Ray Blakney

The Online Education Guy

23 Great Reads in 2023

23 Great Reads in 2023

I believe it was Aristotle who said:

“Show me a man’s library and I will show you the man.”

Wait…

…I just Googled it.

Apparently, Aristotle never said that, and I made it up! 

Ah well, he should have, and I do think the sentiment of the quote is spot on.

With that in mind, I’m going to share my 23 favorite books for 2023. 

This is my way of not only sharing what I hope is valuable to others looking for good books to read, it’s also because it will tell you a bit about me and my year.

These are in rough order starting with my favorites, but I wasn’t draconian about putting things in the perfect order. 

How much a person likes a book can vary depending on mood and where they are in their lives.

When I had my more difficult days/weeks the books on resilience and mental health would probably have come up higher on my list.

On the days I was learning to write – yes, my writing actually used to be even worse than this – the books on writing would have been higher.

Just to clarify, these are not all books that came out this year. 

This is just the year I read them, or in a few cases re-read them.

The top 5 however are probably pretty fixed.  Those are books that had a direct impact on my life and how I do things.  They are also the books I find that I recommend to people repeatedly.

  • Unreasonable Hospitality – Will Guidara
  • The Road Less Stupid – Keith Cunningham
  • $100 Million Dollar Offers – Alex Hormozi
  • 10x is Easier than 2x – Dan Sullivan
  • Bird By Bird – Anne Lamott
  • No Man’s Land – Doug Tatum
  • Life 3.0 – Max Tegma
  • On Advertising – David Ogilvy [Re-read]
  • Building a Story Brand – Donald Miller [Re-read]
  • So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport [Re-read]
  • Ego Is The Enemy – Ryan Holiday
  • Crushing It – Gary Vee
  • Save The Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody
  • $100 Million Dollar Leads – Alex Hormozi
  • Make No Small Plans – Elliot Bisnow
  • Shoe Dog – Phil Knight
  • Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey
  • The Mac of Thinking Big – David Schwartz
  • Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain
  • Outlive – Peter Attia
  • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant – Eric Jorenson, Tim Ferriss
  • Retrain Your Brain: CBT In 7 Weeks – Seth Gillhan
  • Red Rising Trilogy – Pierce Brown (Not non-fiction, but it can teach you about leadership and overcoming adversity).

What about you?  What were some of your favorite books? Leave a comment, that’s not spam, below.

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