Best books I read in 2021

The best books I read in 2021 - generally released in other years - were:

• David Badre, On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done: Effectively spans from the latest neuroscience to practical applications. The presentation of some computational models of our brains was great. I think about them a lot.
• Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding: I’m not sold on the overarching thesis, but I love the way they pull apart many different theories and approaches in psychology. I have a bunch of draft posts in the pipeline about some of the topics covered in the book.
• Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth: The kids loved it (ages 7, 7 and 5) and so did I.

It’s a short list. There just wasn’t much I was inspired by this year. Maybe I’m getting old and grumpy. Perhaps my book selection was not great. What I pick up next is too often dictated by mood rather than a plan.

Below is the full list of books that I read in 2021 (starred if I have read before). The volume of my reading of books cover-to-cover continues to fall year-on-year, with 33 total (23 non-fiction, 10 fiction). The pandemic and continued lack of commute is one driver beyond the decline. You can see from the list of the books I have read to the kids (48 of them!) where some of that extra time at home is going.

I’ve also included a list of books commenced but abandoned. There are 9 on that list. I want to be more ruthless in stopping reading books that aren’t worth the effort. There are more than enough on the reading pile to justify moving on if the gain isn’t there. As you can see from that short, albeit incomplete list, abandoning books is a skill I need to build.

Non-Fiction

• Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb, Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
• David Badre, On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done
• Kaushik Basu, The Republic of Beliefs
• Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma
• Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way
• Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Take Control and Master the Odds
• Charles C Mann, 1491: The Americas Before Columbus
• Antonio Garcia Martinez, Chaos Monkeys: Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine
• Gary Marcus and Jeremy Freeman (eds), The Future of the Brain
• Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding
• Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History (Stuart Ritchie’s review captures some of my headline thoughts)
• Cal Newport, A World Without Email
• C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law or The Pursuit of Progress
• Thomas Piketty, Capital and Ideology
• Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
• James C Scott, Seeing Like a State
• Janelle Shane, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You
• Edward Snowden, Permanent Record
• Rory Sutherland, Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness*
• Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Gillian Tett, Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life
• Fred Waitzkin, Searching for Bobby Fisher

Fiction

• Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking*
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground
• Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
• Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables
• Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem
• Jack London, White Fang
• Cormac McCarthy, The Road*
• Herman Melville, The Piazza Tales
• H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man*

Commenced but abandoned (incomplete list)

• Karen Armstrong, A History of God
• Isaac Asimov, I Asimov: A Memoir
• Jeff Bezos, Invent & Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos
• György Buzsáki, The Brain from Inside Out
• Andy Clark, Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action and the Embodied Mind (I tried this twice, once in 2020 and again in 2021.)
• George RR Martin, A Game of Thrones
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
• Will Page, Tarzan Economics
• Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age

Read to the kids

• Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio
• Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden*
• Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox
• Roald Dahl, Matilda
• Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows*
• Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
• Rupyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
• Roger Lancelyn Green, The Adventures of Robin Hood*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 13-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 26-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 39-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 52-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 65-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 78-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 91-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 104-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 117-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 130-Storey Treehouse*
• Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, The 143-Storey Treehouse
• Emily Rodda, The Maze of the Beast
• Emily Rodda, The Valley of the Lost
• Emily Rodda, Return to Del
• Emily Rodda, Cavern of the Fear
• Emily Rodda, The Isle of Illusion
• Emily Rodda, The Shadowlands
• Emily Rodda, Dragon’s Nest
• Emily Rodda, Shadowgate
• Emily Rodda, Isle of the Dead
• Emily Rodda, The Sister of the South
• JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone*
• JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*
• JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*
• JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*
• Tui T. Sutherland, The Dragonet Prophecy
• Tui T. Sutherland, The Lost Heir
• Tui T. Sutherland, The Hidden Kingdom
• Tui T. Sutherland, The Dark Secret
• Tui T. Sutherland, The Brightest Night
• Tui T. Sutherland, Moon Rising
• Tui T. Sutherland, Winter Turning
• Tui T. Sutherland, Escaping Peril
• Tui T. Sutherland, Talons of Power
• Tui T. Sutherland, Darkness of Dragons
• Tui T. Sutherland, Darkstalker
• Tui T. Sutherland, Winglets Quartet
• P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins
• JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit*

Previous best book lists: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020