Category: Books

Here’s the best of what I read in 2020.

As usual, I chose print books over ebooks whenever possible (all the better for taking notes in the margins and distilling them into my Book Notes posts).

Since we moved here to Hong Kong early in the year, and given that I continue to cover technology, you’ll see the world’s most populous country, our new home, and the themes of tech and business figure prominently in this list. Oh, and books about…pandemics, too!

As in my previous round-ups, I’m listing these titles in roughly the order I read them, and with selections not limited to books published during the year. Here goes:

1) "The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State," by Elizabeth C. Economy. An insightful explication of just why Xi is such an important figure.

2) "Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built," by Duncan Clark. An in-depth account of Alibaba’s rise, and of founder Ma’s background and personality. (My Books Notes entry is here.)

3) "Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment," by Robert Wright. The title, of course, cannot deliver, but Wright makes the case that Buddhist thought, and especially meditation, can make life easier and more rewarding.

4) "The Quiet American," by Graham Greene. A classic I can’t believe I’d never read. A memorable story, written with skill by the great Greene.

5) "Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction," by Christian McMillen. Helpful historical context. One lesson that has stuck with me, which isn’t always obvious these days: pandemics do not last forever! (My Book Notes entry is here.)

6) “Brave New World,” by Aldous Huxley. Another classic I must have dipped into at some point. Like “1984,” a book with themes that remain ever relevant.

7) “Hong Kong,” by Jan Morris. A thoughtful, highly detailed survey of this majestic city. Highly recommended.

8) “The Stand,” by Stephen King. What better to read during an actual pandemic than a 1000-word-plus novel about…the aftermath of a pandemic? I found it riveting. If long. And it’s clear to my why this is a favorite King book for many of his fans.

9) “Skinny Dip,” by Carl Hiaasen. I love Hiaasen’s humorous brand of crime fiction, set in Florida, and this 2004 novel is so, so fun. I mean, do the first few lines of a thriller get any better than this?

“At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V. Sun Duchess. Plunging toward the dark Atlantic, Joey was too dumbfounded to panic.

I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.”

10) “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China,” by Evan Osnos. A stunning work encompasses a grand sweep of a narrative, but is also grounded in rich detail. Osnos tells important stories about individuals in a country that outsiders sometimes view through stereotypes.

11) “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos,” by Jordan Peterson. Thought provoking, controversial, moving.

12) “Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls’ Escape from Slavery to Union Hero,” by Cate Lineberry. I’d never heard of this book but a friend raved about it and let me borrow it. My first reaction was: WOW. A fantastic, fantastic, story. My second reaction was one of sadness, because despite the time I spent in the South Carolina Lowcountry growing up, I knew little of what Smalls accomplished. A must-read for anyone interested not just in U.S. history, but in heroism and moral courage.

13) “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet,” by Nina Teicholz. In this painstakingly researched book, which took nearly a decade to write, Teicholz shows how faulty science and powerful personalities drove the narrative, subsequently adopted by the U.S. government and enshrined in nutritional guidelines, that saturated fat causes heart disease. But there is little, if any, significant evidence for this claim. Nevertheless it was adopted as conventional wisdom, and as Americans began eschewing animal fats, meat and dairy products, we increased our consumption of grains, refined carbohydrates, trans-fats, and sugar. That has been disastrous, a major factor in the obesity epidemic. A remarkable book.

14) “The Silence of the Lambs,” by Thomas Harris. I love thrillers and had never read this one. The ultimate page turner, with some sparkling prose thrown in.

15) “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World,” by Cal Newport. A convincing argument for making room for what’s really important in life, and putting the rest in its proper place.

Honorable mentions:

• “The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet,” by James Griffiths
• “How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking,” by Sönke Ahrens.
• “Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink,” by Jeffrey Wasserstrom.

Here are my round-ups for 2019, 2018, and 2017.

On to 2021. Happy reading, friends.

TLDR: Tech giants, economics, the Cold War, and some fiction! You can also check out my previous lists for 2018 and 2017.

Around this time last year, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I deliberately set aside the books I wanted to tackle in 2019.

One of the advantages print books, rather than e-books, is their physical nature: I actually lined up the titles I wanted to read on a dedicated shelf next to my favorite reading chair. And they were there, looming over me, all year long, reminding me to dive in.

I picked a mix of classics I’d never read — or had delved into but never fully grasped — and more recent books that I was interested in for work or personal reasons. I also tried to read more novels, as my previous year-end lists have been dominated by nonfiction.

These were my faves, in roughly the order I read them. Note that as always, these are books I read that were new to me in 2019, not books published only during that year.

1. “The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World,” by Brad Stone. (Published: 2017.)

   I enjoyed Stone’s “The Everything Store,” about Jeff Bezos and Amazon (corresponding Book Notes post here), and found this one to be similarly instructive for understanding the origins and culture of Uber and Airbnb — and their founders.

   For more details, see my Book Notes post on “The Upstarts” here.

2. “The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal,” by David E. Hoffman. (Published: 2015.)

   This was not something I’d actually planned to read, but happened upon a copy of it while away at the beach. (All that stuff I was saying above about planning what to read? This was a notable exception.)

   It’s fantastic: a page turner about successful U.S. efforts, after years of failure, to cultivate a spy deep within the Russian government during the Cold War — and how much that cost all the individuals involved. It’s such a pleasure to encounter new insights about a topic that has so little to do with your daily life, but feels so timeless.

3. “How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region,” by Joe Studwell. (Published: 2013.)

   I’d been meaning to read this this it was published several years ago, having loved Studwell’s seminal 2007 book “Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia” (Book Notes post here).

   Why do some countries become rich, while others remain poor or stuck with their middle income status? Studwell shows that it’s really not so mysterious.

   There is a proven path to economic development that countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have undertaken. First, initiate land reform that permits farmers to practice small scale agriculture; then build a manufacturing sector by requiring domestic firms to be globally competitive; and, finally, enforce fiscal discipline.

   Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and India (though the South Asian nation is not discussed at length in the book) have not taken this path, and thus have not developed as quickly. (China is a case unto itself.)

4. “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” by Neil Postman. (Published: 1985.)

   The crux of this book: TV ruins everything.

   When people communicate important ideas through words (i.e. newspapers, magazines, books), public discourse tends to be more thoughtful. But the rise of TV has brought about sensationalism and shallowness of thought, and discourse has followed suit.

   Were Postman still alive, I reckon he would simply point to Donald Trump, the reality star turned president, to prove his point.

5. “1984,” by George Orwell. (Published: 1949.)

   I must have read this book in high school or college, but I gave it another look in 2019. The dystopian novel is famous for terms like Big Brother and Doublespeak, and for showing (predicting?) how totalitarian states can employ surveillance to stifle dissent and crush individuals.

   Especially compelling was just how vividly Orwell renders the personal toll on citizens, describing the suffering endured by Winston and Julia in such horrific terms.

6. “Exit West: A Novel,” by Mohsin Hamid. (Published: 2017.)

   Last year I read Hamid’s novel “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” and found it strikingly good.

   I also enjoyed “Exit West,” which follows a couple named Nadia and Saeed as they live their lives together in a world of war and global migration.

   One criticism: Without giving away too much, there is one sci-fi-related plot point that I found unconvincing, but otherwise I found it to be an excellent novel.

7. “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” by Patricia Highsmith.” (Published: 1955.)

   I’m not sure how it is I’d never read this Highsmith classic. It is a psychological thriller about Tom Ripley, touching on identity, wealth and class, jealousy, love, and deception.

   I loved her beautiful, unadorned prose and perfect pacing.

8. “Googled: The End of the World As We Know It,” by Ken Auletta (Published: 2009).

   First, yes: this book is a decade old, and that’s about a century in internet years. Google has changed a lot during that time, but I didn’t read it to understand the company’s most recent happenings.

   Rather, as I mentioned in reading about Uber and Airbnb (and Amazon), what I’m often looking for is knowledge about big tech firms’ beginnings and cultural makeup. Auletta, who covers media for The New Yorker, delivers on that front.

9. “The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age,” by James Crabtree (Published: 2018)

   Crabtree, who was a Financial Times correspondent here in India for several years, has delivered an excellent book explaining why the ranks of India’s billionaires has risen so sharply in recent years, and drawing comparisons to the American Gilded Age.

   He explains how it’s happened in the world’s second-most-populous country, who the billionaires are as people, and mixes in colorful anecdotes from his reporting. Recommended for anyone interested in India, its economy, and its future.

10. “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman (Published: 2011.)

    Yes, it’s as good as you’ve heard it is.

    I’d put off reading this book for so long because since its publication eight years ago the ideas contained in its pages have been everywhere — conversations, podcasts, all manner of journalistic stories — to such an extent that I felt I’d already understood them.

    And, largely, I had. But it’s worth devoting the time to read about them at length. The book is meticulously researched and brimming with insights.

    Simply put: Kahneman provides page after page of evidence showing that we just aren’t as smart as we think we are. When we think fast — use heuristics and fall prey to our cognitive biases — we make bad decisions. Even when we know we’re vulnerable.

Here are the top 10 books I read during 2017. I may add individual Book Notes writeups for some of these later, but wanted to share the list as the year has come to a close.

(As in previous roundups, these are books I encountered during the year, not books published only in 2017.)

I chose these nonfiction titles mostly due to my professional and personal interests: technology trends, India, economics, media – and, let’s not forget, dogs!

I also see now that I read a shockingly small amount of fiction in 2017. I may try to remedy that in 2018. (I did consume a beach read or two that weren’t memorable enough to add to this list, I should note.)

In no particular order:

Nonfiction

• An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions," by Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen. A masterful work illustrating, with clinical precision, that despite India’s steady economic growth over the decades, the government has continued to fail its most vulnerable citizens: the rural poor.
• “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution,” by Walter Isaacson. As I wrote in my Book Notes entry, it’s an “exhaustive, compulsively readable account of how the computer and the internet came to be.”

• “Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count,” by Richard E. Nisbett. Environments, schools, teachers and parenting affect IQs, Nisbett writes, much more than genetics. (Also recommended by Nisbett, a title I read a few years back: “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why.”)

• “The Golden Tap: The Inside Story of Hyper Funded Indian Startups,” by Kashyap Deorah. A detailed, warts-and-all look at the history of Indian startups and venture capital trends, refreshingly devoid of the breathless optimism that often accompanies discussion of tech here. Deorah, a seasoned tech entrepreneur himself, knows his stuff.

• “The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media Companies,” by Jonathan Knee, Bruce Greenwald and Ava Seave. I encountered this book in grad school but didn’t give it enough time, so I returned to it this year. To sum up: Media tycoons often make bad corporate strategy decisions, often driven by ego, the authors write.

• “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading,” by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. I snickered when I first heard about this book, originally published in 1940, but it’s a favorite among serious readers for its practical tips on quickly attacking and retaining material from nonfiction tomes.

• “Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter,” by Thomas Cahill. An entertaining trip through ancient Greece, and an examination of Greeks’ intellectual and artistic legacies, which persist to this day.

• “How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain,” by Gregory Berns. I came across this book after our beloved mutt Ashely died. Berns, a neuroscientist at Emory University (my alma mater, as longtime Newley.com readers know), scanned dogs’ brains with MRIs to try to figure out what goes on inside them; while it’s still unclear if they “love” us, as the title suggests, it’s an interesting look at how canines operate, and contains some moving passages about the dogs in Berns’s own family’s life.

Fiction

• “The Windup Girl,” by Paolo Bacigalupi. Sci-fi, set in a post-apocalyptic Bangkok? Yes, please! A fast-paced, thought provoking novel about genetic engineering (both agricultural and human), the environment, money, and power. Highly recommended.

• “The Circle,” by Dave Eggers. I didn’t think I’d like this book, as I’d heard it involves ludicrously far-fetched technologies. But it’s in many ways an important novel of our times, showing what could happen if societies continue to obsess over the digital rather than the physical world, and a fictional reminder that startups outwardly driven by utopian ideals are companies like any other, pursuing profits and influence. Also highly recommended. (Note: I haven’t seen the movie.)

Previously: The Best Books I Read in 2016.