The Best Books of 2021 (my favorite 18 out of 367)

I decided this year I was going to take it easy on my reading/listening regime. Not that I was ever really driven to hit some reading goal (at least not for several years). Still, I have actually wondered if I was reading too much. Is that even possible? I will leave that for you to decide. I am just always reading or listening to a book. Maybe I need more silence? I don’t think my reading and listening keeps me from my work or my family, I think it has just become an embedded habit in the flow of my life. So, taking it easier this year has meant 367 (and there are still 10 days left in the year) so I am on track for about the same total as last year. Oh well. I suppose there are worse habits to have.

The upside for my friends is that I am always ready with a good book recommendation. I do enjoy the experience of reading widely enough, that I usually have something I can share with a curious friend. Whatever they are curious about. And, as has also become my custom, I want to share my best books of the year. These are not all books that were published in 2021, so the title is a little deceiving. These are just the best books I finished this year, even if I only recently discovered them.

So here they are (not in order of importance but in the order that I read them):

Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers
By Jo Boaler

I think learning is one of three critical meta skills for our time. So, I am drawn toward input like this which unveils the relationship between learning and growth. I am a big fan of this kind of research driven, insight rich, and perfectly timed content. Really enjoyed this one.

The New One: Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad
By Mike Birbiglia and contributions by J. Hope Stein

Not the kind of book that would usually make my list, but I found Birbiglia so honest, vulnerable and of course, funny, that this book forced its way in. Full of painful insight and just sheer honesty (if a bit crude) this kind of writing is a kind of high art.

The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50
By Jonathan Rauch

Based on the research of Andrew Oswald, which I also found remarkable and cite in my most recent book, I found this expansion on the core idea of the happiness U curve, a fascinating read. Maybe it is because I am approaching 50 and starting to feel somewhat reflective about these kinds of lifelong dynamics, but I really enjoyed this book.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
By Adam Grant

In a time of high anxiety, dogma rules. The sad irony is that we are drawn to people who seem sure about things when what we really need is a framework for humble inquiry. The truth might be absolute but finding it requires a lot of openness, listening and a willingness to see where we have been wrong. I loved this book because I see it as a kind of medicine for a prevailing ailment of our time.

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution
By Carl Truman

This is a razor sharp social critique built upon an historical reflection on the remarkably opaque conception of the self. Like water to a fish, the concept of self is uncritically accepted and adopted into our modern world views without much thought or biblical consideration. Not for the faint of heart this book is equal parts good theology, thoughtful scholarship and prophetic insight.

On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What It Means to Disappear
By Lynn Casteel Harper

I have read a number of books on end of life issues lately, and this was by far the best. Mental decline is both ubiquitous and inevitable (at least for someone in your family). Yet, how we look at it and treat it is remarkably immature. There is so much discovery in this tender, searching and wise book. I really loved it.

Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists Are Taking Over the Internet — and Why We’re Following
by Gabrielle Bluestone

A cautionary tale about modern scams and our propensity to fall for them. I found this book oddly comforting, not because I am above falling for them, but because I could see how the committed, long obedient life of a wise, Jesus follower would be almost invulnerable to them. Still the threat is real because our belief that we can get something from nothing still lurks in the recesses of our desires. The book is an expose but it is also a really fascinating look at the human heart.

Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age
By Tony Reinke

We are all distracted by the digital age. It is a mental pandemic. And in our hearts we know that the life of quiet contemplation and a renaissance of our monastic heritage might be part of the solution or at least a path to equilibrium. This is one of the best books I have read walking us through that struggle.

Systems Thinking For Social Change: A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results
By David Peter Stroh

For those who have heard me comment on the re-formation of the church in particular or social change in general, you know I am a big fan of systems thinking. For anyone who wants to take that seriously and look at change beyond what individuals can do, this is the book I would recommend. Albeit specialized, and probably not for everyone, for those who are in positions like mine, this is the textbook we should all have on our shelves.

Landslide
By Michael Wolff

This kind of long form, blow by blow journalism is a dying art form. Regardless of your politics, Wolff’s trilogy on Trump (this is the last of three books) is a confrontation of the brutal facts which represents the best of what journalism can offer us.

Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing
By Pete Davis

In an age of critique and quitting, it can be profound to consider again the power and impact of sustained commitment. While loyalty seems like a fool’s bargain, there is a case to be made that the world will not change without it. Another book for me that was so poignant because of the counter narrative guiding the time we live in.

A profoundly inspiring and transformative argument that purposeful commitment and civil engagement can be a powerful force in today’s age of restlessness and indecision.

The Management Myth: Debunking Modern Business Philosophy
By Matthew Stewart

I love when a book deconstructs the prevailing (and too often untested) assumptions of an industry. Stewart offers a piercing review of modern management from his own personal journey. A lovely, poignant, and to my mind true, exposé on corporate leadership in our time.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
By Oliver Burkeman

I read a lot of books on management (time, life, goals, etc). Because they are all either untenable specialized or horribly derivative, it is rare to really enjoy one of them. This book making my list is a credit to not just how good it is, but that mountain it had to climb for me personally. This more thoughtful and philosophical reflection on time and how we use it, Burkman has given us something that rises above the rest. I really like it.

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen
By Dan Heath

I am a fan of the Heath brothers and their work in popularizing important stories and ideas. But normally their stuff wouldn’t stand out for me. This one is probably different because of the work I am currently doing in trying to build collaboration and social change around intractable problems. A simple, more popularized approach to the root idea of systems change, Heath helps us see how real change is impossible if all we do is respond to the results of the problem. We have to identify and address causes. This upstream analogy is powerful and important in the work of social change. For that reason I was drawn in and took lots of mental notes on the dynamics and implications of the stories he tells. Highly recommend it.

Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious
By Timothy D. Wilson

Freud enjoys a relatively uncontested influence on how we understand ourselves. If Truman’s book offers an externalized reflection on the self, Wilson here offers us an internalized one. I found this book to be full of wondrous observations and important distinctions. I am still learning about who I am, perhaps introspection is not the only path to that discovery. We are offered the equally valid (and contra Freudian) pathways of our own actions and how we impact people as markers for who we are.

The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind
By Jonah Berger

With the timely demise of the command and control style of leadership we are desperate for new motifs and new strategies for leading without dominance. Berger offers us just that kind of framework. I am a big fan of this approach to leadership and the skillset that is required to pull it off. Highly recommend it for anyone trying to lead in the 21st century.

Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
By Luke Burgis

I was only recently turned on to Rene Girard and have since read most of his published work and few things written by others. This is by far the best. A careful and timely exploration of the late professor, Burgis unpacks Girard’s theory of desire, rivalry and scapegoating which I find invigorating and thought provoking. Whether it is all exactly true or not, I don’t know, but I do believe that desire is at the heart of our struggle with ourselves, God and each other. And this is as verdant a discussion of those forces as any. I really like this book.

Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
By Andrew Solomon

As a single volume this book took my breath away. A tour de force of empathy, Solomon takes us on a journey into the struggle of parents drawn into marginalized populations by the birth of a child they did not expect. While I did not agree with all of the commentary offered, the depth of the journey into these marginalized communities and the experience of parents and children in them, is simply profound. Learning to see and begin to care about these kinds of communities is one of the best possibilities reading offers us. Every once in a while a book comes along that can do that, and they are as powerful and rare as they are beautiful. I loved this book.

If you are curious, here is the full reading list for this year:

/JAN/ The Book Of Longings, Switchers, It Was All A Lie, Heretic, The Day The World Came To Town, Outer Order Inner Calm, The Hidden Life Of Trees, Influencer, Unquiet, Followers, Naked Statistics, A Very Punchable Face, The Biggest Bluff, Limitless Mind, Billion Dollar Loser, Authenticity, The New One, The Little Things, Make Time, Doesn’t Hurt To Ask, Setting The Table, No Time Like The Future, Delivering Happiness, New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman, I Declare War, Your World Class Assistant, Weird, The Happiness Curve, Lights Out, The Second Machine Age; 30

/FEB/ The Power Of Showing Up, Codependent No More, Making Work Visible, How I Built This, Make All You Can Give All You Can, The Language Of Sales, Matterhorn, Tribes, The Choice, Finding Your Purpose, Blood Meridian, Surprise, The Art Of Is, The Bravest You, Ghost Wires, Still Learning, Psychology Of Happiness, The Worthy Project, Wealth Poverty And Politics, Culture Warlords, The God Who Was There, The Loneliness Companion, Childhood Interrupted, Stargazer, All Things For Good; 25

/MAR/ Junkyard Bargain, Dream Big, The Courage To Be Happy, Emotional Detox, All Systems Red, Wolfpack, Artificial Condition, On Writers And Writing, Everything Is Negotiable, Are You Ok, Is This Anything, Space Maker, Stop Missing Your Life, Lightning Flowers, The Innocents Abroad, Dead Wake, The Coldest Case, Humankind, Reframing Foster Care, Time Wars Last Forever, Manna, Poisoned, Rogue Protocol, The Long Run, The Writing Life, Exit Strategy, Called To Create, Body Of Work, 24/6, Network Effects, Extraterrestrial, How To Be Fine, The Midnight Library; 33

/APL/ Consider This, The Original Black Elite, The 99% Invisible City, The Power Of When, The Fate Of Food, Fair Play, 20000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Four Winds, Whatever Happened To The Gospel Of Grace, The Sound Inside, Think Again, The Element Of Fire, Beautiful Resistance, One Doctor, The Happiness Hypothesis, Delirium, Free Prize Inside, Limitless, The Introverts Edge To Networking, The Rise And Triumph Of The Modern Self, The Science Of Storytelling, Dolly Parton Song Teller, Create, The Didomenico Fragment, Pandemonium, The Plot Thickens, We Are All The Same In The Dark; 27

/MAY/ Creative Calling, On Vanishing, The Art And Science Of Getting People To Care, Life Is A 4 Letter Word, The Three Happy Habits, Welcome To My Panic, Hype, Children Of Eden, The Other Half Of The Church, The Big Lie, How To Be Unstoppable, War: How Conflict Shaped Us, The Awe Factor, Take Back The House, A Bruised Reed, The Uncertain Sea, Out Came The Sun, There Was A Little Girl, Design Thinking Handbook, Between Two Kingdoms, Murder Your Darlings, Fugitive Telemetry, Finding The Right Hill To Die On, Competing Spectacles, Be A Writing Machine, Side By Side, The Soul Of A Woman, The Secret Garden, Beyond Order, The Icarus Deception, Design Systems Handbook, Group, Anatomy Of The Soul, The Truths We Hold, Nevertheless, Good Neighbors, I Want To Be Where The Normal People Are, Partials, Systems Thinking For Social Change; 39

/JUN/ Dusk Night Dawn, The Beauty Of Living Twice, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, The Disordered Mind, Chatter, Possible Side Effects, Dead Set On Living,Empire Of Pain, The End Of Your Life Book Club, The Color Of Law, Margin, Creatures Of The Day, A Beginner’s Guide To The End, Unwinding Anxiety, Project Hail Mary, Generation Impact, The Beauty Of What Remains, Fragments, Wild Words, The Membership Economy, The Broken Ladder, Noise, Vanishing Fleece, Blue Nights, The Kindness Method, An Other Kingdom, Set Boundaries Find Peace, On Color, Peaceful Neighbor, Walking On Water, The Architecture Of Happiness; 31

/JUL/ The Alliance, Ruins, The Firm, An Unhurried Life, Amazon Unbounded, Status Anxiety, The Hour Between Dog And Wolf, Free Play, Not God Enough, Thinking Again, Differentiate Or Die, F*#ked At Birth, Broad Strokes, Streaming Sharing Stealing, Two Cities Two Loves, Heartwood, Landslide, The Hard Crowd, Dedicated, The New Prince, Stardust, Talking Back To Purity Culture, Stories To Tell, Start Here, Becoming Bulletproof, Jesus And John Wayne, Theory Of Everything, How The Internet Happened, Already Toast, Know What You Believe, Word By Word, The End Of Upside Down Thinking, That Sounds Fun, Alliances, The Art Of Stopping; 35

/AUG/ After Evangelicalism, Men And Women In The Church, News Of The World, The President Is Missing, The Parable Of The Sower, The Egg, The Cruelty Is The Point, The Meaning Of It All, A Hidden Wholeness, Hello Habits, Please To Meet Me, Staring At The Sun, It Never Ends, No More Work, Cracking Complexity, Jimmy Stewart, Demon Camp, The Future Of Happiness, Citizen Coke, Superconnect, Hook Point, Redeeming Power, Technopoly, An Absent Mind, The Beautiful Cure, Parable Of The Talents, The Forgetting Machine, And Then There Were None, The Management Myth, Four Thousand Weeks; 30

/SEP/ Rare Leadership, White Sand, Wonderworks, Gentle And Lowly, Wintering, A Land Remembered, How We Show Up, Blow Your House Down, The Secrets Of Consciousness, 101 Essays, You Turn, The Passengers, Risk, The 21st Century Case For Gold, The Art Of Less Doing, A Church Called Tov, The Minders, The Power Of Pressure, Propaganda And The Public Mind, Decoding Greatness, Learn Like A Pro, Becoming Sage, Skip The Line, Future Proofing You, An Ugly Truth, Infinite Country, 4 Habits Of Joy Filled Marriages, You’re Invited, Upstream, The Right To Sex; 30

/OCT/ The Traitor Baru Cormorant, The Replaceable Founder, Built To Belong, The Way We Work, Wait, What Now, No Cure For Being Human, Strangers To Ourselves, Riot Baby, Social Chemistry, The One Week Marketing Plan, Momma And The Meaning Of Life, Inclusify, No Way To Treat A Child, The Heart Of Business, A Sense Of The Mysterious, Work, In Our Backyard, Meeting Of The Waters, Peril, Sacrifice, The Players Ball, The Catalyst, Flex, Anthem, Global Brain, Annihilation, The Three Body Problem, Crypto Economy, Word Watching; 29

/NOV/ It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work, The Odyssey, Disrupt Yourself, A Work In Progress, Making Work Work, Every Heart A Doorway, The Future Of Work, The Deep Places, Invisibles, Joy At Work, Emotional Agility, Wanting, Adventures In Opting Out, Surrounded By Idiots, Embers, The Myth Of Meritocracy, Where Are We Heading, The First Five Pages, The Exotic, The Next Christians, Hot Seat, Redawn, Designed To Lead, Love A Very Short Introduction, Please Let Me Go, The Angel Of Rome, Sleeping Dogs Lie, Free To Focus, Unwind Your Mind, What The Most Successful People Do At Work, Rejesus, Ancillary Justice, The Deepest Well, Station Eleven, Ancillary Sword, The Master And Margarita, Ancillary Mercy; 37

/DEC/ Far From The Tree, Crisis Convulsion, A World Without Email, The Buried Giant, Born For Love, Seeing What Others Don’t, Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself, The Day The Angels Fell, Tom Sawyer, Yearbook, The Bomber Mafia, Committed, Every Deep Drawn Breath, The Magna Carta Of Humanity, Be Well, 8 Hours Or Less, Babel 17, Complexity And Chaos, The Big Cheat, The Mom Test, Dry Bones; 21

367