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