Books 2020-2023

In honor of Matt’s 40th birthday, and per his request, I’m giving him a blog post as a gift.––And I’m blogging again for the first time in a while! I liked his idea a few weeks ago to publish all his favorite books from the past few years. I, too, neglected to publish yearly book lists these last four years so, here goes. (Absolute favorites have an asterisk * next to them).

2020 & 2021 (I can’t remember now which ones were which years)

  1. The Road* – Cormac McCarthy – how funny I started January 2020 with this book first
  2. The White Darkness* – David Grann
  3. A Man for All Markets – Edward Thorp
  4. Killers of the Flower Moon* – David Grann
  5. The Ride of a Lifetime – Robert Iger
  6. The Uninhabitable Earth – David Wallace-Wells
  7. Bitter Brew – William Knoedelseder
  8. Measure What Matters – John Doerr
  9. The Coddling of the American Mind* – Jonathan Haidt
  10. Hackers – Steven Levy
  11. The Brain Fog Fix – Mike Dow
  12. The Great Influenza* – John M. Barry
  13. Chaos Monkeys – Antonio García Martínez
  14. Smarter Faster Better – Charles Duhigg
  15. Brunelleschi’s Dome* – Ross King
  16. The Innocent Man* – John Grisham
  17. The First Tycoon* – T.J. Stiles
  18. The Square and the Tower – Niall Ferguson
  19. The Revenge of Analog – David Sax
  20. The Year Without Pants – Scott Berkun
  21. The Overstory* – Richard Powers
  22. How We Got to Now – Steven Johnson
  23. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running* – Haruki Murakami
  24. The (Mis)Behavior of Markets – Benoit B. Mandelbrot
  25. Make Your Bed – William H. McRaven
  26. The Plaza* – Julie Satow
  27. The Idea Factory* – Jon Gertner
  28. The Inevitable – Kevin Kelly
  29. Empire of Pain* – Patrick Radden Keefe
  30. Valley of Genius* – Adam Fischer – loved the first-hand storytelling feel
  31. Red Notice – Bill Browder
  32. Billion Dollar Whale – Tom Wright
  33. Radical Candor – Kim Malone Scott
  34. Black Edge – Sheelah Kolhatkar
  35. On Writing* – Stephen King
  36. The Space Barons – Christian Davenport
  37. Outline – Rachel Cusk
  38. Calypso – David Sedaris
  39. Travels with Charley* – John Steinbeck – one of the two reasons why our camper van is called “Rocinante”
  40. A Random Walk Down Wall Street – Burton G. Malkiel
  41. It Starts with the Egg – Rebecca Fett
  42. Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke
  43. The Library Book – Susan Orlean
  44. The Devil in the White City* – Erik Larson
  45. Cribsheet – Emily Oster
  46. Circe* – Madeline Miller – just an excellent retelling; I always recommend this one
  47. Born Standing Up – Steve Martin
  48. Say Nothing* – Patrick Radden Keefe – like a Grann or Remnick, I think I would pick up and read any of his works
  49. The Fire Next Time* – James Baldwin
  50. The Fragile Earth* – David Remnick
  51. No One Is Talking About This – Patricia Lockwood
  52. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster – Bill Gates
  53. Working in Public – Nadia Eghbal
  54. Blood and Oil – Bradley Hope
  55. No Rules Rules – Reed Hastings
  56. Is This Anything? – Jerry Seinfeld
  57. The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel
  58. The Snowball* – Alice Schroeder
  59. Great Society* – Amity Shlaes
  60. No-Drama Discipline – Daniel Siegel
  61. The Year of Magical Thinking* – Joan Didion
  62. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas* – Hunter S. Thompson
  63. Driven – Alex Davies
  64. Empire* – Donald L. Bartlett
  65. Skunk Works* – Ben R. Rich
  66. In the Garden of Beasts – Erik Larson
  67. Leonardo da Vinci – Walter Isaacson

2022

  1. The Doors of Perception* – Aldous Huxley
  2. Nausea* – Jean-Paul Sartre
  3. The Spy and the Traitor* – Ben Macintyre
  4. Born to Run – Christopher McDougall
  5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
  6. Men Explain Things to Me* – Rebecca Solnit
  7. What If? – Randall Monroe
  8. 1776 – David McCullough
  9. Snow Crash* – Neal Stephenson
  10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World – Jack Weatherford
  11. Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey
  12. Catch and Kill – Ronan Farrow
  13. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
  14. Between the World and Me* – Ta-Nehisi Coates
  15. The Code Breaker – Walter Isaacson
  16. Norse Mythology* – Neil Gaiman
  17. Waiting for Godot* – Samuel Beckett
  18. Why We Sleep* – Matthew Walker
  19. How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen – Joanna Faber

2023

  1. The Second Mountain – David Brooks
  2. Eat the Buddha* – Barbara Demick
  3. Rise and Kill First* – Ronen Bergman
  4. Other Minds* – Peter Godfrey Smith
  5. Cannery Row* – John Steinbeck
  6. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life* – William Finnegan
  7. American Prometheus* – Kai Bird
  8. Season of the Witch* – David Talbot
  9. Burn Rate – Andy Dunn
  10. Orange Sunshine* – Nicholas Schou
  11. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test* – Tom Wolfe
  12. Hell’s Angels* – Hunter S. Thompson
  13. The Billionaire Raj* – James Crabtree
  14. SPQR – Mary Bears
  15. Don Quixote* – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
  16. Going Infinite – Michael Lewis
  17. The Bond King – Mary Childs
  18. The Wager* – David Grann
  19. Like a Rolling Stone – Jann Wenner
  20. Cult Classic* – Sloane Crosley
  21. The Guest – Emma Cline
  22. Normal Family* – Chrysta Bilton
  23. Your Table Is Ready – Michael Cecchi-Azzolina
  24. Electrify – Saul Griffith
  25. The Ministry for the Future* – Kim Stanley Robinson
  26. Outlive* – Peter Attia
  27. Slouching Towards Bethlehem* – Joan Didion
  28. Let Me Tell You What I Mean* – Joan Didion
  29. Nothing to Envy – Barbara Demick
  30. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

Until next year!