What I read in 2021
This year featured a lot more fiction than past years, but that’s just where we are at a year into the Biden Administration, a never ending pandemic, and looming climate apocalypse.
My favorite book this year was the Wisdom of Crowds, a cynical grim-dark fantasy by author Joe Abercrombie. The best nonfiction book this year for me was Caste, which beat out two superb contenders, Warmth of Other Suns by the same author and Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain. A techno-thriller and climate-thriller by Neal Stephenson, a deeply satisfying time traveling scifi by Clair North, a gorgeous memoir by Chang Rae Lee, some real nerd shit by Andy Weir, and Seth Rogan’s hilarious memoir round out my top ten for the year.
I’ve drafted this post over the course of the year. After each book, I paste a goodreads link and write a quick blurb stack ranking the book against all previous reads for the year. As a result there is some recency bias. The higher up on the list, the more I enjoyed the book. The further down on the list, the less I enjoyed the book. At the end I list a few abandoned books as well.
The final book in the Age of Madness trilogy and I want more. Abercrombie is a master of cynicism, humor, and gore. He speaks my love language. (#1 book of 2021)
Neal Stephenson techno-thriller that came out almost exactly 10 years ago and it is very of the time. Stephenson is elite level, so gird up your loins for sudden 50 page deep dives into the intricacies of international charter jet travel, money laundering, Hungarian history and file encryption. His style is not for everyone, but I think he writes really captivating sentences.
If you have yet to attempt a Stephenson, you might try Snow Crash (foundational classic) or Seveneves (My favorite scifi other than the original Dune) first. This one is a bit more niche, but just as captivating. Fall is sort of a sequel to this one. I read them out of order, which I guess spoiled that certain characters from this book survive their adventures long enough to appear in the next one, but is otherwise no big deal. Also, I’d say 20% of Fall is significantly better than this book, but the other 80% is several orders of magnitude worse, so I’m forced to say that Reamde is a better book overall.
One idea from this book that I especially liked was how the character D squared is a not so subtle shot at George R. R. Martin. This pleases me.
Cross Groundhogs Day and Highlander, throw in the Matrix, and the Count of Monte Cristo and you get The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. This book is awesome in both conception and execution. I highly recommend.
Stephenson’s sentences have a rhythm that I can not get enough of. While the subject matter of this book is much more interesting than Reamde, I think the execution isn’t quite as good. Literally this is like a half length typical Stephenson work, so it might be a good place for Stephenson neophytes to begin their initiation. This is still one of the best books of the year for me and the fact that it is not number one speaks to my enjoyment of the the three higher up on this list.
I love this book. Please read it so we can discuss.
I’m a complete sucker for this kind of optimistic, hard sci-fi.
Caste is probably the best book about racism that I’ve read. I’d put this in the must read category because 1. it’s incredibly well-written; 2. it’s brutal; 3. Wilkerson left me believing there is still hope. This one comes in at the best nonfiction of the year for me.
More of a narrative history than Caste and just as powerful and important to read.
Dear Mr. Scorsese, can you do Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain with Leonardo DiCaprio as Richard Sackler? Please? Your friend, Jesse.
This is quite funny.
Very solid entry into the historical epic / family memoir genre. From warlord courtesan to member of the red guard, just an incredible amount of hardship and history passed through three generations of women in this family.
A very worthy entry in the Avatar universe.
Time travel, bleak noir.
Here’s a fun tale of a race of reptile-like creatures who are the reason we can’t have nice things. It’s funny how just about all of them have never answered for their crimes.
I think a good sign of how much I enjoyed this one is that I had to talk about it with people. A lot of insane running feats just casually dropped throughout this book.
This book has 3 parts. First, a previously published article about growing opium, second, a section on the subject of his last book — caffeine, and third, a section on the subject of his previous book — psychedelics albeit a new psychedelic. Recycled schlock Michael Pollan is still very good.
Part II of the story of Blizzard Entertainment covering the creation of games near and dear to my heart. Really looking forward to the third book.
Really enjoyed getting a deep dive into the creation story of Blizzard Entertainment. Strongly recommend for folks who played Blizzard games growing up or are interested in the history of video games.
After I read Harry August, I picked this one up by the same author. I liked this book a lot, which is a collection of three novellas that center around…. the Games House, which is a timeless, secret gambling club. Things escalate quickly.
A quite enjoyable collection of funny essays about movies. Some of the movies I know well, some I did not.
Not as good as the first one, but still good.
Decided to follow the Patrick Radden Keefe rabbit hole after Empire of Pain and picked up this one. I’m happy I did because now I know all about human smuggling in the 1980s and 1990s.
This one will make you hungry. This memoir focuses on the author’s experience of her mother’s battle with terminal cancer, Korean-American culture, music, and food.
An interesting argument about the importance of commitment. Pairs nicely with The Happiness Curve.
Honestly, the first book about the 16th century that I’ve really enjoyed.
I decided to pick up this classic because a few writers I like say this is their favorite novel of all time. It’s not my favorite novel of all time, but it is fire. Whales are badass. 19th century whaling is totally wild. The language is amazing. I think this book is like a Bran chapter in Game of Thrones — I’m always hesitant to get started, but also am always glad I do.
Fun little zombie romp.
A good reminder to slow those easy runs down.
Good take on productivity that veers deep into philosophy, Buddhism, mindfulness, and psychology. I recommend.
Clint Smith takes a journey across historical sites to learn how they talk about slavery.
Presents current understanding of how ‘happiness’ declines during one’s middle age and then increases after fifty.
You know I’m going to read Michael Lewis’s pandemic book. I just wish it had more Wall Street stuff.
Here is worthy economics book that is a good reminder that: 1. Free markets aren’t always the answer. 2. Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, Ayn Rand and the rest of the free market chuds all thought their poop didn’t stink. 2. Anyone who comes to you and says ‘This tax cut will pay for itself with the economic growth it will produce’ is either an idiot or working in bad faith. A good closing lesson from Applebaum — we should judge the success of our societies by the lives of those at the bottom, not the top.
I am one person away from the author so I had to check this one out. It’s a solid history charting how war has changed over time and gets at the idea that maybe talking about more humane war misses the forest for the trees?
Alberto Salazar seems nice. Nike’s moral compass is finely tuned.
Good discussion of intent vs impact. Nothing in here should be controversial. We have a lot of work to do.
This was very meh. If I wasn’t already 5,000 pages into this series, I might stop. But I’ll probably stick around to see what happens next.
This book was hyped pretty hard, and it was good, just maybe not as good as I expected going in. Basically when people talk about pre-history maybe it says more about them than about what they are purporting to enlighten us about. Nothing about our genetic make up requires capitalism, property, or hierarchy. It’s nice to read some counter arguments to Pinker, Harari, Diamond, etc.
The Empire Strikes Back of the Palladium Wars trilogy, by far the one I enjoyed the most.
Kind of a let down after the second book, but still reasonably good for those of us who need a steady dose of scifi. Really the three books should just have been one big book instead of three small ones. It’s all the same story so I’d say don’t start these with the mindset that you’ll stop after the first one. You are committing to all three as the first two don’t really have endings. Overall the book has a good page count to action ratio. The plot moves, lots of stuff happens, it’s a page turner. It’s not tier one scifi though.
The first of the Palladium Wars trilogy was recommended to me by a coworker. I’d call it pulp scifi that is sort of a cross between Old Man’s War and Leviathan’s Wake. There is space marine combat, but not as good as Old Man’s War. There is gritty space travel, but not quite as bleak as Leviathan’s Wake.
Make things small. Keep boundaries strong.
It is far easier to destroy the environment and our climate than to repair it.
Easy pop social science. It’s fine.
I like to get at least one nature genre reading in per year. This one is pretty good. If you like Eager or American Wolf, you’ll like this.
More of an old-timey radio show than a book. I’d rank this higher, but some of the stories were more interesting than others.
A few Vox thought pieces from 2018 sitting astride a poor man’s Master of the Senate.
A lot of hype, but a bit underwhelming in its delivery and would have benefited from some more aggressive editing. No one likes open air drug markets and homelessness is a problem that seems to be getting worse. His prescription that we centralize the care for the homeless and mentally ill in one state level organization makes a lot of sense to me.
This started out like World War Z, but climate change. However, I wanted it to go in a different direction than it ended up going. A bit too optimistic to feel realistic for me. A bit too much hand waving.
Pulp fantasy garbage.
After reading My Year Abroad, I thought going deeper into the world of Chang-Rae Lee would be a good idea. Let me tell you, this book is pretty bleak.
This one is about a time period I have not read much about, so that was nice. If you like photography, and the “Wild West”, you might like this.
Carl Sagan, you sweet summer child.
Should have been a blog post. Nah, it’s actually good but I felt it had diminishing returns the further I got.
Part memoir, part science book, part nature book. If you like those things, you’ll like this one about the interconnectedness of species in forests. Lots of grizzly scat mentions.
Some important brain health information not always presented in the most compelling manner. This book’s intended audience is primarily aging boomers, but also has recommendations on providing care for parents with dementia.
This writer really likes Octopuses. If you like Octopuses, you might like this one too!
Abandoned Books
Not bad, just not my thing.
Jewish crime noir. Could not get into it. Future me, consider picking this up again.
Very interested in terraform-centric space opera. Not interested in spiders waring with ants. Sadly, this book had a bit too much of the latter.