This year I read or attempted to read 75 books.  There were some dogs but also some great ones.  I tried to come up with the “best book of the year” but that is pointless, they are all so different.  So I will highlight a number of different books that excelled in different ways. 

Best Mystery:  The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley.  A solid hard-bitten detective tale, everything you want in a private eye.  

Best Adventure: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.  If you like more fantastical adventures, this is a great tale and really ought to be a movie or TV series.

Best Historical Novel:  Washington Black by Esi Edugyan.  If you like your adventures a little more grounded in historical reality, this is for you.  Would also be fantastic on screen.

Best History: Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf.  If you like actual history, this is a great telling of the events at Kent State, and exposes the dangers of involving armed military in civil protests.  Almost chose this for best graphic novel, but for…

Best Graphic Novel: Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh.  Irreverent, at times hilarious, at times moving.  Well done.  

Best Irreverent: Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christoper Moore. Irreverent, some may even view as offensive, but I found it respectful and uplifting in a humanist way.

Best Current Events:  Getting back to our current situation and lives, there are 3 books that I enjoyed and gave me some insight on myself or the world.  

• One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger by Matthew Yglesias.  You might object to his solution but this book clearly focuses on a challenge we face, and it is hard to imagine solutions that don’t involve growth.  
• The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics by Eric Beinhocker.  A worthy effort to reexamine economics from first principles.
• Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.  There are many books you can read on discrimination and racism in our society, this was the best for me.

Best Math/Science.  Digging a little deeper, these were the math/science books that I enjoyed the most this year.  

• Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder.  A criticism of current thinking in physics.  I don’t follow physics closely enough to know if this is all warranted.
• Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner.  We all forecast in our lives, and we are probably all not that great at it, as this book will make you realize.
• But What If We’re Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman.  Challenges your thinking about what you know and believe, which is always good.  

Would love to hear your thoughts on books you read this year.

• Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Great tale of intrigue inside MI5. Started a little choppy but then the story took off and the characters rose to the fore.
• Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett. I really thought I would like this, but too much “angels on the head of a pin” for me.
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. What an awesome tale of a gang of thieves ensnared in conspiracy on top of conspiracy. Really fun read.
• Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh. At times funny, at times deeply sad, always very human. Some of the insights into dogs and pet owners are hilarious.

• The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry. Would have been a good graphic novel – evil albino twins, gene-engineered monsters (scorpion-dogs!), Nazis, a plot to end the world. Just a so-so book.
• Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino. Agatha Christie style story, fun, I would happily read more of these.
• The North Water by Ian McGuire. Baffin Island always sounded cool as a kid. This book puts the kibosh on that, it is a murderous place. Good tale.
• Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil. When the author sticks to anecdotes and data, and allows the reader to form their own opinions, this book works. But the author spends too much time telling the reader how to think, versus leading the reader.

• Collapse of an Empire by Yegor Gaidar. Good look at the unraveling of the USSR, it’s inherent fragility, and the human costs of the unraveling. Recommended by my Russian friends.
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alex Harrow. Love stories wrapped up in a tale of many worlds. More touching than expected.
• The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday. Might have been more meaningful earlier in life. At my advanced age, you’ve probably learned most of these lessons.

• The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin. A book about a terrible storm written by a Russian author? I expected some serious gloom, but this story was trippy and strange. Memorable but weird.
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad. A challenging book, but I certainly need to be challenged on these issues. Very worth the time.
• One Billion Americans by Matthew Yglesias. An interesting premise and some very good ideas. Needs a more thorough and detailed discussion and analysis but thought-provoking.

• Kent State by Derf Backderf. The Kent State shootings stand tall in my memory, but I don’t think I ever knew all the details of the events. This is an excellent telling of the story. Calling out the National Guard is almost never a good idea.
• Eternal Life by Dara Horn. Explores that the idea that a very long life renders meaningless most life events.
• The Native Star by M. K. Hobson. Fun adventure thru an 1800s America where magic is a normal thing. Perhaps not very differentiated ground but a fun tale nevertheless. Makes me want to read more in the series.
• The Snakehead by Patrick Radden Keefe. Inside the illegal immigration trade for a period of the 90s. A rough trade, amazing what people will go through for a chance to better their lives and their family’s lives.

• An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal. An anecdote-driven walk through the dysfunctional health care industry. Some enraging anecdotes, and some useful how-to’s at the end. Would have liked even more data but overall a very useful read.
• The Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Beinhocker. An excellent book, re-establishing the basis of economics and wealth from first principles, overturning a lot of the traditional economics I learned once upon a time. Very satisfying to see economics built up as emergent behaviors from the actions of individuals, and to see the incorporation of uncertainty, imperfect information, and iteration. Not a complete story but excellent.

• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. This didn’t really float my boat, I suspect the difficulty of translating from Chinese is significant, it is not just the straight translation but all the cultural references that are hard to carry over.
• Dune by Frank Herbert. Read ~45 years ago (BTW: I am old), upcoming movie motivated me to reread (Chalamet was born for this role). The book is still good but not perfect. Herbert’s imagined world is fascinating. He rushes thru the story – in today’s world, “Dune” alone would expand into 7 books à la Game of Thrones. Some very topical themes. The last scene is just goofy and off, let’s hope that gets a better treatment in the movie. But overall still a very interesting book.
• The Escape Room by Megan Goldin. Eh. Too much deus ex machina.
• The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. Fun tale of alternate history with clockwork robots. Very different set of guiding principles than Asimov’s.

• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. Pretty damning. If you still somehow believe that America is the perfect embodiment of the “shining city upon a hill”, this book will but that notion to bed. We have a lot of work to do.
• Pew by Catherine Lacey. I really liked the tone of this book, and the ambiguity of the ending has a certain appeal, but I think I would have preferred a bit more resolution.
• Team of Vipers by Cliff Sims. Ugh. Why did I buy this. Another Trump insider claiming “yes he is horrible, but I did my best to rein him in, and now I can tell you the truth in a salacious book that you can buy”. A venal coward. Sorry I gave him a dime.

Expanding beyond books!

• Euphoria is an explosive series. High school like I never experienced, kids struggling with big issues, and I was rooting for them all and blown away by them all. I never expected to like a high school drama, but this is an intense and deep show.
• Ted Lasso is funny and touching. Jason Sudeikis plays a lovable, optimistic, vulnerable role that is very endearing.
• Folklore by Taylor Swift. I am not generally a huge Taylor fan but this has been the soundtrack of our summer. I love the stripped down presentation.

• Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. I have read 0 books set in Kamchatka, an interesting look into the lives of isolated and distressed women on the peninsula.
• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Just OK. Fun precept but characters were less than 2 dimensional.
• House of the Rising Sun by James Lee Burke. Haven’t ever read a Burke. Western with archetype characters and a lot of action. Fun but probably not meaningful.
• The Spinoza Problem by Irvin Yalom. Huh I knew nothing of Spinoza sadly, this was a very interesting fictionalized introduction to him and his thinking.

• Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry. Another great novel by Barry, two men’s lives explored over the course of an evening, great characters and dialog.
• Story by Robert McKee. I have no intention of ever writing a screenplay, but this book is highly useful for anyone who needs to communicate ideas – really forces you to think about your story and how to structure it.
• The Last Emperox by John Scalzi. The first book in this series was interesting, and this closing was satisfying but not particularly memorable.
• Shakedown by Steven Malanga. There may be some good points in here, but the author doesn’t really help himself get his point out. One, he doesn’t really articulate what his goals are besides railing at unions and the new left. I know he hates union influence in education but I don’t really know what he wants to do about education. Two, he brings out a lot of data in anecdotal form, but never gives the overall context. I don’t know how upset to be about a certain number unless I understand overall spending, what a successful budget looks like, some success examples, etc. Three, he loves to use pejorative words like like “corpulent” and “porcine” and “lavish” and “stratospheric” in place of data, and that is just off-putting – as if he knows he can’t make his case rationally, so he is trying to inflame instead. And anyone who uses these words to describe teacher compensation seems a little disconnected from reality – I don’t know a lot of teachers celebrating their outrageous economic good fortune.
• The Red and the Black by Stendhal. Time travel! Reading a book written in 1830 gives you a little view back into that world. Some archaic wording but human nature hasn’t changed, and the book structure seems almost modern.

• The Price of Time by TIm Tigner. What a crappy suspense story. Poor characters, poor plot, just bad. I don’t know why I stuck with it, I am embarrassed.
• Transitions by William Bridges. Much to think about in this book. I have certainly not been thoughtful about the transitions in my life and it is near time to start thinking about the remaining transitions ahead of me.
• The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O by Neil Stephenson and Nicole Galland. Fun time travel historical novel. A trifle long.
• Dark Money by Jane Mayer. Good book but it will be hard to finish. I knew that the Koch’s and their ilk were amoral self-interested traitorous manipulative bas%#@ds but this really brings it home, it is hard to read. It is A-OK to have different views on issues in our society, but the way they have used their money to corrupt the system is sickening.

I’m looking over a bookshelf that I haven’t looked at in a while and there are some books I really fondly remember there. (And also a lot of books I have no memory of.) I am reflecting on how I really want to spend my time reading — I want to read more of these impactful books, and probably read fewer of the ones that are basically junk food.

Some of the great titles that caught my eye:

• The Sparrow by Mary Doris Russell. What a great book exploring morals and culture and misunderstanding.
• The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March. I am not deep into poetry but this is nothing but fun. I’ve read this several times.
• The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. Probably needs some updating but an unvarnished look at one aspect of the British empire.
• The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. Everything by Gould is excellent, this may be among the most important.
• The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield. A fascinating and literary history tale. The title alone makes this book 100x more interesting than most history books.
• Titan by Ron Chernow. Learned so much about the growth of Standard Oil, and all the good and bad along the way.
• On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. Powers has written some powerfully entertaining stories, and never got the renown he deserved.
• Godël, Escher, Bach by Douglas R Hofstadter. I’d recommend this to everyone. Definitely a desert island read. UPDATE: a reader suggests this one has not aged well, I may crack it open again.
• The Education of a Speculator by Victor Niederhoffer. Gets mixed reviews but I think that is because people expect to learn investment secrets in here, which is not what this book is about. It is more about the human side of his life.
• The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. Whether you are a Christian or not, this is incredibly insightful and engaging. I’ve read many times.
• A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I am sure this has aged horribly and I should probably be embarrassed about this one. But as a kid, this was a great rollicking adventure.
• The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. This hit me hard when I first read it, very introspective look at finding meaning and place in life.

I’d love to hear about books others have rediscovered…

• Upheaval by Jared Diamond. Not as breakthrough as his earlier work, but an engaging look at crises and how nations react to them. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Finland because I was so ignorant of Finnish history.
• Lamb by Christopher Moore. An irreverent modern gospel, fun to read and still very true to the story and meaning of Christ. Will not be everyone’s cup of tea but I loved it.
• Radical Markets by Eric Posner and E. Glen Weyl. It promises radical ideas to improve the functioning of our markets and society. The first chapter was a little slow. In the second chapter they introduce their ideas for voting, and then offhandedly state that they have patented all this and have software you can buy. And I realize “Damn, this is a whitepaper for their business, and I paid for it.” Didn’t finish.