Dear Friends and Readers: 

2020 is right in front of us. I'm excited and nervous. Because 2019 challenged me. I wasn't expecting it to be the most difficult year of my life. Health and wellness, relationships, career development, hobbies, interests—all the plans we make, people in our lives, and things we rely upon aren't certain. I am grateful in some ways for those reminders, because they present with painful clarity a host of learning opportunities—to be grateful for what and who I do have.  

This was my 16th year reading a book a week and the Reading List's 6th birthday. In truth, I almost quit. What kept me going was the beauty and truth and practical value found and cherished within the pages below and the wonderful human connections I continue to make by sharing them. Whether you're a new or casual or devoted subscriber, thank you for your support, recommendations, emails of encouragement, and friendships. Especially you, Samir, Sue, and Sydney. 

Following tradition, I've rounded up the 10 best books I read in 2019. By best, I mean best for me. Tyler Cowen writes about "quake books," which I've certainly had my fair share of (from gentle tremors to Magnitude 8+). This year was no different. Whether you try all or one, now or later, for the first or fiftieth time, I hope you get as much out of them as I have. If you go your own way, be sure to let me know where you land. 

Happy New Year and happy reading. 

​Jon 

P.S. If you or someone you know is looking for more book recommendations, you can subscribe to the Reading List. Each month, I'll email you 3-6 books that I absolutely couldn't put down—usually a mix of fiction and nonfiction. I try to steer clear of bestseller (read: fake) lists, and instead explore authors who challenge my worldview, enchant me through language, and model how to act more effectively and even nobly. At the end of the day though, maybe it's best to not take my advice and Joseph Campbell's instead: simply "follow your bliss." If you're looking for more starting points, here are my 10 best books from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.
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10. TWICE-TOLD TALES
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hardcover | Paperback
330 pages | 6 hrs

I first met Hawthorne in 9th grade English class by way of his haunting short story, The Birth-Mark. In it, a scientist tragically obsesses over the blemish on his beautiful bride's cheek. Two years later, The Scarlet Letter became my favorite assigned reading book ever. I literally couldn't stop. Now, twelve years later, I'm bound back up by the New Englander's spell after plucking a gorgeously illustrated hardback off the shelf of a 197-year-old barn (yes, actually). Twice Told Tales, first told in various magazines and newspapers of the mid-1800s, is a curation of nearly 30 Hawthorne shorts, 9 dreamy illustrations by Lars Hokanson, and 2 praising Afterwords by Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. If I had to choose just one short story: The Great Carbuncle. In it, a band of intrepid, yet distinctly motivated explorers search the White Mountains of New England for a fabled gemstone known as the Great Carbuncle. The finder(s) may surprise you. 

Read the full post here.

This classic coming-of-age tale holds the tension of a loaded revolver in a steely hand. When a mysterious gunman emerges from "the glowing west" and rides into a peaceful Wyoming valley, a farm boy's life is forever changed. I love Jack Shaefer's brevity, lyrical passages, visual descriptions, and celebration of heroes and the boys who idolize them. I can't wait to read Shaefer's twenty five other novels.

Read the full post here.

Richard Louis Proenneke (Pren-uh-key) lived alone for thirty years in Twin Lakes, Alaska. This is his journal recording the first 18 months of the odyssey—from cutting beams and notching logs to meeting many woodland friends and foes as well as testing mouth-watering recipes. "For supper, I cut the trout into small chunks, dipped them into beaten egg, and rolled them in cornmeal. They browned nicely in the bacon fat, and my tender crusted sourdough did justice to the first fish fry of the season." The only help Proenneke accepted were food and mail deliveries twice a month from a float place piloted by his friend Babe. That and some tar paper and polyethylene for the cabin roof so it wouldn't leak. Tumbling further down the outdoors lifestyle has been a treasure trove of inspiring individuals and stories, especially Shawn James' YouTube channel My Self Reliance.

Read the full post here.

"Most of us would be seized with fear if our bodies went numb, and would do everything possible to avoid it, yet me take no interest at all in the numbing of our souls." — Epictetus, quoted in Stillness is the Key

Seven years ago, I found myself in a job I hated and a mediocre relationship I was acclimating into. I was anxious and in serious questioning mode. I was twenty-three-years young, but felt old and tired. There I was in SoCal, three thousand miles away from my hometown and best friends and family, less than a year out of college and suffering from a full-scale quarter-life crisis. I even had the red Mustang convertible to prove it. But I shouldn't have been feeling that way.

I was working in video production. I was only making $31,000 a year, but I loved the work—work I was eager to learn and take on larger, higher-paying projects. I lived just eight miles from Laguna Beach. I was renting a room from a family so I could bike to work. That way I could save for said Mustang and tutor their son for even more. What was causing much of my pain was the insane, House of Cards-style office politics—the nasty, vindictive, almost daily warfare waged between competing teams at the company I worked at. The war was started by certain executives, but I and the rest of the junior team found ourselves caught up in. Despite my best efforts to just focus on the work, I couldn't escape it. Even after switching teams to the other side of the office. After many of those personalities eventually spiraled downhill or were tossed out in the coming months. And, sadly, even after I left the office.

Despite trying new diets and exercise routines I was in a funk in my personal life. I couldn't leave the bad at work and be a strong partner for my then-girlfriend. I'm grateful that we're still friends to this day though. 
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During this quarter-life crisis, I sought guidance from friends, family, and coworkers. Some helped. I scoured my bookshelf. A couple dozen Barnes & Noble too. That led to a few more insights. But the real breakthrough came unexpectedly one day in my roomy corner office. It was a corner office I had wrangled from the executives after threatening to quit and a day I will never forget. I was researching how to organize the company's tens of terabytes of video files when I stumbled upon Chase Jarvis' YouTube channel. One video led to another. Eventually author Robert Greene (a favorite to this day) sat on CJ's couch for a thought-provoking interview. He was writing about power, war, and seduction from history, but I found it profoundly relevant to my daily experience. Then Ryan Holiday's episode queued up. He was Robert's long-time apprentice and research partner. Here was Ryan, a guy not much older than me, the former Director of American Apparel who was part-remorsefully, and part-tongue-in-cheekily(?) confessing a series of outrageous media stunts performed for his clients to the tune of millions of dollars. And yet, he was getting out of the rat race. In large part, because he'd been burned by the politics and also found solace in an ancient philosophy called stoicism. 

For all my book travels thus far in life, I hadn't heard of stoicism, as a formal school of thought, nor of its major figures: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Cato, Zeno, Epictetus. But at Ryan's own encouragement via Twitter I soon devoured them. They helped me kick my social media addiction in no time. And when Ryan published The Obstacle is the Way a few months later, the first in what would become his stoicism trilogy, he helped give me the courage to quit my job, step out of the relationship, and go off to what was next:

• To fight for the work that was my calling.
• A few years later, to check myself.
• And now, but really again, to find stillness. 

Where Obstacle focuses on our interpretation of events and regulating our emotions, and Ego explores the trappings of arrogance  people who have lost their heads and grip on reality, Stillness councils us on how and why to develop healthy mental and physical habits. Organized into three parts, Soul, Mind, and Body, the book is uniquely solution-oriented and perhaps the most tactile of the three. For instance, Ryan deep-dives into the importance of getting hobbies, going for walks, enjoying nature, building daily routines, addressing old wounds from childhood, maintaining longterm relationships, and much more. This may sound common sense, but it seems too often not to be uncommon practice—at least, for a lot of us during certain trials in our lives. 

I greatly appreciated three chapters especially: the cautionary tale of Tiger Woods and that of Michael Jordan, as well as the instructive one on Winston Churchill towards the book's conclusion. Those three great men are case studies in and of themselves, but Ryan extracts the essence of certain traits they embodied, at least during certain periods of their lives, with the goal of showing us what we can learn from them and about ourselves. He does this for Anne Frank, Fred Rogers, Seneca, Socrates, the astronaut Edgar Mitchel, baseball legend Shawn Green, Queen Victoria, the journalist and nun Dorothy Day, and a dozen other fascinating humans. 

I'm typing all this nearly seven years to the day after moving to California and first being introduced to Ryan's work and stoicism. Earlier today, I completed a six mile sunset hike to the Top of the World in Laguna Beach, ate a favorite-recipe: lamb chops with broccoli, finished reading Stillness to the sound of Christmas harp music, and will be sleeping for twelve hours on my memory foam mattress before some Sunday work projects. I am much more content, grateful, safe, loved, harder-working, humbler, wiser, and still than I used to be. [JG]

"She took another sip of tea. 'No I have no children.'" — Mary, The Christmas Box
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The Christmas Box is a double miracle in its story and success. Richard Paul Evans, who had lost a sister when he was young, wrote it for his mother and his own two daughters as a bedtime read. After gifting twenty copies to family members one holiday, they quickly shared it with friends around Salt Lake City, Utah. The story of MaryAnne Parkin, a childless mother, and the family of three who moved in to care for her became a quick word-of-mouth success. Simon and Schuster bought it a year later and now, twenty-five years and eight million copies later, The Christmas Box is a modern classic.

In The Christmas Box, Mary frequents an angel statue in her backyard which commemorates the memory of her lost child. Today, twenty-five years after the publication, thousands of families gather beneath real ones on December 6th and place white lilies on their bases in remembrance of their own lost children. It began in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1994. Now, there are over 100 statues in the world. Here is a public Google document with all the locations. Turns out I drive past a statue each day on my commute in Lake Forest, California. You can find more information about how to fund one in your city on Evans' website here. 
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Richard Paul Evans has written more than thirty-five bestselling novels that have sold more than thirty-five million copies of his books in print worldwide and been translated into more than twenty-four languages. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, and their five children. Evans overcame a Tourette syndrome and ADD when he was younger in part by writing. I really enjoyed this interview with him and Christopher Paolini, whose teenage debut novel, Eragon, is one of my favorites. 
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"May all of your creations have just the right flavor, and may the joy of discovery be your guide." — Preface of The 4-Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss
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Tim Ferriss is some delightfully quirky mix between a digital Indiana Jones and "human guinea pig" (his words). And so his own cookbook, an eclectic 700 page tome, is the product of hundreds of experiments with a full team of scientists, chefs, hunters, farmers, Muy Thai boxers, professional athletes, world-record-holding memory champions, and other diverse figures.

4HC is organized into 5 full course meals of content (Meta-Learning, The Domestic, The Wild, The Scientist, The Pro), a sweet dessert Appendix (Yelp's 100 Best Restaurants, How to count cards in 43 seconds, building a fire with a bow drill), and seasoned with tons of sequential photos, lists, and further resources. I think I probably at this point have read 50% of it, but the value is unbelievable. As a bachelor, the book really helps to demystify the kitchen, basic food prep and cooking techniques, and lends step-by-step support for a host of 50+ delectable recipes (my two favorites pictured). I can't wait to taste the rest. [JG]

Lesson 1 of Part II: The Domestic is an Osso "Buko" recipe — a f*cking delicious baked lamb and vegetables dish. Hands-on time: 10 minutes. Bake Time: 1.3 hours. Notes from my experiences: lamb shanks over lamb cuts or minced. Try tomato sauce and whole canned tomato not just canned. Add a little basil to taste. 

In 2019, I found travelled close to 12 weeks. This short workout was an amazing go-to and totally doable from a hotel room. 30-50 reps of air squats, wall presses, and chest pulls. Note: Sharpie in margins not mine.

From the back cover: Tim Ferriss has been called “a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk” by The New York Times. He is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of four #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, and Tools of Titans. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 200 million downloads and been selected for “Best of iTunes” three years running.
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"Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." — Bruce Lee
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