Keeping with my annual tradition, here are my favorite books from 2018!
I know what you're thinking: Which books from Barack Obama's list did I also read in 2018? Just one: We both read American Prison by Shane Bauer, a book by an undercover journalist who went to work in a private prison and wrote about his experiences. I recommend that for anyone involved in public policy--we have a serious need for prison reform even after the recent federal legislation.
As before, I've organized my reviews by category:
Science/Psychology/Social Concerns
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
I think if I had read this book before 1970, I would have remained a psychology major. However, the book was not published until 2011, so I abandoned a discipline that was then dominated by "behavior modification," which was concerned with the success of having a rat press the right lever but which wasn't concerned with why. I was interested in studying psychology to better understand the human condition; software turned out to be a much better means to that end :)
Daniel Kahneman, the author, is an Israeli-American psychologist. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics, due to his work in on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics. His key findings have to do with why we don't always make rational decisions. He differentiates between Econs (the rational consumer imagined by economists, especially the Chicago school) and Humans (with big brains, yes, but capable of making consequential errors in decision-making).
Kahneman's "fast and slow" refers to what he calls System 1 and System 2. You can think in general of System 1 as instinct: fast, but error prone. System 2 is our rational mind, informed by System ! but too slow to be able to validate all of its suggestions. It's a fascinating perspective into how we think. Kahneman gives many examples of how (and why) System 1 comes to a conclusion that is wrong or misleading--through which thinking is much better understood.
Daniel Kahneman's long-term collaborator and close friend was Amos Tevrsky, who died in 1996 (they worked together for about 30 years). In many ways, this book is an homage to Amos, who died six years prior to the Nobel Prize being awarded but who Kahneman makes clear was equally deserving. It's a poignant salute to someone who Kahneman loved and respected.
Kahneman, now in his 80s, writes like someone who has spent a long life patiently explaining new concepts to students: clearly, patiently, vividly. In that sense it's one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read--it was a joy to read and savor, and I learned a lot.
Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb
by Richard Rhodes
Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes is a worthy successor to his Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb. As with his first book, there's a gripping narrative of the people and the science that led to the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. But the parallel story in this book is the spying and espionage of the Soviet Union, and how it accelerated if not enabled the Russian a-bomb and h-bomb in the early 1950s. Rhodes does a tremendous job of setting cultural, political and historical context for the hydrogen bomb development that by 1955 exceeded the capital investment of General Motors, Bethlehem and US Steel, Alcoa, DuPont and Goodyear combined. The book covers the background of Russian industrial spying, which started in the 1930s and resulted in the theft of blueprints and plans for heavy industry factors, tractors, and steel mills. By the start of WWII, almost all factories and heavy equipment in the USSR was an identical copy of its American equivalent. So stealing secrets regarding nuclear weapon development was a continuation of the same basic capability, but at scale. Ultimately, after the war, based on a wartime archive of decrypted Russian signals, the spying and the US/UK agents involved was uncovered. Whereas the British spies were sentenced to 14 years and then exiled, the US spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. Spying, cold-war policies, the Korean war, McCarthyism, the public humiliation of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the $4 trillion arms race with its surreal overkill statistics are all outlined with narrative suspense. The 20th-century phenomena of quantum physics, nuclear weapons and communism are insightfully examined, and leading figures are revealed in depth. Highly recommended.
When Breath Becomes Air
by Paul Kalanithi
I listened to the audio version of this, coming and going on I-5. Because it was well read, I suspect I got more of an emotional impact than if I had read it conventionally. Suffice to say, this was a book that made one feel: heartbroken and uplifted; tragic and inspired; despairing and yet convinced that love does, indeed, conquer all. It also makes one think about what the definition of a good death might be. As the book makes clear, that's an extremely personal question.
The first 59 chapters are Paul Kalanithi, writing in the first person and with the knowledge that he had terminal cancer; the 60th chapter, the epilog, was written by his wife and describes the end that Paul knew was imminent. The epilog was incredibly poignant and truly completed the story.
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
by Beth Macy
A good book if you want to get angry at the system and heartbroken by the many personal tragedies of people caught up in the opioid crisis.
The author, Beth Macy, is a reporter in Roanoke, one of several "ground zero" areas where people started OD'ing in the late 1990s from OxyContin, as of 1996 being marketed for long-term pain treatment rather than just acute pain. Southwest Virginia, and surrounding areas, was coal country. Now it was wall-to-wall despair. Purdue Pharma, sole makers of OxyContin, is the drug company referenced in the title that addicted America. It led to heroin, which led to fentanyl, all of which combined to addict and ultimately kill more people than guns or car accidents.
While the statistics are overwhelming, the personal stories are what make the book: young kids getting caught up in the partying scene leading to ugly addiction, loss of everything, and a ruined life if not a sordid death. Mothers looking for answers. Sleazy pharma sales people and lawyers profiting off the misery. All of us ignoring a pandemic that's not going to get better on its own.
Tech/Politics (In 2018 These Topics Converged)
Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics
by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts
The authors use data sets of thousands of articles and news segments, analyzing millions of shares from the open web, Twitter, and Facebook to determine how peoples' thinking is manipulated with narrative-reinforcing stories no matter how true (and mostly they were blatantly false). See how mainstream media sometimes unwittingly played a role in validating and keeping such stories in the public eye. And read case studies of how Breitbart, Infowars and other fringe sites fed off of each other so that stories, no matter how far-fetched, were repeated so often by so many right-wing sources that people couldn't help but believe them.
Only if people understand the root cause of our crazy media and social media ecosystems is there any hope of being able to fix it and maybe save democracy. I highly recommend this book for that purpose.
Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News
by Clint Watts
Clint Watts, the author, became well-known when he testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. Watts came to understand exactly what happened because, as a nerd working for the FBI, he traced online information campaigns (mostly on Twitter). Fascinating look at how news is manipulated, and how that can affect elections.
The Fifth Risk
by Michael Lewis
I'm a big Michael Lewis fan.
This is different from the many kiss & tell books about Trump and the White House. Lewis focuses on how the Trump administration handled the transition to power, and how they have governed (or failed to govern) three huge departments: agriculture; energy; and commerce. Spoiler alert: it's scary bad. There's a combination of willful ignorance about what the function is of government, and ideological dismantling of functions that are far more essential and competent than right-wing sound bites might have led people to believe.
One theme of the book is that many of these key government functions are staffed by people who are mission oriented rather than money or career driven. This was humbling to read, and somewhat inspiring--especially as contrasted to the political appointees they are supposed to work for.
It's a relatively short book and easy read--and very informative.
The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
by Tim Wu
Tim Wu, popularly known for coining the term "network neutrality," has thought about the impact of the huge tech companies on our lives, and he concludes that we need to pay attention to antitrust again. Wu is a professor at Columbia and he served as an advisor to the FTC, where he approved of Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. He now thinks that was a mistake.
This is a fairly short book, and instructive on the history and application of antitrust law, and why it's needed now more than ever.
Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World
by Bruce Schneier
With the emergence of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), we've created a situation where devices we rely on can be hacked so they turn on us: our pacemaker, our car, our hospital devices, our home appliances--with potentially fatal results. Bruce Schneier, a well-known cyber security expert and author, has chosen this tongue-in-cheek book title to make clear the new set of hazards we need to consider.
When you combine the hacker threat with the fact many of these devices are increasingly coming under control of AI systems, you may be forgiven for feeling alarmed.
Christian History/Theology/Spirituality
Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
by Michael Massing
An excellent, highly readable history and exploration of two of the most consequential thinkers of the second millennium BCE. While billed as a dual biography of Erasmus and Martin Luther, this ends up as highly readable narrative of religious thought from Augustine to Billy Graham. The author, Michael Massing, is a journalist and he uses those skills to develop something akin to a non-fiction page-turner. Leading figures of the Reformation are presented as three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood characters at the heart of upheaval that toppled nations and resulted in the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people across Europe. And Massing provides a condensed but highly engaging biography of dozens of thinkers in the thousand years prior and the 500 years since, so that the entire thread is made clear. The result is nothing less than the intellectual, theological and cultural battle between humanist and evangelistic Christianity that is still being played out today.
A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
by Diarmaid MacCulloch
A better title for this would have been A History of Christianity and Western Thought. Broad in scope, including Greek, Roman and Hebrew influences on Christianity from 1,000 year BCE, this 1200-page book covers the theology, history and politics that shaped current religious and spiritual thinking up to the 21st century. I picked this out because I saw a comment that it is used as a primary text in seminary.
The author, Diarmaid MacCulloch, is a widely recognized scholar in this field. The intended audience seemed to shift from time to time between academics and lay people, but by and large I felt it found a good middle ground: accessible but with enough depth to engage a serious reader. The chapters on the 20th and 21st centuries seemed the weakest, as the impact of two world wars and a decades-long culture war require more depth than even this tome could provide.
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
by Adam Nicolson
This book was quite interesting. I gave it 4 stars due to the number of quotes and references in "Olde English" which was a chore to untangle; I would have preferred to see those quotes in modern language, with perhaps footnotes to the original text.
The King James Bible was created in the early 1600s, just after the 1603 coronation of King James who succeeded Queen Elizabeth. These were interesting times. The plague that afflicted England in 1603 was the worst ever experienced there, with fatality rates over 50% in some (poorer) parishes. In the years that the translation was being prepared, Othello, King Lear and The Tempest were written. It was the beginning of the second hundred years of the Reformation, with the English civil war and the 30 Years War on the continent in the near future. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot to restore the Catholic monarchy, in which Guy Fawkes and others attempted to blow up parliament--with the royal family as well--led to oppression of Catholics on par with with how Muslims were treated after 9/11. Puritans and Separatists who refused to sign documents of conformity were being exiled. This was the setting of the King James Bible translation, where the goal of the new king was to create a Bible that would appeal to all.
Here's a quote that gives a sense of the challenge of translation; it's more that just transcribing words from one language to another:
Any well-educated man would take a text in a foreign tongue and absorb its meaning so that he could reproduce something like it in his own language. Literalism, a word for word translation, would do nothing more than transfer the corpse of the original into a new language, not the living thing. Cicero, when translating Demosthenes and other great Athenian orators, ‘did not translate them as an interpreter’, he wrote, ‘but as an orator myself, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one might say, the ‘‘figures’’ of thought, but in language which is more suitable to the way we speak’. This, of course, was also a question of authority. Cicero did not consider himself subservient to the Greeks he was translating. He was at least their equal. Why, then, should he suppress his own eloquence on their behalf? Luther, fascinatingly, the grandfather of all Reformation translators, had taken a Ciceronian view of his task. When faced with translating a Bible text, he had written, ‘You’ve got to go out and ask the mother in her house, the children in the street, the ordinary man at the market. Watch their mouths move when they talk, and translate that way. Then they’ll understand you and realise that you are speaking German to them.’ His whole idea, he said, was ‘to make Moses so German that no one would suspect he was a Jew’.
The King James translators took a different attitude: They sought the true meaning of ancient scriptural texts, seasoned by the wisdom of the church fathers, especially Augustine, and attempted to create a new Bible that was an accurate translation of the word of God, with a sacred tone that represented the language of religion rather than the language of the street.
Fiction/Literature
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
This is a wonderful book, worthy of the accolades and honors it has received (including National Book Award Finalist, a NY Times Book Review Top 10 of 2017). Pachinko is the epic saga of four generations of Koreans in the 20th century who are effectively exiles in Japan where they are discriminated against, scorned and abused. The main characters are women, powerless to start with and thrown by destiny into harsh and tragic circumstances. Some of the strongest and most memorable female characters in literature stoically accept that a woman's lot is to suffer, and be devoted to her children. Powerful and emotional. You might call it historical fiction, but that seems to sell it short; it's a deep exploration of the human condition that reminds me more than anything of Anna Karenina--but with a salute to Korean sisterhood.
Blood Defense
by Marcia Clark
If you like snarky first-person narration, you'll probably love this book. We didn't have "snark" when I was growing up; we only had "sass" and "smart mouth". Snark seems to be a mashup of snide and remark, which is a good description of much of the dialog but I think of the protagonist of this novel as sassy and smart.
And did I mention that the author is Marcia Clark? Yes, *the* Marci Clark who was the O.J. prosecutor. So we can read her novels in the assurance that she knows what she's talking about. And add plot elements that include a murdered starlet, media frenzy and great courtroom tactics and you have an interesting read. But it's got some elements of a psychological thriller, which in my option makes this a great read.
The Seal (Rosicrucian Quartet, #2)
by Adriana Koulias
If you want to know what *really* happened to the Templars, this is the book to read. It's historical fiction, so motivations and interior thoughts can be imagined. And it's inspired by Rudolf Steiner's teaching on the subject, therefore tying historical and spiritual knowledge together.
The Seal is book 2 of the Rosicrucian Quartet series. It's not the type of fiction that carries one away, hence the 4-star rating, but it does provide the deep and meaningful historical and spiritual foundations that animate the characters: Jacques de Molay, King Philip, and Pope Clement.
Adriana Koulias lectures frequently on anthroposophical topics, and she's undertaken an ambitious project with the Rosicrucian Quartet. I'm looking forward to reading the remaining two books.
The People's House
by David Pepper
Some key points about The People's House, by David Pepper:
1. The author, David Pepper, is chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party in real life. He knows elections, and politics, in depth.
2. The book is gripping and a page-turner; it's like reading Grisham, except it's about politics instead of law.
3. The book is about a stolen election. Russians are involved. It was written before most of the stuff about the 2016 election came to light.
4. The protagonist is likable, and you can't help but root for him when things go sideways.
5. The ending is very satisfying.
6. It has a great first sentence.
Quicksilver
(The Baroque Cycle #1)
by Neal Stephenson
Extraordinary book by a favorite author, Neal Stephenson. Unlike other books I've read of his, this is based in the past, during the era of Isaac Newton, the English Civil War, the reformation, and the Enlightenment. The book can be thought of as historical fiction, looking at the rise and fall of kings and of nations from the perspective of the intrigue involved. The book can also be understood as illuminating the age of reason with the scientific method, as the Royal Society was formed and began to thrive during that time. Correspondingly, it is the age during which alchemy fell into ill repute.
As usual, Stephenson makes for a thoughtful read, not without its challenges. But he enlightens us with yet another perspective on the human condition. I look forward to the remaining books of this trilogy.
Our Town
by Thornton Wilder
This is fantastic: moving, insightful, and wise. And easily accessible. I don't usually read plays, but this was totally worthwhile. Thornton Wilder is the only person to win a Pulitzer for fiction as well as for drama (this play). It was first performed in 1938, and it's now performed about 400 times per year in the US
I haven't read or thought about Our Town since junior high school, when our class put it on. Reading it 50 years later was a revelation--and a pleasure. What a fantastic play! Powerful in its simplicity, pondering the human condition through the mundane, it triggered an uncharacteristically strong emotional response this time through. There's a deeply uplifting aspect to seeing people live in light of their destiny, but also tragic to watch their ignorance of what is to come. This play seems timeless, and profoundly wise. I'm looking forward to re-reading it in the future to see if it has the same effect.
