Read These Books for an Instant Dose of Perspective
A list for anyone struggling to see beyond this pandemic moment
Over the past year, we’ve all been tested. Many of us have failed.
The pandemic made some of us callous. It infected others with conspiracy theories. Too many of us gave into apathy and chaos, losing all sense of structure (and spending who knows how many hours watching Netflix). Now, with the pandemic in the home stretch, but still with us, we have to get serious. We have to get serious about the tried and tested way to wisdom: reading.
Books are an investment in yourself — one that can come in many forms: novels, nonfiction, how-to, poetry, classics, biographies. Reading is the way to gain easily what others have gained by difficult experience. Why wouldn’t you avail yourself of this wisdom?
With that in mind, here are 18 books — some new, some old — that will help you live better and be better, no matter the time or circumstance.
Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual by Jocko Willink
Maybe right now, you’re stuck at home, or you’re not working, or your kids are still going to school on Zoom. Your normal way of doing things has been significantly altered. Well, it’s when things are chaotic and crazy, when the world feels like it’s falling apart, that we need to create structure, better habits, limits, and order. But you can’t create any of those things without discipline.
Why Don’t We Learn from History? by B. H. Liddell Hart
One of the best ways to become an informed citizen in the present is not to watch the news, but to read history. As Bismarck said, “Fools say they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.” Hart’s book is very short, but it will help you understand human history better than if you’d read thousands of pages on the same topic by countless other writers. In my view, he’s the best writer on history and strategy. Another important book about history and this moment is The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, which might have saved the U.S. from the horrific second wave of the virus if more people had read it.
