Books read in 2013
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Since 2006, I’ve been keeping track of the books I read each year (lists from: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012). In 2013, I read 42 books. I made heavy use of the library (I live next door to one). Of the books on this list, I only bought one. I typically request books I want to read and have the delivered to my neighborhood library, but I’ve also picked up quite a few books by browsing the shelves, old school style.
Last year, I started picking out a few favorites. This year, the books that stuck with me as being especially good are:
Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin
Black Like Me is a high school staple, but I had never heard of it. I believe I learned about John Howard Griffin and his experiences darkening his skin and living as a black man in the Deep South in the early 1960s on reddit. It’s an eye-opening book.
The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
It’s been years since I last read The Hobbit. After seeing the 2012 movie, I decided to pick up a copy (this is the only book I bought last year). To my surprise, the book I thought I remembered turned out to be light-hearted and funny, nothing like the movie. I learned that after writing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkein attempted to revise The Hobbit to match the world of its sequel, but stopped because it “just wasn’t The Hobbit” any more. I believe the dour films are a testament to this.
Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco, Jason Henderson
Since moving to San Francisco, I’ve been frustrated by the disfunction of the city’s government and bipolar development policies. Street Fight provides a framework for understanding how it got that way and how the current development battles will play out. Henderson frames the debate over development and mobility as between three parties with shifting alliances: conservatives, who favor the auto-centric status quo; neoliberals, who favor livability and efficiency; and progressives, who advocate for the city’s working class and poor. Street Fight only covers San Francisco politics, but I think the same factions can be seen in other cities.
The City & The City, China Miéville
This was my favorite book from 2013. Most of China Miéville’s books that I have read are so depressing, it’s hard for me to get into them. This one is different – it takes place more or less in the real world and is notationally a detective novel. The book’s metaphor of a divided city, each half willfully invisible to the other should ring true to any urban dweller. There is so much we refuse to see.
Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike, Grant Petersen
Grant Petersen is founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works and one of cycling’s biggest retrogrouches. His style of riding (“just ride”) is an inspiration to me. Just Ride has a bunch of great advice (and some crazy advice) about becoming a better cyclist without spending a ton of money on spandex and carbon fiber (Grant will be happy to take your money for one of his $4000 steel frame bikes, though.).
Here’s the complete list of books I read in 2013:
Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, Christopher Hayes
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity, J.E. Lendon
Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations, Norman Davies
Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin
Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton
Among Others, Jo Walton
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
In Search of Zarathustra, Paul Kriwaczek
Pavane, Keith Roberts
The Restoration Game, Ken MacLeod
Seed, Rob Ziegler
Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, Roberta Wohlstetter
Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips
Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Wool Omnibus, Hugh Howey
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, Judith Herrin
The Faded Sun: Kesrith, C.J. Cherryh
Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey
The Faded Sun: Shon’jir, C.J. Cherryh
Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco, Jason Henderson
The Faded Sun: Kutath, C.J. Cherryh
Abaddon’s Gate, James S.A. Corey
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, George Saunders
The City & The City, China Miéville
The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, Richard Rhodes
Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike, Grant Petersen
The Mirage, Matt Ruff
The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack, Nicholas Gurewitch
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer, Bart D. Ehrman
The Enlightened Cyclist: Commuter Angst, Dangerous Drivers, and Other Obstacles on the Path to Two-Wheeled Transcendence, Ebein Weiss (Bike Snob NYC)
Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel
Kindred, Octavia E. Butler
Wide-Body: The Triumph of the 747, Clive Irving
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John le Carré
The Fractal Prince, Hannu Ranjaniemi
Matter, Ian M. Banks
Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t, Stephen Prothero
The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement, David Graeber
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Frederik Pohl