Guide

Book year 2024: What do Kobe Bryant, Maria Stuart and David Goggins have in common?

27/12/2024

Translation: machine translated

My reading year 2024 consisted of non-fiction and biographical works. After years of reading fiction, I was in the mood for something new. I discovered a lot of inspiring things for myself and got to know fascinating people and their life stories.

At first glance, a basketball star, a Scottish queen and an elite endurance athlete seem to have little in common. But all three share extraordinary life stories in which they have overcome immense challenges and inspired millions of people. In 2024, my book list consisted of biographies and non-fiction books and I explored well-known and lesser-known personalities.

I wanted to find ideas and inspiration for my life and learn from lessons that more experienced, wiser people had learnt before me. In addition to Kobe Bryant, Maria Stuart and David Goggins, I found such inspiration and lessons from people as diverse as Austin Keon, Alexander von Humboldt, Zora del Buono and Rick Rubin.

Biographies, art, history and nutrition

Can't hurt me: David Goggin's autobiographical book about his childhood and youth, his time in the US Navy Seals and finally the beginnings of his career as an ultra-racer was my first book of the year. On the one hand, I find Goggin's life and what he made of it, coming from a difficult background, quite impressive. On the other hand, the way he tells his story is too Americanised and glorified and some of the lessons he wants to pass on are too "tough guy" for me.

Non-fiction

Can't Hurt Me

German, David Goggins, Peter Peschke, 2023

Maria Stuart: Friedrich Schiller's play about the rivalry between the English Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart is generally regarded as a near-perfect tragedy. Anyone who is still traumatised by (forced) readings of classical plays during their school days is probably better off keeping their hands off it. Personally, I really enjoyed Schiller's dramaturgical quality, the drawing of the characters and the intensity of the slides and monologues while reading.

Fiction

Maria Stuart

German, Friedrich Schiller, 2009

Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature: I can say that the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, written by historian Andrea Wulf, was my literary highlight of the year. The life of Humboldt with all his adventures, research trips, discoveries and works that he created are an incredibly rich treasure trove of knowledge. An impressive man whose importance to humanity cannot be overemphasised.

Reference books

Alexander von Humboldt und die Erfindung der Natur

German, Andrea Wulf, 2016

Memoir of a girl: The autobiographical text by the 2022 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Frenchwoman Annie Ernaux, recounts a few weeks of her life in the summer of 1958 that were absolutely crucial to her development as a person and, above all, as a woman. In an intimate, tragic way. In a mixture of cold distance and the most intimate emotionality, she describes her youth and French society at the time through her first infatuation, a rape and the resulting shame. A book that shook and moved me, easy to read but hard to digest.

Fiction

Erinnerung eines Mädchens

German, Annie Ernaux, 2018

Tobacco and Chocolate: Martin R. Dean's autobiographical novel briefly summarised: a very personal, often bitter novel about colonialism, exclusion, repression and racism between India, Trinidad and Aargau. You can read my impressions summarised in more detail here:

Review
A family history between Aargau, Trinidad and India
by Oliver Fischer

Fiction

Tabak und Schokolade

German, Martin R. Dean, 2024

Seinetwegen: Zora del Buono won the Swiss Book Prize 2024 for her novel, which is also autobiographical. She takes you on a search for the man who was responsible for the accidental death of her father when she herself was only eight months old. A powerful work about loss, repression and the power of empathy. I have also reviewed this book in detail:

Fiction

Seinetwegen

German, Zora del Buono, 2024

Mamba Mentality: Kobe Bryant was undoubtedly one of the best and most influential basketball players of all time. He played his entire career for the Los Angeles Lakers and won five NBA titles with the club. I'm glad I opened the book in the summer and read the various stages and lessons that Bryant's work ethic - the "Mamba Mentality" - has taught me. Even though I think the book could have had more content. But because the photos from his 20-year career are impressive. They make me overlook the fact that the book's message could be reduced to the phrase "work more and harder than everyone else".

Guidebooks

Mamba Mentality

German, Andrew D. Bernstein, 2019

On the road: While Roger Willemsen, known as a TV presenter, radio journalist, columnist and author, was already considered one of the great German intellectuals during his lifetime, reading this selection of texts only appealed to me to a limited extent. Although linguistically very skilful, the stories themselves and Willemsen's thought processes as a whole remained alien to me.

Audiobooks

On the road

Roger Willemsen, WDR Big Band, German

Creative. The art of being: Rick Rubin, one of the most successful music producers of the past decades, spreads out his personal insights and lessons in his book, thanks to which he/we can lead a creative life. In my opinion, Rubin's "lessons" sometimes stray into esoteric realms. Time and again, however, I also come across very interesting thoughts and therefore regularly open the book to read a lesson.

Non-fiction

kreativ. Die Kunst zu sein

German, Rick Rubin, 2023

Ikigai: I stumbled across this book by chance while browsing in a bookshop at the airport and bought it rather out of embarrassment. However, the introduction to this Japanese concept for a "life worth living" immediately grabbed me and I drew many ideas from it that I have been trying to integrate into my everyday life ever since.

Guidebooks

Ikigai

German, Ken Mogi, 2018

Show your work: Austin Kleon is an American graphic designer turned author. He became known through the book "Steal like an artist". I have now read the follow-up "Show your work", which is about presenting and publicising your work as a creative, for example how productive collaborations, feedback or insights into the creative process can be.

Guidebooks

Show Your Work!

German, Austin Kleon, 2016

Outliers: In German, the book by science journalist Malcolm Gladwell is called "Überflieger". In it, Gladwell looks at people who have been extraordinarily successful in their lives - and why. In it, he lays to rest the myth of the "American Dream", the "from dishwasher to millionaire" narrative, and shows why the most successful people were above all the beneficiaries of fortunate circumstances. Whereby their achievements and what they made of these circumstances did indeed require above-average performance. An entertaining and enlightening read.

Reference books

Outliers

English, Malcolm Gladwell, 2009

21 lessons for the 21st century: A look into the past, a look at the present and a look into the future. These are Yuval Noah Harari's books "A Brief History of Humanity", "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" and "Homo Deus". I have now read the look at the present. In it, the Israeli historian is rather cautiously pessimistic about our approach to artificial intelligence, the climate crisis and weapons of mass destruction. An interesting read, even if I don't always agree with Harari's predictions.

Reference books

21 Lektionen für das 21. Jahrhundert

German, Yuval Noah Harari, 2024

The nutrition compass: Science journalist Bas Kast has achieved a pretty big and very successful hit with his "Nutrition Compass". An overview of, or so he says, all the studies available on the topic of nutrition at the time of the research. In other words, a meta-meta-analysis of the current state of research. Several editions, each with updated data, have appeared since the first publication in 2018. After reading the book, I applied some of the findings to my diet and am still very happy with it today.

Reference books

Der Ernährungskompass

German, Bas Chest, 2022

A Little History Of Art: I love art museums, but have no real idea about either art or art history. Until now. Because the book "A Little History Of Art" by Charlotte Mullins provides a remedy. From the oldest known cave paintings to contemporary art, Mullins gives a concise, succinct overview of the development of visual art in human history. I particularly like the fact that she doesn't take a purely Eurocentric perspective, but also focuses on art creation in Asia, Africa and America and also explicitly places women in art at the centre.

Non-fiction

A Little History of Art

English, Charlotte Mullins, 2022

After a year of reading only non-fiction, I can say that I have found inspiration and learnt lessons. About grief and forgiveness from Zora del Buono, about creativity from Rick Rubin and Austin Keon, about work ethic and discipline from Kobe Bryant and David Goggins. As different as these people and their stories may be, and as different as the books by or about them may be, I have found reading them enriching, even from those authors to whom I have not always found access.

Now I'm looking forward to my 2025 book list, which once again includes some specialised books and biographical works, but above all a lot of fiction in various genres.

Which books were your personal highlights? Write it in the comments.

Header image: Oliver Fischer

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Oliver Fischer

Teamleader Editorial

Oliver.Fischer@digitecgalaxus.ch

Globetrotter, hiker, wok world champion (not in the ice channel), word acrobat and photo enthusiast.

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