2020 reads

01-01-2021

I made it a point to read every day in 2020. Most days I read first thing every morning and every night before bed; sometimes it would be no more than a few pages, but even that adds up over time. Altogether I read 54 books, with a few rereads.

The general themes of this year were history, political philosophy, Kierkegaard, and technology. I generally found books through recommendations from authors, Tyler Cowen, or the citations of books I found good.

In the coming year I am striving to read specific authors and topics deeply. I am thinking I will continue reading Kierkegaard, political philosophy, and perhaps progress studies. I always appreciate recommendations if you have them.

These were my top reads of the year:

• History has Begun by Bruno Maçães
• The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat
• Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
• Lifespan by David Sinclair
• Inventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop

Here’s this year’s reads, starting with what I read most recently:

• Has the West Lost it? by Kishore Mahbubani
• Making Moonshots by Rahul Rana
• Stubborn Attachment by Tyler Cowen
• The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
• Working in Public by Nadia Eghbal
• The Kierkegaard and Girard Option by Charles K. Bellinger
• Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky
• History has Begun by Bruno Maçães
• Existential America by George Cotz
• Inventing The Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop
• Exile and The Kingdom by Albert Camus
• The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat
• An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal
• Lifespan by David Sinclair
• Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: a reader by Clare Carlisle
• The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn
• Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
• The Present Age by Kierkegaard
• Kierkegaard on The Present Age by Gordon Marino The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
• The Tycoons by Charles R. Morris
• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn by Richard Hamming
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel
• Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Soren Kierkegaard by Clare Carlisle
• History Has Begun by Bruno Maçães
• The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening by Soren Kierkegaard
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
• How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region by Joe Studwell
• The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditary Sin by Soren Kierkegaard
• The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 by Timothy C.W. Blanning
• The Death of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
• The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World and Globalization Began by Valerie Hansen
• Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World by Rene Girard
• The Evolution of New Markets by P.A. Geroski
• The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl
• The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress by Virginia Postrel
• Synthetic: How Life Got Made by Sophia Roosth
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• The Beautiful Cure: Harnessing Your Body's Natural Defences by Daniel M. Davis
• Long Shot: Vaccines for National Defense by Kendall Hoyt
• Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier by Edward L. Glaeser
• Create Dangerously: The Power and Responsibility of the Artist by Albert Camus
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland
• Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA by Daniel Carpenter
• The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority by Martin Gurri
• The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success by Ross Douthat
• The Quotable Kierkegaard by Gordon Marino
• Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland
• Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen
• A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (Graz Schumpeter Lectures) by Joel Mokyr
• Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows