I had a Goodreads Reading Challenge goal in 2023 to read 80 books. I was trying to slow down my reading but I blew past that goal to read over 100 books. This is the general average for me so I feel fine about it. But, I am always on the lookout for more good books from fellow readers. What did you read in 2023 that you couldn’t put down? What are your top 10?
As usual, reading a lot means I found some great books to share. Check out my year in books here.
Here are my top 10 books for business and useful nonfiction that I read in 2023:
- The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias by Jessica Nordell – excellent book on bias, and how subtle bias can be as stressful or more stressful because it feels ambiguous. Greatest take away, being aware you are biased can help you become less biased.
- How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith – a tour of monuments and landmarks, and how slavery shaped the United States of America.
- Hack Your Bureaucracy by Marina Nitze, Nick Sinai – if you are working in a highly bureaucratic organization this should be in your survival kit
- Predicting the Unpredictable by Johanna Rothman
- Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr – excellent and helpful book for women with ambitions. I didn’t realize until after I finished this book that Tara is the wife of Eric Ries of Lean Startup fame! Tara is an excellent writer and thought leader in her own right.
- Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work by David Rock
- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman – probably the best book on time management I’ve ever read
- What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
- Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
- Rituals for Virtual Meetings: Creative Ways to Engage People and Strengthen Relationships by Kursat Ozenc, Glenn Fajardo
Honorable mention: The Six Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni – I found it to be useful.
Here are my top 10 books I read for pleasure or my own enrichment entirely – interesting stories in 2023:
- What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo – a striking and in the end hopeful memoir
- The Power by Naomi Alderman – I was gripped! I loved the flipped concept the book put forth of women being superior/more powerful in the future and finding the idea of a powerful patriarchy laughable. I took away from this book how matriarchy could be as destructive.
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
- Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker a story of a family with 12 children, half of whom were diagnosed with schitzophrenia
- Yellowface by R.F. Kuang – I read this in less than a day – could not put it down
- The Changeling by Victor LaValle – a creepy modern fairy tale
- The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism by Kyla Schuller, Brittney Cooper (Foreword) – An incisive history of self-serving white feminists and the inspiring women who have defied them
- The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood
- Know My Name by Chanel Miller
- Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg
