Jordan Mattox

1. The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency Tove Ditlevsen 

This book received a lot of publicity in the past few years. Ditlevsen is considered one of the greatest Danish writers. These books, memoirs of different phases of her life, were published in Denmark in the 70s, but were published as a set of three in 2019. She has one of the clearest and most unflinching voices of any writer I’ve read recently. While the story seems uneven in terms of “plot,” the writing is of the highest quality. 

2. What We Owe the Future William MacAskill

There was a lot of hype around the release of this book. MacAskill is the philosopher behind the effective altruism movement. And in this book, he is asking us to consider our ethical obligations to future generations. He makes some fascinating arguments for why we need to think long term. He looks at the average mammal species lifespan, and we are just at the start of the human experiment if we just hit the average. The metaphor that stuck with me was the idea that we are in the adolescence phase of our species and our choices now can have lasting consequences. An interesting book and I think I buy more than fifty percent of it. 

3. The Carrying: Poems  Ada Limon 

This is the first collection of poems I’ve read by Limon, but I listen to her every morning on the Slow Down, my favorite daily poetry podcast that she took over from Tracy K. Smith recently. In this collection of poems, she wrestles with age, motherhood, boredom, mundane inspiration. What makes her exceptional is her conversational tone and tender honesty. Recommended. 

4. Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future Margaret Heffernan

This is a super-smart exploration of uncertainty and the dangers of over-planning. It is one of the best books that I’ve read in support of uncertainty and experimentation. One of the underlying concepts is that we have little to no idea what’s going to happen in the future and trying to predict it, means you are trying to own it. Lots of super fascinating examples. This book was a financial times best of the book of the year and I’d highly recommend it!