The Tea Letter's 2022 Book Review
Turns out I didn't read much last year, but what I read was life-changing.
Happy new year.
I’m back Stateside after nearly six weeks in Japan and the last leg on a spate of travel that spanned three whole months. I started in mid-October, when I rushed home to Michigan to see my grandmother in hospice, and continued on through the holidays and into the new year. I haven’t counted the days precisely but I reckon I spent less than 3 weeks at home in Austin during that time.
Sure, it was hectic. However, the real reason I’m sharing this with you is to say: sorry for not writing more. The apology is as much to myself as it is to you.
Something I learned in Japan is that I’m not yet practiced at both having and processing experiences simultaneously. When I’m in the presence of living life, I’m locked in to what’s in front of me. While I do journal, my journaling practice is like spiritual windshield wipers keeping the glass clear of bugs. I can’t drive safely if I can’t see out the front window, after all.
I don’t think this is a “bad” thing, but it’s not what I want. Writing and publishing consistently is important to me. I consider this a growth area for 2023.
Now that I’m home, my first action item is a 2022 annual review followed by some visioning for 2023. That’s where I’ll be able to explore my Japan experience more deeply. For now, as part of my 2022 review I wanted to look back on the books I read (or didn’t, in most cases) over the last year.
What I Read in 2022
My non-fiction reading was light in 2022. I bought 18 physical books and 14 Kindle books but I finished just 3 of them. However, two out of those three books were life-changing–and I don’t use that word lightly. That said, I’m not happy at having finished so few non-fiction books and I intend to read much more this year.
Here’s what I read and recommend:
Red Notice (Bill Browder)
Red Notice is the apparently true tale of Bill Browder, one of the first foreigners successfully investing in Russia immediately after the collapse of the USSR.
Bill went from upstart nobody, to big-time hedge fund owner, to the enemy of oligarchs (including one Vladimir Putin), and his story in the book culminates in the passing of the Magnitsky Act.
His story is as gripping as it is horrifying and sheds light on the seedy financial underbelly of Russia. The book taught me a lot about the various infernal machinations of the country even into modern times (the Magnitsky Act was only passed into law in 2012, after all).
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (Oliver Burkeman)
A must-read, especially for knowledge workers.
In spite of the popularity of this book in online circles near me, I had no idea this book existed until my friend Lyssa mentioned it to me off-hand. I mentioned to her that I wanted a more “humane” system of productivity and she pointed me to this book. She nailed it.
Burkeman, a self-professed productivity addict (he wrote a column on the subject for years, after all), wrote this book after coming to the same conclusion I did. Namely, that all productivity systems do is make us busier and more overloaded. This is because humans suffer from one major, fatal flaw: we pretend we will live forever.
In fact, we won’t. As the title of this book reveals in no uncertain terms, if we live to the age of eighty we only have an “absurdly, insultingly brief” amount of time on this planet. I mentioned it in The Tea Letter #6 and credited it as the source of my brief piece Modern Culture is Lying to Us.
Four Thousand Weeks finally helped me come to understand how much my existential anxieties were deeply linked to my fear of death. Burkeman showed me the thing I fear most has already happened–my death sentence was passed as soon as I was born–and how accepting this simple fact will make my life much better.
And it queued up the perfect pitch for this next book.
The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling (Stephen Cope)
In The Tea Letter #7, I wrote a bit about the problem of aim, an idea I got from this book. For those thoughts and more of a discussion on the book itself you can pop over there and check it out. What I’ll discuss here is how this book continues to impact me five months after having read it.
What I started feeling in the second half of 2022 was the deep desire to commit to something. I saw Cope’s portrayal of dharma as a path to doing that. After pondering the first pillar (“look to your dharma”), it became quite clear what lit up my life: tea. I’m never happier than when I’m enjoying, experiencing, or sharing in tea.
However, a cloud of confusion hung over me. As I pondered the second pillar (“do it full out”), I realized I had no idea what it meant to pursue tea “full out”. I still don’t, and that remains the next challenge for me to discover as I ponder my path for this year. We’ll talk a lot more about this in a separate 2023 edition of this newsletter.
A Plan to Read More in 2023
I’m serious about my desire to read more this year. There are many other far less interesting or beneficial things I spend my time on and I’d prefer it to go to reading instead. I’m also envious of Cal Newport’s five-book-a-month cadence he’s got rolling, so I think I’d like to head in that direction.
I know one of the things that will challenge me is how to keep track of all the interesting things I read. To that end, I’ll also try out something like book notes I can share in this newsletter to help in the capture, synthesis, and integration of lessons learned. I’ll also start keeping a running record of my bookshelf, probably on the website.
If I get super ambitious I might even look at some YouTube video reviews of my favorite books. Not promising anything on that front, however.
That’s all for this one. I have plenty of work to do getting through the rest of 2022, Japan, and looking ahead to 2023, so stay tuned for more on all of the above.
Until next time, happy drinking.
Feel like you read more than 99% of humanity