Highlighting five books that I loved reading in 2017. These are not necessarily books that were published in 2017. By design, and by inhibitions imposed by the relative paucity of my prior readings, I tend to read books after a time lag. On the flip side, I would like to think that my reading is not strongly influenced by the news cycle. The time lag also provides opportunities to discover older, well-regarded books.
In the recommendation below, I did not include books I read again (e.g. Tolkien and Marcus Aurelius) and also some books that I thoroughly enjoyed (e.g., a new translation of Crime and Punishment by Pevear and Volokhonsky). More or less, I have tried to curate books based on a convex combination of my own personal learning, the breadth of scope, and the value of recommendation.
- Understanding America: Evicted by Mathew Desmond.
- Another thoughtful book in this group is Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
- History/Anthropology: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari. How does one meaningfully condense the history of human species into 300 pages? I have to say the provocative book absolutely pays off.
- Philosophy and Life: Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse.
- Business, Work, and Society: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by Creator of Nike by Phil Knight.
- Fiction: Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Angela Carter is, for a lack of a better word, amazing.
- I also enjoyed Grace Paley’s distinct voice in Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.
Thoughts on Evicted.
Evicted is probably the most insightful and also the most personal book that I have read on American life. MacArthur grant winner and Princeton Professor Mathew Desmond spent 2008-09 in Milwaukee, among the people who are often evicted from the places they rent (sometimes on to the street in the middle of freezing winter), trying to understand how and why they get evicted.
The book is perhaps one of the best examples of how to meld data and story-telling in creating a more compelling, a more complete picture of the choices of citizens caught in the machinery of rental zoning rules with limited avenues of betterment.
This is a moving book to read. I was in tears a few times, as I paused reading and reflect on the difficulty of choices facing those folks. The issues are complicated, and in the notes, Desmond explicates a plethora of research studies. For instance, Race plays a role but there are structural issues on evictions across race, as Desmond focuses on eight characters – black, white, landlord, and lessee. For example, you learn about the disproportionate impact of mortgage insurance benefits, schedules of courts, school zoning, and the business models of secondary businesses such as movers, cleaners, and finally, understand why people buy treats on food stamps.
Desmond tells the stories as a dispassionate observer. (We learn the true cost on him, later in the book).
If you want to think about how to improve the lives of fellow citizens in 2018, I cannot think of a better way to begin the year, than by understanding how some Americans sustain hope in the miasma of despair. No book does better in hearing their voices than Evicted does.
Evicted is also on the Best Books of 2017 recommended by Bill Gates.
Thoughts on Sapiens.
A Brief History of Humankind is an audacious title. I was indeed skeptical. How does one condense the history of humanity into 300 pages? How can such a précis be meaningful? I do have to say the provocative hook absolutely pays off, and the book deserves every encomium. In particular, Kirkus Reviews was absolutely right —
An encyclopedic approach from a well-versed scholar who is concise but eloquent, both skeptical and opinionated, and open enough to entertain competing points of view…
Harari’s central thesis deals with the role of gossip and building mythology in how homo sapiens emerged as the superior species. Harari points out how the cognitive revolution changed Sapiens, primarily through their ability to gossip and collectively believe in myths. Many species, he points out, can lie/falsify by screaming “Look, Lion!” when it is not there. But, Sapiens formed beliefs such as “Lion is the guardian spirit of the jungle”, which required conceptualizing terms like guardian and spirit – things that never existed in physical form (or felt, touched, seen, or tasted before).
Harari argues, for example, how no monkey would willingly part with a banana in its hand, for a future opportunity of having infinite bananas in heaven. Sapiens could form such beliefs and in fact, do. Shortly after that, he explores the story of Peugeot and we are off to the races!
Far from being our impediments, such beliefs and myth-making, Harari propounds, are the very reason why we have survived. Sapiens have indeed successfully established collective beliefs such as environmentalism, money, nation-states, corporations, etc.
I loved Harari’s distinction between “intelligence” and “consciousness.” Sapiens is audaciously opinionated with an assured clarity of thought, as he jumps effortlessly from pop-culture to historical troves. Highly recommended.
Thoughts on Finite and Infinite Games.
The basic idea of the book is that there are two types of games we play in life: finite games that we play to win, and “infinite” games, where the purpose is to continue the game.
Carse breaks down the world — our actions, lives, and struggles — into the binary classification to expose the role of war and sports, titles and religion, and the very nature of quest and exploration.
Content and wisdom are packed in every phrase (like the Thirukkural). The book is erudite and dense, each word constructed like brush strokes in Vermeer’s The Astronomer. Every sentence hangs together just right, no word is superfluous, and each sentence pushes an idea forward into the next sentence. Every line begs to be highlighted.
Carse tweaked my mind irrevocably and made me appreciate the heroism of those who played and stretched the infinite game to give me and many others, a chance to play our small-stakes finite games.
Thoughts on Shoe Dog.
On shoes, I arrive from a world of skepticism. I grew up in a time and place, where shoes were an afterthought (outside of black shoes for school). We ran bare feet, picked thorns of our feet, and felt the earth bake in the tropical sun, under our calluses. The first pair of sports sneakers that I owned was when I was 17. So, the mythology of Bowerman and Adidas and Nike hold no intrinsic appeal to me.
Yet, Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog is one of the best memoirs that I have read.
This is not because the book is instructive, which it is, but because it is introspective.
Knight is a runner and a reader, introverted and determined like a pitbull — qualities that open up to an exquisitely written, meditative, (well, almost) no-holds-barred memoir.
I cannot emphasize more on what he says —
I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.
This is the triumph of the struggle.
Few Notes –
- For sure, Phil Knight’s father financially helped him out when he started. Knight himself is forthright about acknowledging such helpful support.
- In a poignant asymmetry, Mr. Knight clearly misses his son Mathew who died, and regrets not being there for him. It is touching to see that despite the naked introspection in every aspect of Nike and his early life, Mr. Knight is heartbroken and clams up when trying to write about the deeply felt scars of the tragedy.
- Jeff Johnson, Nike Employee #1 is just incredible.
- In 1965, Nike made $8000 in the first year and made $34.3 billion last year. Such scaling.
Thoughts on The Bloody Chamber
Angela Carter is amazing. I felt as if I had wasted all the years I had spent not having discovered her work.
I read three books of hers this year, as I was captivated by her storytelling and complex, contradictory feminism. Her exquisite control of the English language at once searing and sensual — In The Bloody Chamber, her command shines through as she owns the fairy tales in an extraordinary retelling, in her unpredictably wicked knock-your-socks-off imagination layering the gradual ratcheting of suspense teetering on the verge of reckless abandon. It is like transforming Bette Davis on to ink and paper.
The Bloody Chamber is probably the best first Carter book to read, as the collection of short stories displays her range of intricate imagery and her cerebral irony while staying within a genre. The lead story, The Bloody Chamber, is possibly the most delightful one, as she weaves the subtle damsel-in-distress thread only to flip the trope in a way that one doesn’t expect, both bursting and preserving it. The Courtship of Mr. Lyon and The Tiger’s Bride, a delightful pair of yin and yang stories, paralleling an infinite hall of reflecting story-telling mirrors, were also my favorites.