Thread by @kane

For 2019 @kevinakwok challenged me to read 52 books. I owe him 2^n home-cooked meals for being n books short.

Here is a thread with mini-reviews of the books to keep me socially accountable:

1/ Bad Blood

Late to the party here. Enjoyable in a trashy way. The crazy thing is if this were a John Grisham novel I’d feel like it was too absurd to be plausible, but here we are.

amazon.com/dp/152473165X/…

2/ Chromophobia

I was reminded how dense academic writing can be. Enjoyable critical theory. I have some new weird ways of thinking about color now.

amazon.com/dp/1861890745/…

3/ A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

A few takeaways I liked, but overall made me feel like philosophical stoicism is a cop-out and a privilege.

amazon.com/dp/0195374614/…

4/ Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Enjoyable short stories! At the risk of exoticizing, it was fascinating to read Chinese sci fi and try to guess how contemporary hopes and fears manifest.

amazon.com/dp/0765384191/…

5/ Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

This should have been an essay. One or two good points drowning in gross oversimplification and examples.

amazon.com/dp/1591846447/…

6/ Count Zero (Sprawl Trilogy)

I really like the world building and slang of @GreatDismal’s books. It’s fun to see what sci fi authors got right (neuromorphic chips! weaponized software!) but couldn’t fathom (travel agents and cassettes still exist)

amazon.com/dp/0441117732/…

7/ The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

This book nerd-sniped me HARD. The story of how humanity bootstrapped precision, with chapters dedicated to orders of magnitude of precision. Winchester’s prose is elegant. 🤓

amazon.com/dp/0062652559/…

8/ Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl Trilogy Book 3)

Not as epic as Neuromancer (book 1) or Count Zero (book 2) which both stand alone well, but @GreatDismal remains fun to read and (in retrospect) shockingly prescient sci fi.

amazon.com/dp/0006480446/…

9/ White

I couldn’t tell if I enjoyed this book on the use of white and emptiness in Japanese design by the Muji art director. Interesting historical facts but no coherent thread.

amazon.com/dp/3037781831/…

10/ CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella

George Saunders’s writing is addictive and simultaneously hilarious and existentially terrifying. I can’t wait to read the rest of his work.

amazon.com/dp/0812987683/…

11/ The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Another book I’ve put off too long. @bhorowitz’s oral-history-as-biz-book is inspiring and informative. Shines a light on the chaos of entrepreneurship.

amazon.com/dp/0062273205/…

12/ Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change

Interesting anecdotes and history of psychedelics, but the reductionist part of me was very skeptical about the spiritual parts.

amazon.com/dp/1101974516/…

13/ Night Watch: A Novel of Discworld

I’ve read this too many times to count. Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite fiction writers. He somehow manages to balance satire, slap stick, vulgar humor, social commentary, and wholesome storytelling.

amazon.com/dp/0062307401/…

14/ How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence amazon.com/dp/1594204225/…

An enjoyable and reasonably empirical overview of history and contemporary research.

15/ Do Not Say We Have Nothing: A Novel

Heart wrenching novel about Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Sq. Reminds me I need to document family’s oral history.

amazon.com/dp/0393354725/…

16/ Mindset: The New Psychology of Success amazon.com/dp/0345472322/…

I found this to be helpful to specific things I’m trying to improve at (felt like a more practical version of Stoicism). Like all pop psych books I think I could have gotten the gist from a long essay.

17/ Exhalation: Stories

Ted Chiang is one of my favorite authors full stop.

amazon.com/dp/1101947888/…

18/ Nihilism and Technology

I appreciated this critical review of technology. It didn’t pass judgement on any specific policy or technology, but rather tried to layout a rigorous framework for examining how we value technology. Would recommend.

amazon.com/dp/1786607034/…

19/ Waste Tide

Read like a cross of Neuromancer and Akira. World felt slightly underdeveloped but it lends the writing some surrealism.

amazon.com/dp/0765389312/…

20/ Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

I’m many years late to this bandwagon but appreciated the formal framework this book lays out for negotiations - something that I aspire to be significantly better at.

amazon.com/dp/0143118757/…

21/ Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series

I can’t believe I waited this long to read Ursula Le Guin. The most beautiful sci fi I’ve read. Reads like mythology.

amazon.com/dp/B01MQIG9PL/…

22/ The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution

A handy annotated copy I chose to read when I realized I did not know the Bill of Rights or the opening of the Declaration from memory.

amazon.com/dp/0143121960/…

23/ Tao Te Ching

This translation covers the cultural and historic context of Taoism. A minor nit is that the Hong Kong translator uses Wade-Giles instead of Hanyu pinyin so it takes longer to understand if you’re used to common Romanization.

amazon.com/dp/014044131X/…

24/ Energy and Civilization: A History

I enjoyed the thoroughness of @VaclavSmil’s research and the frank but optimistic uncertain conclusion instead of falling back on neat reductionism.

amazon.com/dp/0262035774/…

25/ The Best 100 Poems of Les Murray

I was inspired to read this after reading Les Murray’s obit in The Economist recently, and while I’m still not sure if I enjoy modern poetry, I’m glad I read it.

amazon.com/dp/1459661826/…

26/ kwokchain: essays by Kevin Kwok (Year One)

This is a hack but I compiled @kevinakwok’s blog kwokchain.com into a book so I would get credit towards his bet by reading his blog.

27/ Foundation

Enjoyable it understandably underdeveloped (I learned Asimov was 21 when he started writing it). Catching up on sci fi classics.

amazon.com/dp/B000FC1PWA/…

28/ Black Hole

Dark and surreal graphic novel about coming-of-age. I don’t think it’s aged super well (it’s a little disjointed) but I imagine it was impactful in its time (early 2000’s).

amazon.com/dp/0375714723/…

29/ Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

A good companion book to Getting to Yes. More tactics oriented, better anecdotes.

amazon.com/dp/0062407805/…

30/ A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

This book did a better job explaining physics to me than most professors I had. I feel like if I had read this as a student I would have been much more motivated.

amazon.com/dp/0143109367/…

31/ Turbulence: A Novel

I’m a sucker for stories told through parallel perspectives and this was a unique take on that. Very enjoyable contemporary fiction.

amazon.com/dp/1982122730/…

32/ Severance: A Novel

Recommended by @jluan; enjoyable contemporary fiction. If I had to nitpick I’d say it felt unfinished.

amazon.com/dp/0374261598/…

33/ Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Another oft-recommended pop psych book I finally got around to reading. Definitely a more nuanced take on tiger parenting.

amazon.com/dp/1501111116/…

34/ Warfighting

The original “move fast and break things” doctrine. Succinct and quotable.

amazon.com/dp/1490367217/…