I find it interesting how books end up on someone’s reading list. No doubt, most of them are recommendations from friends and colleagues: books by friends of ours, books to teach us about our new dog, a book about the town (San Clemente) where we had one of our two summer weddings. However, this year, I think many more than ever landed in front of me because I learned about them through Kit itself – after three years of working on the site, the data is now strong enough now to consistently deliver great recommendations. A particularly interesting example was Ellen Pao’s Reset: the site not only highlighted this for me based on many others’ lists, but it’s one that came up in conversation numerous times on our team, because she is an investor in Kit too!

Overall, I had a pretty good run in 2017; I edged out the previous year’s list not only in number, but I think in variety too.

The books we read no doubt shape the thoughts we have, but perhaps it works just as well the other way too: the things weighing on our mind can determine which books we pick up. If 2016 was focused more on health, this past year had more biographies and even some fiction. Maybe I just craved an escape from a wild year in news and just wanted to go back to reading about people, their struggles, their successes, their mental models, how they inspire and how they show great things are still ahead of us.

Here’s my full 2017 book list on Kit: