The books I read in 2012
Below is a list of the books I managed to get through in 2012 (see also 2010 and 2011). I think we can all agree that this is a pretty crazy list by any standard, and probably even more so given my hectic work schedule; relatedly, most of these were consumed between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM.
It’s all non-fiction of course, and my usual mix of science, technology, psychology, and evolution. The one outlier here probably is my newfound obsession with Howard Hughes. In the last month alone I’ve torn through four books about the man, and am just starting my fifth. I can’t get enough.
★★★★★
- The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
- Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory by Edward Larson
- The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner
- Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane
- How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
★★★★☆
- A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss
- 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
by Charles Mann - The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean Carroll
- Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age by Steven Johnson
- Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick
- Howard Hughes: The Untold Story by Peter Brown
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
- The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout
- Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters; The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire by Richard Hack
- The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
- Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne
- Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History by Andro Linklater
- Zodiac: The shocking true story of the hunt for the nation’s most elusive serial killer by Robert Graysmith
- Free Will by Sam Harris
- The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio J. Mendez
- Droidmaker: George Lucas And the Digital Revolution by Michael Rubin
- Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
by Edward L. Glaeser - The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True by Richard Dawkins
- Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
- The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
★★★☆☆
- Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy by Erik Brynjolfsson
- Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue by Geoff Schumacher
- The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins
- Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
- Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness by Donald Barlett and James Steele
- Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence by Bill James
- The Great Age of Discovery, Volume 1: Columbus, Magellan, and the Early Explorations by Paul Herrmann
- Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
by Bart Ehrman
★★☆☆☆
- Proving Darwin: Making Biology Mathematical
by Gregory Chaitin