Best books I’ve read this year(2021 edition)
I read a lot of books and here my recommendations of the ones I’ve read this year
I run a weekly email newsletter full of interesting things called The Sunday Surprise. In it, I recommend a lot of books that I come across. Since the newsletter is now a 1 year old, here’s a list of my favourite books that I’ve read and recommended in the past year.
Top 3 fiction books
2034: A novel of the Next World War
I’ll begin by saying that “war” or “military” books are not my thing normally. The Wired magazine published a few chapters in an issue a few months ago and after reading it, I genuinely was curious to see how the story unfolded. Unlike previous war stories that I had read, I found the novel’s focus on a few characters that were part of the action but not the person in charge (ie. not the President of the US or a genius tactical general) gave it an unique perspective on how the fictional events unfolded.
What made me really love the novel was how each side was drawn into an inevitable spiral of conflict even though no party actually wanted a war. It resulted in a measured, nuanced and even scarily realistic scenario that could happen in the future. The fact that it’s written by ex-military people lends it even more realism and credibility.
Kafka by the Shore
While I’m a rabid fan, I have never really been able to describe any novel by Murakami other than to say that they are beautifully dreamlike in their scope and weirdly transfixing in their ability to both make the mundane seem poetic and the absurdly weird seem normal.
This novel fits the above description well, with fish raining from the sky, a villian who hunts cats to make a musical instrument and soldiers who remain un-aged from World War 2, all somehow making this surrealist plot work.
If you happen to be an over-thinker, these novels are a treat. There’s no logical way to make it all work so all your brain can do is slow down and enjoy the story from a master storyteller.
The Graveyard Book
Possibly the best re-introduction to fiction that I could’ve asked for after years of just reading non-fiction. Thanks to Tim Ferriss, I started to listen to the audiobook which is narrated by the author, Neil Gaiman and could not stop. It’s one of those books that made me sad when it ended just because I enjoyed it so much!
The novel follows the story of a baby named Bod who is raised by the resident ghosts and supernatural creatures of a graveyard as he uncovers the prophecy of his families demise at the hands of a sinister group. Along the way, he learns about life from those who have long departed in a very enjoyable adventure.
While this book is intended for young adults, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have recommended it so many times to people that I’ve lost count. If you’re like me and haven’t read good fiction in a while, this is a perfect reintroduction.
Top 5 non-fiction books
Why We Sleep
Given my day job as an anaesthetist, I’m not a stranger to all nighters, especially during training. I always used to pride myself on being able to keep going with a few hours sleep at night. I’d read a bit on sleep research during my training years so wasn’t too unfamiliar with the subject and spent a lot of time and effort with gadgets and gizmos to optimise and minimise the amount of sleep I needed.
This was the first thing I read that made me reexamine my relationship to sleep and reframe a good nights sleep from a luxury to a necessity. Especially impactful were the chapters on the various long term health hazards that come from too little sleep and the false economy of trying to do tasks at the expense of sleep.
If you’re going to spend 1/3 of your life in bed, this is a really good book on what it’s all about and why that’s probably a good thing to spend all this time unconscious.
Stillness is the key
This follows quite nicely from the previous book, with Ryan Holiday explaining why there is a fundamental requirement for peace/stillness for anyone to be effective in the field that they have chosen.
He discusses various crises throughout history and how the critical people in those time-critical situations managed to seek out and find stillness before making history altering decisions.
I especially liked the discussion near the end of how those world leaders were flawed in their own way, but managed to find stillness and calm to make the big decisions where it counted.
If the best of us need to focus on being still, maybe the rest of us need it more…
The Rational Optimist
I’d heard about the book previously but the past year was a great time to read this and How Innovation Works by Matt Riddley. The pandemic has meant that this has been a challenging time for everyone and it may seem like this is the most difficult and unprecedented situation the world has faced in an evermore dangerous world.
In this book, the author argues why that isn’t the case and highlights many challenges that our species has faced in the past. The examples paint a fairly convincing picture that things, despite appearances, are indeed getting better.
A great book for a dose of realistic optimism in the modern day.
Guns, Germs & Steel
I truly didn’t expect to like this book after the first few pages as much as I did. It’s rare that I like history books in general, but this one explored such an interesting question of why civilisation ended up how it was instead of any one of the ancient societies winning out instead.
It explored the questions from various viewpoints including evolution, sociology, innovation and even geography. It was a wide ranging trip into fields that I’m only slightly familiar with, but I came away with an appreciation for all those little factors that led to us being here today.
It’s a very good complementary book to The Rational Optimist
The Beginning of Infinity
I stumbled on this book after hearing snippets of Naval Ravikant’s podcast about it. It’s taken me the longest time to get through most of the book (I’m still not done) since it is dense with information and concepts that I’m finding really fascinating.
The author, David Deutsch, is a physicist, philosopher and general polymath and provides a fascinating view into why humans are “universal explainers” and how this fact can alter the universe.
It’s abstract and immense in scope, but the everyday examples highlight why such lofty ideas are immensely applicable to daily life. My favourite chapter was a hypothetical interaction between Plato and Hermes which solidified a range of concepts from the book in one short exchange.
This book will take a while to read and digest properly, but so far it’s been worth the effort!
If you’ve read this far, I have to offer my thanks. You might enjoy my weekly newsletter over at The Sunday Surprise, where I cover interesting topics that hopefully leaves you entertained and a bit smarter.
