So here comes the annual end of the year list of books that I read this year. So just like the last year I did focus on making reading a priority in 2020 by trying to cut focus on social media - news cycle but this was of course an year like no other. Covid outbreak all around us and the way it upended our lives ensured that for almost a month I was mostly focused on watching news and discussing stuff with friends and family with not much time for reading. Almost 9 months working from home eventually meant more time at home that was not spent in commute or shopping. So after a few months of struggling with all this, I did manage to move some time towards reading books but then some sporting events followed by US election cycle meant more consumption of news cycle. All said and done I have done much better than previous years and did read 59 books which did exceed the target of 50 books an year that I had set.
More of the analysis later in this post, now without much further ado here is the actual list, split between fiction and non-fiction ( which is split into some broad somewhat arbitrary categories).
Fiction :
1) Paper Wife by Laila Ibrahim - fictional account of a Chinese immigrant woman's story of marrying and moving to America in 1900s San Francisco
2) The Fourth Passenger by Mini Nair - Fictional feel good truimph against all odds tale of a group of women who overcome domestic abuse / poverty to create an eatery in Mumbai
3) Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki ( IVM podcasts) - The tamil classic story of Raja Raja Chola - this was actually a tamil story podcast which was essentially someone reading out the same story in language somewhat closer to what is commonly used instead of the classical language in which it was originally written. That's the only way I would have followed this in tamil. The story is the same, its just the words used have been simplified to make it easier for modern day listener/reader to follow along. Needless to say it is a marvelous epic and the story holds you spellbound regardless of how its told.
4) No Longer at Ease - Chinua Achebe
5) Binti 1 by Nnedi Okarafor - US had this BLM movement and there was push for narratives involving people of color and this sci-fi trilogy series set in a distant planet/galaxy popped up in my mentions and decided to give it a try
6) Binti 2 by Nnedi Okarafor
7) Mahabharata Murders by Arnab Ray - Long term follower of Arnab's blogs and columns and had read a few of his books before. This is a series of murders where a serial killer is at loose and the victims and the method of killing have Mahabharata connection and of course is set in Kolkata.
8) Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth - This was covid19 peak fear time and as we continued the lockdown in one of the chat groups someone mentioned about reading books related to some pandemic/life being threatened on earth. I thought it did seem to mirror the mood we were in and tried this book of apocalyptic/end of the world events which probably falls in the Young Adult fiction category. The story is set somewhere in Midwest US in a small town and is narrated in the voice of a 15 year old girl as her family grapples with the collapse of society around them after a meteor hits moon which has consequences across the earth causing high tides, flooding and submerging of coastal cities and several islands. Her mother goes nuts when this happens and pushes the family to stockpiling food quickly. In April 2020 we ended up stockpiling food after coming to realization that this pandemic wasn't going away soon so lot of it was relatable at first. Though in the story the world collapses and everyone gets stuck inside because of rampant crime and collapse of civil society and electric grids. Thankfully real world was much better but it was good sampling on a how bad things could have gone wrong to make sense of even though world in 2020 wasn't good it was not so bad!
9) The Dead & The Gone by Susan Beth - This was lasted as #2 of the series ( refer above), but turned out to be a different take on the same set in New York area with different family a Hispanic one with just 3 kids and narrated in the voice of the eldest boy who is left alone with younger teen sisters as the collapse of the world takes away their parents and other adults and they have to survive on their own with next to no money.
10) A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman - This was a slightly sad yet immensely heartwarming tale set in a changing Sweden as the suburbs get filled with old people who stay alongside newcomers who are from a different world altogether. Ove is that grumpy annoying uncle who is stickler for rules and can't tolerate most people who can't follow the set of firm principles he lives by but a series of events and encounters with his clueless young neighbors changes everything and finally pulls him away from his closed life in this heart warming story. There is a lot of humor and joy which overrides the sorrow just like it does in life in this tale of romance, comic moments, cats and run-ins with authorities.
11) Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - One of those well regarded sci-fi classics and for good reason
12) Inspector Bruno by Martin Walker - A cousin of mine had recommended a few detective/mystery series and had asked if we had read any which explores not just a mystery but also covers a different country and life over there. I did try the one set in China by Qiu Xiaolong last year and was looking for something different this year when I chanced upon this series of books set in rural France of a Muncipal policeman in the town of St.Denis - a town where everyone knows everyone. The rural idyllic town setting where patience, empathy and understanding is more needed than guns to manage issues is the basic setting of the series of stories. Of course people do get bumped off and there are cases to solve but more than that the character who populate the tale, the region itself and the food of the region which gets a lot of mention make this such a delightful read.
13) Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker
14) Black Diamond by Martin Walker
15) The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker
16) The Devil's cave by Martin Walker
17) The Red Mandarin Dress - Inspector Chen series by Qiu Xiaolong
18) The Mao case - Inspector Chen series by Qiu Xiaolong
19) Still Life by Louise Penny - This was the first one of Inspector Gamache series and this was much more series study of human pysche and felt lot heavier than other detective series set in various countries that I sampled this year. This was set in Quebec the french speaking province of Canada.
20) The Guest List by Lucy Foley - One of those best selling crime thrillers which made for a breezy read. Lot of co-incidences but builds up a good atmosphere of an isolated island with lot of volatile characters on it in a storm.
21) Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo - This was a delightful read about an odd set of characters who are all runaways in true sense who all land up in Lagos, Nigeria from rural places and since they have no one else they stick together as a group living in the streets. Each come from a different background and serve as a way for us to understand Nigerian society a little better, then they all stumble upon a hidden underground house and some treasures stashed away by a corrupt ex-minister who is on the run and then everything changes as brave newspaper reporter gets involved and they all go on a roller coaster ride. Very interesting read to understand what is going on in the country and the scourge of corruption.
22) Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi - This was a heavy tome, the BLM movement probably made me add this to my list and this was super long story of what it means to be an African or African American bearing the brunt of trans-atlantic slave trade. Its a fictional historical story which begins in 17th century with two step siblings in what is now modern Ghana and each subsequent chapter focuses on the next generation is an arc of story covering their children and their children as african american slaves while other sibling who remains in Africa which gets colonized and weak and subsequent generations bear the brunt. There is slavery and ill treatment in cotton plantation and then runaway slaves in North and then disenfranchised Blacks struggling in mines and then civil rights era America on one side. While on the other there is the shame of being slavers and struggling to make sense of life in a defeated colony which is trodden down by christian missionaries and western imperialism. Powerful story of the missing voices.
Non-Fiction:
Historical:
23) Color Bar by Susan Williams - I had read and enjoyed No:1 Ladies detective stories which were set in Botswana and I had caught passing reference of its first ruler Sir Sereste Khama and the reverence folks had for him. I chanced upon this story and decided to pick up this book about the first ruler of Botswana who was a king of sorts in this British Colony and travelled to England for education and fell in love and married an English woman there. This was not met with approval from his uncle who was ruling in his stead and it also caused diplomatic problem for Britain as the inter-racial wedding was heavily objected by the racist Apartheid promoting South Africa. This is a story pieced together from declassified files from govt and covers shameful behavior of British authorities who made attempts made to scuttle their wedding but the couple went ahead. Because of the pressure from South Africa and Rhodesia life was made impossible for Sereste Khama and his wife by British govt and he was exiled from his homeland. This is also a story of how common people rallied behind their leader and how they overcame the racist colonial machinery to forge a peaceful nation which incidentally has one of the highest GDP and highest rank in HDI in Africa. There is a theory that people rallying behind this inter-racial marriage and how Ruth adapted and adopted Botswana as her country did play a role in this being a more accepting and peaceful nation.
24) Taste of the Empire - How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World by Elizabeth Collingham - Very interesting premise as the author looks at last 500 years or so of colonial history from food perspective as that indeed is the most fundamental human need which perhaps drove all trade and empire building. Each chapter covers a certain meal as it navigates through history of trade and colonial expansion but with focus more on food. This was quite an absorbing long read as it covers a vast scope from Cod factories of early Newfound land through slave trade in East Africa and of course the British Raj in India. Origins of food that we use everyday and how it got spread is something of interest to me and this book was a great read from that point of view.
25) Voices of Colored people - Another one picked up because of BLM movement - my Library recommended this for better understanding of colored voices in America.
26) Without You There is No Us - My Time With Sons of North Korea's Elite by Suki Kim - Totally chilling and claustrophobic book covering the experience of an Korean-American writer/journalist who goes undercover pretending to be a Missionary to become an English teacher at a North Korean school. This gives her the chance to interact ,albeit under watchful gaze of minders, with real North Korean students. It is quite a portrait of a society like no other. North Korea is a nation / society / concept that is very frightful but extremely fascinating. But as this book sort of implies underneath all the propaganda we are all humans somewhere deep inside.
Nature / Science:
27) Hidden Life of Trees : What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries From a Secret World by Peter Wohllenben - Written in German and translated to English this is a book introducing us to very less understood world of trees, packed with so much fascinating insight. Author manages a forest in Germany so these are condensed wisdom from his observations and studies. I think I probably will re-read it sometime again.
28) Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli - Rovelli who is an Italian physicist attempts to explain in this extremely short ( 100 pages) book the wonderful things discovered and understood by physicists in the last century and how it has influenced our understanding of universe and life. Meant for people with minimal understanding of physics this should serve as a gateway book to learn more on any of the 7 topics he covers. I did go on to read more books after this one.
29) Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson - Well known author and self explanatory title which I got directly as a result of the previous book
30) Humble Pi - When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker - This was a delightful read which was surprising given the subject is mainly mathematics. That is one of the reasons this is a standout book and something I ended gifting to a couple of friends. I ended up reading excerpt of this book and immediately ordered this one as the incidents of math going wrong that I was hilarous but sadly true. The examples and stories range from trivial to extremely costly and life threatening mistakes made when people don't pay sufficient attention to math behind it. Highly recommended.
31) Coyote America - A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores
32) The Unseen City -The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness by Nathanael Johnson - Urban life - Pigeons, crows, squirrels, snails, ants - is all around us and is easy to observe but we almost always never really pay much attention. The amount of insights and trivia captured was tremendous and I think I surely need to re-read it someday again.
33) The World Without Us by Alan Weisman - This was recommended as a good book apt for the times as we were ravaged by Pandemic. The central premise is to examine what happens if some event suddenly wipes human beings from the world - a virus being one possibility, what happens to the rest of the world without humans to manipulate nature and other species. It was not a gripping or fun read and I had to plod through some areas but was a very interesting read nevertheless. Lot of it is theory which was a tough read for me, but there were some cases where he did extrapolation based on places like Chernobyl and then a town in Turk-Cypriot war zone in no-man's land and the 39th Parallel in Korea which are all abandoned totally by human beings and now nature has totally taken over.
34) The Secret Wisdom of Nature by Peter Wohlleben - Another entry from Wohllenben where he covers how interconnected nature is. Everything is connected and when man makes a change whether inadvertently or even for good purpose it can still have enormous consequences. Long story short its best to leave nature alone as much as you can.
Biographies
35) The Fish That Ate the Whale : Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen - The story of Samuel Zemurray who is a jewish immigrant to US at start of 19th century who rises from nothing to start banana umpire and becoming a fruit tycoon. He becomes a capitalistic power broker and kingmaker ultimately controlling the business cartel for banana trade with huge land ownership and weilding enormous power in Central America. This basically is where the term Banana republic comes from. Zemurray later played a key role in founding of Israel.
36) The Promised Land by Barack Obama - Much talked about book of this season so not much to add. This was a very nice read as President Obama details his early life and political journey which sounds as dramatic as we thought it was when literally out of nowhere he became the hope of a generation and achieved the unthinkable. This one charts his early life, work in Chicago in black neighborhoods and later in local politics ultimately ending as a senator from Illinois. The next phase is dramatic as he becomes popular and leading to a presidential run and then covers his first 3 years as president and ends in early 2012 with another book to cover the rest. Very thoughtful analysis of his political run and he sort of explains how politics of these days works in America and a realistic portrayal what a US President can actually do. Its less of personal and more political take of his life and given the times we live and the kind of politicians we have its a extremely self critical and modest take.
37) Cable Cowboy : John Malone and the Rise of Modern Cable by Mark Robichaux - Interesting portait of the pioneering cable titan John Malone who built a vast empire with mergers and acquisitions before selling of to AT&T. He is in equal measure hailed a successful and smart businessman and hated as ruthless robber barron and the book looks at the both.
38) The Ride of a Lifetime by Rober Iger - Disney as a company has done extremely well in the last several years as a result of being able to sense the general direction of customer trends and market forces and had placed bets in correct direction. Bob Iger is widely credited with pushing the company in this direction and the book is his autobiography covering how he entered ABC Networks and rose to its top and then got acquired by Disney and ultimately rose to top. Along with personal story there is also how he achieved what he achieved, some key takeways and the possible reasons why he succeeded and how he built his team and lessons for his readers.
39) The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson - Every year I read a book from Bryson and usually his books are huge and I did purchase but did not get around to reading his latest one. Just towards end of Dec noticed this book on sale on audible and got it. This is the account of his growing up days in Iowa in 1950s. It is equally autobiographical in the sense filled with colorful exaggerated personal childhood stories described the way he remembers it now as well as general observation about life in 50s and early 60s small town America. His observations as usual are what makes his books so much fun and I laughed out loud so many times while listening to this one.
Business/Money/ Human Behavior:
40) Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Partrick Lencioni
41) Tools and Weapons : The Promise and Perils of Digital Age by Brad Smith
42) Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
43) Samsung Rising - The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech by Geoffrey Cain - Fascinating account of Samsung story from humble origins as grocery store in war town Korea to all conquering business empire to taking on electronics which was very hard to crack and how they got to where they did. This book takes off from the Galaxy Note burning tablet fiasco and takes a look at the culture behind the firm and I think its a little harsh as it is told from a western eye. It does try to understand the mindset of how a chaebol like Samsung thinks and operates which is very different from a western multi-national company or product company. There are scandals and corruption and so many things I didn't much about until I read this.
44) Three Tigers, One Mountain : A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea and Japan- Michael Booth - This one directly followed the previous book about Samsung as I searched to understand more about Korea and this is a book covering Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and how and why they all hate each other.
45) No Filter : The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier- This has been called as the one of the standout business books of the year for good reason. Good account albeit with more access from Instagram founders about how Kevin Systrom built an awesome app and set in motion so many trends and things and shaped social media landscape to how Zuckerberg sucked the life out of it with his strict control and gradual interference. Its quite harsh on Zuck and also examines how Facebook works and paints its boss as paranoid genius. Also revealing was to see how connected some of these silicon valley folks were, Systrom spent time at a small start-up that became Twitter and Square and had some contacts who ultimately became big themselves
46) Goodbye, Things : The New Age Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki - recommended by my friend Ramki this is about a regular guy who experimented with minimalism and his findings.
47) Drive by Daniel Pink
48) Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol - This is about viewing the world through the lens of rocket scientist and considering all roadblocks as solvable problems. Its filled with easy to read stories and examples covering this basic thought process.
49) Hooked by Nir Eyal - Book for Product managers on how to build habit forming products.
51) That Will Never Work by Marc Randolf - Netflix origin story atleast the first 4-5 years, was a fun read as these guys brainstormed and come up with an idea which was ahead and its time and with lot of trouble got dvd mailing business working from scratch with no background in this business. But even more brilliant was that they realized that online streaming was the next big thing and killed their own business to move to that space quickly and become what they are now.
52) Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
53) The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel - Probably one of the best books I read this year, small book packed with so many insights that I could totally relate to. Highly recommended personal finance and happiness guide.
54) Everything is Figureoutable by Mario Forleo
55) The Richest man in Babylon by George Clason - This is a book originally published in 1926 drawing upon lessons from ancient Babylonian civilization to dispense some solid financial advice which remains true over centuries. Not sure how much is from those clay tablets and how much is made up, but reading this in 2020 almost 100 years after this book was published every advice while it seems simple is really sound and if followed can have profound impact on life and financial status over a long run.
56) The Secret Life of Groceries : The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr - A fantastic investigation piece by the author going deep into how supermarkets work and the murky secrets behind how you get those cheap prices and seemingly fresh produce year around and all those discounted and free merchandise. It might be cheap for the customer and profitably obviously for the store but someone is paying the price, this is an indepth examination with meticulous reporting under cover behind the scenes looking at what grocery store employees go through, how the system of procurement works and what is life like for a small businessman/woman with a brand which they want to get placed on a supermarket shelf, the life for a trucker who is the key cog in the wheel who ensures all the wares get transported across the nation to supermarket stores and also some reporting from Thailand covering the slavery in shrimp industry. All stories covered are personal from human point of view which ensures the points made hit you really hard.
57) How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt - As folks who lived through this tectonic change in how music is consumed, we still only have a foggy idea of how we went from buying audio cassettes/tapes to CDs to getting music from streaming services or most often just individual songs for free from the web. This is an account of how things changed in 90s from the development of MP3 format from German university to music piracy and Steve Jobs. Between all these the way we consume and share/transfer music fundamentally changed. A lot of this book is personal accounts of music piracy group players and the researches behind MP3 standards.
58) The Rational Optimist - How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley - This is a contrarian take on what author tries to establish is largely a pessimist media where as most global headlines always focus on the gloom and world at peril stories as they sell better. It meanders a bit but the fundamental point is underscored with several examples and stories to offer an optimistic point of view about the world in general. Its a long ranging look of humanity from early hunter gatherer days to basic society which all hinges of exchange/trade between humans leading to specialization with benefits accruing to all. With several examples of stories/Tprophecies of doom over last century the author goes to provide data points to show how humankind's enormous ability to find new solutions for planet's problems. His main thesis is that unlike the general lament of low standards of life in modern world, in fact life is pretty good for most people compared to what was in past and it keeps getting better and better pulling more and more people out of abject poverty. Sure some claims appear too optimistic and cavalier but there are lot of places where it makes sense.
59) Things My Son Needs to Know about the World by Fredrik Backman
Overall this year of being confined at home did pay some dividends in terms of being able to consume so many books. Once again it did take a lot of effort in channelizing free time towards reading rather than social media or news channels as the world seemed to go to pieces all round us. If I could shut out the noise of social media more I'm sure I could have read 50% more this year. The goal of 50 books was just a number to make it tough but at same time achievable with clear planning and purpose behind diverting the available time to something I like. So feeling pretty happy at clearing the bar in terms of number of books. Like last year the approach of dropping books that don't work for me after a few pages made a difference. I think I dropped around 15 books, some of them well regarded works which I probably will make another attempt this year. Reading is not just about the books by itself but also your frame of mind at that point.
In terms of split between fiction ( 22) and non-fiction ( 37), while non-fiction was much more but I'm still happy with increase in the number of fiction titles compared to previous years. I think I hit upon a right mix that I had in mind. I don't want to gloss over the number of titles that much because some of them were super small while others were super large epics which needed almost a month to finish. So long story short the number really doesn't mean anything. I'm extremely thankful to US Library system for the wonderful collection of titles ( e-books and audiobooks) available to borrow from the comfort of my home and I also relied on Audible for audiobooks which made it easy to go over a lot of non-fiction books. Lot of my early morning walks in the park nearby was spent listening to one of these books. I do hope to sustain the 50 book goal in 2021 as well as we stay in at home. Hopefully will discover more wonderful books to lift and sustain me through another challenging year.
