The End of Race Politics by Coleman Hughes. Pretty good book. I used to be a bleeding heart liberal with pro social justice (read: pro affirmative action) sentiments, but he makes a compelling case against it. Also, it's very well written and fun to read
Some politics books I've read or re-read this year:
Fall Out - Tim Shipman, on of his astonishingly detailed quartet on Britain's exit from the EU;
Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli, magisterial yet readable;
Boris Johnson's memoir Unleashed, great fun if you like his tone;
Colonialism, a Moral Reckoning, Nigel Biggar, an antidote to the more ahistorical versions of the BLM narrative.
The Notebook - A history of thinking on paper, Roland Allen - a joyful romp through the notebook's history;
Elusive - How Peter Higgs solved the mystery of Mass, Frank Close - a nice account of the discovery of the Higgs Boson, with perhaps too much biography of Higgs, who after all as a lecturer at Edinburgh was not a thrill-seeker.
Carlo Rovelli's White Holes, implausible but beautifully written.
Daemon series by Daniel Suarez: I can’t believe I slept on this book for so long. It would have altered my worldview fundamentally if I had read it at a younger age.
Mind Hunter: Somehow even better than the show.
A Brief History of Intelligence: Packed with so much knowledge about the evolution, mechanics, and different forms of intelligence. One of the best non-fiction books I have read in a long time.
Reentry by Eric Berger. It came out in October. It's a follow up to his book Liftoff from 2021. Great books for space nerds. Makes me really admire what Space X has accomplished while also eliminating any desire I had to work for them.
I finally read Nabokov's Pale Fire. It is far and away the best book I have ever read. I think about it multiple times a week unprompted and I'm sad because I am certain that I will never find another book like it.
Michel Houellebecq, Annihilation. A clear-eyed and direct novel about the meaning and measure of individual human life in our modern age -- and yet it concedes nothing to modern literary or social fashions, but instead goes for universality and timelessness.
Seeing this reminds me of something I'm not proud of. I've done effectively no reading this year. At least not by my normal standards.
I generally read between 30-50 books a year (mix of fiction and non-fiction). But this year I knew my focus was going to be more on research, reading papers, writing code, etc. so I set my reading goal lower than normal (I usually set it to like 75, knowing that that's a bit aspirational). This year? I set it to like, 30. And I won't come close to hitting that. Right now I'm at 7 books for the year. So I don't have a big sample set to choose from. :-(
That said...
Of what I did read, a couple were pretty good:
Non-fiction:
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks- Scott J. Shapiro
Readings in Agents - Huhns, Singh (eds)
Programming Multi-Agent Systems in AgentSpeak using Jason - Bordini, Hubner, & Wooldridge
Read a lot this year — a lot more than most years. A few highlights:
The making of the atomic bomb by Richard Rhodes was probably the best of the bunch. I read it because I see some parallels between the discovery of atomic power and the search for AGI, and wanted an insight on the ethics and decision making of the time. It didn't disappoint.
The dawn of everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow was a solid read and retelling of how civilization began and evolved.
The message by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I read in two sittings — it was that impactful. A reminder of how the oppressed becomes the oppressor again and again. "As it happens, you can See the world but never see the people in it"
Other highlights: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt; re-read Thinking in Systems by Daniella Meadows; re-read Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn; The light eaters by Zoe Schlanger; I don't want to talk about it, by Terrence Real.
Rather difficult reads for me as a non-native english speaker, but it was worth it. It is hard to imagine a more epic science fiction scenario than "Star Maker".
Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen. It's a short book, with second-by-second description of the unfolding of a research-based hypothetical nuclear war that starts with North Korea launching an ICBM towards the United States. Alarming (as only the facts about the parlous state of detection and defence can alarm) and edifying in one.
Benjamín Labatut - The Maniac, a novelized biography about the mathematician and computer science pioneer John von Neumann.
The story of his life was absolute fascinating for me, unfortunately the last part of the book attempts a connection with the development of Alpha Go / reinforcement learning that should have been avoided.
For a general recommendation for a book to buy for Christmas I'd say the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner is quite wonderful, if you'll pardon the pun.
The Deluge -- a darker take on climate change than Ministry for the Future, but also felt pretty realistic.
This is how you lose the time war -- took me a long time to start this book, and then I couldn't put it down.
Non fiction, I really enjoyed Slouching Towards Utopia. I'm a sucker for narrative history like that, and I got a few useful concepts from the book. I also really liked The Prince of Peace, a biography of Keynes.
Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada
According to some, one of the great locked room mysteries. Recommended but I am guessing it's better in the original.
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
Not as amazing as I thought it would be but memorable nonetheless.
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
Something nice about this book. Not for everyone. What is?
Shogun, after having watched the show. I also read the other books in Clavell's series, I thought Tai Pan and Gai Jin were interesting but not as much as Shogun. Gai Jin in particular felt like it had lots of filler.
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. Probably the best expose about the vileness of politicians and command ladder climbers within the service as they related to Vietnam.
Grendel by Gardner (so playful and creative), Jane Eyre (a classic with wonderful language and intense story), Sapiens (extraordinarily interesting survey of human history)
'Built to fail' by Alan Payne painted such a richer picture than the binary "netflix came along" argument. The writing had alot of emotional investment since the author owned so many shops in the blockbuster franchise.
A little more dense: "Chip War" by Chris Miller... a macro economic/political picture of silicon valley growth that fills in so many holes in popular lore.
The Murderbot diaries books by Martha Wells - 6/10. Mixed on these. They're fun to read. The setting is cool and the worldbuilding is shallow but effective (i.e., don't read it if you want game of thrones in space). Each novella takes an afternoon to read. I think "snarky violent droid" is overcooked these days and lost interest after book 5.
Light by M. John Harrison - 7/10 excellent prose; great multiple-storyline plot; the journey was better than the destination, but it kept me thinking
Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson - 7/10 Fun. If "near future Nigerian/British post-colonial frontier action with guns, robots, and psychic aliens" sounds cool to you, check it out. I liked his Rosewater Trilogy just as much.
Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts - tough to rate these. brilliant ideas, VERY challenging plots. I wish I didn't get so confused by the end of each book.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - 6/10 - this and the Martian read like blog posts pasted together. The grand dilemma is spelled out on page one and never gets any deeper. Pro: the plot is in your face on every page and you will never be confused when reading; Con - there is zero internal character development. Read if you like stories driven by applied science, not comparative moral decision-making.
The City and the City by China Miéville - 9/10 - you will invariably see something like "Kafka meets [some affected crime novelist] to describe this book, and that ain't wrong. Kind of SF, kind of fantasy.
Railsea by China Miéville - 8/10 - great good vs evil YA SF about, well, imagine if trains were like boats. Good character writing, tight plot.
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - 8/10 - loved this. More "realist" near-future fabulism than Gibson, but if you love cyberpunk, read this.
The Shipbreaker Triology by Paolo Bacigalupi - 6/10 - near-future YA science fiction with a lot of blood and guns. Pretty good stories.
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers - 9/10 - reread. I had to go back. This gets a near perfect score because of its style, setting, and plot.
The Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) by William Gibson - 9/10 - I had read Neuromancer 3 times but never the next two. I was pleasantly surprised to find the second and third novel easier to read* but just as enjoyable as Neuromancer.
The Bridge trilogy by William Gibson - 8/10 so far. I am in the second book. Can't believe I slept on these for the last couple decades.
non-SF:
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad - 9/10 - if you like punk/hardcore from the 80s, this is a great read.
* Every time I read Neuromancer, Gibson's literary footguns --holograms, false memories, hallucinations, and drug-addled unreality--make me feel crazy for not being able to follow the plot at times. I'm okay with believing that was the intended effect.
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