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15 Books To Read This Year

2020-12-24 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 16:24 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: Lesson from a book, His medical past

Ali recommends his 15 favourite reads of 2020: ten non-fiction books, with Matthew Dicks's Storyworthy as the year's best and its homework-for-life exercise credited with slowing time down, and five fiction books or series, mostly fantasy, with Mistborn rather than The Wheel of Time as the place for newcomers to start.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Ten non-fiction and five fiction favourites of 2020

  • ★★ Ali calls Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years a really good book that made him cry in many places and reconsider how he is living his life. — 00:00:00

00:00:08 — A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

  • ★★ Donald Miller (quoted): In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller realises that what makes a good story, a character who really wants something and overcomes conflict to get it, also makes a good life story. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years during the UK coronavirus lockdown, on an evening shift at the hospital, in three hours after 9pm with no patients, and was completely absorbed. — 00:00:58 · COVID-19, United Kingdom
  • ★★ A Million Miles in a Thousand Years made Ali start to think that in his own life he may be living too comfortably. (hedged) — 00:00:58

00:02:01 — How to Think More About Sex by Alain de Botton

  • ★ Ali listened to How to Think More About Sex on Audible over about two car journeys and found it very engaging and entertaining. — 00:02:04 · Audible
  • ★★★ Ali thinks Alain de Botton's How to Think More About Sex should be required reading for everyone: on the surface about sex, a level deeper about human connection, authenticity and vulnerability. — 00:02:33
  • ★ Ali says How to Think More About Sex will be on a list he is compiling of books everyone should read. — 00:02:33

00:02:58 — Email newsletter with book summaries

00:03:16 — The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

  • ★★ Jonathan Haidt (quoted): In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt explains moral intuitions as six moral taste buds: liberals care very strongly about two or three of them, conservatives somewhat equally about all six. — 00:04:01
  • ★★ The Righteous Mind went a very long way for Ali, a self-described liberal, towards understanding how the views of people on the other side of the political spectrum are shaped by what they believe is moral. — 00:04:01

00:04:30 — The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

  • ★★ Morgan Housel (quoted): Morgan Housel argues in The Psychology of Money that paying off your mortgage is not the economically rational thing to do but is very reasonable, because it helps you sleep at night. — 00:05:07
  • ★★ Ali, who had always wanted a rational stance towards money, says The Psychology of Money really changed his view of money, saving, investing, salaries, greed and ambition. — 00:05:07
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a separate video specifically about Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money. — 00:05:07
  • ★ Ali says money binds everyone together wherever they live, and stress about money is one of the fundamentals of the human experience. — 00:05:36
  • ★★★ Ali calls Matthew Dicks's Storyworthy probably the single best non-fiction book he read in 2020, and one of the best and most engaging books he has ever read. (hedged) — 00:05:36

00:05:59 — Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks and the homework-for-life exercise

  • ★★ Matthew Dicks (quoted): Matthew Dicks says in Storyworthy that becoming a better storyteller is a way of becoming a better listener, and so a better partner, spouse or sibling. — 00:06:11
  • ★★ Ali says storytelling permeates many aspects of life, yet most people do not try to improve it or even realise that they can. — 00:06:11
  • ★★ Only in 2020 did Ali realise that he needs to improve his own storytelling and that he can; Storyworthy has helped him do it. — 00:06:41
  • ★★★ Ali recommends homework for life, an exercise from Storyworthy: every night spend five minutes reflecting on your day and write a few words describing its most story-worthy moment. — 00:06:41
  • ★★★ Ali tracked each day's story-worthy moment in a Notion spreadsheet from about May to July 2020 and remembers those months far better than the last three months, when he stopped. — 00:07:16 · Notion
  • ★★★ Ali says writing down each day's most story-worthy moment slows down the passage of time; without it, his last three months blended into one another. — 00:07:16
  • ★★★ Ali wants to keep doing homework for life every night, because it will make him a better storyteller, conversationalist and socially skilled, and help him experience and enjoy life more fully. — 00:07:46

00:08:09 — The final five non-fiction books, blitzed through

  • ★★ Ali found Sönke Ahrens's How to Take Smart Notes, about taking notes when reading, really good and enjoyed it a lot. — 00:08:15
  • ★★ Ali found The Ride of a Lifetime really interesting: Bob Iger's autobiography of how he started, became CEO of the Walt Disney Company and acquired companies such as Marvel and Lucasfilm. — 00:08:15
  • ★★ The Elephant in the Brain, on hidden motives, signalling and status games, made Ali reflect on how far his YouTube channel, his business and even being a doctor are just signalling. — 00:08:44
  • ★★ Ali recommends War Doctor by David Nott, a London vascular surgeon who has operated in war zones for about 30 years, as a really engaging and thrilling story for everyone. — 00:08:44 · London
  • ★★ Akala's Natives, on race and class in modern Britain, which Ali heard narrated by Akala on Audible, gave him a profound insight into being black and working class in Britain, experiences he does not have. — 00:09:55 · United Kingdom, Audible
  • ★★ Ali read the 14 books of The Wheel of Time from mid-2019 and finished around March or April 2020, listening on his drives to and from work. (hedged) — 00:09:55 · The Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson

00:10:19 — The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

  • ★★ Ali found The Wheel of Time really good and the last four or five books absolute masterpieces. — 00:10:43 · The Wheel of Time
  • ★★★ Newcomers to fantasy should not start with The Wheel of Time, which is slow and long, Ali says, but with Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. — 00:11:13 · The Wheel of Time, Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson
  • ★ Four of the five fiction picks on Ali's 2020 list are fantasy, which he calls the best genre. — 00:11:13

00:11:27 — Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

  • ★★ Ali recommends Leigh Bardugo's two-book fantasy series Six of Crows, about a gang of thieves breaking into a fortress: very short, nicely packaged, with a nice ending; he read it straight after The Wheel of Time. — 00:12:19

00:12:34 — Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

  • ★★ Ali recommends Elantris, an early standalone novel by Brandon Sanderson, slower-paced than his later books; he stayed up until about 4am three nights in a row reading it. — 00:13:15 · Brandon Sanderson

00:13:41 — Normal People by Sally Rooney

  • ★★ Ali recommends Sally Rooney's Normal People, the love story of Connell and Marianne, which he read in one sitting and found an interesting insight into the human experience. — 00:14:14

00:14:40 — The Original by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal

  • ★★ Ali found The Original by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal, a few-hour audio production with music and sound effects about a clone sent to kill her original, absolutely incredible on a drive to Oxford. — 00:15:50 · Brandon Sanderson

00:15:58 — Newsletter reminder and sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ After many productivity and self-optimisation books, Ali finds new ones very repetitive, but he considers a book good if it gives him at least one new idea. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked what software made the video's thumbnail, the channel answers Figma. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked for a video summarising Ali's YouTube course, the channel says the course is not about content, because content is not what stops people from starting a YouTube channel. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years · homework for life · How to Think More About Sex · Storyworthy · The Psychology of Money · The Righteous Mind · The Wheel of Time

Also: People: Akala · Alain de Botton · Bob Iger · Brandon Sanderson · David Nott · Donald Miller · Jonathan Haidt · Leigh Bardugo · Mary Robinette Kowal · Matthew Dicks · Morgan Housel · Robert Jordan · Sally Rooney · Sönke Ahrens

Projects: Book Club

Works: Elantris · How to Take Smart Notes · Mistborn · Natives · Normal People · Six of Crows · The Elephant in the Brain · The Original · The Ride of a Lifetime · War Doctor

Organizations: The Walt Disney Company

Concepts: COVID-19 · hidden motives · Mental health

Places: Libya · London · Syria · United Kingdom

Products: Audible · Notion

Only in the description or credits: Figma · Kevin Simler · Part-Time YouTuber Academy · Robin Hanson

Also centred on A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: Productivity, Books and Careers Advice - Ali Abdaal x Noah Kagan // Deep Dive

Also centred on homework for life: All the Apps I Use in a Day · 20 Lessons that Improved My Life

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