chetan shenoy

Day 6 – Reading

This is day 6 of my effort to write (almost) everyday for the next 30 days.

You can't replace reading with other sources of information like videos, because you need to read in order to write well, and you need to write in order to think well.

Growing up, I would avoid reading books. I was a slow reader and even slower with my comprehension. Because my mind would wander, I would end up reading the same paragraph over and over. It wasn't until after college that I figured out how to concentrate and immerse myself into a story.

I'm still not a consistent reader though. When starting UrbanStems, I made the excuse that my time was best spent building or fixing a problem. After leaving at the end of 2018, I realized how short-sighted I was to consume myself with work. I missed reading good books.

Now, I tend to go through waves of fiction and non-fiction books. I've picked up reading again since the pandemic has kept us at home. Here's the list of completed books:

• Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green
• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
• The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
• A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman
• Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004 by Maggie Mahar
• The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
• Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein
• Warren Buffett Portfolio by Robert G. Hagstrom

Currently, I'm reading over dozen books. Here they are:

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton
• The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike, Jr.
• Invent & Wander: The Collected Writing of Jeff Bezos by Jeff Bezon
• The End of Accounting by Baruch Lev and Feng Gu
• Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler
• The Joy of Accounting by Peter Frampton and Mark Robilliard
• The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell
• Stop Asking Questions by Andrew Warner
• The History of Berkshire Hathaway by Adam J. Mead
• Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles Munger
• The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks

I'm more interested in the business/investing world at the moment. I have a few sci-fi and other fiction books lined up to balance out the heavy non-fiction. Business books can seem dry but many of the books I've listed are written so well. I'm impressed with the way some authors are able to weave concepts and simplify ideas so that the reader is engaged and informed. I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes associated with Warren Buffett: "simple but not easy". That's my goal with all things in life.