10 books that changed my mind...
Including books about how to plan for your death, whether to have children, and how to open your mind to new views
Welcome to the first guest post in my “10 things I consumed” series!
If you are what you eat, then what you think is what you read. That is, if you take the analogy between your nutritional and information diet seriously, you are rebuilding your brain with the information you ingest. In my diet, I prize getting 1) a set of quality sources that are rigorous and substantive 2) a wide range of sources that might change my mind or challenge my beliefs and 3) sources that my friends also read, so that we can discuss them together.
To that end, I thought I’d bring that aspect of “consuming information in community” to Working Assumptions!” Since my readership is truly populated by a group of my friends and intellectual pals, nothing would please me more than having you make a “10 things” guest post – email me at taraseshan@gmail.com.
Instead of the traditional kiss, I prefer to do a round of primal screaming to ring in the new year. We had just shouted our lungs out when Courtney told me that she had read 171 books in 2023 and hoped to do something similar in 2024. If my voice wasn’t so hoarse from the screaming, I would have gasped. I had always known she was a big reader, but that number seemed unfathomable. How can you read that many real books in one year? She also read 170 in 2022 – it’s a habit with her!
And unlike me, who would read the entire Dr. Seuss oeuvre in order to meet my Goodreads reading count goal (I might have even confessed to doing that while champagne-drunk on New Year’s Eve), Courtney actually reads the good stuff. There’s no sexy elf books here. She reads Tolstoy and Douglas Hofstader! A biostatician by training and a business operations leader by practice, she also happens to be one of the most reflective and improvement focused people I know.
I asked Courtney for the 10 books that were the most impactful on her thinking, the ones that really changed her mind. But first, I wanted to know how she does it. (Interviews and recommendations have been edited by me, Tara, though staying as true to Courtney’s ideas as possible!)
Q: Why read so much? What do you want to get from reading?
Reading is one of the things that grounds me when life feels chaotic. I suppose it’s a coping method of sorts; a way to ensure that I’m learning and being challenged as the demands of my profession ebb and flow. Reading is also a form of conversation. I get a sense of community from being in dialogue with the thinkers of other times in a way that pulls me out of modern thought bubbles. It keeps me from getting stagnant in my opinions, and forces a level of intellectual honesty and flexibility that I really value.
Q: How do you choose what you’re going to read? How do you curate your information diet?
I like reading my way through the thought network on a given topic. I’ve been working through a lot of classic feminist literature in this way, while also doing a broad sampling of writing around topics like climate change or disability. I use “density” as a loose metric for finding and prioritizing my next read. If I see an author referenced in two different books I’ve read, I’ll bump it toward the top of my list. I try to keep a pretty steady mix of essays, memoir, fiction, and science or business in the rotation at any given time, with newer interests or serendipitous finds battling it out with whatever’s at the top of my backlog queue. Tactically, I manage the queue in a few places: a handful of apps that pull from the SF public library, Goodreads, and a running list of my favorite authors, genres, and themes.
Q: How do you read so much and still retain the information? What’s your technique?
About ⅔ of the books I read are in audiobook form. That greatly expands the possibilities for “reading” to include my commute, long walks, roadtrips, etc. so I do fit in probably an hour/day on average that way. I’ve also increased the speed at which I listen over time, so for memoirs or a novel where I’m not prioritizing retention I often listen at 2x, which increases my capacity for those lighter reads.
A fun side effect of listening to audiobooks in this way is that many books have a mental connection to places I traveled to or walked while reading them. It becomes a real world memory palace. Fragments of my reading become embedded in those other life events, with books providing a reference calendar to my year, not unlike the photos in an iphone gallery.
I also like to talk about what I read, so telling my partner or friends what I’ve been reading and the related thoughts it stirs up (new learnings, controversial opinions, interesting anecdotes, etc.) acts as a natural retention strategy as well. And of course reflecting on the books and marinating on the learnings from each one helps me to recall the takeaways.
I don’t take notes on what I read or otherwise prioritize retention beyond those natural habits. I think it boils down to a focus on the process of learning rather than a storing of knowledge. I guess I believe that presence and attention to content paired with reflection and distillation, is sufficient for comprehension – as long as I take something away from the experience of reading a book, I don't care as much about articulating the precise distinction between how I thought or felt before and after.
Now, the book recommendations:
What’s Our Problem: A Self-help Book for Societies by Tim Urban
Of everything I read this year, this book probably had the strongest effect on my day-to-day thinking. It reminded me how important it is not to cling to our opinions or identities too strongly. It’s hard to admit when we’re wrong, which is actually one of the main themes of the book; Urban argues that we need to work hard to maintain productive societal debate rather than becoming fanatical in our thinking as has become prevalent in the major American political parties. I seek out a healthy degree of contrariness in my reading, and this book perfectly illustrates why. (For a shorter exploration of a similar subject, I recommend Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism.)
“Why I am not Going to Buy a Computer” by Wendell Berry
In 1987 Berry wrote, “I do not see that computers are bringing us one step nearer to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice, ecological health, political honesty, familial and community stability, good work”, and in 2024 I find myself skeptical of the degree societal progress we’ve made in the Information Age. His critiques of consumer culture, technological disruption, and automation throughout are surprisingly timely, but his critique of second wave feminism impressed me the most. In describing his wife’s role in his writing process (as typist and editor), he manages to advocate for traditional gender roles in a way that feels more respectful of women than many supposedly feminist critiques. As someone who has held the opposite points of view (feminist, progress-oriented, scientifically educated), this pair of essays helped me see the value in conservative ways of thinking and living, and is worth a read for the sheer novelty alone (though it offers much more).
Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming by Agnes Callard
Callard’s work has been popping up in my intellectual circles for a while now- the modern philosopher is well-known for her popular think pieces on breakups, parenting, and teaching (as well as her atypical living arrangement). Unlike the other books on this list, I wouldn’t particularly recommend this one for the casual reader, but it did provide a novel backdrop to this year’s resolution-setting. What Callard convinced me to reconsider is the sharpness of the transition as we seek to become someone who values and pursues something new, and the extent to which aspirational goals entirely transform our moral judgment. I’m taking my resolutions (e.g. to be a writer, or to become fluent in French and move to Paris) a little more seriously these days, with the understanding that I’ve embarked on a journey that might deeply transform who I am.
On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss
As someone with formal education in public health, I never expected to find much empathy with the anti-vax crowd, but Biss’s exploration of American motherhood and vaccination served to lessen that perception of “us” vs “them”. By acknowledging the scenarios in which vaccination policy prioritizes collectivist thinking over our individualist culture, as well as the many ways in which modern medicine and agriculture have failed to provide health and wellness, she manages to muddy the water without giving in to conspiracy or unscientific methods. I appreciated this book for blending emotional and rational approaches to a topic that turned out to be less cut-and-dry than I expected.
Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel (translated by Rosalind Harvey)
This novel framed the decision of whether to have children in new ways for me. While I’d spent several years pondering the choice prior to reading this book, I’d also prioritized keeping my options open – an approach one of the protagonists blatantly rejects by getting her tubes tied at the first hint that a biological urge might tamper with her rational decision-making. By highlighting the extreme experiences of motherhood rather than the common/central ones, this book forced me to see the full spectrum of loss, longing, meaning, and freedom on each prospective path. The blurring of maternal responsibility in each woman’s story also widened the circle so that the choice shifts from “whether” one should mother to “how.”
The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski
I didn’t realize how strong my fear of mortality was until this book helped me envision a new ideal for end-of-life. Ostaseski embodies true vulnerability and care better than most spiritual leaders, from the humble perspective of someone prioritizing presence over dogma or teaching. His is an outlook that I’ve sought in my own yoga and mindfulness practice, but struggled to embrace so fully on my own. Reading this felt like letting go of something I’d clung to my whole life, while being held in the arms of a compassionate friend. It comforted me while directing my gaze toward the dark, challenging truth that we will all inevitably die and disappear. This book gently encourages the practice of acceptance, and it helped me to begin fostering a new relationship with the aging process, re-evaluating my definition of success, and facing the inevitable loss of loved ones and my own life someday. (It inspired me so much that I’m doing a year-long meditation program co-hosted by the author this year.)
I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter
I’ve explored the topic of consciousness via works by several authors, but no one made the subject quite as personal as Hofstadter. While his own insights on the matter were shaped by his wife’s passing, the merging of that experience with his deeply mathematical and systemic way of thinking puts the focus on the nature of the boundary between ourselves and our close companions. He convinced me that there might be some deep truth to the idea that we keep our loved ones alive via their memories, and that some version of them may still exist in the depths of our own minds. Hofstadter managed to make this metaphysical subject feel spiritual- dare I say, soulful- and brought some enigma back to a subject that had started to seem squarely scientific and removed.
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer
I started this book loosely aligned with the premise that if we care about the future of life on our planet, we ought to take some action in line with our beliefs. Arguably the most effective behavior any individual can adopt is to eat fewer animal products. On the surface, Foer offers an alternative to vegetarianism that got me exploring new variations on my current flexitarian diet. For all its virtues (and I’m recommending it for its virtues!), be warned that the book is a bit judgy: his Catholic-style guilt detracts from his message rather than strengthens it. I’m left grappling with questions about the role of individual autonomy and sacrifice versus the responsibility placed on larger systems that shape incentives (governments, industry, scientific innovation, etc.) This book will help you formulate clearer and more personal questions about how to live responsibly during our time.