In 2023, I read some great books, fiction and non-fiction. These were my 5 favourites:

• The Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2) by Patrick Rothfuss. This is the sequel of The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) which I’ve read in 2022 and got me hooked on the fantasy genre. For years I’ve only read fiction books and seemingly forgot the positive influence that delving yourself in a fiction story has on creativity. Rothfuss has a way of describing his characters, locations, and magical adventures in such an elegant way that it even inspired some of my business writing. The magical world he creates remains teasingly close to chemistry, physics, and spiritual phenomenons that we all know and are familiar with. As a result, it only requires a tiny bit of imagination to let your mind go along with the story and exist in the fictional world of Temerant.
  
• Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin is probably America’s most admired biographer and is specifically known for her biography on American President Lyndon Johnson, who she worked for in the White House. In Leadership: in Turbulent Times she describes four different leadership styles, possessed by four different US Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt. The life stories of these men are in itself worth the read, but the leadership angle makes this book a must-read for everyone interested in personal growth and seeking to be inspired to persevere in challenging times.
  
• Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath by Bill Browder. Freezing Order is the followup of Red Notice, and if you haven’t read that book you should do that first. This is a non-fiction business thriller describing the crimes that were committed as part of the privatisation in the Soviet Union. Jaw-dropping at times. A book difficult to put down.
  
• Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control by Ryan Holiday. Holiday is a master of storytelling and shares Stoic wisdom through entertaining, inspiring, and impressive accounts.
  
• When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom. Fiction meets non-fiction in this historic novel, in which some of Europe’s most famous philosophers and psychiatrists meet in 19th-century Vienna to fight despair. Beautifully written, you get introduced to techniques of leading psychiatrists Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, as well as groundbreaking philosophical beliefs developed by Friedrich Nietzsche.