This year I finished 47 books, up from last year but not a personal
best. The breakdown was 17 non-fiction and 30 fiction. Another 20-30
remain started but unfinished this year.
Non-fiction
The 8 non-fiction books I most recommend are:
The 3 books I recommend you not to waste time on are: "The Two
Koreas", "The Price of Inequality", and "Ninety Percent of Everything:
Inside Shipping".
The whole list
- The Two Koreas by Don Oberdorfer
- Interesting but not a huge fan, seemed pretty biased against South Korea somehow
- Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan by Jonathan Manthorpe
- Effective Python: 90 Specific Ways to Write Better Python by Brett Slatkin
- A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout
- Came as a recommendation from someone on Twitter, ultimately not a huge fan. Still looking for high quality books on software design
- The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Agreed with the premise but the book was incoherent and too self-assuring
- Paris Reborn: Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City by Stephane Kirkland
- Fashionapolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Thomas
- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
- I normally love Hemingway's writing but this particular book was not very coherent
- Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy from 1453 to the Present by Brendan Simms
- Such an excellent introduction to the continent for Americans who otherwise don't have great background
- Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- A beautiful memoir of flights by the author of The Little Prince, very similar in style to Hemingway
- American Colussus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900 by H.W. Brands
- Baby's first primer on unions, (I need more recommendations on the history of unions)
- Making Common Sense of Japan by Steven R. Reed
- It can be difficult to find English translations of Korean, Japanese history by Korean and Japanese authors; this is a good one by an American professor
- The Machine that Changed the World by James P. Womack
- An excellent, well-researched history of automobile manufacturing in the US, Europe and Japan from the 1900s to 1990; how Japan ate everyone's lunch
- The United States of Europe by T.R. Reid
- Very light introduction to the European Union
- The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
- Overhyped by the internets, but not bad
- The German Genius by Peter Watson
- Dense but excellent introduction to many famous Germans in many fields throughout time
- Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping by Rose George
Fiction
I'm trying to read more from non-English authors. If you see
non-English authors in the vein of these here that you can recommend,
I'd love to hear from you.
The 12 fiction books I most recommend are:
The only book I really didn't like was "Invisible Cities".
The whole list
Feedback
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please email
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with questions, corrections, or ideas!