I’ve seen a couple of these posts the last few days and frankly, I love a good book recommendation.  Thanks George Finney. So, I opened my Goodreads to review everything I read this year to populate a top five list of non-fiction and fiction, no particular order.  If you’re reading through this and think you have something to add based on the selection provided, please share!

Fiction

1. Batman: One Bad Day – Le Sphinx by Tom King.  Graphic novel, but it still counts.  This thing was dark and painted the Riddler into someone who has just been toying with everyone for years.  He could run the entire city and stop the Bat whenever he wanted.  A great what-if story that will make the Batman fan think and wonder.

2. The Will of the Many by James Islington.  Favorite book of the year, hands done.  James Islington wrote his first series just a few years ago and after reading, I have been hooked since.  How often do you think about the Roman Empire?  This book is the start of a new trilogy that has a very Roman empire feel to it with some magic (called Will) thrown in.  Just go ahead and check out everything he’s written and get back to me.

3. The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence.  There’s a library larger than most cities and older than most empires.  All of the knowledge from all of humanity is within and there’s a war coming.  I’m a sucker for books, large libraries, twists, and time travel….  Best strap in.

4. The Pendragon Cycle by Stephen Lawhead.  These next two recommendations I cheated on and did the whole series instead of an individual book, so deal with that.  Stephen Lawhead has a way of taking fictional (maybe?) characters and plopping them into stories that could be historically accurate.  The series is about Merlin.  We see his parents and lineage and all the way through to Arthur and his reign.  It’s a deep story and very fleshed out.  I’m told there’s a tv adaptation coming and I look forward to that.

5. King Raven by Stephen Lawhead.  Again, Stephen Lawhead taking a fictional (maybe?) character and turning it into a real historical setting, but this time with Robin Hood.  So much Celtic mythology, which I enjoy, and a nice telling of the traditional story in a way you’ve never experienced.

Non-Fiction

1. The Lazarus Heist by Geoff White.  This book was eye opening.  It’s all about North Korea and their hacking group known as the Lazarus Group.  It dives into their major heists and hacks, the money they’ve stolen, how North Korea operates, just so much.  You’ll learn some unbelievable things.

2. Herding Tigers by Todd Henry.  Herding Tigers was recommended by a colleague, Randy Raw.  Thanks Randy.  Get through the first section of the book, 93 or so pages, and have your mind opened to leading teams.  One of my favorite notes from chapter 2: “If you persist in doing the tactical work of your team, you are failing it as a leader. When you do the work, the capacity of your team never scales beyond you – you are training your team to defer to you instead of letting it grow into its potential.”

3. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson. I probably read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius every year.  It’s a quick read filled with good insight.  This book takes us on a journey with Marcus and details what his life was like and the adversity he faced.  It then applies stoic methods for handling those situations and what Marcus likely would have done.  It was just a more in-depth journey into the mind and man of Marcus Aurelius.

4. Cybersecurity First Principles by Rick Howard. This was a really great Cybersecurity book with some new ideas I’m testing out.  Rick lays out what he thinks are the base first principles of cybersecurity and how to achieve those.  My two favorite takeaways were around how he measures risk and how to do automation.  The risk measurement process is a new take on getting to a “good enough” answer that uses real data without having overly complex math formulas.

5. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.  This wasn’t my first read through of Ryan Holiday’s first stoicism book.  This book resonates with me, and I seem to find new nuggets of insight each time I read it.  There are real historical accounts of people and their obstacles and opportunities.  It embodies a lot of how I try to operate and helps keep me on that path with the morals and principles that matter to me.  10/10 will read again.