My favorite books of 2016
#
Time for my annual round up of books read in the past year with a few favorites noted.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reiser
This is an eye-opening story of man’s hubris in the American West. Attempting to make the desert bloom led to uncountable environmental destruction. As the climate changes and water patterns change, will we attempt to hold on to the “Cadillac desert” at huge expense, or let farmers and communities wither? The present Oroville Dam disaster would fit right in as a chapter in this book.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari
Breezy and fun, but with a lot to think about. This book stuck with me.
My Ántonia, Willa Cather
Based on reading this back in 2007, I consider it one of my favorite novels. So much so that we named our daughter after the title character. I was worried that I wouldn’t like it, but, if anything, the nostogia of the novel hit me harder now that I’m older.
From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe
I am sure Tom Wolfe is an enormous dick in real life, but wow is his skewering of modernist architecture funny and satisfying.
<San Francisco: La grille sur les collines / San Francisco: The Grid meets the Hills, Florence Lipsky
This is a fascinating and unique book about how San Francisco’s street grid is adapted to the landscape. Through a combination of greed, incompetence, hubris, and Yankee ingenuity, San Francisco’s city planners overlaid the standard American gridiron street pattern onto the penninsula’s topography. The result is San Francisco’s wildly undulating streets, which sometimes dead end spectacularly. Despite their best efforts, sometimes the grid could not be made to fit the landscape. These deformations are a major focus of the book and it features photos and illustrations of the effects in many neighborhoods across the city:
For more pages from the book, check out this post on Map Library.
Below is the complete list of books I read in 2015:
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner
Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force, Robert M. Farley
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari
A Shortage of Engineers, Robert Grossbach
The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss
Snowpiercer: The Escape, Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette (illustrator), and Virginie Selavy (translator)
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, Allie Brosh
My Ántonia, Willa Cather
The Alchemist, Paolo Bacigalupi
Straight Man, Richard Russo
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll
Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street, Michael Lewis
The Night Sessions, Ken MacLeod
How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, Steven Johnson
Terminal World, Alastair Reynolds
Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, Robert H. Frank
Deadpool: The Complete Collection Volume 1, Daniel Way et al.
Minority Report, Philip K. Dick
From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe
Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, James L. Haley
San Francisco: La grille sur les collines / San Francisco: The Grid Meets the Hills, Florence Lipsky
Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigalupi
Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting, Pamela Bruckerman
Glup: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal, Mary Roach
Wine Wars: The Curse of the Blue Nun, the Miracle of Two Buck Chuck, and the Revenge of the Terroirists, Mike Veseth
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-up Bubble, Dan Lyons
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt
You can also check out lists from previous years: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.