Our Top Choice Reads of The Year
Another year of training is in the books! As many of us drop into the holiday time of the year, we at Treeline Endurance hope you take some time off from all that running (and more recently, maybe some skiing) to kick those feet up and recover with a good book.
Here's a list of some of the books I've read this year that've stuck with me, whether by advancing my coaching tactics or influencing my outlook in other regards. I hope you find some learning or enjoyment from them in the next year as well.
Hidden Potential - Adam Grant
Adam Grant believes that our success should not be measured by the height of the summits we reach, but by the distance we've climbed to get there.
Grant is a professor of organizational psychology at the Wharton School. Hidden Potential examines the path to achieving greater things. He argues for the traits that often lead us to realize our greatest potential. He observes the environments that we should surround ourselves with and create in our own minds to help us build paths to those meaningful achievements. And, he proposes better systems for all of us to access our hidden potential.
Talking to Strangers - Malcolm Gladwell
At the time I had read this, it was Gladwell's latest investigation. He's since released a new book-- Revenge of the Tipping Point. Revenge is sure to be on my list to check out in 2025, but in Strangers, Gladwell illuminates an inescapable truth-- we know far less about each other than we tend to think we know.
Humans struggle to communicate under the best circumstances, much less under challenging ones, Gladwell argues. We maintain our beliefs about people long after we should continue to give them the benefit of the doubt, and we may all be better off realizing on the front end that there is a chasm between what we think we know about someone, and what we actually do.
Powder Days - Heather Hansman
Powder Days is a tour of American ski culture. Hansman chronicles the culture of "ski bumming" in all of its pluses and minuses, visiting some of the most renowned ski towns in the United States. She looks at many of the struggles that come with the often-glamorized lifestyle. She asks question about the mental health consequences of the ski life, explores the historical development of this unique culture, and ultimately wonders: Is it even possible to a be a ski bum anymore?
In her early adult years, Hansman lived the life she seeks to re-trace in Powder Days. She worked for years as a lifty (running the ski lift at her local ski hill), living paycheck to paycheck and chasing the next fresh ski line. Today she's a freelance writer for Outside and Backpacker Magazines, continuing to cover the evolution of the U.S. ski industry.
Range - David Epstein
Epstein's second book, Range, turns five this year but has been on my to-do list since it came out.
Similar to how Strangers changed the way I view social interaction, Range has completely changed the way I view the world of work. Just because there are common and established career paths doesn't mean we should follow them if they aren't right for us. In fact, most of us will make our greatest contributions if we find our own way, utilizing the unique mix of skills and interests we have. We cultivate specialization in our society, Epstein argues, and as we do so, we are missing out on the opportunities that exist at the intersection of specialized disciplines.
The Defining Decade - Meg Jay, PhD
Dr. Jay brings a sense of urgency to our 20's and early 30's (the defining decade referred to in the title).
Whether it's career, relationships, or family, Jay argues, it is imperative that we start thinking about the big picture sooner than later. We don't need to know everything about ourselves in the defining decade, but we need to start putting in the work to realize who we are, and what matters most to us in life.
Originals - Adam Grant
Grant stories how non-conformists move the world (the book's subtitle) by identifying the common traits of people who make disruptive discoveries and innovations. Do successful people just have better ideas, or do they just have more ideas? How does birth order determine your career aspirations? When are our innovative ideas applauded, instead of laughed at or criticized?
Originals offers surprising take-home messages that clarify how we should view and approach "success".
Master of Change - Brad Stulberg
Stulberg has been one of my largest influences as a coach. Over the past three years, I've read and found tremendous value in most of his books. As a coach himself, he's exceptional at not only articulating scientific foundations for practice, but also at laying out practical strategies for putting those concepts into action.
Master of Change is Stulberg's manifesto on how all of us can be more resilient to or more accepting of changes in our lives-- a trait we can develop that he calls "rugged flexibility". Whether it be the loss of a family member, a change in career, or changes in our own health, Stulberg has produced a science-backed argument for how we can best endure the inevitable changes of life.
Honorable Mention:
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science - Nicholas B. Tiller
Tiller, a research fellow in the Lindquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, is an expert in the latest science on ultramarathon running. He's contributed to some meaningful research on the impacts of this growing sport and is a participant himself.
His pet project for the last few years, it seems, has been debunking "pseudoscience"-- the scientific sounding claims of products and services in the health and fitness industry that have little-to-no true scientific foundations. They are convincing liars, Tiller argues.
The book is direct with a focus on educating readers on how to read science so we can all better differentiate between science and its evil twin. It will appeal to the reader whose overwhelmed by endless grand claims of fitness, health and wellness companies-- and will set that reader on a more informed path to true wellness.
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