Books remain at the heart of the media I consume – not perhaps the most significant by volume, but certainly by the effect they have on my life.
That said, I read just 12 books in 2021. This is the lowest number of books I’ve read since I started keeping a book log in 2004, and it is a source of daily frustration that I haven’t been able to find the mental or temporal space to prioritizing my love of reading. I think it comes down to the profound difficulty of reentering the world post-pandemic, which we’re only beginning to understand the implications of.
Despite my limited reading this year, there are a few books I read that had an impact on the work I do and how I live in the world.
(A note about links: I have used bookshop.org for all links, which supports independent booksellers. I get a small affiliate percentage if you buy a book through these links, which I will use to maintain this website.)
Nonfiction
Think Again, Adam Grant (320 pages) In this book, organizational psychologist Dr. Adam Grant lays out the circumstances in which we all can be open to changing our minds, and how we can approach people we disagree with in order to begin to help them rethink their assumptions and beliefs. I have been revisiting his ideas as an educator and as a human.
Livewired, David Eagleman (320 pages) Neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman is a leading researcher and communicator about the cutting edge ideas in neuroscience. This book changed the way I think about the brain, and affected the way I think about practice, growth, and the honing of senses. It’s fascinating – my son is reading it now, and shared that he can’t read too much at a time, because the frequency of mind-blowing ideas forces him to pause and digest.
The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green (304 pages) This is a remarkable book – short personal essays masquerading as reviews of aspects of the human-centered age on a five-star scale. It’s a perfect book and a great example of the alchemy that creators can create.
Fiction
Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (320 pages) Shakespeare is a secondary character in this transfixing story of art, parenthood, and deep pathos. I wept.
The Every, Dave Eggers (577 pages) I didn’t weep at Dave Eggers’ latest novel, but I laughed out loud. It’s satire about the current state of digital culture. Like all satire, it walks a line between too-subtle and too-heavyhanded, but in the end I think it works as a canny view of the present and near future, and it’s a good story, to boot. I really hope that there’s a third novel in the series he started a decade ago with The Circle. It made me rethink my relationship with digital devices, which surely is part of the point.