This year my favorite book was When We Cease To Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, of which I’ve written a review. Read the review if you want to hear why I liked it so much. I’ll just say here that this was a fantastic and weird book about science that defies categorization.

The best non-fiction book I read was Pursuit of Power by William McNeill, a sweeping synthesis of military, social, and technology history, tracing over centuries how bottom up markets, top down command structures, and militaries have interacted in complex feedback loops leading to our modern world.

Besides When We Cease and it’s followup The Maniac I didn’t read much fiction good enough to note here. I will offer up Rilke’s Book of Hours as not-non-fiction that I really enjoyed. If you like existenialism and poetry, I think that you'll like this as well.

Some other notable titles for me:

• The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham
• Modernity and its Discontents by Stephen Smith
• Reality Switch Technologies by Andrew R. Gallimore
• The Global Condition by William McNeill
• Mastering the Core Teachings of The Buddha by Daniel Ingram
• The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut

Recommendations for 2024 are appreciated!