The top 5 books that changed me the most in 2019

In this blog post, I’ll chat a little bit about the books that influenced and changed me the most in 2019. Compared to last year, I’ve read a couple more books. In 2017 I didn’t read any book so I already made a lot of progress in 2018. In that year I read 10 books, but in 2019 I read 16 books and I’m very satisfied with that accomplishment. Let’s start with the top 5 books that influenced me the most in 2019.

5. Leonardo Da Vinci: the biography – Walter Isaacson

This was one of the toughest books I’ve read, mainly because the book contains 524 detailed pages of Leonardo’s life in different timelines. Walter Isaacson is a thoughtful writer who has unique words for every description. And I, with my pretty good English, had to look up words a lot.

Reading about Leonardo’s extraordinary life gives great insight into the mind of a genius. To enjoy the little things in life more, as explained in the book. It also thought me that you can be a master in multiple areas, as long as you put your mind to it. I have become a fan of Leonardo. You can read my review here.

4. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living – Dale Carnegie

I have read ‘How to Wind Friends and Influence People’ last year which let me to wanting to read this one and it didn’t disappoint. There are lots of really helpful tips on how to stop worrying and every time I worry a bit more I read these tips. I would suggest reading this book with a marker and mark the most important (to you) tips, then you can always grab the book and find the information that helped you the most. You can read my review here.

3. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

Meditations is written by the famous Roman emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Marcus was born in the year 121 and in his life, he had written down all his learnings, which are still applicable today. The book is divided into different sections of his life and all learnings are numbered, so it isn’t really written as a whole. You have probably already seen multiple quotes by him. I would recommend reading this book with a marker too and mark the important tips from Marcus. This book helped me remember that we should enjoy the present moment as much as we can and that we should accept that we could die at any moment, as long as we are satisfied and happy at that moment.

2. Everything is fucked: A book about hope – Mark Manson

So if you have read ‘The subtle art of not giving a fuck’, you know Mark is truly a remarkable writer. In his new book, Mark goes pretty in-depth in life and why people actually feel bad because of too many pleasures and choices. There are parts in the book about how the human brain reacts to certain things and it was extremely interesting to read. I wrote an article about this on Medium which you can read here. This book helped me to keep in mind that we shouldn’t hope to be better,  but just… be better.

1. Your brain on porn – Gary Wilson

This list contains the most influencing books of my 2019; the book that changed me the most is without a doubt this one. I’ve written about this problem multiple times before and I think everyone should know more about this problem. This book goes very in-dept in how the brain responds to porn, the same way it responds to drugs. Therefore I would recommend this book to anyone. I wrote an article about this problem on Medium which you can read here.

Thanks for reading. I hope you got some more motivation now to start reading more or to pick up one of these books. If you did, let me know what you thought of it below or send me a direct message on my Instagram.

~Wouter