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Books Read in 2015

January 1, 2016 By Nate Shivar

From 2007 to 2012, I read 263+ books. But I did not stop there. I haven’t kept up the same pace – but have kept on tracking every book I’ve read since. Ideally, I’ve also written a short lessons learned or review of each. Here’s the books I’ve read this past year.

*all the links below go to Amazon for convenience, but I definitely recommend purchasing books from Alibris. They support local booksellers, and often have even better used pricing.

This post covers books read in 2015. You can also read from,

2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | Most Recent Full Reviews

One Summer by Bill Bryson Book Review

December 9, 2015 By Nate Shivar

In 1927, there was no major war. There was no major election. There was no major economic upheaval. And yet, it was still remarkably eventful – and one that laid the groundwork for so many huge events just a couple years later.

Or that’s what Bill Bryson argues and writes about in One Summer. He’s the master of taking otherwise dense and boring topics (like the History of Knitting) and turning them into an engaging, interesting, and amusing book (such as At Home)

One Summer is a book that takes a few key events of summer 1927 and interweaves them in such a way to give a full picture of what living that summer in America must have been like – and how so much history can happen all at once to set the stage for the years ahead.

Headhunters on My Doorstep by J. Maarten Troost Book Review

December 9, 2015 By Nate Shivar

There’s a long tradition of modern travel writers retracing the steps of famous travel routes – whether it’s retracing George Orwell in Burma or Paul Theroux retracing his own journey 40 years later.

Headhunters on My Doorstep is a double-revisiting of travel journeys. J. Maarten Troost retraces the steps of Robert Louis Stevenson’s voyage In The South Seas, but he also revisits his own time in the South Pacific which gave him his initial fame with Sex Lives of Cannibals.

The book has 3 narratives woven throughout as Troost visits islands of French Polynesia, the Gilberts, and Samoas. First is the main travel narrative. It’s the straightforward I went here, did this, experienced this classic travel narrative.

Second is the historic narrative featuring Robert Louis Stevenson covering not only his 19th Century journey, but also anecdotes about one of the world’s most celebrated (and oddest) writers.

And third is the narrative of Troost’s recovery from alcohol addiction. 9 months before starting the research for this book, Troost landed in rehab – and writing this book was sort of his return to a big professional project without the addiction.

Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach Book Review

December 9, 2015 By Nate Shivar

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach was published back in September 2011, but I really started hearing about it during the summer of 2012. It seemed to be the big American novel of the year (err, “the next great American novel”) of 2012 sort of like Freedom by Jonathan Franzen was back in 2010.

I had never really read a long, contemporary piece of American fiction, but this one piqued my interest with a recommendation from the Slate Political Gabfest.

Writing on the Wall by Tom Standage Book Review

December 9, 2015 By Nate Shivar

I originally read Tom Standage in The Economist where he’s an editor & columnist and writes the best Holiday Issue columns of anyone at The Economist.

He’s written other excellent books like Edible History, but Writing On The Wall specifically looks at social media throughout human history, particularly since the Romans.

Yes – the Romans.

Phantom by Jo Nesbo Book Review

October 9, 2015 By Nate Shivar

I’ve never been the type to read or really enjoy Crime or Horror as a genre. However, occasionally there will be an author or specific book that will be the exception to the rule.

In the Horror genre, books like I Am Legend and The Road that have really interesting social commentary and an interesting hook are the exception.

In the world of Crime fiction – that exception was The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which remains one of my favorite fiction series ever. For some reason, I’m not sure why, but Scandinavian crime fiction has a very different feel and mix of characters than Anglo-American crime fiction. So much so, that I decided to try to find more – and found Jo Nesbo, a Norwegian crime fiction writer.

I started by reading The Snowman, which was one of the most gripping crime novels I’ve ever read, followed by The Leopard – which also lived up to the author’s hype.

I had similar hopes for Phantom by Jo Nesbo. It has the same main character, a detective named Harry Hole, and promised the same crazy Scandinavian placenames.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo Book Review

July 29, 2015 By Nate Shivar

I’ve tried to read books from a diverse range of settings and countries, but aside from the outstanding Sea of Poppies, I’ve read very little about India.

It’s always seemed like such a daunting, chaotic, overly-diverse topic. And there’s never been a travel book, class or fiction book that’s piqued my interest. I’ve binge read plenty of books on China – which is just as daunting, chaotic and overly diverse, but embarrassingly never on India.

In the last year, my interests have been piqued. I now have an incredible new family by marriage from India. Time to get to know the country that is arguably going to dominate the headlines of the 21st Century.

In Spite of the Gods by Edward Luce Book Review

July 29, 2015 By Nate Shivar

India has been around for a long time. Like more than 5,000 years – back to the earliest establishments of cities and what people call “civilization.”

Like China, it was an economic powerhouse way back when, but fell behind the West and East Asia. Even after it threw off colonialism, India grew at incredibly slow rates until 1991 when they liberalized the economy and passed tons of economic reforms.

Since 1991, India has grown and changed by leaps and bounds. The only country that has grown faster is China. India is on a pretty firm course to become a major world power (if it arguably isn’t already). It’s a center for world-class corporations, software and culture.

And yet – it is famously full of contradictions. It’s not following the well-trodden path of economic development paved first by Britain, then the US, then Japan and then most recently Korea and China. India is developing in a uniquely lop-sided path and is busting all the economic and political truisms declared in recent human history.

That is the topic of In Spite of The Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce (former Bureau Chief for the Financial Times).

Books Read in 2014

January 1, 2015 By Nate Shivar

From 2007 to 2012, I read 263+ books. But I did not stop there. I haven’t kept up the same pace – but have kept on tracking every book I’ve read since. Ideally, I’ve also written a short lessons learned or review of each. Here’s the books I’ve read this past year.

*all the links below go to Amazon for convenience, but I definitely recommend purchasing books from Alibris. They support local booksellers, and often have even better used pricing.

This post covers books read in 2014. You can also read from,

2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | Most Recent Full Reviews

Do The Work by Steven Pressfield Book Review

December 10, 2014 By Nate Shivar

Do The Work by Steven Pressfield is not a book based on any kind of science of motivation, psychology, or behavioral science. It is also not a a piece of traditional Tony Robbins or Napoleon Hill type positive thinking inspirational type book.

It was something very different, and actually quite a useful read.

Last Places by Lawrence Millman Book Review

December 10, 2014 By Nate Shivar

A couple years ago, I read Travels In Siberia by Ian Frazier – which was one of the top 5 travel books I’ve ever read, and piqued my interest in places that are really cold, and really isolated.

Lawrence Millman’s Last Places: A Journey In The North is all about just that: really cold, really stark, and isolated places in the North Atlantic where people still live.

More specifically, it’s about his re-tracing of Viking migration patterns back in the Middle Ages (come to find out the Vikings wanted to go live in these places).

He travels from Norway to the Shetland Islands to the Faeroe Islands to Iceland to Greenland to the Labrador Peninsula in Canada.

It has a good mix of anecdote, diary, observation, and history. However – he does frequently ramble and come out of context with some history (he doesn’t have Bill Bryson or Paul Theroux’s ability to seamlessly weave history, observation, and anecdote into one great narrative).

His writing is really florid, descriptive, and really fascinating. Here are some of my favorite bits and questions…

Contagious by Jonah Berger Book Review

December 9, 2014 By Nate Shivar

In the past ten years, there’s been a really fun genre of books that take normally boring academic research in behavioral economics and psychology and package it into a readable, fascinating book. Think Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert, Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, or Made to Stick by Chip Heath.

Contagious by Jonah Berger falls into that genre – and definitely lives up to the classics in the field. The book is specifically focuses on why things catch on and why things spread.

The book is particularly interesting (and possible) in the age of the Internet where concepts, media, and stories can spread so fast and so easily. But it’s not limited to just why YouTube videos go viral – he also looks at offline ideas, ads & trends that catch on and spread.

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts Book Review

December 9, 2014 By Nate Shivar

“Vagabond” is a word with lots of negative connotations – laziness, narcissism, dependency, aimlessness – someone avoiding commitment to home or job. In Middle English, it was actually a synonym for a criminal.

So despite many famous endorsements, I had been skeptical of the book – assuming it was just another quit your job, leave your commitments, and explore type book with lots of trite, over-simplified advice. That assumption turned out to not be true after I, you know, actually read it.

It turns out that Vagabonding is possibly the most practical book of the genre I’ve ever read. It’s simply different – so much so that Rolf Potts starts the book right off the bat with his own definition of Vagabonding as an outlook (vs. someone who is a vagabond).

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin Book Review

December 9, 2014 By Nate Shivar

Josh Waitzkin was called a chess prodigy at a very young age, and was actually the subject of a film called Searching for Bobby Fischer. But even though the term “prodigy” connotes some sort of in-born chess playing ability, his world class skill at chess really comes down to an insatiable curiosity, focus on deliberately developing skills, and seeking out behaviors that create extreme mental focus.

Blood River by Tim Butcher Book Review

November 10, 2014 By Nate Shivar

For me, the best travel books are more than just narratives that just tell how the author did A, then B, then C – they are books that use a real experience to help frame and understand larger issues surrounding the place they are traveling through.

Some of the best books I’ve ever read have been in the travel genre – Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux gives a fascinating treatment of development in Africa; In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson will tell you more about the history of Australia than any history book; Lunatic Express by Carl Hoffman, Grounded by Seth Stevenson, and Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost will give you better glimpse at globalization than many books on the topic itself.

The problem is that this type of book is nearly impossible to find. A good, page-turning non-fiction book is tough to find because you need an author who can not only do incredible research – but who can also wield a fabulous turn of phrase.

If you throw in the ability to travel, explore, ask questions, and weave that experience into the larger narrative and theme of the book…you have an entirely different task.

So I was very happy that Tim Butcher turned out to be just that sort of author. Here’s what Blood River is about and why I found it so fascinating.

10+ Books That Stayed With Me

October 13, 2014 By Nate Shivar

About a month ago on Facebook, there was a chain post going around where you had to name 10 books that “stayed with you.”

It’s a pretty cool idea and tapped into the common feeling that most books are sort of like meals where you consume, digest, get nourished (or not), and then you forget. It’s too bad when you think about how much time and effort the writer put into the book – and how much time you put into reading it.

That’s one reason behind my project to record and review every single book I’ve read (at least since 2007) – to try to get more out of the books I read. And yet still, there’s a certain set of books that I can recall plot, characters, and scenes instantly whether I write those thoughts down or not. Or books that really change how I act or think.

I read fiction & non-fiction very differently and are sort of like apples and oranges in this exercise, so I’m taking the liberty of 2 lists – and trying to mix up the non-fiction with different categories. Here’s my list in no specific order.

The Inner Game of Work by W. Timothy Gallwey Book Review

October 11, 2014 By Nate Shivar

When you’re trying to learn something new or excel at something you’re familiar with, there’s a predictable process that we all default to. First, we’ll track down or listen to a set of instructions, then we’ll set goals to achieve them, then we’ll just sort of have at it. We’ll fail or fall short of expectations and get frustrated. Then we’ll either put our heads down and keep at it – and keep failing or succeeding by brute force or give up saying we’re not “talented” enough.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg Book Review

October 10, 2014 By Nate Shivar

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg is a book in the same genre of Nudge, Outliers, and How We Decide and others in the pop psychology type of book – except with a focus on daily habits and their role in our lives.

As with other books – the book formula is a bit predictable, but for me no less fascinating than all the other books that pull from the huge volume of psychological studies since the 70s…even though I didn’t actually finish the entire book. Here’s what I learned from the book and what I thought about it.

Empire of Wealth by John Steele Gordon Book Review

October 10, 2014 By Nate Shivar

Let’s see where to start…you’ll only be interested in this book if your are interested in History, Economics, and American Studies…all at the same time.

That said – it is hard to write a book on History, Economics, and American Studies – and John Gordon Steele does an great job overall.

There’s a good mix of anecdote, well-explained statistics, and grand narrative, which though it doesn’t actually exist, does provide a good framework and storyboard for how America got to where it is today.

So that’s the short review – here’s some other points about the book and what all I learned…

The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau Book Review

October 10, 2014 By Nate Shivar

First off – it’s absurdly hard to find a business book that’s not too fluffy on anecdotes of one-off successes or simply full of really common-sensical repackaged tips.

Thankfully – the $100 Startup was neither.

The book revolves around the idea that starting a business doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Unlike a lot of other business books that attempt to show you how to navigate expenses or complexity – Chris Guillebeau argues that you can really just cut them out.

All you need for a business to run is a customer and a way to give that customer what they want. That’s it.

Just start and build from there.

He mixes in a lot of interesting anecdotes, charts, and diagrams, along with fairly original tips (especially on what to do when your business is getting bigger).

The one downside is that I thought his tips and strategies leaned a bit much to the information business side (which is what he does), while his anecdotes were all drawn from physical world businesses.