Books I Am Reading in 2021
[This was written mid 2021, so pretty sure it omits a few, alas.]
Invent and Wander, Jeff Bezos. Hey I work for the guy. Mixed feelings aside, Bezos has undeniably had a huge impact. I mostly got this for the one volume collections of his letters to shareholders — reading them makes for a mix of admiring his prescience and drive, nostalgia (in the early ones) for the 90s and early 2000s, and fascinating techno-cultural history. Full disclosure that I am treating this as occasional reading, so I haven’t finished.
Inheritance Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin. I picked this up both because I’ve been tempted to read some contemporary fantasy fiction (pretty much haven’t read anything since Tolkien as a teenager in the 70s) with a nudge because Ezra Klein loves love loves Jemisin’s writing. It was engaging but I started to get a little bored (apostasy?) and put it down about halfway through the first volume of the trilogy.
The Twenty Six Words That Created The Internet, Jeff Kosseff. Seems like it would be hard to read something more topical in 2021, in the wake of Trump twitter-fueled incendiary presidency. Section 230 is the letter of the law and has had positively outsized consequences, that would have been hard to see (though yes there were some Cassandras even 20 years ago). Great history of Section 230, which manages to be level-headed and balanced, at the same time that Kosseff is an unabashed fan of Section 230. Really great read, even if (like me) you aren’t fully aligned with Kosseff. Topic for another day.
The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future, Gretchen Bakke. Read this as a recommendation from the manager of my new team, which manages renewable energy at Amazon. Really fascinating and enjoyable read — both a history of the grid going back over a hundred years and an excellent sketch of the grid ecosystem today and where it might go in the future. Very accessible and endlessly fascinating.
Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie. Super fun, hadn’t read any Agatha Christie since I was a kid and my mom had a shelf full of Christie novels which I would pull down and read. I listened to this one, mostly on a drive to / from Seattle with Toby. These books are so much fun; I just might have to pick up another.
The Iliad, Homer. Feels funny to list this here like just another book, because well it’s Homer. Regardless, I hadn’t read this since high school (and probably mostly tried not to read it in high school) but I really enjoyed this. I also read it in a new way for me- I mostly listened to it as an audio book, but often followed along in the text as I was listening, and then sometimes read sections sans narration — it’s a great way to read a book and especially well-suited to Homer, since the books is descended from an oral tradition. On to the book itself, it was more relatable in many ways than I imagined. The central themes are really psychological, and it touches on so many topics that resonate through the centuries-the individual vs the community, the particular and the universal, free will, theodicy, how we carry our ancestors with us, etc. I honestly feel like I could go back and re-read this again (though I won’t — I will pick up The Odyssey next). I also want to go back and read Erich Auerbach on Homer again.
Bayes Theorem: A Visual Introduction for Beginners, Dan Morris. This is one of these e-book-only books that is pamphlet length, and it is a good primer on the Bayes Theorem. Still a bit mind-bending and not yet in my bones, but this was a nice easy introduction.
