This year, I hit 50 books, a number much higher than all my other years except for 2019, when I went absolutely insane. I don't plan on reading so much again next year, or at least not so many books. I want to integrate some more magazine and academic articles into my routine more, which I don't think I would write full blog posts about. Reflecting on the year, I read mostly history, economics and political books, which I enjoyed the most, although there was also a pretty good helping of sex/relationship/psychological books as well as science books. I also read five fantasy novels by Brandon Sanderson. The ones rated the highest below were evaluated by me just now as I wrote this post, so don't hold me to it. The same goes for my favorite posts that I made. Some are better written than others just like the books I read and it's all subjective, plus I could change my mind. But anyway, below is the information about my year in reading.
As an aside before the data and other info, I would say the major theme of the books I read this year is power and law. This quote from Otto von Bismarck seemed like a great summation of the evil that all educated people and all normal people need to fight: "Germany is not looking to Prussia's liberalism, but to its power; Bavaria, Wurttemburg, Baden may indulge liberalism, and yet no one will assign them Prussia's role... it is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of our time are decided - that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood." I feel like the inescapable theme I read about in Karl Popper, Francis Fukuyama, the various China books I read, and even Brandon Sanderson is that there is one fundamental divide that rises above all others in politics. There are those who believe in rule of law and those who believe in rule by law or rule by force. There is a class of elites at all times in history, who, to preserve their entrenched power, will stop at nothing, especially not the law, to preserve it. They violate norms and laws if they cannot change the laws, and democracy is their greatest enemy since it would offer rights to the weak. The idea that "the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must" is the most toxic idea in our history, and it is through the use of class, race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, and religion that entrenched elites bind allies from the weaker groups to themselves. I read it in books on Imperial Japan and Second Reich Germany as well as Communist China. Members of the common people are promised pittances in exchange for their loyalty, forming patron-client relationships as a form of government rather than government based on principles or any moral basis. It is much harder to form that moral government since everyone is vulnerable to being tempted away from justice and the law by elites. Anyway, that theme came up constantly in my readings this year and I just needed to type that out.
Books and pages (according to Goodreads) read per month
January: 4 books; 1,331 pages
February: 2 books; 1,416 pages
March: 1 book; 1,230 pages
April: 1 book; 366 pages
May: 9 books; 4,790 pages
June: 5 books; 2,433 pages
July: 7 books, 2,656 pages (the only month where I read more female authors than males: 4-3)
August: 6 books, 2,755 pages
September: 4 books, 1,565 pages
October: 2 books, 640 pages
November: 2 books, 856 pages
December: 7 books, 2,864 pages
Here is a graph I made of my reading:
Gender Breakdown
35 Male Authors
14 Female Authors
Best Books of the Year
Fifth:The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 by William Dalrymple. This was basically a historical novel! I would recommend this book to anyone I know because I felt like it was a perfect combination of being a completely accessible, non-fiction account of an event that so few people I know are aware of. It was absolutely illuminating.
Fourth: The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage by Jonathan Cohn. This book was just an amazing analysis of the legislative process and maintained a really empathetic tone about the real problem there to solve- fixing the American healthcare system. This book gave me the great quote from Harris Wofford: “Americans have a right to a lawyer when they are charged with a crime, so why don’t they have a right to a doctor when they are sick?”
Third: Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler. This was just a very cool history of the world told through its languages. Ostler introduces interesting linguistic changes and explains how they came about. It was excellent for learning about how hieroglyphics really worked and how "Italy" and "veal" come from the same Greek word.
Second: The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order by Rush Doshi. This book blew me away with its density and completeness. Rush Doshi does such good analysis of Chinese foreign policy that I couldn't stop thinking about this book as I read it, and it felt measured, which was good compared to some other books on China.
First: The Control of Nature by John McPhee. Three incredible parts about the Mississippi River, volcanoes in Hawaii and Iceland, and landslides in Los Angeles. Each one explores the theme of man's failure to control nature and our attempts to do so in a temporary way. McPhee is probably the best writer that I read all year. He elevates the art of non-fiction and it made learning about nature such a pleasure.
Honorable Mentions
Annals of the Former World by John McPhee. I didn't want to put two McPhee books in my top five, but this one would be in there otherwise. It's really five books, all of which are amazing lessons on American geology taught by different geologists through McPhee's prose. I found it relaxing to read about time on a geological scale.
Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy by Adam Tooze. I hope there will be a sequel to this. Shutdown is an economic history of Coronavirus that explains in detail so much of the news I missed because so much happened so quickly. If you liked Crashed or want to just learn about how the Federal Reserve and world governments respond to a crisis, read this book.
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. An amazing history of Europe that is a fantastic survey-type book for an undergraduate-level reader. Most people can pick this up and learn a ton.
The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume One: The Spell of Plato by Karl Popper. This defense of liberalism and openness was excellent. It was a little verbose, but very stirring, and I've never read someone viciously attack an ancient Greek philosopher over 2,000 years after his death before.
The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe by Joseph Stiglitz. This is a book in which Stiglitz makes an argument from the left against the Euro, saying that the Eurozone may either unite further or disband, but that the current system is untenable. I found it very convincing.
Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. Reisner's book had a similar feeling to McPhee except he talked about rivers and lakes, more ephemeral than tectonic plates. But the dams built by the Bureau of Reclamation are not so ephemeral, and will be here long after all of us are gone.
The Stormlight Archive and the Mitborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Since these are two series that I finished this year, I just need to mention that both were fantastic and that I plan on reading much more Brandon Sanderson in 2023. Sanderson is a master of world-building and his fantasy worlds are just incredible, especially in how much they just make sense to me and don't require me to suspend too much disbelief.
What It Takes: The Way to the White House by Richard Cramer. Who cares today about the 1988 presidential primaries? I didn't. But this (long) book was an absolutely amazing and detailed look at most of the major candidates (minus Jesse Jackson unfortunately), giving the reader biographies of each and following them on the campaign trail.
The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan's Defense and American Strategy in Asia by Ian Easton. If you want to know the details of how China will invade Taiwan, this is it. The book blew me away in its detail, and I came away convinced Ian Easton is an incredibly intelligent expert in the defense of Taiwan. Fascinating book on military details.
My Best-Written Reflections of the Year:
I'm ranking these reflections based on either how extensive my reflection was, how clear it was in its understanding of the book, or just that I think other people should read it. I'll say up front that The Long Game, The Last Mughal, Postwar, and Shutdown could all have made this list since I think I wrote great reflections for those that are worth reading, but I'm excluding them since I already put those books on the list above. But those reflections are pretty good I think. Here are the top reflections from this year in my opinion:
Third: Red Flags by George Magnus. This is a great book that details four major threats China faces in the coming decades, which I detail in my post.
Second: Mussolini by R.J.B. Bosworth. It's Mussolini's life. I go over it in detail and it took me a while to write.
First: The Thirty Years War: A European Tragedy by Peter Wilson. Oh man this was a pain to write. I have no idea what possessed me to write my longest reflection ever, but I did. I summarized the entire Thirty Years War and it was rough. The book was very hard to read, so I would recommend reading my reflection instead (which is probably not that interesting to anyone, I just need to make this number one for my own sake since it took me so long to write).
Honorable Mentions
The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge. I think I lost interest in this reflection by the end, but I put out a lot of good info on the Crusades.
Zoned in the USA by Sonia Hirt. This was a really cool book, and I wrote down a lot on her comparative portions in how different countries administer land uses.
Japan at War in the Pacific: The Rise and Fall of The Japanese Empire in Asia 1868-1945 by Jonathan Clements. What a dense book! In a good way. This was just a really short and detailed look at Japan over the short period of time in which it came to dominate its region after being more or less an isolated backwater into the mid 1800s. I go into a lot of that detail in my reflection.
Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871-1918 by Katja Hoyer. This book was really similar to the book on Japan, covering the same period of time in which Germany grew strong and then aggressive. Similarly, I wrote a pretty detailed reflection.
Carthage Must be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles. This was a great book covering Carthage from its foundation through the Punic Wars with Rome and its defeat.
Botwana - A Modern Economic History: An African Diamond in the Rough by Ellen Hillbom and Jutta Bolt. This book read like more of an academic article, so I think my reflection is a nice summation for anyone who doesn't want to get into all that. But if you want to know why Botswana is richer per capita than all its neighbors, this book tells you why.
Hopefully this post serves as a useful guide to some of the best books I read this year. I ended up including a lot more than I planned to by using the honorable mentions, but I almost never finish a book I don't like. So that means that every book you see get a reflection (with very few exceptions) was a good book. Below, I'll include some historical data from other years before I ever thought to do a "year in review" post.
2018: 18,122 pages over 33 books, averaging about 549 pages per book.
2019: 55,502 pages over 116 books, averaging about 478 pages per book.
2020: 13,415 pages over 32 books, averaging about 419 pages per book.
2021: 14,144 pages over 27 books, averaging about 524 pages per book.
2022: 22,902 pages over 50 books, averaging about 458 pages per book.
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