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Books from 2023

(Previously: 2022)

Sounds Machiavellian, but actually quite wholesome: a “dad book,” as my friend called it.

Snow Crash was much worse upon rereading as an adult, but The Diamond Age was a bit better: in particular, I didn’t really appreciate the “speculative governance futurism”/”comparative cultural criticism” facets of the novel when I read this in high school.

I reviewed this here.

Many great works of literature are notable for their brevity: when you read Hemingway, or Dubliners, or Flannery O’Connor, you know that every sentence has been crafted with care. Giant fantasy novels like Wheel of Time (which I read last year) or The Stormlight Archives work differently. There are entire chapters which are probably extraneous, whole characters and plot arcs which exist merely to bring out certain traits or pieces of information.

But there are unique joys to megafiction: sitting down and reading hundreds of pages of a good story is relaxing in a way that other books simply aren’t. In my own life, I’ve found that I’m much better about making time to read when I’m in the middle of an engaging novel than when I’m reading theology or histories of feudalism. Narrative-driven “easy reading” has a bad reputation amongst the literati; in a world where all fiction is competing against screens for engagement, it shouldn’t.

I reviewed this here.

Fantastic; I probably would have liked this even more if I were still in school.

I didn’t like this when I was a kid, but I like it now: in many respects THS can be viewed as a book-length exploration of the ideas in “The Inner Circle,” with a garnish of medieval cosmology here and there (see also).

Tyler Cowen recommended this book, but I didn’t love it.

This was excellent (h/t Santi Ruiz).

I reviewed this book here.

I reviewed this book here.

The best book I read this year by a mile; far better than I remembered. While many of The Canterbury Tales work pretty well as literature, they’re even better when viewed also as history. It’s rare to be able to read something from 800 years ago that’s legitimately funny and interesting.

Reading Chaucer fills me with questions about the medieval mind. The stories are steeped in Christianity, as one might expect. Any argument goes back to the Bible, even those among animals, and Chaucer assumes a level of familiarity with e.g. the Psalms far exceeding that of most modern Christians. Yet at the same time the Greco-Roman world looms large: Roman gods appear as plot characters in three tales (the Knight’s Tale, the Merchant’s Tale, and the Manciple’s Tale), and Seneca is viewed as a moral authority on par with Scripture. I’m curious how all these beliefs and ideas fit together and welcome any recommendations on this subject. (The Discarded Image is already on my list.)

My wife recommended this book to me. I thought this would be a relaxing break from the November startup grind, but in fact it features a bunch of obsessed programmers working around the clock for months—a poor choice but a good novel.

Overall, about a third of the books I read were startup-related: most of them were pretty bad, but even bad business/startup books are probably useful from the viewpoint of cultural immersion. Academic science is quite different from the startup ecosystem, and to the extent that cultural arbitrage is possible (in either direction), I need to become proficient in startup culture.

I’m not sure why the median business book is so bad—perhaps business people are too willing to spend money on books and not picky enough, or perhaps MBA types generally lack knowledge about the humanities, which makes both supply and demand worse.

(The median Christian book is also pretty bad. One unifying hypothesis: both pastors and businesspeople often have wise insights into specific situations, personal or business, but these insights aren’t readily generalizable into book form. Being able to give good advice doesn’t mean you should write an “advice book.”)

As always, book recommendations are welcome, particularly on the topics of medieval history/culture, software engineering, or startups. Apologies for the infrequent posting as of late, and happy new year!