2021 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.

 

Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving (Rocca) 3

That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row (Masters) 4

Disposable City: Miami's Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe (Ariza) 4

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Hazareesingh) 3

Take It Back (Abdullah) 4

Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (Meacham) 4

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Wilkerson) 5

HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time (Aronson) 3

We Can’t Talk about That at Work! How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics (Winters) 3

This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are (Warnick) 4

Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling (Hess) 3

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear (Bondeson) 2

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Caro) 5

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know (Grant) 3

The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work (Nixon) 4

The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success (McArdle) 3

The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results (Knight) 3

The City: A Global History (Kotkin) 3

Assume Nothing: A Story of Intimate Violence (Selvaratnam) 3

The Tradition (Brown) 2

Conscience of a Conservative (Goldwater) 3

Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta (Kolodiejchuk) 3

Washington: A Life (Chernow) 3

Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America's Greatest Inventor (Gelb/Caldicott) 3

The Incredible Dr. Matrix: The World’s Greatest Numerologist (Gardner) 3

The Enlightened CEO: How to Succeed at the Toughest Job in Business (Fifer/Quick) 2

The Age of the Customer: Prepare for the Moment of Relevance (Blasingame) 2

A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (Witham) 2

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Best Investment Advice for the New Century (Malkiel) 3

The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (Kenneally) 4

Girl on a Train (Hawkins) 4

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) (Vanderbilt) 4

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (Diamond) 4

Mindscape: What to Think About Instead of Worrying (Witmer) 2

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Miles) 4

Native Speaker (Lee) 4

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram (Frier) 3

Personal History (Graham) 4

Begin Again: Your Hope and Renewal Start Today (Lucado) 3

Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life (Bishop) 3

13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do: Raising Self-Assured Children and Training Their Brains for a Life of Happiness, Meaning, and Success (Morin) 4

Truman (McCullough) 4

Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You Never Heard (Gray) 4

The Shapeless Unease  A Year of Not Sleeping (Harvey) 2

A Promised Land (Obama) 4

Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius (Nasar) 3

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy (Danko) 3

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't (Silver) 4

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (Gladwell) 4

How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers (Rubenstein) 4

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (Burkeman) 3

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times (May) 3

Black Buck (Askaripour) 4

The Year of Magical Thinking (Didion) 3

The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas (Shell, Moussa) 3

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Odell) 3

The God of Small Things (Roy) 2

The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store (Flanders) 3

A Queer History of the United States (Bronski) 3