Books I read in 2021

 

Here is my 2021 book list.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. This was suggested to me by a coworker in a discussion about artificial general intelligence. I found some of the ideas a bit far fetched, but fascinating. I also think that Life 2.0 isn't done yet: we (humans) have not finished our evolution as a culture yet, so artificial intelligence is more like version 2.5. 

The walled garden of Truth: Sana'i. This was another suggestion (in the form of a question) from a coworker. Sana'i was a Persian Sufi poet, who lived in Ghazni (Afghanistan) in the late 11th/early 12th century. 

The Dawn of Eurasia: On the trail of the New World Order, by Bruno Maçães. This is an interesting travelogue cum history lesson plus attempted prophesies by the former Portuguese minister for European affairs. I liked the stories and the insights (for example an insight into the difference between the Chinese and the Indian way of doing business), but I'm not sure if I agree with extrapolating the Chinese economic growth linearly into the future. 

Nishabd Noopur, by Balram Shukla. This is a collection of Rumi's ghazals, both in the original Persian and the author's Hindi translation. Balram Shukla is a professor of Sanskrit and Persian at the University of Delhi. Of course, he teaches Sanskrit in Persian! I loved the translations, and it helped me understand many of the Ghazals really well. 

The Goal: A business graphic novel, by Eliyahu Goldratt. I read it as quick reading before a book club at work. This is probably the most read book at Amazon book clubs. The graphic novel just made the reading faster.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid, by Douglas Hofstader. This is one of the most abstract books I have read in a long time, and I must say that it is very hard to quickly read it. I am now looking for books to help me understand GEB!

The splendid and the vile: A saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the Blitz, by Erik Larson. This book was also suggested to me by a coworker, and served as a new perspective of the British mindset during the second world war.

India as seen by Amir Khusrau (1318 AD), by Prof. R. Nath. I came across this book while trying to suggest a good book to understand Amir Khusrau. 

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by Joseph Schumpeter. This was part of my reading to understand the basic model of how the economy works, and how the political forces shape the economy. This is also the book that first introduced creative destruction to describe innovation. 

Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment, by Yanis Varoufakis. This is part of my continued attempt at understanding the great recession and its aftermath: economic and political. Yanis Varoufakis was the Greek Finance Minister for a few months in 2015 as part of the Syriza government and wrote a first hand account of how the European Union functioned. He had the un-enviable task of negotiating with creditors, when debt restructuring and abandoning austerity should have been the right thing to do. I highly recommend this book, but do read Mark Blyth's Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea after this.

The Accidental superpower, by Peter Zeihan. "The next generation of American preeminence and the coming global disorder", according the author, is inevitable. This is the first book of Peter Zeihan's series that is describing a new world-order that (according to him) will start in the 2020s. This is when the US will become disinterested in policing the world, will be self-sufficient in energy and food, and the US rivals (China and Russia) will experience a demographic collapse. "It takes twenty years to raise twenty year olds", according to Zeihan. I would recommended it to the people who are predicting that China is about to take over.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. This book covers Jennifer Doudna's career and the development of CRISPR, the gene editing tool. I bought this for my daughter to get her inspired, and I got inspired too! 

Here's a list of books that I started reading, but haven't finished yet:

Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison, by Howard Green

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A corporate fool's guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie, 

Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter, by Liz Wiseman.

It's your ship: Management Techniques from the best damn ship in the Navy, by Captain Michael Abrashoff. 

And here are the books that I read for the second time in 2021.

Writing systems of the World. This was actually one of my first purchases from Amazon, and I seem to have misplaced that book in my last move. I love it as kind of a reference book on writing systems.

Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world, by Jack Rutherford. 

Baburnama. My ritual yearly reading.

How Great Generals win, by Bevin Alexander. I read this over the winter break to prepare for another book club at work. I blogged my book notes earlier.

Summarizing, my reading over the last few years has a few themes.

Understanding leadership and strategy. This is where I venture far into documented and verified history as much as I can and take inspiration from leaders from the past. Leaders who also led armies (or navies) tend to inspire me the most, because they not only had to talk, but they also got to organize and act.

Understanding who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where are we going. This is not only the material aspects of who we are (language, history, genetics), but also the spiritual aspects. My interest in Sufism has come from this urge to understand. Reading the translations of the Upanishads (no, I have not mastered Sanskrit well enough to understand the original) helps me analyze the nature of being, consciousness, and reality.

Understanding how the economy works. This has been another theme, not just to figure out where and how to invest, but also to be clear on the cause and effect in economics. I thought that Ray Dalio's explanation was fascinating, but I felt missed the political piece of the cause and effect machine. Mark Blyth's books and lectures have helped me understand as well. 

Understanding the cycles of history, and trying to predict the future by exploring the role of technology in shaping the future. My interest in understanding history in terms world orders comes from this. Bruno Maçães, Peter Zeihan, Kishore Mahbubani, Henry Kissinger, Yuval Noah Hariri are some of my recent friends and teachers in that journey.

My previous book lists:

2020   2019     2018     2017     2016    2015    2014    2008    2007