2020 Books I've Read
Here
are my ratings for the books I read in the past 12 months. In case you've forgotten,
the scale goes like this: 1 - pass, 2 - some good some bad, 3 -
recommended, 4 - can't stop raving about it, 5 - fundamentally changed my worldview.
Please weigh in with recommendations. If you have been following this list over the years, you see an evolution in greater diversity in authors and topics, although still overwhelmingly non-fiction. I welcome hearing about must-reads.
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History (Landrieu) 3
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World (Ehrman) 4
Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Hawking) 2
The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (MacDonald) 3
The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump (Kakutani) 2
Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of "The View" (Setoodeh) 2
Tiger Woods (Jeff Benedict) 4
The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty (Page) 4
The Fifth Risk (Lewis) 3
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth (Kaku) 3
All You Can Ever Know (Chung) 3
Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society (Christakis) 3
Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future (Buttigieg) 3
First: Sandra Day O'Connor (Thomas) 4
Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law (Bharara) 3
Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win (Piazza) 3
A Republic, If You Can Keep It (Gorsuch) 3
Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game (Wambach) 3
Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life (Aronson) 3
The Charles Schwab Guide to Finances after Fifty: Answers to Your Most Important Money Questions (Schwab-Pomerantz) 2
Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution (Zia) 4
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style (Dreyer) 4
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches (Kepner) 3
Alexander Hamilton (Chernow) 4
Raising a Strong Daughter in a Toxic Culture: 11 Steps to Keep Her Happy, Healthy, and Safe (Meeker) 3
Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have (Schlossberg) 2
Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life (Scorah) 2
Girl, Woman, Other (Everisto) 2
Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs (Kanigel) 2
It Takes What It Takes: How to Think Neutrally and Gain Control of Your Life (Moawad) 3
I Really Needed This Today: Words to Live By (Kotb) 2
Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear (Holland) 3
The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Sugrue) 3
The New Testament (Brown) 3
River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey (Prejean) 2
With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace (Haley) 3
The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation (Ramey Berry) 3
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (Wilkerson) 4
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (Ehrman) 3
A Lab of One's Own: One Woman's Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science (Colwell) 3
Stan Lee: A Life in Comics (Leibovitz) 2
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Lorde) 2
Magical Negro: Poems (Parker) 2
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe (Jackson) 2
Scratched: A Memoir of Perfectionism (Tallent) 2
Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China (Theroux) 3
When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People (Gaffigan) 3
Edison (Morris) 3
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