Books I read in 2023

The link to this page: https://krishna2.com/2023

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I have been sharing my reading list of the past year as my “Happy new year” wishing post for the last few years. The tradition continues.

2023 has been phenomenal in many ways - be it reading tomes that I once thought I would never ever get to, or the inspiring (auto) biographies, or a new hobby that I picked up for the first time in my life - running. As always with past years, I wish that I had written more detailed posts on each book I read or the learnings that impacted me the most - but alas, I optimized for the reading and learning part of it.

Last year, I broke away from my usual “here is a list” write up and experimented with a write up about the books (and authors) that were sometimes serendipitous finds and many times the seeds that would evolve into a deep interest leading to dozens of books that followed over years or even decades.

This year, a different format - just a few topics I will ponder on a bit more before I unleash the not as useful (almost useless?) by itself list. On that note, just two points - since they keep coming up often. The first, the count is never a factor to me nor should it be to you. A few books and in fact, a few parts from those are all that suffices and for the most part that matters. What fraction from those books that have been grokked well and put to use in life (to be a better version of oneself and hence to be more useful to family, friends, society and world) is a far better way to think about it. The second, faq numero uno to me, “how do you do this?” (a variation of “how do you find time?” or “what’s the secret hack?” .. etc). The answer that I have posted as a comment elsewhere (in fb, whatsapp or email) is this: I don’t have any secret or speed reading hacks. I consider myself an average reader (speed wise). The one thing that works (worked for me) is reducing the time spent on other things.

Allow me to speculate. 24 hours a day. Roughly split 8 for sleeping, 8 for work (or the equivalent) and 4 for the usual daily maintenance / duties. Which leaves us with about 4 hours (give or take). What we do with that time is up to us. I figured screens take up a big chunk of time and hence cut out all TV, Sports and News. :) NFL/Superbowl was probably the only game I watched. A few games I followed only via news or chats by friends. If not for them, I would not even have known there was a cricket world cup (a game to which I have dedicated 100s of hours every year of my youth). I aggressively stay away from Politics - I trust my friends to guide me and point me to the relevant material when it comes time for me to vote (a duty and privilege I take sincerely - also because it was granted to me much much much later in life than the usual age of 21). I stopped watching TV series as they take up a lot of time. Movies - I do at the behest of many friends’ recommendations - probably one a week? (or maybe less). So with that sort of TV time of less than 4 hours / week, there is time for other things such as reading. It’s all a trade-off. Do what makes you happy or more so makes you you.

Sorry for pondering on that for longer than usual and it is a bit selfish of me (I figure if I get these questions in the future, I can point them to this post or copy/paste).

These are the topics that my readings can be grouped.

Vedanta (or Hindu Philosophy for lack of a better catch all easily explainable term): Ever since I got into it in a serious way about 3 years ago, the texts keep on coming, the rabbit hole deepening and the journey (including many detours) enlightening (ok, pun intended only a bit). By far, the magnum opus (not just this year) was reading the Shankara Bashyam of Bhagavad Gita as explained by Swami Paramarthananda over a series of 600 lectures (roughly one hour each). Took a long while to get here but a rewarding journey to see the true dynamite power packed in a mere 700 verses. As the friends who hang out with me know, it is easy to get me excited to talk about this topic and can’t get me to stop easily (I bore them to no end on this). I tried to write up a few posts on this but they all need many more write-ups and expansions and explanations before I can conclusively give them a starting page with “here you go”. It’s a work in progress.

Run: I started this almost as a joke / challenge to myself to see if. I can build up stamina. In a trip that got comic and tragic at the same time due to circumstances (one that I seem to fall prey to often, heck, including the same venue too), I got my rear handed to me big time and I decided I need to do something to build stamina / endurance. As I usually do (not in a good way), ended up signing myself for an ambitious goal. Don’t get me wrong, many good things came out of this : such as more on health (which modified my perspective on intermittent fasting), labs & testing and of course, reading a lot about running (ha ha .. bring on the jokes about “reading about swimming” - but hey, we all play to our strengths. What I don’t have physically aka my running muscles, I have to flex my reading-muscle to gain some advantages).

I even had an amazing url in mind krishna2-dot-com-slash-run the catch all to all my brilliance (okay, far fetched) on the topic. The finale was to be on Dec 3rd, the CIM - California International Marathon in Sacramento. But since I had to make an emergency trip to India just a few days prior to that, I missed this long looked forward to / prepared towards event. Well, all was not in vain since as the cliche goes, the journey is its own reward and I did get to run two half-marathons (Oct 1st / San Jose Rock n Roll and Nov 19th / Berkeley) and one full marathon (Nov 5th / Fresno Twin Cities). Oh, the only difference I was hoping to make between the first marathon (Fresno, which I took about 6:17) and the finale (Sacramento) was to break the 6 hour limit (well, considering that for the unfit me that’s the equivalent of the sub 4 minute mile). Anyways, missing it and spending the time with my father was the best decision ever and I will forever thank providence and all the circumstances that way. As many of you already know, my father passed away on Dec 10th. An irreparable loss but a great life that I just cannot stop being astounded about and one that I will celebrate forever - every single moment. An even pertinent krishna2-dot-com-slash-appa is what I now want to write and one that’ll be in the works with updates for a long time (maybe all time) to come. And here’s how things are so linked that one helps another. It was due to my long running hours that I was able to listen to many 100s of hours of lectures and it was the vedanta-philosophy that helped me cope up with this as much as I was able to. I cannot comprehend what/how I would’ve been without that. As Jobs said, you can connect the dots only looking backward.

Sorry for the pathos … back to the reading topics. The next common theme you might find is regarding college - which is easy to understand as we have a high school junior at home.

Another theme / genre that I like the most is biographies. That you’ll find aplenty. I did deviate to fiction a lot more than I usually do. And on that note, my last book of the year, also of one of my favorite authors (Grisham), was also the biggest letdown (“The Exchange” which was supposed to be a sequel to “The Firm”). Probably because that was my first Grisham book, my first legal thriller and also my expectations were so high from that.

One feedback that I have gotten is to list a few starting pointers / books. So here goes:

For (auto)biographies, you won’t go wrong with Katalin Kariko’s “Breaking Through: My Life in Science” - Nobel Laureate whose work helped in the creation of the Covid Vaccine. or Woodfox’s “Solitary”. Or Galloway’s “The Algebra of Happiness”. Or Murakami’s “Novelist as a Vocation” or “What I talk about when I talk about Running”. Or Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?”.

For health, pick up Peter Attia’s “Outlive”. Lots of good pointers that you can implement immediately. (http://krishna2.com/health).

For fiction, try Taylor Jenkins Reed’s “Carrie Soto is back” (Tennis fans make a special note).

For running, anything by Maffetone. And these: Jay Dicharry: Anatomy for Runners, Tom Michaud: Injury Free Running, Mark Cucuzzella: Run for Your Life.

If you are wondering about ML / LLM which are all the rage, pick up Stephen Wolfram’s “What Is ChatGPT Doing” OR for a more general read, James Gleick’s “The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood”. [a related recommendation, you will never go wrong reading about John von Neumann or Claude Shannon - wonderful biographies that I read in the last year or two].

Hey, how can I not mention mortality? That’s the only sure thing (and taxes) … but you can start by reading these: Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” (not in this year’s list), Christopher Hitchens’ “Mortality” or read “Bhagavad Gita” which is in a way a book about Death (and Life and Meaning and many other things too).

Here’s wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful happy new year filled with good books, music, friendships and experiences. Happy reading!

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Here is my entire reading list across all years: https://krishna2.com/books

Books in 2023

S. K. Sridharan: Adi Shankaracharya : Biography

Varadaraja Raman: Manikkavasagar’s Sivapuranam

Bruce Lawrence: Quran

William Deresiewicz: Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

Swami Paramarthananda: Ashtavakra Gita (88 lectures)

Jeffrey Selingo: Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions

Swami Paramarthananda: Dakshinamurthi Stotram - summary

Swami Paramarthananda: Brahma Sutras (Adhyasa bashyam and First few sutras)

Albert Woodfox: Solitary

Swami Paramarthananda: Shankara and Gita

Swami Paramarthananda: Meditation Theory

Swami Paramarthananda: Gita Saaram (tamil)

Scott Galloway: Adrift

Shoba Rao: My Race Against Death

Tom Neale: An Island to Oneself(++)

Swami Paramarthananda: Gita Summarized (english)

Swami Gurubhaktananda: Manisha Panchakam (Chinmaya Mission)

Swami Paramarthananda: Manisha Panchakam

Swami Paramarthananda: Dakshinamoorthy Stotram

David Goggins: Can’t Hurt Me

Prof. VK: Thus Spake Krishna(++)

Tim Urban: Wait But Why : One Year

Scott Galloway: The Algebra of Happiness

Swami Paramarthananda: Shivananda Lahari (selected verses)

Prof. VK: Paramacharya on Soundarya-Lahari

Kenneth O. Stanley and Joel Lehman: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective

Stephen Wolfram: What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?

James Gleick: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Ethan Kross: Chatter

Hal Higdon: Marathon, Revised and Updated 5th Edition, Training Guide

Alex Hutchinson: Endure - Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

Adam D’ Alessandro: How You Can Run Faster Effortlessly

George Mahood: Did Not Finish: Misadventures in Running, Cycling and Swimming (DNF Series Book 1)

Patrick McKeown: The Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques

Danny Dryer: ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running

Dr. Philip Maffetone: The MAF Method

Haruki Murakami: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Kim Brown Seely: Uncharted: A Couple’s Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another

Haruki Murakami: Novelist as a Vocation

Rich Roll: Finding Ultra - Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself

Tom Rath: It’s Not About You

Taylor Jenkins Reid: Carrie Soto is Back

Bob Odenkirk: Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir

Sarah Gearhart: We Share the Sun: The Incredible Journey of Kenya’s Legendary Running Coach Patrick Sang and the Fastest Runners on Earth

Peter Attia: Outlive

Christina Baker Kline: The Scenic Route

Cameron Hanes: Endure

Mirna Valerio: A Beautiful Work In Progress

Simone Stolzoff: The Good Enough Job

Wendelin Van Draanen: The Running Dream

Krishna Das: Chants of a Lifetime

Dana Ayers: Confessions of an Unlikely Runner

Radhanath Swami: The Journey Within

Swami Paramarthananda: Bhagavad Gita Shankara Bashyam (to call this one book does not do it justice. This was a 600 one-hour lecture magnum opus. And I am eternally thankful for this journey and learning).

Tom Michaud: Injury Free Running

James Nestor: Breath

Swami Paramarthananda: Dakshinamurthy Ashtakam lectures

Swami Paramarthananda: Tattva Bodha

Hiroaki Tanaka: Slow Jogging

Jay Dicharry: Anatomy for Runners

Katalin Kariko: Breaking Through: My Life in Science

Matt Fitzgerald: Running the Dream

Jennifer Wallace: Never Enough

Frank Bruni: Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be

Mark Cucuzzella: Run for Your Life

Simon Sinek: Start with Why

Karthikeyan Nagarajan: Making Music - The Ilaiyaraaja Way

Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Kyla Stone: Edge of Collapse

Clayton Christensen: How Will You Measure Your Life?

Grant Lindsley: Mediocre Monk

Ekanth Easwaran: Climbing the Blue Mountain

Christopher Hitchens: Mortality

Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander: The Art of Possibility

Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir: Scarcity

John Grisham: The Exchange: After The Firm