What I’ve been reading – March 2024
Slow productivity, courage, and a Pulitzer Prize-winner’s insights on human condition.
Just a note before getting started. I posted a poll to learn what kind of writing you want to see more of in the latest Monday Dispatch. It will remain open for a few more days. Thank you for casting your vote. Your input is very much appreciated.
Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
Long-time readers know how influential Cal Newport’s work is on my thinking, so it should be no surprise that I pre-ordered and dove straight into his latest book on release day. Inspired by the ethos behind the Slow Food movement, Cal proposes a vision of productivity that is sustainable and rewarding without compromising on results. The model revolves around three tenets: do fewer things, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality.
A reality of personal productivity is that humans are not great at estimating the time required for cognitive endeavors. We’re wired to understand the demands of tangible efforts, like crafting a hand ax, or gathering edible plants. When it comes to planning pursuits for which we lack physical intuition, however, we’re guessing more than we realize, leading us to gravitate toward best-case scenarios for how long things might take.
Slow productivity requires that you free yourself from the constraints of the small so that you can invest more meaningfully in the big. This is a messy, detail-oriented conflict, largely fought on the battleground of old-fashioned productivity tactics and systems. But it’s a battle that must be fought if you hope to, as Benjamin Franklin lauded, become the master of your own time.
Read it to obtain a strong argument for slowing down to push against the drive—external but most often internal—for busyness.
Read it with Subtract by Leidy Klotz to dive deeper into the “do fewer things” theme.
Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday doing what Ryan Holiday does best: weaving together various stories from across the ages to teach and inspire. This is the first book in his series on the four cardinal virtues: courage, discipline, wisdom, and justice. Courage is the first because it is “the backbone of all the rest,” or, as C.S. Lewis put it, “the form of every virtue at the testing point,” the one we all need when the rubber meets the road.
“To each,” Winston Churchill would say, “there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” It’s more accurate to say that life has many of these moments, many such taps on the shoulder.
For more than two thousand years, military leaders have had some version of the same maxim: The only inexcusable offense for an officer is to be surprised. To say, I didn’t think that would happen. […] Douglas MacArthur summed up all failures of war and life in two words: “Too late.” Too late in preparing, too late in grasping the enemy’s intentions, too late in securing allies, too late for leaders to be exchanging contact info, too late in rushing to the aid of those in need. Too late in nothing getting specific, in not counting as Grant learned, or in not preparing for the appearance of the enemy as Napoleon said.
Read it to unlock the drive to do what you know needs to be done but are scared of doing.
Read it with The Obstacle is The Way, which, in my partial opinion, remains the best and most effective book on Stoicism Ryan published so far.
Fallen Leaves, by Will Durant
Someone recommended dipping your toes in Durant’s work, beginning with the short and approachable The Lessons of History (see February books) and Fallen Leaves. Where Lessons is a high-level overview of the patterns Durant and his wife Ariel noticed during their five decades spent researching “the philosophies, religions, arts, sciences, and civilizations of the world” and tries to be as objective as possible, Leaves is a look into the Durants’ (although written mostly from Will’s perspective) opinions and how their work shaped them. What a privilege to be able to peer inside two minds like theirs.
Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them.
Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire. It is Life that educates.
Read it to inspect a thoughtful worldview rooted in a particular time of history, see how it clashes with yours, and what remains afterward.
Read it with… I’m sure there are other retrospectives from great thinkers at the end of their careers, but the only ones I can’t think of pale in comparison, so I’ll go with the obvious choice and recommend The Lessons of History once again.
Fiction
Growing up, there was an Italian translation of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea in our bookshelf that I picked up many times, but never read. The size of it was too daunting at the time. I heard the book mentioned somewhere recently and thought I’d give it a shot. When you think Verne wrote it in 1869-70, it’s really a remarkable story for its technology and scenery. The character of Captain Nemo and the mystery surrounding him were captivating, but I wouldn’t put it into my list of top sci-fi books.
Kids
My son stumbled upon a hand-me-down copy of Max Brallier’s The Last Kids on Earth and was hooked. The site pitches it as "Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets The Walking Dead in this very funny post-apocalyptic graphic novel. I can vouch for the funny part—I could hear him read out loud while reading it.