Here comes the annual year end list of books read which I have been doing for a while now. Every year I look at some impressive lists online and by my cousins who read quite a bit and always think I should try to get there. This year perhaps marks my first serious attempt at reading a lot more than I usual do. I just did a few simple hacks this year, first put a cap on social media time and then gave up twitter and Facebook altogether ( for most part). This did free up a lot of time for books and I should say made me more happy. I also wanted to read more fiction than what I usually do ( very little) so those were the goals when I set out at the start of this year. Another helpful factor was audiobooks, by now I had grown very comfortable with this format and this did help in covering a lot books. Lot of my morning walks or afternoon post lunch walks during spring and autumn were spent listening to books. So have split the list into fiction and non-fiction and also called out with * if the book was an audiobook. Have not added any comments/thoughts on already popular books.
So without much further ado here is the list
1) Who is Michael Ovitz - by Michael Ovitz*
Autobiography of a Hollywood / TV power broker and covers his rise from total outsider hailing from lower middle class family to rising to be one of the best agents in Hollywood and setting up Creative Artists Agency.
2) American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee*
One of the best ones I read so far this year, this is the story of the Wolves being reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park which like most American parks was without any major predator. It was a big effect on the whole ecosystem ( this part has been well documented by Nat Geo and several others), but this book focuses more on the actual wolves through the eyes of a dedicated Wolf watching community in Yellowstone who chronicle the every day activities of serveral wolf packs. There is also a ripple effect when the wolf numbers start rising as it leads to inevitable human-wolf conflicts as the wolf pack range increases outside the park boundaries. Its an emotion packed narrative, like one of those Nat Geo/BBC Earth features where you try to visualize the lives of Wolf packs while also examining what goes on around them.
3) The Last days of August by Jon Ronson*
A journalist investigates the death of an adult film star who died after twitter spat with a few other stars/players in adult film industry over some comments she made which got interpreted as homophobic. Everyone ganged up on her and it got called out as cyber bullying and it was believed it drove her to taking her own life in the end. This is an in depth investigation of this real incident as the author examines various possibilities including murder, to cut long story short ( not mystery, this was news) it was suicide but driven by so many factors. Just highlights some of the terrible things that happen to these vulnerable women at the hands of a powerful industry and deals with abuse. Pretty dark and disturbing.
4) Americana by Bhu Srinivasan*
Really fascinating book, long but much recommended. Covers the history of America from the time of Pilgrim fathers to modern day through the lens of capitalism. This truly is a land built by business, investments, technology and above all capitalism as the author sets out to showcase with wonderful examples.
5) Boomerang by Michael Lewis - Michael Lewis is again someone I always want to read given that he covers a wide variety of topics, always a good read. This one is about 2008 financial crisis as he traces it across Europe and back to US. Truth is always stranger than fiction, this is one such tale.
6) Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans* - On AI
7) Lean Startup by Eric Ries
8) Zero to One by Peter Thiel
9) Moneyball by Michael Lewis
10) Airbnb Story by Leigh Gallagher - recommended by a good friend, who thought I will like this and it was indeed a great read.
11) The Sharing Economy by Arun Sundararajan* - This was referenced in airbnb book, so had to check this out.
12) Born a Crime by Trevor Noah* - Stories about his childhood in apartheid South Africa as a mixed race kid.
13) Rise and Fall of Nations by Ruchir Sharma*
14) The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
I joined a book club at work and this was the book of the month which we had to read and then discuss together. Turned out to be a pretty good read for all of us living in a consumption driven economy, the amount of choices while seemingly unlimited also pose the challenge of decision making and pressure to make optimal choices which make it so hard to pick from the myriad choices. Was a really good read on the science of decision making.
15) Eager - The Surprising, Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb* - This was a delightful book on one of the most under appreciated super stars of North American ecology.
16) Becoming by Michelle Obama*
17) A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson*
I always try to read a Bill Bryson book every year. This is among his best I think. Truly awesome book and something everyone should read. He makes science so accessible and this book had a really vast/broad scope and he manages to keep us entertained and informed while moving across topics with typical ease. Lot of things we might have read in school science classes about various discoveries and inventions, it manages to be fascinating, informative and fluid as Bryson guides us across ages of scientific discovery. This one book I will read again and will still remain fascinated.
PS: Its super looong
18) 21 Lessons for 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari*
19) It Happened in America by Lila Perl
This was a chance discovery in an AirBnb vacation home, I read a bit and then came home and borrowed this from library. Talks about the 50 states in US with some general description of the original of the state and its name and also contains an account of some person from that state to capture the essence of the state. Most of the stories are set in 1800s except for a few in mid 1900s for some states. Good way to know about American states!
20) The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Jack Bogle*
21) Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches - The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris
Why is Cow revered by Hindus, why do Muslims hate pigs, why do wars happen? This book comes up with logical, seemingly rational explanation for lot of these things. Very interesting stuff.
22) Range by David Epstein*
Really fascinating book talking about generalists. I could connect a lot with this as I have felt a lot of times that I'm a jack of all trades without having in depth knowledge of anything. This book venerates such traits, so was a positive validation!
23) Educated - Tara Westover*
This was part of several year end lists and for good reason. Story of a girl from Utah who grew up in a self sustaining farm/scrap yard in rural Idaho under crazy parents who did not believe in the 'system' and did not send kids to school and held outlandish beliefs about Government and society. Was disturbing at times but again a story of courage and determination pulling through and how she overcomes lack of schooling to make it to college by self study and get her PhD.
24) Atomic Habits by James Clear*
This book and #27 below somewhat helped me in thinking further on what I can do to improve certain habits and get to my goals.
25) The case against Sugar* by Gary Taubes
Compelling argument against Sugar Industry and the product itself in the way it is consumed today.
PS: In 2019, I went sugar free in Coffee and Tea. So this book acted as validation of sorts.
26) Eating Tomorrow - Timothy A Wise
27) The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg*
28) Coromandel : A History of South India by Charles Allen - A much recommended book, this is again super informative and has a broad canvas and I learnt a lot of new things. I pick this up and read a chapter or two and then pick it up later and read a few chapters.
29) Creativity Inc by Ed Catamull
I had attended a Product Management workshop and the trainer had recommended this one. This is the story of how they get things done at Pixar. I'm a huge fan of Pixar movies and they have an incredible success rate in terms of delivering amazing movies and Ed Catamull who headed Pixar and later Disney Animation ( with Steve Jobs also around as Pixar boss) explains their secret sauce. Sort of guide on how good creative organization / teams are built. They just focused on removing obstacles and let people unleash their creativity and positive energy. Good read.
30) India Moving by Chimney Tumbe* - Heard about this through Amit Varma's Pragati podcast. Migration is a topic I'm really interested in for obvious reasons. This book traces history, patterns of migrations in India across last 3 centuries, covers migration heavy belts within India and goes over Indian diaspora spread across the world.
31) New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop - by Fatima Bhutto
World for most part is driven by western cultural influences, this one covers the ones from East which has takers across the world - Bollywood movies/music/dance, Turkish soap operas ( Dizi) and K-POP of course. Driven by reporting from Middle East, Turkey and South America, was informative but very jumbled timelines. While some portions are from discussions with people on streets ( like in Peru, Lebanon) others are from interviews with execs, power players and perhaps personal circle ( for Bollywood) which makes the generalizations and sweeping statements a bit uneven and off putting at times.
32) The Social Leap by William von Hippel
This is an interesting tour through our evolutionary past from apes to modern humans and how our mind evolved. Core concept is that we are what we are because we are social and learnt to work with groups and grew to like and support fellow beings and hate/oppose the 'others'. The social group dynamics were fascinating and explains the echo bubble and the camps we see in social media these days perfectly well. As he puts it we love to exaggerate and we are good at believing each other's bullshit when it suits us as a group. That is how we survive and evolved! Very good read.
Fiction :
33) Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Story of a slave girl from a Southern Plantation from hell making a run for it from oppressive masters to North where Slavery is abolished through underground railroad network operated by helpful whites. It is a powerful and gut wrenching narrative of the terrible life for slaves in that era. It is also a story of courage, hope and inherent good in human nature coming forward even in bleakest of times and helping. Highly recommended.
34) The Third Man by Mani Sheriar
35) Identity Thief by Rachel Rosenthal
36) Ninth and Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver
38) Panchinko by Min Jin Lee*
Historic family saga spanning 4 generations of Korean family in early 20th century when Korea was occupied by Japan and continues in Japan where Koreans live as 2nd class citizens. One of the first fiction audiobooks I tried and I found that reading fiction through audiobooks actually work. This was a book which shed light on lot of things I didn't know about - how the Japanese invasion and world war ravaged the life of Koreans and how they got treated subsequently in Japan.
Historic family saga spanning 4 generations of Korean family in early 20th century when Korea was occupied by Japan and continues in Japan where Koreans live as 2nd class citizens. One of the first fiction audiobooks I tried and I found that reading fiction through audiobooks actually work. This was a book which shed light on lot of things I didn't know about - how the Japanese invasion and world war ravaged the life of Koreans and how they got treated subsequently in Japan.
39) Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar*
This was a short audio book ( less than 2 hours) which really employed this format really well. The story is about a few months in the live of an Indian american girl with parents living in India. It is covered fully through phone conversations and voicemails. This starts as relationship one and quickly takes a dark turn into an occultist thriller.
40) The Tenth Island : Finding Joy, Beauty and Unexpected Love in the Azores by Diana Marcum
Stumbled upon this through Amazon Prime as this was among free books for the year, since I was anyway exploring themes like migration and sense of belonging this one slotted right in. Based on author's semi autobiographical take on her time in Azores.
41) Bright by Duanwad Pimwana
Picked this up blindly from Library. Set in Thailand, this is an English translation. Story of an abandoned 5 year old boy who is left on city streets in the working class neighborhood where the family lived until now after the parents separate and go their own ways. The boy waits expecting someone to come for him and the neighborhood pitches in and helps the boy out. Each chapter is a story based on some incident/event in the neighborhood. Its tragic at one level but from boy's perspective its still fine as he still has friends and folks to look after him and world as viewed by him while still being unfair and harsh place is still fun and adventure as he feels he is more free and the book does pack its fair share of humor as well. It comes across as tragic and heartwarming at the same time.
42) The Fox and Dr.Shimamura by Christine Wunnicke
Its a sly little novel set in early 19th century Japan of a psychologist who both doctor and perhaps the patient as well. Several unreliable narratives with quirky characters, blend of orientalism set in Europe as well as Eastern mysticism in Japan. Picked this up from curated international section in Library, this way beyond what I read and made no sense until it sort of comes together in the end. I would say it was an unique and rewarding experience.
43) Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
Indukka had recommended this a lot and this was part of her list earlier, so wanted to try this and it was available in my library so picked this up and dived into it. This was a nice and comforting read which transports you to Shangai as we follow along Inspector Chen through various bylanes and the city itself is a character and comes alive in this series. This is an inspector who is also a poet and well read and is quite a foodie as well. I quite enjoyed the amount of attention paid to food the characters consume with vivid details. Overall a well crafted mystery with very well fleshed out characters and brings out the early 90s China truly alive. Can't recommend this enough to folks, such a delightful read.
Recent 2019 best-seller fiction list topper which I snagged from library and got 7 days to read it. Finished it within 2 days. Was a good read.
So that was the list, it was challenge remembering and noting down the books read as I got it from various sources. Ended up at 48, while the cricket fan in me rues missing a half century milestone, it still is quite a remarkable journey for me. I feel like I have smashed some ceiling or wall in terms of ability to read. Its 4 books a month which seems quite a lot. I have been reading quite a few blogs or helpful articles about reading itself and forming better habits. So one advice I implemented is to not trudge through things, I think I must have dropped like 10 books after reading it for a while and only continued if I thought I liked it. Other of course was to get away from social media and channelize the time into reading books.
I'm also super thankful for having some good friends who talk about books and my cousins who post some incredible reads every year. Also big thanks to the Library system in US which is simply amazing in the amount of good books they stock and the ease of access in getting books from libraries or online or via Libby App. I visited the Libraries in my neighborhood often to pick up books for my daughter or with parents ( who read a lot when they visit), this gave some chance to browse a bit and pick up things on a whim. I feel I was doing a lot of planned reading and wanted to shake things up by picking up something random every once in a while outside my usual comfort zone and this year as well I picked a few like that and mostly they were good. Thanks also to Amazon for the amount of free books they offer to 'Prime' members and of late there are some really nice ones that come up in that list. There is also a feature to listen and read as well ( audible + kindle).
Also returned to reading dead tree (paper) books ( the library ones mentioned above) though majority of what I read were e-books and audio books. So far I still don't see any difference in my reading no matter what format the content is delivered, if the book is good I get hooked and read it. I think I did improve the amount of fiction I read as well as I covered 16 fiction vs 32 non-fiction. The ratio was more lop-sided last 5-6 years.
So overall it was a good year as I met/crossed the goals, I do hope to sustain this pace next year and hopefully do 50 books. Of course its not the number that matters, just that setting such a goal and an effort to read a variety of books ensures you do end up reading a lot more rather spend time on something else which in reflection turns out to be not all that productive or satisfying.
