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Friends,

I hope you are all doing well.  Below are my reading recommendations for March and April.  It’s a wide-ranging set of subjects—fish, fighting, focus, psychics, scuba, and SEALs.  Hopefully you’ll find a few that pique your interest:

Four Fish - The Future of the Last Wild Food, Paul Greenberg - Despite the fact that there are thousands of species of fish on earth, consumers focus primarily on four species: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna.  Why?  Well, it’s a complicated and fascinating story that takes 304 pages to explain.  Greenberg travels around the world learning from the fishermen, scientists, geneticists, conservationists, and other characters who’ve played a role in making these four species the mainstays of the seafood industry.  It’s also a cautionary tale of the irreversible global damage that unchecked commercial fishing is causing, and it will make you think twice next time you see those massive slabs of pink salmon at your local Costco. [Are you a weirdo like me who likes fish biographies?  Then check out Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky.  It’s even better than Four Fish.]

The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson - If this book were fiction, it would be too ridiculous to believe, and I’d promptly throw it in the trash.  But it is true, which makes it really hard to put down.  It’s the story of a secret U.S. military division that was created during the 1960s with the goal of using psychic and metaphysical powers to fight evil around the world.  The book describes American generals who are convinced they can walk through walls, “warrior monks” who claim the ability to become invisible on command, and, of course, psychic military contractors who can allegedly kill goats by staring at them.  It’s easy to shrug off some of this nonsense when thinking of it in the context of the hippied-out 60s, but you’ll be surprised to know that the U.S. government has been employing some of these wacky techniques as recently as the post-9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  A perfect example of truth being stranger than fiction.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport - The author is a 34-year old professor of computer science at Georgetown who has published over 70 academic papers, four books, and countless blog posts, all while having a family and rarely working after 6PM.  How does he do it?  His answer is “Deep Work”—disciplined, lengthy stretches of undistracted, highly focused work.  Newport’s theory is that many knowledge-based workers have lost the ability to focus thanks to endless technological distractions such as email, social media, and smartphones.  He also believes that professionals with the ability to cultivate focus and deep thinking will have a huge advantage over the distracted masses.  Anyone who spends a majority of their workday in front of a computer needs to read this book.  I took tons of notes on this book and have already referred back to them multiple times.  [Two other related books that I recommend are Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford and Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goldman.]

Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II, Robert Kurson - Prior to reading this book, I thought that scuba diving was a pastime for portly Carnival Cruise patrons who enjoy staring at starfish and conch shells while flailing around in tropical waters.  Well, I stand corrected.  The book follows a group of tough, competitive, risk-loving deep water shipwreck divers who discover a wrecked Nazi submarine off the coast of New Jersey, which leads them on a six-year adventure that ends with them rewriting the history books.  The book goes into great detail about the complexities and dangers of deep water diving, and makes it crystal clear that this “sport” is not for the faint of heart.  The mentality of these guys (as evidenced by several team members who die on the bottom of the ocean) is very similar to many world-class high-altitude mountaineers—absolutely obsessed with a goal and willing to do anything to achieve it.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - I really need to lay off the Navy SEAL books, because every time I read one, I feel like a weak, lazy, undisciplined lunk.  But after listening to an interview with one of this book's authors, I knew I needed to check it out.  Willink and Babin are retired SEALs who now run a leadership consulting business, trying their best to impart some of their battlefield wisdom to corporate America.  The book alternates between true war stories and case studies of how those battlefield lessons can be applied to the business world.  Interestingly, many of the war stories describe times that the authors made mistakes, then they deconstruct how they adjusted course, fixed the situations, and learned valuable lessons—it’s an unexpected and humble method of conveying their wisdom.  I gleaned a lot of value from this book, even though I basically work alone.  I’d imagine professionals who lead teams would find the advice all the more valuable.

The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch, Jonathan Gottschall - Gottschall was an out-of-shape English professor at a small liberal arts college who was feeling weak and sloppy (perhaps he was reading too many Navy SEAL books?), so he decided to join a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym.  The book follows his 2+ year journey as he goes from complete novice to skilled and tough enough to compete in a sanctioned MMA fight.  Layered on top of the author's personal adventure is a very interesting discussion around why men have always been focused on demonstrating strength, dominance, and mental toughness, and how that tendency plays out in sports, business, or just plain ol' brawling. [Years ago I read A Fighter’s Heart: One Man’s Journey Through the World of Fighting by Sam Sheridan and LOVED it.  I still think about it all the time, so I highly recommended it as well.]
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Thanks again for subscribing to my bimonthly book recommendations.  I've discovered most of my all-time favorite books through suggestions from friends like you, so the whole point of this email is to encourage more discussions about good books.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions, and feel free to forward this email to any of your friends who may be interested.

If you were forwarded this email and want to receive future editions, you can either sign up here or send me an email (edroberson@gmail.com).  One email, every other month with a few books that I’ve recently read, enjoyed, and highly recommend.

Ed