Here are the books I’ve read in 2025:
- The Demon in the Freezer
- The Blade Itself
- Dealers of Lightning
- The Darkening Web (feels outdated already)
- Before They Are Hanged
- How to Stay Productive when the World Is Ending
- The Coddling of the American Mind (highly recommended)
- Countdown to Zero Day (recommended)
- Last Argument of Kings
- Girls and Sex: Navigating the complicated new landscape (as a father, shocking and engaging and heart-breaking)
- Careless People (no one was likable, seemed like self-pitying)
- Confront and Conceal
- Beijing Rules (it seems like under the current administration, the US is becoming more like China, despite all the anti-China talk)
- Eiger Dreams
- From Strength to Strength (good book to start thinking about the second curve; a little weak on suggestions on what to actually do)
- Command and Control
- Everything is Tuberculosis (highly recommended)
- The Black Hole War
- How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
- Stillness Is Key
- Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
- Courage is Calling
- The Singularity Is Nearer (not much new)
- Fahrenheit 451 (re-read; I felt less connected to it than the first few times I’ve read it 20 to 30 years ago)
- The Righteous Mind (highly recommended)
- One Device
- Discipline is Destiny
- Elusive Cures (AI currently goes from complexity to perplexity, not understanding)
- The Big Short (recommended)
- Code Dependent
- Quiet Damage (highly recommended)
- Longitude
- Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
The most though-provoking books for me were “The Coddling of the American Mind” and “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt. They caused me to examine some of my points of view.
For example, is universal health insurance the right approach? Covering too much with health insurance means that there is less incentive to lower costs and to innovate. In the end, we all end up paying more in our premiums. I still think we need a universal health safety net.
Also, “The Righteous Mind” presented a chance for liberals to connect to loyalty, if they emphasize connections to, or violations of, the constitution.
I still find it hard to believe that people are “equally moral”, just having a different moral system. How can conservatives put children in cages or shoot priests with pepper spray? Sure, maybe the children are children of illegal immigrants and shouldn’t be here, so they violated authority and fairness. Maybe the priest makes them feel like somehow he sullied his own religion, violating sanctity. But still, how can they think that kind of abject cruelty is moral?
Similarly eye-opening was “Quiet Damage”. By looking at five examples, it described how people were sucked into conspiracy theories.
My favorite book of the year, though, was “Everything Is Tuberculosis”. Great connection of science and history, the personal and society.
I couldn’t finish:
- 101 Essays that will change the way you think (superficial drivel)
- Technically Wrong (seemed superficial)
- Black Swan (very dry)
