The year in books: 11 to recommend in 2021

Last year (2021) I finished 17 books, a five year low. But that's ok! 4 fiction and 13 non-fiction. Another 30 started but not finished.

Non-fiction

It seems I was pretty focused on business history books and history of tech. The 8 non-fiction books I liked the most:

• Designing Data-Intensive Applications, a must-read for anyone interacting with a database
• My Years with General Motors, the business school classic; truly a good read. But sad to know that shortly after written, GM succumbs to the Japanese and South Korean competition
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
• Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, my review here
• The Intel Trinity, an early history of Intel
• The HP Way
• Play Nice But Win, the story of Dell computers
• West with the Night, beautiful memoir recommended by Ernest Hemingway and written in a similar style. Much more enjoyable than the other more popular colonial-African memoir, Out of Africa.

The rest

• Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
• Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream
• ReWork
• Russia and the Russians: A History

Fiction

The 3 fiction books I liked the most:

• A Very British Coup, hilarious and depressing. A great companion to the TV show "Yes, Minister"
• Mort, Terry Pratchett is a very funny author
• Selected Stories of Philip K Dick, depressing and dystopian but very well written. I would not read again because it's too depressing

The rest

• There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN: A Dark Lord's Diary, I was looking for more parodies like Bored of the Rings (which itself wasn't great). This was worse

2022

This year I'm interested in continuing to find good business books and good books on the history of tech. I'm also getting into more American history to make up for all the years of not paying attention in high school.

I'm continuing to try to find good memoirs and fiction by non-English authors.

Starting the blog-year off gently with my recap of 2021 in books.

I spent too much time watching TV and trying new video games to keep up with past years 😅https://t.co/5mfXbBnihk pic.twitter.com/ZHmPsUcr3g

— Phil Eaton (@phil_eaton) January 5, 2022