Let me confess something: I’m that person who still hoards books while everyone else has evolved into podcast-consuming sophisticates. Don’t get me wrong – I too consume podcasts during my morning exercises (or what I optimistically label as ‘exercise’), but there’s something about the printed word that refuses to let go of my soul. As I read non-fiction books to keep up professionally, I make it a point to add good literary fiction into the mix to have a have holistic view of the human condition.
Recently, I found myself in a literary love triangle between Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. It started innocently enough – I thought I’d use Murakami as a palate cleanser between Harari’s dense chapters about information networks.
Like a moth to a particularly weird flame, I got sucked into Murakami’s universe. Before I knew it, I’d devoured four more of his books faster than you can say “mysterious cat appears with cryptic message.” Meanwhile, my Harari bookmark sits there unmoved, judging me silently from its position somewhere along the first third of the book.
Here’s the thing about non-fiction business books – they’re more like history class meets fortune-telling, with the author confidently narrating what did happen or what will happen, while subtly flexing their own genius. And for all their claims of impartiality, some of these authors reveal their biases faster than a poker player with a bad bluff.
Literary fiction, on the other hand, is where the real human drama unfolds. Whether you’re reading about alternate 1984 Tokyo or independent India at the strike of midnight, these stories capture what it feels like to be gloriously, messily human. They chronicle the same butterflies that we feel in our stomach when we’re in love, or the same existential dread when contemplating our place in the universe (usually around 3 AM).
Whether you’re the CEO of a multinational company or hustling in the gig economy, the emotions we feel—love, joy, loss—are universal. Our time on Earth is short, and we all do our best to make sense of it. Good fiction captures these messy, complex moments in ways non-fiction just can’t.
So here’s my New Year’s suggestion: between your Malcolm Gladwell and Simon Sinek, read some good literary fiction. While Michael Lewis might make you smarter about markets, Gabriel García Márquez might just make you feel less alone in your beautiful human chaos.
And who knows? You might find yourself, like me, happily lost in a literary maze where cats talk philosophy and mysterious women appear in moonlight. Trust me, it’s a much more interesting place to be than in a chapter about synergistic business strategies.