5 Stars-I would recommend these to anyone. 

The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple

The Gatekeepers is the best book I read this year. Chris Whipple gives an inside view of American history through the lens of White House Chiefs of Staff, and his interviews include some great stories. Before each new administration, all Chiefs of Staff alumni (both parties) come together to give advice to the new Chief of Staff. 

The Chief of Staff role is a fairly new position in the White House, and Richard Nixon was the first President to employ one. The Chief of Staff role is arguably the most important/most powerful non-elected position in the U.S. Government. I never considered the role a Chief of Staff might have on enacting legislation and generally managing the White House. The book goes through interviews with every Chief of Staff from Nixon’s to Trump’s, and Whipple provides a balanced perspective on the effectiveness of each staff/administration. 

“In campaigning, you try to demonize your opponent. In governing, you make love to your opponent. That’s how you put coalitions together.”

All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians by Phil Elwood

Phil Elwood’s memoir influences every piece of “news” I consume. Elwood goes scorched earth showcasing the underbelly of public relations, and the book is awesome. All the Worst Humans came out in June 2024, and I cannot believe the recency and depth/dirt of stories included.

Elwood balances heavy and sad global topics with humor and wild stories about his wide-ranging roles as a PR operative. In an election year, I appreciated the behind-the-scenes look into news stories and the people who create them. The book makes me question everything I see in the news, and I think it provides interesting context to the role PR firms play in a 24/7 news cycle. Elwood weaves his own struggle/reckoning with his work throughout the book, and I am curious how Elwood’s book impacts the industry long term. 

“PR firms employ two types of people: bureaucrats and operatives. Bureaucrats are the accountants. The conference call leaders. The digital paper pushers. Operatives infect newsrooms. Call reporters. Do whatever it takes to get ink. I have always been and will always be an operative. Put it on my tombstone. Ninety percent of mega firms don’t know what to do with an operative. An operative at a mega firm is like a Navy SEAL working at the post office.”

4 Stars-Good books overall, really good if you find the topic interesting. 

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides

In the Kingdom of Ice follows George De Long’s North Pole exploration voyage. I enjoyed the history of North Pole voyages (scientists thought there was a chance that the North Pole was tropical because of 24 hour summer sunshine). I also enjoyed the behind the scenes look into the meticulous planning required for a multi-year voyage. The story covers a wide range of perspectives with diaries from multiple crew members. The book is well-written, funny, agonizing and ultimately sad. 

“During 1880, the dogs had become a central part of the Jeannette adventure. They had hunted and hauled, they had entertained, they had caused countless headaches, but they were indispensable. Once, thirty of them were used to drag a colossal walrus kill back to the ship, a prize that weighed twenty-eight hundred pounds. The men had gotten to know the dogs, had named them and picked favorites. Kasmatka. Tom. Quicksilver. Jack. Prince. Smike. Bismarck. Paddy. Skinny. Foxy. Plug Ugly. Dewclaws. Snuffy. Snoozer. Joe. Jim. Armstrong. Wolf. Bingo. They ate just about anything—rotten fish, seal entrails, walrus blubber, condemned foodstuffs, slops of all kinds—and they remained surprisingly healthy. “They are fat as dumplings,” De Long said, “and as lazy as human beings in the tropics.”

Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and a Dream (25th Anniversary Edition)  by H.G. Bissinger

H.G. Bissinger wrote Friday Night Lights in 1988, and it was turned into a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton in 2004. I remember enjoying the movie, but I am glad I read the book (as always, the original book is better than the movie). 

Bissinger covers the reality of Texas high school football through Permian High School in Odessa. The book gives significantly more context to the racial tensions (integration is hard and delayed in Texas) and economic state of Odessa (the oil industry is a bust in 1988) compared to the movie. The book provides an indictment on the Odessa education system as it relates to student-athletes receiving beneficial academic treatment. 

I read the 25th Anniversary version, and Bissinger follows up with all of the people he interviewed throughout the original book. I loved the epilogue, and it was unique because Bissinger also got to talk to the stars of the book/movie 25 years later to see how fame impacted them. High School football stardom truly is the high point for many people. Even if it wasn’t your peak (cc: Doherty football 2006-2009…), high school football is still a special time in your life which is why this story connects with so many people. 

“Their pictures appeared on the Wall of Fame as in a shrine to eternal youth, men who no matter how old they were, no matter what they had done or hadn’t done, whether they had become lawyers or car thieves, whether they were happily married or had the beaten, sucked-in look of divorce, whether they were successful or were still groping to rekindle that indescribable moment when everything was all right and the entire world flickered beneath them with outstretched arms and every man looked jealous and every woman looked like a lover, whether they missed the game beyond their wildest dreams or had come to hate it beyond their wildest dreams, they would always, always, be thought of in cleats and pads and a helmet with a P on the side that burned as brightly as the sun.”

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

Paved Paradise shines a light on an overlooked piece of most city dwellers’ day-to-day experience. Parking spaces and parking policy flavor every urban environment, and Grabar makes a compelling case illustrating the high and unintended cost of parking. 

The lack of intentional plans and study around parking tore apart urban cores, drove up the cost of housing, and created massive problems with no easy solutions for residents and city administrators alike. 

I appreciated this book’s niche insight into something so universal. Fun facts are sprinkled throughout the book (the mob runs most East Coast parking operations because they were perfect for laundering money in the 1970s). I also loved the chapter detailing $1 billion mismanagement of the Chicago parking enterprise.

“Parking is as absent from the training of architects, planners, and engineers as it is from the culture at large. It’s overlooked even by the governments and institutions that depend on its good order, marooned between the technical domains of transportation and land use.”

Gangbuster: One Man’s Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan by Alan Prendergast

I love the history of cities, and Gangbuster provided an interesting look into the corruption of Denver in the 1920s. The city administration was closely connected to the KKK, and organized crime held a strong presence. I admired the work of Philip Van Cise as the District Attorney, and I am hoping this book shines a brighter light on his work cleaning up Denver. 

Nobody Cares About Your Career: Why Failure is Good, the Great Ones Play Hurt, and Other Hard Truths by Erika Ayers Badan

Nobody Cares About Your Career was a dark horse favorite for me this year. Erika Ayers Badan was the CEO of Barstool from 2016-2024. I heard Ayers Badan on a podcast, and I enjoyed her humor and perspective. I wasn’t sure what to expect from her book, but it was funny, easy-to-read, and deeply introspective. It provided a lot of great questions to consider when evaluating career opportunities and different workplace cultures. I would have gained a ton from this book early in my career, and it still resonated with me in time of a career transition. 

“My approach to work has been simple: Work is an apprenticeship, no matter what level you’re at or where you do it. There’s always something to learn at work—always something you can do better; something that can change, pivot, or evolve; and always someone to learn from. Work is the tuition you also get paid for.”

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

The Big Roads is the incredible history of the American Interstate System. Swift provides great background into the challenges facing a country with exponential growth in vehicle ownership, quickly evolving cities, and the engineers who developed the maps and asphalt specs for roads that had to cut through swamps and climb over mountain passes. 

“As finally laid out, the Federal Aid system totaled 168,881 miles, or only about 5.9 percent of the total road mileage—and as the Chief noted, it reached 90 percent of the nation’s population and included “not one, or two, or three transcontinental roads but dozens of them crossing the country from the East to the West and from Canada to the Gulf and the Mexican border.”

Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival by Peter Stark

I read multiple sad exploration books in 2024, and Astoria provided an interesting view into the Pacific Northwest. John Jacob Astoria makes a massive bet on opening a trading post in the Pacific Northwest, and Stark wrote a compelling story detailing the moving pieces. I appreciated the view into the wealthy Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest and the challenges in navigating the original Oregon trail. 

“Astor definitely believed in runs of luck. He also believed in meticulous planning, bold vision, huge risk, and relentless focus on his bottom line.”

Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix it by M Nolan Gray

Arbitrary Lines is the history of zoning in the United States (I swear it’s not as boring as it sounds). Similar to parking, zoning policy impacts every environment you encounter on a day-to-day basis, and Gray makes a compelling argument that zoning was always used for exclusion.

“Zoning is not a good institution gone bad. Its purpose is not to address traditional externalities or coordinate growth with infrastructure, as suggested by zoning defenders and envisioned in the sanitized SimCity version of city planning. On the contrary, zoning is a mechanism of exclusion designed to inflate property values, slow the pace of new development, segregate cities by race and class, and enshrine the detached single-family house as the exclusive urban ideal—always has been.”

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel

The Art Thief is the story of Stephane Breitweser stealing more than $2 billion worth of priceless art and storing it in his mom’s attic bedroom. Weird dude. Good read. 

3 Stars-Solid books that I finished/read 50%+ but didn’t love

Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values, Good Character. Good Deeds. By Ryan Holiday

I buy all of the Ryan Holiday books. I thought this one provided interesting insight into individuals throughout history getting things done in a political environment and the tradeoff with their personal values.

“Too many activists think there is something noble about being outsiders. They think the whole system is corrupt. They think the system is the problem. They’re not wrong—there are real problems. But because of their idealism and purity they’re not able to do anything about those problems, and so they themselves are part of the problem all the same. It’s very hard to change that system from a distance.”

Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be by Timothy P. Carney

Family Unfriendly provides an interesting viewpoint on American parenting. Carney is upfront with his bias (Catholic dad of six), but I resonated with a lot of his critiques on the current pressures facing today’s parents. I appreciated his commentary on academic and athletic achievement.

The extreme-pressure, club model of sports is not working for the participants (burnout) or the lower income families who can’t participate because of the high cost. He also makes a case for more neighborhood gatherings, unstructured play, and community trust. 

Carney gets a little out there with arguments for reducing car seat standards and political/employment policies subsidizing large families in later chapters. 

“What matters far more is that you give your kids a happy childhood and build an environment for them that cultivates the virtues that will make them happy and good adults with meaningful lives. And there are often trade-offs between the pursuit of achievement and the pursuit of happiness.”

“The whole process starts with lowering your ambitions for your kids when it comes to sports, music, dance, or whatever, and understanding that these good things are means to more important ends: the building of life skills, good habits, and virtues.”

Call an Audible: Let My Pivot from Harvard Law to NFL Coach Inspire Your Transition by Daron K. Roberts

I love an inspiring sports story, but this one was a little too cheesy for me. Call an Audible follows Roberts’ journey from Harvard Law School to the lowest rung on the professional football coaching ladder. If you have no shame, a willingness to abandon your enjoyment of life, you too can pursue any job when you are underqualified. So. Much. Cringe. (I am embarrassed to have finished this book, but I did appreciate the behind-the-scenes view into NFL coaching careers). 

“Asking for the difficult tasks that most people loathe must be an automatic response to any situation. The lunacy of asking for the worst jobs in an office will only build your mythology and establish your credibility.”

“Although I had a few allies on the team, many people remained skeptical of my intentions. I needed to be that constant, quasi-annoying force that was eager to do any task, anytime, anywhere. That was my ultimate goal.”

Level Headed: Inside the Walls of One of the Greatest Turnaround Stories of the 21st Century by J. Doug Pruitt and Richard Condit

I read Level Headed for my career (not a ton of books out there on general contractors). It was a solid turnaround story of Sundt (large federal contractor out of Arizona). I learned a lot, but it was pretty dry. 

“How could such a good company almost fail? The common denominators of our troubled years were: Multiple losses, litigation, lack of focus, loss of discipline, arrogance, lack of training, failure to create succession plans, and lack of leadership.”

The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security by Scott Galloway

I generally enjoy listening to Galloway’s podcasts, but this book was not my favorite. The first two chapters were solid. His uncensored advice was the strength of the book, but the overall flow was disjointed and out of place. Much of the secondary content was derived from Ryan Holiday and James Clear. The second half of the book was written like a corporate finance textbook which felt odd/out of place. 

“From the outset of your relationship, you have to get real about money. Marriage is many things; an economic contract is one of them. This means talking about it. Treating money as a taboo might be one of the worst societal norms in America.”

Books I bought and abandoned after a chapter or two… (It is okay to quit books!)

The Way of the Champion: Pain, Persistence, and the Path Forward by Paul Rabil

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection over Correction by Becky Kennedy