For a few years now, I’ve had a rule: I never read a book the year that it comes out. I initiated it a few years before Tim Ferris made it famous and more for self-preservation.
It kept my FOMO in check and, as a side effect, increased my love for the used-book store. If I desperately wanted a new title, I’d add it to my Amazon wish list as a cool-off mechanism. If I found many copies of the book in a used book store or several used book stores, then I’d buy it.
This policy has served me well. Not only has it made me a calmer, more patient reader, but it has also given me gems that I otherwise would not have discovered. Some of which I talk about at the OpenView blog.
Every year there are intentional exceptions to the rule. One of this year’s exceptions is Indra Nooyi’s upcoming memoir, My Life in Full.
I’ve read a lot about her over the years.
A South Asian woman who came from obscurity to run one of the largest beverage makers in the world, there’s a lot to learn from her life story. When working in India, she figured out how to sell sanitary napkins to women when advertising for such products was banned (she marketed directly to young women). After graduating from Yale with her MBA, she showed up for her first successful job interview in a Sari (this was 1980). She continued to attend PepsiCo corporate meetings in a sari for many years. Tales that tell of someone who has been a serious badass for all of her career.
As summer winds down in a few days (the year will be done in a little more than four months!), you may like it for your fall reading list