Back with more book recs!
This newsletter actually started with book reviews. I still believe there’s a demand for it. People want to read but, like picking out a restaurant in a new city, sometimes it’s hard to know where to go.
These are books that I have read or currently reading. Books I believe you’ll enjoy.
Also, you will notice that the comment section is open. Believe it or not, a lot of people subscribe to this newsletter. Feel free to write your own recommendations in the comment section. We want to hear from you!
Let’s do this!
Ego is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday
I’m reading this one at the moment—maybe for the third time. It’s important to reread books. You never step in the same river twice, as they say. The twenty-five-year-old who first purchased this book from Barnes and Noble is much different from the thirty-year-old dusting off the bind from the bookshelf.
As far as I can tell, no one has written a self-improvement book about what happens once success is achieved. The business best-seller list is full of hustle culture, time management tactics, and “find your parachute.” How to manage your time and productivity is the stuff that sells, but what about managing yourself?
How do you remain a student?
How do you know what’s important?
How do you restrain yourself?
How can you get out of your own way?
Those are much more valuable and timeless feats.
We refuse to believe we will suffer the same fate as Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Sam Bankman Fried, and Elizabeth Holmes. But unless we build strong values that hold us accountable, it will come. You can count on it. “The strongest poison ever known,” wrote the poet William Blake, " comes from Caesar’s Laurel Crown.”
Ryan Holiday is a student of Stoic philosophy and a history nerd like myself, which is why I’m so drawn to his books. He takes people from history and talks about the ones who were able to keep their egos at bay and the ones who couldn’t
This is required reading for all young professionals. Personally, it’s helped me focus on what really matters—my work, my relationships, and my health. Everything else is simply my ego tempting me to drink its poison.
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon – Steven Rinella
If you were to ask me the impossible question of identifying one book as my favorite, it’s this one: American Buffalo: In Search of A Lost Icon by outdoorsman and conservationist Steven Rinella.
That’s right, this is my all-time favorite read.
Part adventure tale, part history lesson, Steve explores the complicated relationship between America’s flora and fauna and its people, specifically our relationship with the American Bison. I don’t know about you, but I was completely unaware of this history—probably because teachers don’t like talking about it. It’s one of the great shames of American history.
Imagine this: before the Civil War, about 30 million Bison roamed the Great Plains, which provided a food source, clothing, shelter, and a cultural focal point for many Native American tribes. The buffalo were an American icon, truly beautiful to behold. Within 10 years after the Civil War, the expansion of the United States dwindled their numbers almost to zero.
If it weren’t for a few leaders like Teddy Roosevelt, the North American Bison would be eliminated from the map.
I mentioned this was an adventure tale, and it is! Which is why I love this book. Steve’s fascination with the animal started when he uncovered an old buffalo skull in a forest, which sent him on a wild goose chase to figure out how old this thing was and where it came from.
He then wins a lottery for an experience to hunt a wood Buffalo in Alaska. He fills a lot of the pages talking about the difficulty of the hunt and draws comparisons from his hunt to the processes early native Americans used for thousands of years. I found the whole narration endlessly fascinating.
In the end, American Buffalo is a tragic tale with glimmers of hope and redemption. We massacred this animal and, by extension, all the peoples that relied on them for survival. When you read this book, you will realize the destruction mankind is capable of and the immense responsibility we share to protect what we still have.
If you like this book, you should also check out the new Ken Burns documentary on PBS called American Buffalo. Also incredible.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m one of those people who needs to read the history behind every place I visit. Life is more interesting when things are in context. Wouldn’t you agree?
However, I neglected to read anything about the history of Austin. The fricken town I moved to! I mean, I read a lot about Texas, including TR Fehrenbach’s Lone Star, but nothing specific to Austin.
I found Midnight Assassin at Bookpeople in Austin, and I believe it has the potential to be the “must-read” book about this city.
It’s a true crime about America’s first serial killer before anyone really used the term “serial killer.” Between 1884 and 1885, a string of identical murders put the city in a frenzy. All the victims were women, killed in the middle of the night, all with brutal slashings and beatings. The Austin mayor hired detectives from around the country to solve the case, but time went on with no answers. Panic ensued, and people fled. From there, the story turns into the plot of Jaws as a desperate mayor tries everything, including corrupt measures, to bring people back and find the monster.
But it just kept happening.
I learned a lot about Austin's history. I learned that the neighborhood I live in, Clarksville, was a slave quarter before the Civil War. I also got the sense that Austin is very old and holds many secrets. I mean, I had never heard of the Midnight Assassin before, yet the events shaped the city we know today.
For instance, the iconic Moon Towers in Austin, an integral part of the city’s weirdness, were actually installed in 1894 because of these murders! While the rest of the country ditched their towers because they were expensive and inefficient, the mayor of Austin purchased them so people felt safer and maybe catch the killer.
A few years after the murders, London started having the same issue. Women slashed to death in the middle of the night. Jack the Ripper haunted the minds of everyone around the world. For a time, Scotland Yard believed that old Jack was the same killer from Austin and interviewed all the American expats who had recently moved to London.
No joke.
Will you learn a lot about Austin from this book? Yes, you will. You also learn that this city is older and weirder than you think.
Thank you for reading. OK, now let’s hear from you!
I have yet to read Ryan Holiday.
This month I read Plato's The Republic. It lays out the foundations of justice and how to be a good citizen.
I just started reading Nietzche, with the book Thus Speak Zarathustra. For now, it looks good.
Ryan Holiday has been on my to read list for so long!!
And I've been telling myself to start re-reading, but so far I have only re-read Harry Potter (like a million times :p)