The books I read in 2020
I’ve got to say, I’m pretty disappointed with my book-reading efforts this year. Not sure what to blame it on—I mean, I guess I could just say that 2020 was FUCKED and get on with it. Actually, I’m going to do just that.
Most years there’s a standout (and for me, usually evergreen) topic that I end up obsessing over, often for the nth time (e.g., pathology of serial killers, evolutionary psychology, evolution generally, Howard Hughes, Hitler, etc.), but this year I was kind of all over the place.
I fully regret having put so much time into reading tell-all books about Trump (some of which I’m not even listing here because I’m embarrassed). I’m ashamed to say that the reality-TV junkie in me took hold, and I couldn’t get enough of the palace intrigue surrounding the orange clown.
The one constant for me continues to be quantum physics: between the tail end of 2019, 2020, and most certainly 2021, it’s a subject that I just can’t seem to get enough of. While I read just a handful of (quantum) physics books in 2020, I have a ton of them lined up for 2021.
(All of the books below have been added to my main books page, where I (try to) track all of the books I’ve read.)
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- Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect by Paul Halpern
- Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer
- In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World by Ian Stewart
- East West Street: On the Origins of 'Genocide' and 'Crimes Against Humanity’ by Philippe Sands
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- What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics” by Adam Becker
- QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman
- Breakfast with Einstein: The Exotic Physics of Everyday Objects by Chad Orzel
- Quantum Physics: What Everyone Needs to Know by Michael Raymer
- A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
- Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man by Mary Trump
- A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker’s and Carol Leonnig
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- The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John Bolton