Wednesday, January 01, 2020

Books read in 2019

Not much blogging going on here still, but here's my annual list of books read for 2019.
  • Graham T. Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?
  • Ross Anderson, Security Engineering (3rd edition, draft chapters)
  • Herbert Asbury, The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld
  • Heidi Blake, From Russia with Blood: The Kremlin's Ruthless Assassination Program and Vladimir Putin's Secret War on the West
  • Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World
  • Oliver Bullough, Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World
  • Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration
  • C.J. Chivers, The Fighters: Americans in Combat
  • Sefton Delmer, Black Boomerang
  • Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade (bio of Bill Kristol, Ralph Reed, Clint Bolick, Grover Norquist, and David McIntosh)
  • Ronan Farrow, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
  • Ronan Farrow, War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
  • Ian Frisch, Magic is Dead: My Journey into the World's Most Secretive Society of Magicians
  • Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
  • Reba Wells Grandrud, Sunnyslope (Images of America series)
  • Andy Greenberg, Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers
  • Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
  • Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq
  • Michael Lewis, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
  • Jonathan Lusthaus, Industry of Anonymity: Inside the Business of Cybercrime
  • Ben MacIntyre, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
  • Joseph Menn, Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World
  • Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power
  • Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA
  • Sarah T. Roberts, Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media
  • Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
  • Russell Shorto, Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City
  • Alexander Stille, The Sack of Rome: Media + Money + Celebrity = Power = Silvio Berlusconi
  • Jamie Susskind, Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech
  • Erik Van De Sandt, Deviant Security: The Technical Computer Security Practices of Cyber Criminals (Ph.D. thesis)
  • Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
  • Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
Top for 2019: Bullough, Farrow (Catch and Kill), Wu, Chivers, Rosling, Greenberg, Blake, Allison, Caplan and Weinersmith, Kinzer, Delmer.

I started the following books I expect to finish in early 2020:

Myke Cole, Legion versus Phalanx: The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (2nd edition)
Brad Smith and Carol Anne Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age
Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History

Two books I preordered and look forward to reading in 2020:

Anna Wiener, Uncanny Valley: A Memoir (due out January 14)
Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (due out April 21)

(Previously: 20182017201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005.)