The best investment I made in 2020.

Unfortunately it wasn't Bitcoin or GME shares.

Starting out 2020, I set myself the ambitious goal of reading 26 books. Clearly I didn't learn from my mistake of setting a target of 30 in 2019 and actually reading 19. At least I reduced my target by 4 books.

Majority of the 19 books were read on a Kindle and a handful on Audible.  To nearly double my reading, I needed to do something different. I decided to stop leeching off my friend's Audible subscription and buy my own.  

Given that I had gradually increased my reading speed on Audible to 2x speed, one credit a month would not suffice. Naturally the biggest volume plan was cost effective and almost guaranteed hitting my target of 26 books.

Audiobooks are great because you don't need to explicitly carve time for it. They are like a stream of thought keeping you company while you walk, wash the dishes and cook. All of a sudden, your mundane tasks magically get converted to precious reading time.

Not only did I hit my target of 26 books but I surpassed it. I finished up with 35 books. This is a personal best. The $274.60 was the best monetary investment I made in 2020 and reading 35 books was the best time investment I made.

What did I learn from achieving my personal best of reading most number of books in a year?

Reading books for the sake of increasing the number of books read is a vicious, overhyped and aimless task.

There was the occasional  feeling of running on a treadmill trying to finish these books.

But each book pollinated my mind with a firehose of ideas and information like never before. It opened up doors to a number of serendipitous connections between ideas.  

My daily 12pm walk around the block whilst working from home has served as prime audiobook listening time. Fast forward a year, this  simple activity holds many enlightening memories through the audiobooks I've listened to.

In 2021 I have topped up my account with another 24 credits hopefully to continue the book reading trend. But this year I aim to spend more time pondering the concepts of the book and crystallising them in words.

Here are the 35 books I read in 2020:

If you are curious about my favourite books of 2020 👇