My Top Books of 2024
Our favorite reads from the year
2024 was a good year for reading. I read and reviewed a new book each month, learning a lot and sharing some of that with you.
While each book was good, a few of them really stood out as favorites this year. So let’s look back at the top books from 2024.
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Top 2024 Books
Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less
All of us have encountered some form of the idea that “less is more” or “less is better.” Whether it is decluttering our houses or decluttering our calendars, most of understand that we shouldn’t always be adding.
One of my favorites from the year was also the first one I read and reviewed from 2024. Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less is about the value of subtraction in various aspects of life, from work to personal lives.
As a society, we’re always emphasizing “more”. More features in products, more tasks completed at work, more things to do at home, etc. We have a bias to add and often overlooks subtracting as a way to improve something. But subtracting can be one of the best ways to achieve our goals. When we find the essence—the core of a product or idea or habit—then we can strip out everything that doesn’t need to be there and make it better.
This was a great read, and I recommended it to many personal connections, who also read it. Hopefully, you will too.
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
The most common type of workday for me is to spend hours in meetings, answering emails, responding to Teams messages or Slack messages, constantly bouncing from one thing to the next, and squeezing work into the crevices of time (forget about meals). And then wondering at the end of the day how I could be so busy but not get anything done.
In a similar vein to Subtract, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout is about actually being productive by focusing on the important things. Often, this means cutting out the pseudo-productivity tasks (meeting, emails, chats) that take up so much of our time.
Most talented artists and thinkers have had to slow down to do their best work. We do as well. That means doing fewer things, but doing them better.
I’m a big fan of Cal Newport’s Deep Work, so it’s not surprising that I really enjoyed this one as well.
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