Here are the books that devoured my weekends and early mornings this year.
Fiction
I loved Tom Robbins and Gillian Flynn this year, but didn’t see the fuss about Hilary Mantel and Wolf Hall. I relished every perfect morsel of Saki’s short stories for the sheer craft that they displayed. Old favourites such as Wilt and Flashman were returned to and still gave every bit as much enjoyment as when I first read them and I was privileged to read Maya Rodale’s fabulous romances before publication.
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
Flashman by George Macdonald Fraser
The Tattooed Duke By Maya Rodale
Seducing Mr Knightly by Maya Rodale
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
1Q84 by Haruki Murukami
The Vanished Man by Jeffrey Deaver
Wilt by Tom Sharpe
The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Dark Places: A novel by Gillian Flynn
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett
Dodger by Terry Pratchett
Year Zero by Rob Reid
In One Person by John Irving
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
The Complete Short Stories of Saki by Saki
The Racketeer by John Grisham (audiobook)
Business
The Modern Firm and The Future of Management both gave good introductions to the new style of organisational design that is outcompeting traditional command-and-control structures. Predictable Revenue was an excellent introduction to how Salesforce built their inside sales team. Andy Grove is always good value and Marshall Goldsmith’s book was wonderful for its sheer applicability to some of the challenges I’m facing today.
The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation by Michael Malone
HBR’s 10 Must-reads on Managing Yourself by Harvard Business School
Little Bets by Peter Sims
On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis
Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
CEOFlow by Aaron Ross
The Seven Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler
The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig
Business Without Bosses by Charles Manz & Henry Sims
The Modern Firm by John Roberts
Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems by Yaneer Bar-Yam
The Machine that Changed the World by James Womack
Joy at Work by Dennis Bakke
Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove
Open Book Management by John Case
So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport
The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Design
Everyone should read Donald Norman, it will make you look at the world differently and become more frustrated with door handles.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
Designing for Emotion by Aaron Walter
History & Biography
I loved every history book I read this year. Stephen Clarke taught me something new about England’s relations with France when I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the rosbif-frog rivalry. The Swerve was a nice introduction to Lucretius and just how wonderful the ancient world was. A World on Fire was a wonderfully different perspective on the civil war and Crisis in Bethlehem shed new light on a town I spend a lot of time in these days. Finally David Bodanis tells the wonderful story of Emilie du Chatelet and Voltaire with aplomb: a must for any woman struggling in a male-dominated scientific establishment.
1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Baron de Jomini version)
A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War by Amanda Foreman
Crisis in Bethlehem by John Strohmeyer
Life of Marcus Cato the Elder by Plutarch
Passionate Minds: Emilie du Chatelet, Â Voltaire and the Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment by David Bodanis
Philosophy/Religion
My interest in stoicism led me to explore Zen buddhism, Taoism and Shinto this year and I was fascinated by the parallels between Zen and Stoicism in particular. Alan Watts was a fantastic introduction to Zen and a superb writer and Seneca was a great compass to follow.
Darwin’s Worms: On Life Stories and Death Stories by Adam Phillips
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
One Arrow, One Life: Zen, Archery and Enlightenment by Kenneth Kushner
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
The Spirit of Zen by Alan Watts
What is Zen? by Alan Watts
Letters from a Stoic by Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff
Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryo Suzuki
Shinto: the Kami Way by Sokyo Ono
Science
Astrophysics blew my mind this year and Neil DeGrasse Tyson was my dealer of choice. If you ever truly want to feel in awe of our universe, you should read his books. I also continued my interest in Ant and Bee colony development and found the Superorganism tough going but rewarding.
Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith
The Higgs Discovery by Lisa Randall
The Superorganism by E.O. Wilson and Bert Holldobler
Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley
Psychology/Sociology/The Internets
Thinking Fast and Slow had a huge impact in making me rethink the way in which I make decisions and how I can better engage my System 2 thinking. Taleb was at his grumpy best and Johnson is always thoughtful and diverting.
Too Big to Know by David Weinberger
Emergence by Steven Johnson
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemen
The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris
Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Nassim Taleb
The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs
Miscellaneous
I’ve been a Hitchens fan for years but it’s only when I read his collected essays that I realised the sheer breadth of his learning and intellect. What a tragic loss.
Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson
Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens
The Art of Being Unreasonable by Eli Broad
When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris