2023 Books in Review

I spend a lot of time on planes traveling for work, or on long haul runs where I occasionally need someone else's thoughts in my ears to keep me company. I read or listened to a lot of books this year, and when I made a list (inspired by Brett Bagley), I picked up on a few themes. Here is a thematic breakdown, in order of the impact they had on me:

Weird Mind Trips and "Guerrilla Ontology"

In High School I read Principia Discordia (to the extent that it can be read) but it felt like a bunch of noise. I remember hearing about Robert Anton Wilson through the 90's hacker crowd, but didn't really get the whole Church of the SubGenius thing. Slackware was nice though. 20+ years later I picked up the Illuminatus! trilogy got sucked back into ideas that I haven't thought about since I was a teenager.

I devoured Wilson's work this year. I found that he had put a name to thoughts that I had about the nature of consciousness and reality, and found a kindred spirit in skepticism of anything and everything. Quote of the year: “I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions.” If you've read any RAW work, then you know its a synchronicity that I discovered his work in the year 23.

  1. Illuminatus! Trilogy
  2. Prometheus Rising
  3. Quantum Psychology
  4. Cosmic Trigger Trilogy
  5. Principia Discordia

Intense People Doing Intense Things

This is a recurring theme every year. I love stories about intense people in intense situations doing intense things. They're inspirational even when they're horrible. The real, actual human condition exists in these stories, not in our forgettable zoom calls and commutes. I seek out my own intense situations to do what I believe are intense things, but they're planned, controlled, and predictable in comparison to these stories.

Werner Herzog and David Grann stick out as the biggest contributing authors for 23. Alamut is a bonus story about the very intense Hassan-i Sabbah, which is an outgrowth of Illuminatus! above. Thanks to Richard Schick for turning me on to David Grann's work.

  1. Every man for himself and God Against all
  2. The Twilight world
  3. Lost City of Z
  4. The Wager
  5. The White Darkness
  6. Alamut

WWII

This is a subset of the "Intense People doing Intense Things" theme, but it was so long and so memorable that I broke it out. When I reflect back on what I remember from Ian Toll's massive undertaking, its the people and their difficult decisions. Strategies, tactics and maneuvers. I have little memory for the dates, statistics, naval minutiae, or bureaucracy. Thanks Bobby Johnson for turning me on to Ian Toll's work below.

  1. Pacific Crucible
  2. The Conquering Tide
  3. Twilight of the Gods

Interesting Non-Fiction

Some of the better non-fiction books I read this year. No theme here, I’ll often end up with a book in my hand, so I’ll just read it. Other times I pick something for the need I have (improving statistics, for instance).

  1. How to measure anything - Actually a very intense book about statistics.
  2. Four Thousand Weeks - Stop managing time and be it
  3. Early Modern Utopias (for the Voltaire) - Spoiler alert: none of them worked out
  4. Micromegas - Weird proto sci-fi story. Felt like William Blake wrote a space story.
  5. Mathematics for Human Flourishing - The importance of mathematics to the human condition
  6. The End of the world is just the beginning - Opinionated view of the current state of things, and what comes next. Thanks to my Dad for this one (Kurt Muller), it was enlightening.

Schooling Children

Freyja started a new school this year, and these were required reading. Both were good reads.

  1. Brave Parenting
  2. Courage to Grow

Books That Are Really Someone’s Blog

These are mostly random picks based on recommendations or targeted learning on my part. Most are good enough to mention and have a few worthwhile, actionable tips

  1. The Creative Act - Inspiring, but a little “airy”. Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies with extended prose.
  2. Outlive - Extended blog posts, but actionable. Formulaic.
  3. Para Method - Extended brochure for a productivity method, but some actionable tips.
  4. Comfort Crisis - Extended blog posts with a story arc. I call this style of writing “Summarize a bunch of studies and publish”, and it’s become too formulaic. Similar to Outlive above.
  5. Rethink your position - Good tips, but organization felt off.

Sci-Fi That I Listen to When I Run

Everyone needs a break, and I take mine when I run. Nothing serious here, just some audiobooks to keep me company on some of the longer runs. William Gibson is one of my favorite sci-fi authors, but I find his work hard to digest in audio format. He may be too terse. The others are great listens.

  1. Delta-V - About the perils asteroid mining
  2. Critical Mass - Sequel to the above, mostly politics with a touch of rescue mission. Harder to get through.
  3. The Peripheral (William Gibson) - About alternate timelines and manipulating them from the future
  4. Agency (William Gibson) - Sequel to the above
  5. Destructive reasoning  - Sequel to a The Authorities, both hilarious books.
  6. Kaiju Preservation Society - Very funny John Scalzi novel. Cary and I listened to this on a roadtrip with the kids and they loved it too.

Mostly Noise

There is always noise in the signal. Here is some of it:

  1. Montaigne's Essays - Did I get a bad translation, or do 16th century French essays just not do it for me.
  2. Poland by James Michener - A bit on the slow side.
  3. Analogia - The intent of the author wasn’t clear until the final chapter, and by the time he got to it I was on to something else