2017 Reading Review

In 2017, I read 51 books, a mix of fiction and non-fiction, essay collections and fairly thick tomes. My top 10 are listed below. My year of books included the usual emphasis on economics, tech fiction, an essays/anthologies — I would recommend reading Hichen’s essays “God is Not Great” intertwined with the Lewis essays in “God in the Dock” for a staged debate between two brilliant thinkers. I didn’t realize during the year, but upon reviewing my 2017 something that emerged was an interest in musician biography, particularly Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, and Miles Davis (plus I’ve started the fictional book about "Frankie Presto”). I also enjoyed engaging social-class literature with the following texts: White Trash, The Sellout, Hillbilly Elegy, The Complacent Class, Homegoing, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution, and The Death of Expertise.

Long-time friends will recognize this format as my annual reading list post, and I once again used Goodreads to keep track of books read (linked below). I had a lot less time than usual this year and unfortunately do not have notes on the books, but as a summary here are the 10 best books I read last year:

1. The Gene (Siddhartha Mukherjee)

2. Nexus (Ramez Naam)

3. The Complacent Class (Tyler Cowen)

4. In Other Words (Jhumpa Lahiri)

5. Smart Baseball (Keith Law)

6. Bourbon Empire (Reid Mitenbuler)

7. A Legacy of Spies (John le Carré)

8. What the F (Benjamin K. Bergen)

9. The Power (Naomi Alderman)

10. M Train (Patti Smith)