Continuing my tradition of posting my annual book diet, this year wasn’t nearly as good of a reading year as 2018. 2019 was (extremely?) busy with the birth of our baby daughter, the continued raising of our four-year-old son, my wife starting a solo private practice (that’s another post), and my first full year as an attending (and winning teacher of the year to boot!).
- Get Jiro! by Anthony Bourdain (weird)
- How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber and Julie King (kids are ruthless)
- War of the Blink by Michael Nicoll and Yahgulanaas
- Anthem: The Graphic Novel by Ayn Rand
- Voice Lessons for Parents by Wendy Mogel
- Power Moves by Adam Grant
- Replay: The History of Videogames by Tristan Donovan (very interesting, at least if you’re me)
- Meet the Frugalwoods by Elizabeth Willard Thames
- Contact by Carl Sagan (classic)
- Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar (no Emperor of All Maladies, but pretty good)
- Junk by Les Bohem
- Company of One by Paul Jarvis (synopsis: there’s more to business than growth; something hospitals and academic centers would do well to remember)
- The Dispatcher by John Scalzi
- Black Crow, White Snow by Michael Livingston
- The Rule of One by Ashley and Leslie Saunders (near-future dystopia, but the twist is that the main characters are twins [and the authors are twins!]. The protagonists aren’t awesome athletes or killers, but it’s also not as good as [the first two books] of The Hunger Games or the [first two books] of Divergent.)
- The Rule of Many by Ashley and Leslie Saunders (the conclusion)
- Skyward by Brandon Sanderson (he’s better at fantasy, but still highly enjoyable YA light-sci-fi.)
- The Physician Philosopher’s Guide to Personal Finance by James Turner (reviewed here)
- Educated by Tara Westover (excellent memoir)
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (Chabon is my Jewish writer spirit animal.)
- The Vexed Generation by Scott Meyer (Magic 2.0 #6) (meh)
- Everything is F-cked by Mark Manson (though neither really treads new ground, his first book was much better and genuinely enjoyable. This one suffers from sequelitis.)
- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (Be thoughtful in how you use technology. Hint: Less is more. The weakest of his books, but still has enough meat to have warranted several blog posts.)
- Fall by Neal Stephenson (Long, good. What happens when people figure out how to live as digital avatars after death?)
- Chop Wood, Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf
- Space Force by Jeremy Robinson (hilarious, page-turning shoot ’em up thriller. I don’t laugh out loud very often, but I did a lot with this one. What happens if we create Trump’s Space Force, everyone realizes how dumb it is, we cancel the program, and then immediately experience an alien invasion?)
- The Mage Fire War by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (Sage of Recluce #21[!])
- Level Five by William Ledbetter
- Keep Going by Austin Kleon
- Bushido Online: War Games (#3) by Nikita Thorn (I’d never heard of let alone read a “LitRPG” book before this series, and I’ll probably never read another one. But I like this series! Yes, it’s silly. And yet.)
- Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs (A really good memoir; also, Jobs seems like a pretty not nice guy.)
- Make it Stick by Peter C. Brown (Probably the definitive book on modern learning science)
- The Toll by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe #3)
- The Others by Jeremy Robinson
- Indistractable by Nir Eyal (meh)
- Ultralearning by Scott Young (more anecdotal than #31)
- Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle (hands-down best thing on Instagram)
I think 2020 is going to be a good year. I already know what my first book is going to be.
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