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Right at the start of January, I declared Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor the best book that I would read in 2024. Bold prediction, and honestly I enjoyed other books more, but this was certainly the most important. It tells the story of the moral collapse of the US Republican Party, and explains the urgency of keeping Donald Trump from winning reelection.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL35767165W/Oath_and_Honor

It was, sadly, ineffective.

2/11

Rob Copeland’s The Fund is a generally scathing examination of the history of Ray Dalio and his hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. Dalio’s nurtured a social media reputation as an incisive thinker and visionary. In Copeland’s book, not so much. Deserves a place on your “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re smart” shelf.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL34338779W/Fund

3/11

Robert Sapolsky’s Determined was a mind-blowing book. I’ve enjoyed several of his works before. This one was, in many ways, the least accessible, and it argues a point that’s tough for many folks to accept: Free will doesn’t exist; neurochemistry is deterministic. Lots follows: What is “guilt” in that case?

I found it persuasive, but it’s a hard belief to live thoroughly.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL34336493W/Determined

4/11

Percival Everett reimagines Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in his new novel this year, James. I’m a massive Twain fan. I picked this up at my local bookseller on publication day and read it in two days. Masterpiece. I love the structure, the ways it differs from Finn, the ending best of all.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL36506504W/James

5/11

My son-in-law recommended RF Kuang’s Babel to me. We share an affection for quirky sci-fi and fantasy works. This one was spot-on. It’s unusual: a mix of magic and linguistics, set in an early Industrial-age Oxford. How ideas and contradictions create power is really well-imagined, and the story is just great.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL26443093W/Babel

(I much disliked Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, if that’s useful information.)

6/11

Philip Ball’s How Life Works is a survey of biology and genetics in the 2020s. I first dove into the field in a significant way in the 1990s, when the Human Genome Project was underway. I just loved this book. I learned a lot. We’ve got a much more sophisticated understanding of the field today. Makes me wonder how and where we’re wrong now, and what more we’ll grok thirty years hence.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL35775978W/How_Life_Works

7/11

Chris Miller’s Chip War is a few years old now, and like most topical books on technology and the tech industry, it’s got a shortish shelf life. But this is a great history of the semiconductor industry, a good primer on who does what right now, and a good starting point for wondering what happens next.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL27846746W/Chip_War

8/11

I don’t know how Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale got to be a generation old before I got to it. Wow. The book is topical now in ways that I’m sure it was meant to forestall, as a warning. It’s a hell of a read and a useful guide for considering the rise of white evangelical political power.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL675783W/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale?edition=key%3A/books/OL51647052M

9/11

Helen Czerski’s @helenczerski The Blue Machine is subtitled How the Ocean Works. Holy moly, did I love this book! It’s a deep look at a complex system, but it’s also jammed with fascinating trivia:

+ 76% of all ocean species can generate their own light.
+ Sea ice is frozen fresh water. Brine is excluded during freezing.
+A turtle must cry around eight litres of viscous salty tears every hour to shed salt it eats.

So, so much good stuff.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL28806575W/Blue_Machine?edition=key%3A/books/OL46768255M

10/11

Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain was a beautiful, heartbreaking story about growing up poor with an alcoholic mother and absent father in Scotland in latter part of the last century. Imagery, conflict, emotion all just searing and memorable. This is a book that I still think about often.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20645179W/Shuggie_Bain

11/11

@mikeolson Shuggie Bain is set in Scotland rather than Ireland. I have to read this!

@bodhipaksa Thank you! Fixed in the post. Pretty American to get confused about that, I think, but I read the book early in the year.

@scott No recollection of that idea from the book. He does take on other philosophers, so it's possible that the idea crosses a footnote someplace, but it's certainly not an idea he wrestles with in any way I remember.

@markdevries Veel. makkelijker als je gepensioneerd bent.

@mikeolson Mijn tijd komt nog wel. Ik kom wel tot de helft, maar dat gaat in vlagen.