A few book recommendations from Q2
At the start of every quarter, I try to highlight a few interesting books I read in the past quarter. Here were four standouts from the second quarter of 2025.
Books:
The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well by Mark Schatzker.
This was super interesting - “Mark Schatzker has spent his career traveling the world in search of the answer. Now, in The End of Craving, he poses the profound question: What if the key to nutrition and good health lies not in resisting the primal urge to eat but in understanding its purpose?”
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi
Structured as a Platonic dialogue, this was a thought provoking introduction to Adlerian psychology. “The Courage to Be Disliked unfolds as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, who, over the course of five enriching conversations, realizes that each of us is in control of our life’s direction, independent of past burdens and expectations of others.”
Lost Connections by Johann Hari
This was thought provoking and provocative -
“There was a mystery haunting award-winning investigative journalist Johann Hari. He was thirty-nine years old, and almost every year he had been alive, depression and anxiety had increased in Britain and across the Western world…So, as an adult, he went on a forty-thousand-mile journey across the world to interview the leading experts about what causes depression and anxiety, and what solves them.”
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
For the first time in decades, I am reading a lot more fiction. This winner of the Noble Prize in Literature is exceptionally well written.
Most popular Aspirations of Excellence posts YTD:
Here were the top 5 most popular posts I’ve published this year (in case you missed one).
The pain of delay A problem avoided today accrues interest like a payday loan. Avoidance is never free.
It may take 20 years to start your vocation. It may take a lot longer than you think to figure out what you are good at, what you enjoy doing, and what the market is willing to pay you a living wage to do.
The assessment of worthiness. Make no mistake, judgements about worthiness are something we actually do a lot - and not just about leaders. Worthiness plays out in many dimensions in life.
Making space. In filling emptiness, we miss a deeper truth. Space can be deeply soothing and therapeutic.