The best Christmas gift under $30
Christmas shopping sucks, right?
Not for me.
Years ago, I cracked the Christmas shopping code: I buy people books.
They’re the ultimate present — they cost under $30, they don’t need a separate card (I simply scribble a Merry Christmas message on the inside cover), and my local bookstore will even gift wrap them for me.
Job done!
Here are the books I’ve got in my Santa sack this year:
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation
Edward Chancellor
This is probably the best book on financial speculation ever written.
Devil Take the Hindmost finds that most speculative booms over the past 400 years have followed the same script:
It begins with a breakthrough technology that promises to revolutionise the world and deliver untold riches to investors.
The early investors make a fortune, which attracts novice investors (who often gamble with borrowed money).
And then, when least expected, prices begin to wobble. The true believers see it as a blip, and buy the dip.
And then comes Black [Insert Day], when prices plunge and everyone loses their mind, and their shirt.
This book is a great gift for anyone who holds Dogecoin.
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
It’s been said that the majority of the stuff we consume on our phones was created within the last 24 hours.
We snack on clickbait headlines, mean tweets and skin shots like sugary junk food designed to hit our dopamine receptors. And it leaves us feeling empty, insecure and unsatisfied.
My view?
It’s time to get a bit more fibre in your information diet.
Tweets can be fired off on the toilet. Clickbait articles are spun out in media sweatshops solely for eyeballs. Writing a book, on the other hand, takes hundreds of hours of labour, deep thought and craft. And the very best stand the test of time – some literally for thousands of years – like Meditations, by Marcus Aurelias.
It’s called that because that’s what you’re reading: the private thoughts and meditations from the wisest Roman emperor in history, who is riffing on how to be a strong, stoic person … and not totally freak out and rock in a corner with crippling anxiety when you’re surrounded by war and disease.
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” (but presumably not to scroll mindlessly through Insta).
A great gift for anyone face down in their newsfeed over Christmas lunch.
Atomic Habits
James Clear
This is easily the best book on habit change I’ve ever read.
Let’s say you want to develop the habit of going to the gym. Rather than relying on willpower, or positive affirmations, or flogging yourself, Atomic Habits will get you to break the habit down as small as possible, like putting on your runners and showing up at the gym but not forcing yourself to go in and work out.
What’s all that about?
What you’re doing is proving to yourself that you’re the type of person who turns up at the gym. “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity”, says Clear.
A great gift after the trainwreck of the last few years. I mean, who doesn’t want to make a few changes in 2022?
Tread Your Own Path!