Best books I read in 2022
The best books I read in 2022 - generally released in other years - were:
- Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education: I find the argument compelling and somewhat disheartening.
- Stanlislas Dehaene, How We Learn: The optimistic case for doing education right. Despite Caplan’s argument, there is a niche where this is important.
- David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: Generally great book, although the end about diversity fell flat.
Below is the full list of books that I read in 2022 (starred if I have read before). The volume of my reading of books cover-to-cover was on par with last year, with 34 total (18 non-fiction, 16 fiction). I read to the kids much less than the previous year as they are taking on more reading themselves. Somehow that didn’t translate to more reading by myself.
What’s interesting about this list is how little behavioural science is on it. I find it hard to stomach - or even start - most of the popular books on the subject. The replication crisis is changing the way science is done (at a glacial pace), but the popular book production line looks pretty much the same.
I’ve also included an incomplete list of books commenced but abandoned. There are 12 on that list. I’m still not ruthless enough in moving on.
Non-Fiction
- Ananyo Bhattacharya, The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann
- Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education
- Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem
- Stanlislas Dehaene, How We Learn
- David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
- Oded Galor, The Journey of Humanity
- David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
- Adam Kay, This Is Going to Hurt*
- Michael Lewis, Moneyball*
- Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis, Rebooting AI
- Tom Mead, Killers of Eden*
- Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running*
- Carl Rhodes, Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Capitalism
- Stuart Russell, Human Compatible
- David Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age–And Why We Don’t Have to
- Richard Thaler, The Winner’s Curse
- Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
- Gregory Zuckerman, The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
Fiction
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow*
- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle had really given up by these final stories.)
- Michael Houellebecq, Submission*
- Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame*
- George RR Martin, A Game of Thrones
- George RR Martin, A Clash of Kings
- George RR Martin, A Storm of Swords
- Haruki Muakami, 1Q84
- Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock
Commenced but abandoned
- Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks
- Scott Cunningham, Causal Inference: The Mixtape
- Suelette Dreyfus, Underground
- Tiago Forte, Building a Second Brain
- Paul Gilding, The Great Disruption
- Nick Hornby, About a Boy
- Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
- Michael Houellebecq, Serotonin
- Eric Kaufmann, White Shift (will probably come back to this)
- Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing
- Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
- M Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity
Read to the kids (a lot of other kids books were commenced but abandoned)
- Jeffrey Brown, Jedi Academy
- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland*
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-glass*
- Gillian Cross, The Iliad (three times)
- Gillian Cross, The Odyssey (twice)
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone* (twice)
- Anna Sewell, Black Beauty
- Lemony Snickett, The Bad Beginning
- Johanna Spyri, Heidi
- Tui T. Sutherland, Dragonslayer
- Tui T. Sutherland, The Lost Continent
- Tui T. Sutherland, The Hive Queen
- Tui T. Sutherland, The Poison Jungle
- Tui T. Sutherland, The Dangerous Gift
- Tui T. Sutherland, Flames of Hope
- Geronimo Stilton, Multiple
- J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit*
- J.R.R.Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring*
Previous best book lists: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021