The books I will read in 2020

As mentioned in the 2020 resolutions, one of my main goals for this year is to read 52 books. One per week.

It is an ambitious goal, I know. In 2019 I read about twenty, so I’m aiming to more than double. But I believe that reading is the highest ROI (Return on Investment) activity that exists. With 10-20 euros and a few hours of time, you access the knowledge distilled from a person’s entire life. Even if you only take home one good idea per book, it is still an incredible bargain.

To help me choose the books, I did a lot of research online, asked friends for advice and looked at the charts of my favorite categories (Business, Biography, Psychology, Tech).

Here is a selection of the books I plan to read this year (the list is constantly evolving):

Biography

1. Shoe Dog - Phil Knight. The story of the founder of Nike. Everyone talks very well about it.
2. Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson. The official biography. I’ve already read it years ago but I want to re-read it with today’s awareness.
3. Elon Musk - Ashlee Vance. Fundamental to understand the genius (and madness) behind Tesla and SpaceX.
4. Permanent Record - Edward Snowden. The story of the Datagate from the voice of the protagonist.

Business / Startups

1. Zero to One - Peter Thiel. Rules for creating companies that create new things, not copies.
2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz. The brutal truth about running a startup when things go wrong.
3. Blitzscaling - Reid Hoffman. How to grow at breakneck speed.
4. Company of One - Paul Jarvis. Why growing is not always the best strategy.

Psychology / Mindset

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman. How our brain works and why we make mistakes.
2. Atomic Habits - James Clear. How to build good habits and break bad ones (basis of my system).
3. Deep Work - Cal Newport. Rules for focused success in a distracted world.
4. Digital Minimalism - Cal Newport. Choosing a focused life in a noisy world.

Tech / Future

1. Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark. Being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
2. Superintelligence - Nick Bostrom. Paths, dangers, strategies.
3. The Inevitable - Kevin Kelly. Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future.

Novels (Relax)

1. 1984 - George Orwell. Classic. Always topical.
2. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley. The other great dystopia.
3. The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu. Sci-fi Chinese trilogy that is depopulating.

I will update this post (or create new ones) with short reviews as I finish the books. If you have advice on titles not to be missed, write to me!

Good reading everyone.