1. Animal Farm by George Orwell

This fable from George Orwell tells a story about animals on the farm overthrowing the farm owner because they feel they did the animals wrong and were unfair. But by being self-ruled, the animals find themselves struggling to suffice their needs due to a lack of competency from their ruler compared to their former human owner, but the leader was making propaganda that what they have is better than being ruled by humans. Over time, life on the farm gets worse, and those who disagree with the leader are punished. The animalism spirit from the pre-revolution era that says all animals are equal slowly disappeared, replaced by an authoritarian rule that prioritizes the ruler over all animals. All animals find that the life they were promised never happens, and today things are much worse and they have to get on with it.

George Orwell brings us to an understanding of revolution and its consequences in an easy-to-understand manner in the form of a fable that explains that revolution, if not executed properly, will end in another revolution potential. Rather than listening to the people to solve the problem, the leader often took an authoritarian approach to expel the revolutionaries. A leader is human, and humans are flawed after all; things such as status, position, and wealth are enough to change people and make them forget their initial goals.

The animalism dream never happens because the leader is flawed and the system is corrupt. Over time, the current leader, who was once a revolutionist who seemed against injustice, slowly turned into a figure they used to hate. In the end, nothing changed; it was only the ruler that changed.

2. Talking to My Daughter about the Economy by Yanis Varoufakis

Capitalism, like the economy, is not an easy concept to grasp. To understand more about capitalism, we need to understand how the economy works, how capitalism developed, and its impact on the environment and society.

This book taught us a quick lesson about the economy in a simple manner, with many analogies being used that help the reader understand various things about economics, from how we arrived to today’s capitalism from the stone age, how economic models developed from time to time, how people developed currencies, how debt developed, and how the modern banking system helped to shape the current economic model, until why there are so many inequalities today.

This book explains that the economy is totally shaped by individual behavior, behaving as a collective that promotes profit over anything, and it represents human nature greediness, as most people only appreciate something that has exchange values rather than experiential values. People prefer selling cutting trees to get cash rather than keeping the trees to experience the breeze of lying down under a shady tree.

People’s greed for generating profit makes them willing to do anything, even if it costs them the environment and human relationships with others. The only way to make people take care of the environment is to turn unpriced natural resources into something profitable. For instance, to avoid people cutting trees, we need to build a restaurant under the trees for a dining experience with the breeze.

In the end, capitalism cannot be avoided, but it is our responsibility to use capitalism for a good cause rather than exploiting our environment.

3. The Dip by Seth Godin

This book talks about the dilemma people face when they face hardship in a quest. When setbacks arise, resources seem depleted, the future is uncertain, and thoughts about giving up are surfacing. But often people quit right before they are about to hit the jackpot, when they are inches away from the grand prize. The thing is, in that adversity and uncertainty, we never know if our next effort will bring us success or only lead us into deeper sinkholes and complete waste. That’s when we should know when to stick and when to quit.

In this book, the writer explains that there are various kinds of adversity in reaching goals. The book helped us identify which adversity belongs to categorization and how we should respond to that, whether we should stick and keep pushing or just simply walk away. This book also gives a reasonable explanation that quitting or walking away is often the right decision, and it’s different from failing. The writer also emphasizes to never put your pride high for refusing to quit something that only wastes your resources and energy.

4. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

This book encourages the readers to be more aware of their mental health. If you ever find yourself in a difficult situation, never hesitate to seek help because your mental issue is too dangerous to be kept alone. You might think that time will heal, but sometimes it also makes it worse and makes suicidal thoughts appear on the surface.

No matter how big suffering you have, allow yourself to be healed because the solution to your problem is always there waiting for you to be found; you just need a therapist to help you find that.

This book emphasizes that mental health is as important as physical health, and it’s important for you to seek help from a therapist when needed, just as you seek help from doctors when needed. In this book, we can find stories of individuals who underwent therapy to address various challenges such as work-related stress, parent-child relationships, partner dynamics, and even coping with the challenges of terminal illnesses like cancer. These stories illustrate their journeys through therapy, detailing how they navigated this process to eventually find healing and self-discovery.

5. The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine

We might think small talk is a natural thing that does not need to be studied, but the thing is, not everyone is born with that social skill. But still, no matter whether you are social or not, small talk is something to master because we don’t want to see ourselves standing on the corner awkwardly at the national conference your office sent you to. Because in such places, thousands of possibilities and opportunities lie in front of you, and you only need to unlock them all through the ability of small talk. It is often understated the potential that, in reality, a good small conversation can spark a big conversation, which can lead you to thousands of opportunities the in life because we will never know who will talk and may have a significant role in your life.

The ability to make small talk is not only useful in terms of building a career; it can also help you broaden your social connections. At a national conference, the person you talk to may become your next business partner or introduce you to someone who can give you better career opportunities. In the gym, you may talk to someone who shares similar hobbies as you, such as hiking and playing tennis. Thus, to unlock these opportunities, good knowledge of the appropriate topic to talk about, the ability to deliver a conversation, and the ability to leave a good impression are needed, which can be learned from this book.

6. How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

This book delves into efficient note-taking techniques essential for retaining valuable insights from readings or gathered information. It highlights the significance of preserving intriguing pieces of information through notes, preventing them from being forgotten.

The method discussed is the Zettelkasten, popularized by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who, despite lacking a sociology degree, published over 50 books and 550 articles in his lifetime. Luhmann’s success was attributed to his adept note-taking approach. Rather than inventing entirely new theories, he synthesized existing valid theories collected in his notes repository, connecting and building upon established knowledge. This method emphasizes the power of connecting existing knowledge to create new ideas and theories.

The main idea is to make a library of notes that are interconnected between each note using specific numbering; thus, the collection of notes can be integrated into a new material under a specified topic to be further developed.

7. The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim

Being a young person living in a fast-paced world has its consequences, both physically and mentally. Often, we found ourselves mentally exhausted living this kind of life with pressure from our surroundings and uncertainty about the future.

In this book, the writer, who is also a Buddhist, provides us with some advice on overcoming the problems we often face in our lives. that the key to a mindful life is to see things without any judgement. and to improve our life quality, we must understand ourselves better through regular observation of ourselves, our thoughts, and feelings. We also need to repair our relationships with others because humans, as social creatures, need another person to keep us sane, to make peace with our past, and to face life uncertainty with courage and humility because not everything we wish will happen, but life should keep going anyway.

Because when can make peace with yourself and can accept everything that happens, you can appreciate everything you have and enjoy the little things in life. which is always there to experience and often overlooked.

8. How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life Russ Roberts

Adam Smith is considered one of the most brilliant thinkers in modern history. His concept of specialization and free trade has served as a springboard for the development of a modern economic and political model.

Understanding Adam Smith is not easy; reading the wealth of nations and the theory of moral sentiments requires a lot of energy, and not everyone can digest what Adam Smith means in his writings. This book guides amateur readers to understand the concepts of Adam Smith regarding his philosophical views on humanity and society.

This book explains simply the Adam Smith philosophy. He sees humans as driven by their individual needs. Living with others makes people develop a sense of sympathy. That sense makes people judge others’ actions; thus, over time, that collective perception of what is right and wrong transformed into a moral system, and furthermore, it transformed into a modern legal system.

In this book, Adam Smith teaches people how to act and behave accordingly, not merely following the moral system, but to be virtuous, so they will be loved by their surroundings, gain respect, and be able to give positive influence to the world.

9. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

This book was written by the famous novelist and absurdist philosopher Franz Kafka. Its about Gregor, a breadwinner for the family that provides proper living to his parents and siblings, who, one morning found himself transformed into a giant vermin. How the situation became unpleasant for the family and the dilemma the family faced. Gregor, who was initially a family breadwinner, slowly became a family burden. His frightening appearance also causes some serious problems for the family in terms of their survival. His parents are frightened by his appearance and want to get rid of him, but at the same time, their love as parents is wanting to help Gregory get through hard times.

At the same time, Gregor’s helplessness in facing this condition brings to the reader the feeling of abandonment, isolation, and despair, which is like trying to prove to everyone that life is absurd and we cannot count on people.

The metamorphosis itself is not merely about Gregor metamorphing into a vermin. But it’s all about the metamorphosis of everything. Gregor’s life, his family’s overall condition, and his family’s feelings towards Gregor transformed over time. The main message in this novel is that life is confusing, everything in life keeps transforming, and time can change everything, so one should adapt to any situation in life and the adversity that comes with it.

10. Calm the F*ck Down by Sarah Knight

Many things can go wrong in life because it’s the nature of life. It’s impossible in life that everything goes according to plan and detail. When things simply go wrong or go terribly wrong, we need to react carefully to mitigate them and avoid them getting even worse.

To be able to perform such careful mitigation, we need to be able to observe and evaluate the situation. We also need to consider the possibility of potential effects being caused and take proper action to anticipate things. The main idea of this book is that whenever bad things happen, we shouldn’t panic. Try to solve the problems with a cool head, so any problem can be handled well. This book taught us about that and offered us various examples from our daily lives.

Top 10 Books I Read This Year (2023)