Thread by @DrewCoffman

I spent a lot of this past year reading, and now I want to share some of the best ideas I came across.

This is a thread on six of my favorite books I read in 2020 and why you should add them to your reading pile 🧵👇

HUMAN AS MEDIA by Andrey Miroshnichenko

This book (which I found through @david_perell) is incredible and I’m blown away that it’s so under-read! The main concept is that there have been four ‘evolutions’ that have helped distribute knowledge and create freedom of idea.

The first evolution was the invention of oral language. The second, the invention of the written word. The third, the invention of the printing press. The fourth, the invention of the internet. This means we’re living through one of the most important shifts ever, RIGHT NOW.

Past evolutions emancipated writing and reading, but the internet is emancipating 'authorship'.

Though there have been 100 billion people to have ever lived, only a few hundred million people have actually been able to publish — until now.

That’s an idea worth reading!

HOW TO TAKE SMART NOTES by @soenke_ahrens

This book (along with @RoamResearch) completely changed my life. It makes an amazing case for taking ‘smart notes’ that are written so well and so effortlessly that you’ll never deal with writer’s block again.

Here’s the cheat sheet to take ‘smart notes’: Capture thoughts that actually interest you, write in the same way you think (instead of just copying sentences word for word), and then build a collection of notes that you can act on.

If you’re interested in this type of note-taking, I made an entire video about the concepts in this book and how I put them to use. Give it a watch!

CREATIVE THINKING by John Bennett

This book (found through @m_ashcroft) is a series of transcribed lectures from the 1960s on how to set yourself up to be creative. The author provides a remarkably simple methodology that I had never put into words before.

This book constantly hammers home the need for you to make space for the spontaneous, saying that what we typically call ‘thinking’ isn’t thinking at all, it’s more like ‘understanding’, and that real thinking is something we rarely notice, consider, or make time for.

Here are the four steps to think creatively. Simple but profound!

BECAUSE INTERNET by @GretchenAMcC

As more and more of our conversations move from in-person dialogues to iMessage and Instagram DMs, new habits are forming. The book is full of tons of examples of this type of behavior. It’s also EXTREMELY funny.

I’ll share one of my favorite ‘new rules of language’: Keyboard mashing. We use a series of letters to communicate when we’re frustrated or shocked, but even though it looks like an arbitrary series of letters, there’s a method to them that our brain understands!

It turns out that asdfgkdf is easier to ‘read’ than uopygsj because we’re used to QWERTY keyboards — BUT now ‘sksksksk’ is becoming the standard keyboard mash. Why? Touchscreen keyboards are become the norm and ‘s’ and ‘k’ rest below your thumbs. That’s FASCINATING!

LEONARDO DA VINCI by Walter Isaacson

Okay, you’ve probably (definitely?) heard of this book but if you haven’t picked it up you should. This biography gave me insight into not only Leonardo Da Vinci’s life but his way of THINKING, and there are some valuable lessons to learn.

Leonardo’s genius was a culmination of several factors which set him apart. He had a relentless curiosity, an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a childlike sense of wonder, asking questions like ‘why is the sky blue’ and ‘how do woodpeckers not give themselves concussions’.

Some traits we think of as negatives, Da Vinci used to his advantage. For example, his tendency to procrastinate is what allowed his best works, like the Mona Lisa, to be refined for decades and become the masterpieces we see them as today.

Da Vinci also had a distracted nature which led him to connect ideas as he moved from one passion to the next. This interconnected thinking was incredibly powerful and I made an entire video on how I hope this method makes a modern-day comeback:

THE TRUTH OF FACT, THE TRUTH OF FEELING by Ted Chiang

This last book is fiction, and it’s actually a short story I pulled out of a larger book of short stories called ‘Exhalation’ — but it’s SO GOOD I want you to read it!!

Imagines a future where every single second of your life was recorded, searchable, and replayable. What if you could go back and watch all of the arguments you ever had with a loved one? What unexpected realizations might you uncover?

If that interests you, read this book.

So that’s my six favorite books of 2020! Let me know if any of these ideas resonate with you, and please share your favorite reads with me!

I’m looking for some new reads to take into the new year 🎉