Alhamdulillah, one of the things I am very grateful for in 2020 is I have finally built a (relatively steady) habit of reading, after years of struggling and growing up from a childhood engrossed in video games and complete disinterest in books.
It took a bit of habit-shifting and strategic hacks to finally get the job done – more on that in a separate post in the future, insha Allah – and I hope to continue the habit in the future.
Here are the titles that I have finished reading this year and my summary review and thoughts for my top 10.
Share your thoughts! Read any of these books? What do you think of them?
“Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it” by Chris Voss
This is definitely my #1. Not interested in books about negotiation? Neither was I! But it was so highly rated I just had to feed my curiosity. And I was blown away.
This book is so cool. The title itself is such a cool phrase. The premise of the book also oozes of cool: an ex-FBI hostage negotiator who aced Harvard Business School, writing a book enlightening us on his colorful experiences negotiating with terrorists, and teaching us the insider tricks to getting it done effectively. And when you put the techniques into practice, it makes you feel even cooler because of how surprisingly effective they are. One of the techniques – Mirroring – was so effective that the author states that it’s almost as if it’s some sort of jedi mind trick.
A book that actually makes you feel like a jedi. Need I say more?
The book completely shattered my expectations about negotiation in many different ways. I always thought of negotiation of being about manipulation, assertion and shameless haggling – but in turns out that negotiation is about building trust, connection, and respect: essentially, as the author himself puts, it’s basically “emotional intelligence on steroids”. Interesting, coming from a man who used to negotiate with terrorists!
The concepts are so deeply rooted in human psychology that I found myself using these techniques in many different areas at my workplace, and even in completely unexpected areas of my life: such as parenting and da’wah.
Thirdly, the book has such a strong quality to it from start to finish; you can “feel” the passion of the author in narrating this, that the length and pace feels just right – not too long or too short. Chris Voss has a very witty, snappy style, and he authentically shares his own internal thoughts and misconceptions – even the mistakes that he made – with very effective storytelling, including his first-person perspective as a student or a hostage negotiator for the first time, even calling out some ideas which is expected to seem a bit strange. He also generously shares the experiences of his students in applying those hostage negotiation techniques in real life – from negotiating personal rental contracts with the landlord, to boarding an overbooked flight, to performance appraisal discussions with superiors.
Get this book, dear padawans. This is the book you have been looking for.
“Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap.. And Others Don’t” by Jim Collins
The title of this book has been so overused – even at my workplace – that many people perhaps don’t even know its origins. Good to Great brings years of detailed research, uncovering the secrets of how some companies breakthrough their “good” or “meh” barriers and finally make the leap to become great, in comparison with their comparison competitors who remain in the “meh” zone.
What I enjoy about the book so much is how applicable it is in other areas of life, in many different ways. Paraphrasing author Jim Collins (or rather, as the lead researcher in his huge team of researchers that worked behind the scenes to produce this work) himself says, “I am not a business author. I am an author studying human behavior, using business as the study medium”. The book even presents the internal arguments and debates the research team had (even against their boss, Jim Collins himself!), and why they decided to go with what they did in the end, providing an insightful little meta commentary on the thought processes behind the scenes, providing a very convincing insight.
From the concept of a Level-5 Leader, Confronting the Brutal Facts, the Hedgehog concept, the Flywheel, Culture of Discipline, all the way up to the concluding statements about addressing the question of “Why should I even bother pursuing Greatness?”, there are so many practical applications in the real world that I’m continuously discovering throughout many parts of my professional and personal life.
“The Montessori Toddler: A parent’s guide to raising a curious and responsible human being” by Simone Davis
I confess, this was the first parenting book I actually finished till the end. And I’m glad I did!
Also I confess, initially I wasn’t too intrigued by the title or the cover: there was almost nothing about it that appealed to me. But as the first parenting book, the tech geek in me did the only thing it knew: get the book with the best review rating. This book had a 4.8/5 rating on Amazon with 5,000+ reviews.
Okay. “Buy with 1-Click”.
Yep, it’s good.
What I particularly like about the book is how well the author presents the respectful perspective that toddlers are excellent students, and how we can effectively coach them and simultaneously engage them to become confident, cooperative, and curious without relying on gadgets or TV to distract them. It presents a wholly different paradigm to addressing toddler’s apparent misbehavior and instead for us to empathize and see it as emotional expression and a yearning to learn, and as a result, make us better mentors for our little ones, especially in handling tantrums (the most valuable lesson for me!). Concepts like “Trust the child” seem so basic yet so rare to hear of in our culture.
Admittedly, not everything in this book is easy to implement – especially with the whole physical setup and miniature items – but even with the few ideas that we could, it really improved my approach as a father and husband in many different ways.
Lesson learned: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”
“Heart Therapy: Forty Hadiths in Tazkiyah and soul purification” by Dr. Ali Albargouthi
A fantastic reference on purification of the soul – one that I am sure I will always go back to, time and time again. The author comprehensively explains the hadith, and includes many powerful quotes from the Qur’an, other hadith, and the righteous predecessors including the companions of the Prophet ﷺ (with the original Arabic texts intact) with some useful commentary in the context of the world we live in today.
It is packed with content and demands application to really purify our hearts, and even the author himself recommends to read, digest and implement one hadith per week for it to really sink in. As a bonus, the author’s personal podcast channel (hosted by Muslim Central) has him explaining every single hadith, which helps a lot and almost functions like an audiobook narration. It took me a while to complete the book – more than a year – but the journey feels very fulfilling and really paints a holistic world view on the paradigm of how we should approach life as a whole.
“Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell
The origin of the now-famous “10,000 hour rule”, this book came highly recommended by many bibliophiles. After reading it, I can see why: the author presents a lot of whimsical and unexpected ideas in addressing the age-old question: what makes outliers? Is it talent, nurturing and upbringing, or external factors contributing to the unfair advantage (or disadvantage)?
Surprise: all three of them! But the author presents them in very suspenseful fashion, with some wildly unexpected perspectives: from unlocking the mystery of why, statistically speaking, the majority of state star players in sports are born between January and March (hint: it has nothing to do with astrology or horrorscopes, alhamdulillah); to illustrating the extreme cases of unnurtured talent with, from someone with an IQ higher than Einstein but ended up achieving nothing significant in life; to the shocking reason behind why Korean Airlines had a statistically higher accident rate and finally, the surprisingly intuitive reasoning behind understanding the stereotype that “Asians are good at math”.
The icing on the cake is the epilogue/conclusion of the book, where the author shares his own personal story with his mother and grandmother’s upbringing, excellently wrapping up all the core components of the books nicely.
One common criticism about the book is that it doesn’t offer much practical real-world advice on “what to do”, and I can see where they are coming from. You need some thinking and reflection to extract the practical applications – and indeed I found quite a few. Which, to the author’s credit, actually feels very empowering in a way that makes you feel smarter for reading it: that by simply changing the paradigm, he respects the readers enough to fill in the blanks and figure it out for themselves.
“Raising Good Humans: A mindful guide to breaking the cycle of reactive parenting and raising kind, confident kids” by Hunter Clarke-Fields
When I first came across the hadith of Anas bin Malik, who was given to the Prophet ﷺ to serve him for ten years since the age of four and testified that “never once did he rebuke or scold me” (Ref: Sahih Al-Bukhari), I always wondered to myself:
“Wow. Is this humanly achievable? I know how naughty I was as a boy, and I just couldn’t brain the idea: How on Earth can we raise children with discipline and compassion – especially from the chaotic toddler age – without scolding them or spoiling them?
Surely this must be a mu’jizah (miracle) of the Prophet!”
Because the hadith never gets very specific about "how" he conducted his day-to-day affairs, I never quite received or found a satisfactory or convincing answer, until I read this book – Raising Good Humans – and a few others, that finally gave me the inspiring realization on how consistent the approaches are with the sunnah of Rasulullah: With the right approach in our day-to-day lives, it is indeed achievable, insha Allah!
Fleshing out further the concepts I learnt from “The Montessori Toddler” book, this book really uncovered the mystery of walking the fine line between punishment and praise, respectfully and compassionately raising them as mentors and teachers in an attempt to, well, raise good humans.
The author does put a lot of emphasis on self-awareness devoid of any specific religion; which is interesting when I reflect: imagine how much MORE effective if we were to practice or implement Islamic principles divinely revealed from our Creator. There’s a lot of opportunity to build up on, insha Allah.
“Born A Crime: Stories from a South African childhood” by Trevor Noah
I actually bought this book by mistake, and had no intention of reading it. I wasn’t really interested to know about the life of a comedian / talk show host. But since it was in my library anyway, I decided to just give it a shot and check it out for myself.
And I was pleasantly surprised.
Sprinkling a lot of hilarious personal stories, shocking real-world facts about the apartheid and systemic racism in South Africa (which we barely know much of), and a lot of passionate, genuine heart (especially with the inspiring story of his mother), and tons of witty commentary, author Trevor Noah makes for a riveting read from start to finish, taking us through a rollercoaster of emotions as we follow his life story. I was particularly amazed at his mother’s dedication, consistency and persistence in sending Trevor for education and church (and his naughty antics to bypass them).
The book did feel uneven at places, shifting back and forth like flashback scenes from a Tarantino flick, and the end seemed to slow down a lot – but made up for a powerfully emotional conclusion and profound life story, peeling off interesting layers and revealing plenty of depth about the man behind the Daily Show.
“Mindset: The psychology of success” by Carol Dweck
In this book, author Carol Dweck really fleshes out the importance and core distinction of a “Fixed Mindset” versus a “Growth Mindset”. Although it takes a while to take off, with the author repeatedly pounding on the differing character traits of both paradigms, the author illustrates plenty of real-world examples of emphasizing the importance of a growth mindset: from sports, to business, to school, and even in parenting and family dynamics.
It tends to get a little too in-your-face, but by the end of the book, it effectively instills some great ideas on applying these concepts in our daily lives, including that as a Muslim, in many different aspects: in our prayers, our Qur’an, our da’wah, charity, keeping ties of kinship, and more.
“Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The surprising science behind why everything you know about success is (mostly) wrong” by Eric Baker
Another whimsical book in the vein of Outliers, really challenges our worldview with “what are the ingredients to achieve success in life?” (of course, from a purely worldly perspective)
The author utilizes a very witty storytelling techniques to keep you engaged, often inserting tons of stories, backed by scientific research to drive his point, only to pull the rug under you completely to present the unexpected counter arguments (also backed by science!). The book brings in interesting perspectives of what we can learn from Batman, to pirates, licensed serial killers, and the hilarious consequence of over-confidence by illustrating the examples of scammers who eventually fooled themselves.
The stories are snappy and short, reinforcing the core ideas well – but because they are relatively shorter, they don’t quite have the mystery or profound impact of Outliers. However, the author provides a lot of consolidating commentary, distilling the lessons clear and well for application.
“The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED speakers to business legends, why some ideas catch on and others don’t” by Carmine Gallo
I read this book with the intention to learn some techniques to beef up my speech and presentation skills in preparation for my segment in the Mercy Mission event, Ramadan Daily Dose.
But I was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more. The author brings about how many people throughout history, including those alive in present times, have transformed the lives of others through their stories. How stories can move and inspire in ways that it can become your most valuable asset and competitive advantage, providing insight to understand the role of stories in humankind.
Which is why the Qur’an and Hadith of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ are filled with amazing stories; because fundamentally this is the best medium to inspire change and transform nations.
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