449. Best Books, Articles, and Newsletters of 2023 🥺
A reading list roundup of some of my favorite bookmarks from the past year
Hellooo 👋 So happy to have you here. I’m Kevan. I have spent 15+ years as a head of marketing for some cool tech startups. Now I’m co-founding a brand storytelling business called Bonfire. We do coaching, advisory, and content, and we’d love to hear from you, anytime. Come say hello.
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Best of 2023: Books, Articles, and Newsletters
Every December I put together lists of my favorite things from the past year. You can search the archive here to see what I liked in the past — and cringe with me at how my tastes used to be!
This newsletter starts the first of my 2023 Best Of lists, and we start with a place that is near and dear to me: reading and writing. There’s a lot of great content out there! Ironically, just this week, I listened to a podcast about deep reading, which is a way to combat the overwhelm of content that exists in the world, which I’m kind of contributing to by writing a newsletter full of content for you to read. Nevertheless, I prevail!
Often I will do a standalone best books of the year. I read about 50 books every year (one per week), but you know what? I didn’t really like a whole lot of books this year. So to round out the list, I thought I’d make it more of a reading list full of articles, newsletters, posts, and yes a book or two.
Let me know some of your favorite things of 2023 by hitting reply. I’d love to hear from you.
My favorite new-to-me books of 2023
Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson — The narrator meets an old high school friend who catches him up on what’s happened since high school … and it’s a lot!
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton — A thriller (that I didn’t realize was a thriller until I was in too deep) about class and identity told through a story of environmental non-profits and weirdo billionaires
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith — An honest and vulnerable memoir about relationships and growing older
I didn’t read any really good business books this year. If you know of one or two, please drop me a reply. I’ll add them to my list!
The best articles I read (or saved, intending to read)
I was axed as Oatly's creative director - here are 5 arguably useful lessons [The Drum]
The art and science of spending money [Morgan Housel]
Product-market fit isn’t binary, it’s a scale [Enzo Avigo, LinkedIn]
Pretty much everything Enzo writes on LinkedIn is interesting or thought-provoking.
Same with everything Emily Kramer writes.
Same with Elena Verna.
Thanks, I hate it [Kelly Watkins]
The Future of Customer Loyalty [Ogilvy]
Some cool newsletters and best issues
My substacks (plus a few non-substack favorites)
Ari Murray’s Go To Millions newsletter
My favorite newsletter issues
Having worked in HR tech, I resonate with a lot of this.
“Pour your love into the good ones. Find the people who match your values and show them how much they count. Grab onto people who love like you do and give them all that you can.”
Over to you
What did you love reading in 2023?
What were your favorite books, articles, or newsletters?
I’d love to hear from you!
About this newsletter …
Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I previously built brands at Oyster, Buffer, and Vox. Now I am cofounder at Bonfire, a brand storytelling company.
Each week on this substack, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. Not yet subscribed? No worries. You can check out the archive, or sign up below:
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I’m lucky to count folks from great brands like these (and many more) as part of this newsletter community.
