mopey, needy, and wimpy. Longmire’s main character trait is his ability to endure, his grit. In this story, he’s morphed into someone who would become an inconsolable mess if a light bulb burned out in a lamp. The story left such a bad taste in my mouth that I may quit the series entirely.
Moving on.
The email that got the most feedback was the Raymond Chandler piece (you can read it here). Which is poignant because, in a way, Chandler kicked off 2022 for me.
I’ll recap a touch.
The day after Christmas 2021, I went to Hollywood, California. I stayed right on the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine. And I was about a block and a half from the home of Chandler’s most famous creation, Phillip Marlowe. I visited for about a week. My trip to Marlowe’s hood fomented a more sentimental and more personal year of reading. As I mentioned in that piece, I could feel Marlowe walking around. I could see him walking the streets. When I went to sleep, the building I stayed in, knowing his office and home sat a block and a half away, I wondered what he was up to. I looked out the window, across to the Taft building, and did what I love to do, ruminate.
Another reason why it got more personal in 2022, I worked to slow down my reading. If you’re a longtime reader of mine then you know I read fiction slowly. Ever so slowly. But I somewhat raced through non-fiction. And I felt like I was missing something. I felt like I was racing to just race when I didn’t need to. Fortunately, I stumbled across The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs. A book I wished I stumbled crossed earlier. The book gave me permission to read non-fiction slower. But more so, it showed me the best reason why to savor and enjoy what I’m reading versus racing through to see if it’s worthy of a reread. I now write marginalia whereas I wasn’t before. So that book shaped, or reshaped rather, how I read. And with that, reading got more intimate.
As I said, I read Don Quixote this year. And, after I read it, I declared it the greatest novel and story ever written (I cover more here). And it is special. But it got supplanted.
And with that, the two best books I read in 2022:
- Non-fiction: Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell
- Fiction: Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun
Growth of The Soil is not only the best fiction I read in 2022, I now consider it the greatest fiction ever written (more here).
If you’re curious to know my ranking (this is for fiction):
- Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun
- Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
- The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevski
I conveyed in other pieces Growth of the Soil’s rich and beautiful depiction of values. But I deleted something personal from one of those pieces. And I’ll hint at a smidgen of what I deleted (I like you guys and gals but some things are between me and someone else and not for the world to see).
When I read Growth of the Soil a first happened to me. A person close to me surfaced as a passenger as I read the story; they existed in my mind as I read Growth of the Soil. My guess as to why this person became a strong presence, I’ll leave it at the themes and values depicted in the story. Fiction paints the world for us. Great fiction conjures our emotions, thoughts, sentiments, memories, and imagination. Hamsun pulled me into his story yet his story reached into my world and happened to figuratively sit someone next to me. I find that special.
Onto Sowell.
I’ve mentioned Conflict of Visions here.
I’ll recap why it struck me.
It’s the most powerful social theory I’ve ever read. It goes beyond politics. I’ll get personal again. How he depicts worldviews, in my dating life, I would not date someone with an Unconstrained worldview. Sowell doesn’t dump on the Unconstrained. But I see it as a worldview not aligning with my worldview. And it’s a misalignment that creates friction. One doesn’t have to go far on Twitter, or even an unhappy relationship, to see how each worldview can quickly get at odds with the other.
What fascinated me regarding these worldviews, as Sowell shows, is even if the person isn’t political in any way shape or form, the worldview still shapes their compass, their Northstar. You can see how the worldview at a baseline reveals how someone handles obstacles, conflicts, or how they approach the day. Some may have a knee-jerk reaction and say “You want to date a mirror image of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” No, I don’t want a mirror image; I want a complementary worldview as a baseline. Each worldview is a spectrum variegated and nuanced. But as Sowell shows, if you take two people, and one has the Constrained worldview and the other the Unconstrained, they will view solutions, conflicts, processes, differently. And so different that it creates friction fast.
Like I said, Conflict of Visions is the most powerful theory I’ve ever read, and I believe Sowell is right. Once he paints the picture you see it everywhere.
Now let’s get into some honorable mentions.
The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
Aristotle’s Ethics is a foundational book in the canon of Western Civilization (more here).
Let’s keep with the theme of personal.
Aristotle structures most of my ethical compass. He somewhat supplanted the previous framework, The Stoics.
Here’s why Aristotle supplanted the Stoics for me.
I discovered Stoicism around 2014 or 2015. I got really deep into it around 2017. Going so far as to attend Stoicon in London. And a few times I attended a superb event in Wyoming hosted by the University of Wyoming (it’s funny how the universe works, the event takes place in the Wyoming foothills at a Christian retreat camp). Stoicism offers a powerful moral and ethical guide. Stoicism offers a powerful — and now tried and tested — toolset to navigate our spectrum of emotions and impulses. And it perhaps offers the most potent skillset available if you’re about to face or endure dignity removing horrors (the story of James Stockdale being the most famous example). Sadly we only have around 3% of Stoic thought and writings. I’ll iterate, any man or woman would do well to read Meditations or Epictetus or Seneca. But Stoicism has its issues; Stoicism has its boundaries. Modern popularizers add to those issues and try to sweep its boundaries under the rug by inserting their cosmic and fashionable vision into Stoicism. They also morph Stoicism from a belief system into a morally undemanding set of practices and habits. Doing so, they ignore the issues.
A big issue with Stoicism: navel-gazing. “What would a Stoic do?” is a trying question often asked. Also, another issue with Stoicism, the lack of looking at the bigger picture (granted Stoic thought on the matter is lost to history). For instance, if people are getting lined up and sent off to the gulag for religious or political beliefs, modern Stoics see this as a way to practice their Stoicism. Undoubtedly, if I’m being sent to the Gulags for my political beliefs, religious beliefs, or for being a Clint Black fan, Stoicism will help me face that atrocity. But that misses the bigger and more important question. Why are people getting lined up and sent off to dignity and humanity stripping prisons? That isn’t the time to navel gaze nor is it the time to get excited to practice Stoicism. The other issue, Stoicism features trying aspects around “preferred indifferents.” A preferred indifferent is an advantage; either visceral advantages or self-created advantages. For instance, if you’re an attractive man or woman (visceral advantage), the Stoics say that your looks shouldn’t matter. Let’s dig deeper. Let’s say you’re an attractive man or woman, and you’re fit, and you’re stinking rich, and you have superb character and humility, and you have supreme command of your purpose, and you have wisdom and virtue, and you have high standards, and you have humility and grace. To call none of those tangibles an advantage is risible. That’s not to take away from the breadth and depth of what Stoicism offers. But it’s ridiculous to say those advantages are opinions and should not matter and what matters most is virtue. Yes, virtue matters. But if you’re going to try out to play the role of Jack Reacher or his love interest, debating with the casting team that looks don’t matter and it’s an opinion is not going to do so well. Those advantages can help us in some way, as they can help others. They can make us more apt to get a job, or they can make us better at our job. The list goes on and on.
Again, I’ll repeat, Stoicism is one of the most powerful ethical, moral, and pragmatic frameworks a person can follow. It influenced Christian ethics (in particular, Paul). It’s the core of Cognitive Behavioral Theory. It’s approachable, dependable, and anyone would do well to read a bit of it.
Again, I love Stoicism. It helped me escape the murky depths of scammy online marketing. It led me to raise questions regarding my values. It indirectly and in some ways directly, led me to the massive personal shifts I experienced in the summer of 2020.
But Aristotle, I argue and believe, understands the world better than the Stoics. Not that the Stoics drift far from Aristotle. They overlap in many areas. But Aristotle gives weight to advantages. He also teaches how you can create advantages. A simple one, if a man or woman exercises, and builds a fit body they become more attractive, thus gaining an advantage. But he also teaches that it’s not just an advantage, rather the advantage is a cherry on top. The real lesson, exercising bestows mental and physical benefits. Aristotle isn’t saying work out to get a sexy body to just get laid. That aim, he would say, is the distinctly wrong reason to get fit. Rather, he teaches that working out gives us strength. It tests us mentally. It helps us live better lives. And we can workout while recognizing the advantage of working out, like how it makes us look better. To go further to show how Aristotle gets it, he teaches how wanting to look sexy at the pool offers us a good impetus to work out, yet that impetus shouldn’t define us or be our main purpose in life. It’s merely the catalyst to get us exercising which then opens the door to the deeper physical and emotional benefits. I find that realistic. Granted the Stoics advocated rigorous physical exercise, but Aristotle nails the nuance and importance behind the why. And Aristotle gets that if you go to the pool, and you’re a fit man or woman, that gives you an advantage. Whereas the Stoics start getting into navel-gazing as to how it doesn’t matter and it’s all opinion. Sorry Stoics, while you navel-gaze and work to self-exalt yourselves above the idea of an aesthetically pleasing body, that fit body is turning heads in the real world. That Aristotle recognizes those tangibles makes him much more compelling. And that’s part of what put me firmly into the Aristotle camp.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith
I recently talked about this here.
The Pleasures of Reading, Alan Jacobs
I’ve chatted a lot about swimming upstream. You can check it out here and here. But this book inspired changes in how I read, and those changes are proving fruitful.
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
I just finished it. A classic. I consider it a Great Book.
It tells the story of 1980s New York City culture. But the themes are timeless. We get social class pitted against social class. We see how high society “culture” is often an exercise in pretentiousness and insecurity. We see how race grifters can grab power and infantilize the group they represent. We see how vanity, insecurity, and rationalizing impulsive behavior deliver dire consequences.
I grew up in Boston. And the characters in this book, the social divisions, reminded me of home. I grew up Irish Catholic. My family was in the car business. And the old wasp yankees looked down at us. I remember walking into a country club once, and some old wasp buzzard complained to the employee at the register that “this IRISH boy isn’t a member and certainly doesn’t BELONG in here.” A not uncommon occurrence in pockets of Boston and New York City. And the characters in the book, the Irish lawyers and cops, reminded me of so many people I worked with.
Wolfe’s attention to detail makes the world come alive. He turns the environment into a character, which is key when displaying social class.
A superb read. Hilarious, eye-opening, and rich with insight.
World War II
I’m looking down a few rabbit holes. One rabbit hole, I’m loosely looking at America from the 1920s through the 1960s or so. And it’s impossible to not look at World War II.
I read two eye-opening books on the topic. One of which gave me the chills at times. I argue, read these two books and you’ll own a vast knowledge of World War II.
The books, The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson, and War of the World by Niall Ferguson. Both authors I deeply admire and respect. Niall Ferguson writes otherworldly prose.
The Second World Wars gives a deep overview of World War II. Hanson structures the book into seven categories:
- Ideas
- Air
- Water
- Earth
- Fire
- People
- Ends
Hanson remarkably shows the background, the tipping points, the military strategy, and then the aftermath within each theme. He doesn’t show particular battles, rather he gives a substantive overview of military and political theaters and ideologies. He also peels back many myths. Such as the fashionable belief that everyone hated Hitler and his goons but somehow Hitler haphazardly seized power. In reality, and sadly, Hitler was revered worldwide. And today, many Germans like to entertain the belief that their families were part of the “resistance.” But horrifically, Hitler was adored at home. Some like to look at Hitler as some country bumpkin. But the academics and intellectuals were some of his biggest fans. Hanson peels back the curtain and shows the grave realities.
It’s a fascinating book. It’s a big book, but readable, accessible, and intriguing.
War of the World by Niall Ferguson is the book that raised the hair on my arms and gave me the chills. This book is far more conceptual in nature, but while conceptual, he makes it granular. The book seems to be a sequel to The Pity of War which details World War I. I’ve yet to read Pity of War but War of The World is approachable enough on its own.
Ferguson avoids the battles, he avoids the warfare strategies. As I said, he goes conceptual. The granular bit I mentioned, Ferguson covers what created the ethnic divisions that led to the atrocities of World War II. He covers the psychology creating the horrors man conducted during this time. And he offers us a distinct premise, that World War II never quite ended.
And to piggyback off of this, The Dying Citizen by Victor Davis Hanson was superb. He details what’s hollowing out Western Civilization, what it means to be a citizen, and defines and details the “forces tearing down civilization” we so often hear yet never see defined.
Classical English Style, Ward Farnsworth
I’ve mentioned it a few times, here and here.
If you’re a writer of any sort, it’s required reading.
If you’re a reader wishing to dive into some old English classics — literature, or non-fiction — this book will work like a Rosetta stone. It will clarify what maybe looks stuffy or repetitive and instead show its power and clarity.
The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler; Raymond Chandler, Tom Hiney
As mentioned, this combination opened the door to a deeply personal reading experience. And opened the door to the article/email receiving the most feedback. I won’t go on much further. Other than Chandler did write one more Marlowe novel after The Long Goodbye. I’ll admit, part of me is irrationally fearful to read it.
Why?
Chandler wrote Playback (the last novel) completely and utterly and distinctly shitfaced. He wrote it to woo a woman. And he wrote it in an inebriated hurry. I’ve heard it’s absurdist and funny. But I’ve heard it’s a departure from the famous Marlowe. That part has me worried. I doubt the story will taint Marlowe for me. That’s my irrational fear. But after that unexpected personal experience I had with The Long Goodbye you could say I’m letting the sentiments cool.
And to share more regarding that personal piece, I was blown away by the feedback on it. My reading emails and articles have struck a chord. And I can’t even quite pin down what it is I do when I talk reading, but I know I feel a deep calling to it. And when I published something that personal and got that much feedback, I felt grateful to you and felt more fired up. As I’ve said before, I’m shifting away from copy and marketing. I admire both, but there is only so much one can say about copy. And marketing methods don’t excite me. I’m thrilled that whatever I’m doing with reading has struck a chord. And I love that Chandler and Marlowe helped me with that.
Hamilton, Ron Chernow
I covered Hamilton here. It’s a superb read. Chernow is a superb writer. No, I did not see the broadway hit this book inspired, nor do I care to, nor will I since I’m not at all interested to see this book turned into a rap. I’m not sure how my reading will go for 2023, but I do plan to read Chernow’s Grantat some point.
Drink, David Nutt
I wouldn’t hail this book as a classic. I wouldn’t say it was great. But it was good. Why am I mentioning just a good book?
I wasn’t much of a drinker. I had my wild days in my twenties. But back in those Borneo days it was the standard go bonkers with my ski team after a competition or the standard go out and raise a little hell on a Saturday. But around thirty I started drinking way less. Then my mid-thirties way, way less. And then around the last two years or more, I maybe had one or two drinks a month, if that. I would maybe enjoy a scotch at a restaurant. Or after skiing, with an old friend, maybe nurse a beer. But I noticed the longer I went without drinking a scotch or whiskey, when I did have one, all I tasted was the alcohol. So it lost its appeal. The biggest thing I noticed, I slept awful even after having only one drink. For instance, I fly to Sun Valley, Idaho three or four times every year to go skiing. I noticed if I had a beer after skiing with a friend, or one with dinner, in order to fall asleep later, I had to walk around town for a few hours. Not that I mind walking around Ketchum, Idaho, but it got irksome. Especially on nights when it was close to zero degrees or less. But it was the only way I could get to sleep that night. And with my lifting, if I had one beer or Scotch on Saturday, I felt it on Monday when I was squatting.
Well sometime in April I went out to dinner at a restaurant. I had a few sips of scotch, but I don’t think I even finished it. A few days later I read Drink. I liked it. It didn’t moralize. It didn’t call you a sinner for drinking. So that last scotch I had some sips of was my last drink. I stopped drinking entirely. At the same time, I stumbled upon Athletic Brewing Non-Alcoholic beer. And I quite enjoyed it (I’ve had a few others from other brands and some are quite good, and a few are undrinkable).
I wouldn’t say this book inspired a big shift. But it did show me how I was enduring a drink here or there for no reason at all. I enjoy the taste of beer and now I enjoy an NA beer while I read without the downsides.
What also shocked me, was when it came up around people that I don’t drink anymore, they got upset. Or if I said I drink NA beer I get the “why do that!?!? If I’m drinking I want to get something out of it!!!!!!” Or I got that I was some Christian moralizer who now wants to tell people the ills of drinking. It was shocking. I barely got out of my mouth that I don’t drink or I drink NA beer and I got slammed with stock retorts telling me how wrong and lame I was to not booze. And these retorts came from people who barely drank. I’ve gotten used to it by now. I occasionally get odd looks from wait staff if I’m out for dinner and I ask for the NA beer. I can only imagine that if someone with a drinking issue is trying to quit drinking that it must be excruciating. I never had a problem with booze. Yet since I quit I get all types of blowback. I’m not against drinking or alcohol at all. Nor am I telling people to stop drinking. But people will castigate you for not drinking, or say that drinking wine every night is “lindy” or why drink NA booze since it contains 0.5% alcohol (a banana has the same amount of alcohol; fun fact, when that amount hits your tongue the alcohol is gone so it’s impossible to get drunk on it, just like it’s impossible to eat bananas in the hopes of getting a buzz), or that booze has been around for thousands of years so that makes it good for you. Murder has also been around for thousands of years, but that doesn’t make it good for you. But it’s been quite the experience stopping drinking. I can’t sit here and say “my life is now totally fucking amazing since I stopped drinking!” I hate that nonsense. It’s like going to a dinner party and that one person who made the “dairy-free, gluten-free dish, 100% vegan dish” boasts about it as if making that dish is doing their part to make society better. My life is much the same. I don’t miss booze. I enjoy NA beer. And it’s nice to have one while I’m reading. And the formulaic retorts fascinate me.
Upcoming for 2023
As of this writing, I’m reading Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs (it’s about finding personal depth in old books).
I just finished the Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell. The last in the loose Conflict of Visions trilogy. And I will read more Thomas Sowell in 2023.
Here are my predictions for my reading in 2023. And likely this will all change. I have an idea of where I’m going, but it shapes and evolves as I read.
I’m aiming to start The Decline and the Fall of The Roman Empire right after Christmas. It’s a behemoth. I bought the Penguin Classic edition. I’m not reading the abridged edition. I’m reading the full monty. It’s six volumes. Penguin put it into three big books. I have no idea how long it will take me to read it. I’m guessing most of the winter. Which will be interesting mentally.
Why?
I’m working on slowing down my reading. I felt I raced through before, whereas now I’m working to engage and converse with the book better. And I’m finding way more enjoyment slowing down. I also noticed slowing it down helped me find more confidence in my writing — funny how that works. But I still get that, “I read around four or five books a month! I need to read more books!” impulse. And something like The Decline and Fall works against that four books a month or so average. I predict I will maybe get thirty or fewer books in 2023 due to tackling this behemoth. But it’s a landmark work. It will challenge me. I’m a history nerd, so I’m guessing I’ll enjoy it. But undoubtedly I will have moments where I want to read the next thing. And moments where I want to hit an arbitrary number I set up in my head that no one cares about in the grand scheme of things.
And reading the Decline and Fall I’m curious how I will email you here with my usual reading musings. But I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
I will still aim to read for four hours each day. Sometimes I get it and more, sometimes I only get a half-hour. That’s how life works.
In line with The Decline and The Fall of the Roman Empire I still plan to keep reading more Great Books in 2023. I organized a Great Books bookshelf in my home. I start with The Iliad and I organized it in chronological order to the modern day. I’ve taken some liberties with it. Mortimer Adler, we could say, is the Godfather of The Great Books. The list existed before him but he curated it and made it famous. Since then, certain colleges like Hillsdale and St. John’s have made the list their own. I’ve made it my own. But I still adhere to the frameworks and principles Adler laid out. That framework, the thinker or book requires mass impact. I don’t inject obscure authors I may like; a case where I think the book is great and wish everyone would read it but no one else has read it. No. The book or thinker needed to have some kind of mass impact on the world.
Also, some thinkers I sidelined. For instance, I have most of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre. And Adler places Sartre in the Great Books canon. But to me, Sartre is the standard intelligentsia type. His writing bores me. Whereas another thinker loosely related to Sartre and as famous at that time is Albert Camus. Camus is far more poignant and grounded in my opinion.
Also, I don’t take knee-jerk partisan stances. Marx sits on my bookshelf. I disagree vehemently with Marx. But one can’t deny the impact and consequences of his theories. I’m a Burkean Conservative. Marx hated Burke. Marx’s work influences a lot of discourse today, discourse that goes far beyond Communism. So the work sits on the shelf (I have read sections of him over the years, but never in full; I may read him in full one day, we’ll see).
My Great Books bookshelf does have a Conservative (Classical Liberal if you want to get fancy) leaning to it. How? I have Milton Friedman, F.H. Hayek, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Thomas Sowell, Alexis de Tocqueville, Edmund Burke, Tom Wolfe, C.S. Lewis, Knut Hamsun, JR Tolkien and more on it. Now some scholars argue that Dostoyevski and Camus were Conservative. I don’t know the depths of that argument. They certainly have more Aristotlean influences. But that debate I’m not going to delve into.
Ok enough of this ramble, in sum, I plan to keep reading the Great Books (literature and non-fiction alike).
My current swimming upstream roots around Thomas Sowell. He led me to Adam Smith. The next one I’m eyeing, Alexis de Tocqueville’s, Democracy in America. And somewhat Sowell related, Aristotle. I will get to another Aristotle or two in 2023. Likely I will read Rhetoric twice. At least, that’s the plan.
I’m wondering whether to read Edmund Burke again in 2023. It’s been close to two-and-a-half years since Burke influenced my personal values; two years since he, directly and indirectly, led me to realize my values. So it might be interesting to return to him. Burke sparked my shift from atheism to now Christian Deism (Burke was not a deist, he was a Christian). He led me to Thomas Sowell. And how he helped me realize my values goes far beyond politics. He tapped into what I would call my backbone and disposition. And when I read Burke two-ish years ago, I read him too fast. So a part of me wants to read him again, but much slower.
I plan to go another year not reading a Success book.
I haven’t read a Success book since maybe 2018. We could say, Russ Roberts How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life qualifies as one. If we want to, then that would be the first one since I read The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll or Atomic Habits by James Clear in 2018 (I found the latter painfully dull and axiomatic; I gave it maybe fifty pages at best; I’ve looked at bits and parts since then for articles and research, but my god is it atomically dull). Success books, books on marketing or mindset or self-development, or funnel offers do nothing for me. I have no desire to read them. Nor will that desire ever return. I do sometimes dive into one for research purposes, but as soon as I dive in I’m reminded why don’t those books anymore.
Well, that’s it.
But I can’t leave without thanking you. The reading aspect of my business is now the main jam. That wouldn’t have happened without you. I’m grateful and honored that whatever it is I’m saying regarding reading has struck a chord. I’ll keep doing what I do and I hope it continues to strike a chord with you.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I hope you stumble across some great reads in 2023.
