Many years ago, I solved the Christmas gift-giving game: I buy people books.
A book says, “I think you’re the sort of person who has an attention span longer than 30 seconds and enjoys learning about something. In other words, I think you’re smart.”
Here are the books I’ll be putting in my Santa sack this year:
Crypto Confidential: Winning and Losing Millions in the New Frontier of Finance
By Nathaniel Eliason
This was hands down my favourite book of the year. Nat Eliason was in a jam: he was unemployed, and his wife was pregnant. He had just six months to turn things around, so he decided to roll the dice and attempt to get as rich as quickly as he could in crypto.
And … it worked! At one point his crypto holdings were valued at over $US10 million.
However, the trouble was always just around the corner, where Nat came up against scammers and sleazebags of the highest order. This isn’t just a cautionary tale – it’s totally ‘bonkerballs’, as my eight-year-old would say.
Given Bitcoin is booming on the back of the incoming ‘Crypto-Prez’, I’d strongly advise reading this book before you dabble. You’ll learn a lot about coins, monkey pics and blockchain. You’ll also laugh out loud a lot.
It’s the perfect beach read … or a great gift for your idiot brother-in-law.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
By Jonathan Haidt
This is the book that helped kick off a revolution.
Not only are today’s kids more anxious, depressed and suicidal than in previous generations, they’re also dumber (Aussie students are among the world’s biggest users of digital devices at school, yet their academic results have fallen a full academic year behind those who went to school in the 2000s).
Haidt lays the blame squarely at the feet of the always-on dopamine syringes in everyone’s pockets, and calls for an end to the great experiment of ‘phone-based childhood’. The Anxious Generation will give you an understanding of what drove our government to create the world-first social media ban for teens.
A perfect gift for every parent.
Storyworth: give them the gift of telling their story
This isn’t a book … it’s a sneaky way to get your parents to write their own book.
Here’s the deal: once a week, Storyworth zaps them an email with a question like:
“What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever done?”
“What was your most embarrassing fashion choice?”
“Where were you when Neil Armstrong made his giant leap?”
They simply reply to each email and, by year’s end, voila – a printed book of their life stories to keep forever (or so the sales pitch goes).
I bought this for Christmas for my mum a few years ago. She loved it. In fact her Storyworth ended up rivalling The Lord of the Rings in length.
Let’s face it – Storyworth is just a clever way to help the older people in your life crank out their memoirs, one email nudge at a time. Genius, really.
Tread Your Own Path!