reading things that aren’t the same things everyone else is reading
made w/ midjourney
Ben convinced me a long time ago that strong leaders are avid, open-minded readers. As a young teacher fresh out of grad school, I was ready to douse the management books he recommended to me with a gas can’s worth of lefty, hipster skepticism. I had seen some of these books in airport racks, for crying out loud. What could they offer?
A lot, it turned out, even if the prose often made me grit my teeth. This was a turning point for me in my reading life and my life as a teammate and leader. I realized I was too tied up in a personal aesthetic and a set of artificial categories. Reading a lot and reading beyond the taste of a narrow elite made me a better teacher and (I think, I hope) a kinder, more understanding person. The habit eventually made me a better CEO.
In the years since, I’ve come to value more and more the curators who read a ton, deliberately going beyond bestseller lists and award-winners, and share their favorites. Here are a few of those curators (or paths to them):
Ryan Holiday: I have never read any of his books but I usually grab 1 or 2 from the recommendations he makes in his monthly email.
Tyler Cowen: He writes up a year-end best-of list for fiction and non-fiction every year and regularly shares “what I’m reading” posts. I’m not sure there’s anyone who reads more than he does. He got me into picture books. And 14th century British history.
Hanif Abdurraqib: A poet and a music critic. He posts volubly on Instagram.
John Darnielle: the founder and frontman and lyricist for The Mountain Goats has also written several excellent novels in recent years. He dishes on all kinds of obscure-to-Americans stuff on his Goodreads page. Mostly fiction.
Kiese Laymon: an outstanding essayist and memoirist who uses his platform to promote the work of up-and-coming black writers.
Maria Popova: Her newsletter The Marginalian is a lovely, recurring curation. Often I find my way to lesser-known pieces by well-known folks because of her rapt excerpts.
NYT “By the Book”: A goldmine. Where you find your favorite writer’s favorite writers. In a couple cases (Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Ondaatje) I’ve assigned myself the job of reading all (or close to all) of the things one of these authors cite. This led me to some favorites I never would have touched otherwise.
In addition to those, I like the advice in this piece (h/t Tyler Cowen for the lead): if you like a book, dig into the endnotes of that book and pick your next books from there.
-eric
