Monday, January 01, 2024

Books read in 2023

 Not much blogging going on here still, but here's my annual list of books read for 2023.

  • Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans, Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley
  • Isaac Butler, The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act (2022)
  • Cory Doctorow, Red Team Blues (fiction)
  • David Edmonds, Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
  • Zeke Faux, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
  • Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon (2013)
  • Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman, The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & The Taliesin Fellowship (2006)
  • James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood (2011)
  • Penn Jillette, Random (2022) (fiction)
  • Mark Holloway, Utopian Communities in America, 1680-1880 (1966, 2nd edition, 1st edition was titled Heavens on Earth)
  • Claire Hughes Johnson, Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building (2022)
  • R.A. Lafferty, The Best of R.A. Lafferty (2019) (fiction)
  • Kevin M. Levin, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth (2019)
  • Michael Lewis, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
  • Shane Murphy, John Hance: The Life, Lies, and Legend of Grand Canyon's Greatest Storyteller (2020)
  • Erik Reece, Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America's Most Radical Idea (2016)
  • Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling, Transreal Cyberpunk (2016) (fiction)
  • Chris A. Rutkowski, Canada's UFOs Declassified (2022)
  • Christa Sadler, editor, There's This River... Grand Canyon Boatman Stories (2nd ed., 2006)
  • Bruce Schneier, A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back
  • Will Sommer, Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America
  • Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (2019)
  • Leonie Swann, Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story (2005) (fiction)
  • Stephen Vladeck, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic
  • Simon Winchester, Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
  • Tom Zoellner, Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona
  • Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
    Top for 2023 published in 2023: Edmonds, Zoellner, Sommer, Vladeck, Faux; other top reads for the year: Swann, Stewart, Friedland & Zellman, Edmonds, Lafferty, Holloway

    A few planned reads for 2024 (already in progress):

    G.A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995)
    John Ferris, Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain's Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency (2020)
    Chris Rodda, Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, vol. 2 (2016)
    Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History (2017)

    The Economist posted this chart of number of books read this year from a YouGov/Economist survey:



    (Previously: 202220212020201920182017201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005.)