#otherwritings

This is the third year, I’m capturing my reading lists (see 2017 here, 2016 here, and see my monthly reads here). FYI, I read books on paper, on my Kindle and listen to audio books via Audible.

Summary

Total: 52 (down from last year’s 67). I realised that the time I spent commuting when I lived in Sweden last year has very much been missing this year. 

My male-female ration is worse than last year with 31% female to 67% male authors (the 2% other being The Secret Barrister of unknown gender). 

My fiction-non fiction ratio is 56% for fiction to 44% for non-fiction

Overall, this year was by no means as successful as last year. By which I mean that the books weren’t as good (Sloterdijk’s Schelling-Projekt) and I seemingly read a lot more heavy and thick books which took a lot longer to read (Murakami’s 1Q84, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margherita etc.) and some of which I should have stopped when I wasn’t feeling it (Auster’s 4 3 2 1).

New categories: In addition to my “Read one Russian per year”, I have decided upon two new categories. They will likely be on a monthly rather than yearly basis depending if I can find enough of them in the libraries around me. I have discovered philosophy biographies through series such as the “Modern Masters” and enjoyed some of those this year (Wittgenstein and Popper were good, Marx less so) and will read a feminist book per month (in the broadest sense). This shouldn’t be too difficult as I realised looking over the last months that I quasi have been doing it anyway. Also, I came across a great list of 150 books by and about women scientists and already added 12 books to my shelf for 2019.

The longlist: Looking back over the books that I have marked as recommendation over the year, I would be a lot more critical now at the end of the year as opposed to freely handing out recommendation stars on a monthly basis. But I shall not be messing with what I said months ago versus the benefit of hindsight. However, I will be more critical in 2019. 

The shortlist

I’m going to split my recommendations into a shortlist and longlist as opposed to Top 3 or Top 5 as in the last years:

Rutger Bregman: Utopia for Realists

The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken

Haruki Murakami: 1Q84

James Comey: A Higher Loyalty

Steven Pinker: Enlightenment Now

Kazuo Ishiguro: Nocturnes

Mark Manson: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

Hilary Mantel: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher 

The longlist

Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities

Rutger Bregman: Utopia for Realists

Peter Watson: Convergence - The Idea at the Heart of Science

The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken

Haruki Murakami: 1Q84

Robert Menasse: Die Hauptstadt

Ruchir Sharma: The Rise and Fall of Nations

James Comey: A Higher Loyalty

Charlie English: The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu

Steven Pinker: Enlightenment Now

Haruki Murakami: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Kazuo Ishiguro: Nocturnes

Mark Manson: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

Stephen Fry: Mythos

Michael Lewis: Boomerang

Sayaka Murata: Convience Store Woman

Hilary Mantel: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

Hans Rosling: Factfulness

Kazuo Ishiguro: When We Were Orphans

Rebecca Traister: Good and Mad

A.C. Grayling: Wittgenstein

Naomi Alderman: The Power

* recommendation

What I’ve read:

Kevin Kwan - China Rich Girlfriend

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run Finally finished. Not sure what to say. Good one, but too detailed. Took me months to listen to even at faster speed.

* A. C. Grayling - Wittgenstein I had looked for a biography of Wittgenstein for a while and can wholly recommend Grayling’s. Based on the morsels of knowledge that I had before, I feel that I got a very good intro to the man. Though, I understand the Tractatus better than his later works... 

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion I didn’t win anything from reading this book. I wasn’t the right audience and I still think Dawkins is dogmatic, which very much doesn’t make him any better than the Catholic Church.

* Naomi Alderman - The Power Looking back at my past monthly readings, this could be another monthly reading theme: women’s books (understood in the broadest possible sense). I didn’t know much about The Power and thus didn’t have any expectations. It came recommended by a fellow PhD student whom I trust and I just went for it. I enjoyed the idea but would have maybe wanted a more in-depth exploration of the topic what if/what happens if women take over at once. The book is thus maybe too fictionalised for me in the sense that the storyline still carries too much importance vis-à-vis an exploration of the theme. Consequently, I was more down with the first half of the book than the second. Though, of course, Alderman holds up a neat mirror to the world. Alas, I still believe we’d be a whole lot better off if women had more power - at least equality - ideally and then some. Of course and naturally, I love the idea though and think we should make it happen - with electrical power or without... I’ll read the Book of Eve and maybe some other apocrypha next, just because, and will likely pick up more Alderman to see where else she went and goes. I even feel that the book could be a contender for the top list, but we’ll assess that at the end of the year. By the way, Margaret Atwood reviewed the work in progress and approved.

What I’m reading:

George Eliot - Middlemarch

David McLellan - Marx Building on the success of the great Past Masters series that featured the Wittgenstein bio, I might open a new monthly series. Reading philosopher’s bios. Following Wittgenstein, I picked up Popper from the library and bought Descartes and Russell (written by Grayling).

What I bought / got and will read next:

Book of Eve

Kit de Waal - My Name is Leon

Karl Marx - Das Kommunistische Manifest

Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber

* recommendation

What I’ve read:

* Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Entertaining. Largely true to my values. Read it.

Bernhard Schlink - Die Frau auf der Treppe (re-read)

Charlotte Roche - Mädchen für alles Grauenhaft. 

* Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway Surprising amount of longing along the lines of Jane Austen. 

Michael Wolff - Fire and Fury Very simple to go through. Didn’t add anything to my life though.

What I’m reading:

Paul Auster - 4 3 2 1 I’m considering abandoning this book.

Nick Boström - Superintelligence; Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

Philippe van Parijs & Yannick Vanderborght - Basic Income

Hillary Clinton - What Happened

* recommendation

What I’ve read:

* Charlie English - The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu: The Quest for This Storied City and the Race to Save its Treasures This was somewhat of a surprise read and I did enjoy it. Good flow between exploration history and the actual book smuggling story.

* Steven Pinker - Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Another tour de force. I listened to this on audio book, so didn’t make notes and at first the underlying argument sounded a whole lot like Pinker’s famous Better Angles of Our Nature but he turned it around later on.

* Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Another Murakami despite telling myself to stop for a bit after 1Q84 but of course no story but rather non fiction. I enjoyed the landscape descriptions and of course recognising Boston and maybe where I had run myself by the river...

* Kazuo Ishiguro - Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall I’m going to have to make this embarrassing comment that it happens every so often that I only discover great, great authors because after a long career, they receive a Manbooker or Nobel Prize... This is certainly the case with Ishiguro but I’ve very much recommended the short stories whilst I listened to them. More to explore!

What I’m reading:

Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life 

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

Philippe van Parijs & Yannick Vanderborght - Basic Income

Hillary Clinton - What Happened

I interviewed Dan Toma, innovation thought leader and author of The Corporate Startup, on his 2-day masterclass on designing new growth strategies and ventures through corporate entrepreneurship and strategy innovation for transforma bxl.

I’ve written for the World Economic Forum on the importance of entrepreneurial skills: 

* recommendation

What I’ve read:

Edwin A. Locke - The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators Started reading this for work/research purposes and it’s truly abysmal. I only read as much as I did telling myself that this is a book from 2000, which was the time of excessive bull markets...

Julian Barnes - The Only Story 

John Grisham - Camino island 

What I’m reading:

Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

Philippe van Parijs & Yannick Vanderborght - Basic Income

Hillary Clinton - What Happened