Showing posts with label spies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spies. Show all posts

Friday, January 01, 2021

Books read in 2020

Not much blogging going on here still, but here's my annual list of books read for 2020.
  • Nicholson Baker, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act
  • John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
  • Ben Buchanan, The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics
  • Susannah Cahalan, The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness
  • Michael Cohen, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump
  • Myke Cole, Legion versus Phalanx: The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World
  • Libby Copeland, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are
  • Barton Gellman, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the Surveillance State
  • Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (2012)
  • James W. Johnson, Arizona Politicians: The Noble and the Notorious (2002)
  • Gene Kim, The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data
  • Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
  • Talia Lavin, Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy
  • Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America
  • Ben Macintyre, The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War (2018)
  • Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (2017)
  • H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace, with Henry R. Schlesinger, Spy Sites of New York City: A Guide to the Region's Secret History (2020)
  • Jefferson Morley, Morley v. CIA: My Unfinished JFK Investigation
  • Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier, The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich & Powerful Hide Their Money
  • Thomas RidActive Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
  • Brad Smith and Carol Anne Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age
  • Mary Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
  • Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton with Henry R. Schesinger, Spy Sites of Washington, DC: A Guide to the Capital Region's Secret History (2017)
  • Anna Wiener, Uncanny Valley: A Memoir
  • Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
    Top for 2020: Copeland, Macintyre, Cahalan, Smith and Browne, Buchanan, Obermayer and Obermaier, Gellman, Rid.

    I started the following books I expect to finish in 2021 (yes, I also said that about LeFeber and Wilson last year--I'm well in to LaFeber's book and thought I might finish before the end of the year, but had only read Wilson's intro so it's barely started):

    William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
    Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (2nd edition)
    Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History

    I've also pre-ordered and am looking forward to reading:

    Nicole Perlroth, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapon Arms Race (due to be published on February 9)

    (Previously: 201920182017201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005.)