EOY Recap (2/3): Books

Books I read and loved

Books of the Year (ranked in order just because it’s easier):

1. Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III by Robert Caro — Caro’s masterpiece. His first book on Johnson (The Path to Power) and the Power Broker were perhaps more memorable, but this book was his finest. In Master of the Senate, Caro makes the case that Johnson is the creator of the modern Senate and a political operator far superior to any of his peers, including Kennedy.
2. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert Caro — Johnson at his nadir and peak. All but powerless as VP, and then suddenly the most powerful man in the world. Remarkable that Caro has written 4 books, and we haven’t even approached covering Vietnam. Now 4 books and 2000+ pages in, Caro ruins all other biographies with this series.
3. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — I had started it 3 years ago and gotten halfway through. Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation and why companies fail to evolve (by listening to their best customers!) is one of the most eye-opening concepts I’ve ever read. I know, me and everyone else.
4. A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger — Made me cry multiple times. The story of the Rendell administration’s attempts to revitalize the city of Philadelphia in the 1990s. A great case study on how difficult it is to improve a city even with effective, well-meaning leaders.
5. Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Ed Glaeser — If you follow my Twitter feed, you know I have a crush on cities. Glaeser makes a convincing argument for the continued rise of cities. His sections on immigration and housing were the best. Was interesting to read in tandem with articles about Tony Hsieh and The Downtown Project in Las Vegas.
6. Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy — the first book I bought this year. The authors make the argument that we are just beginning to see the impact of gains from technology, and that when we get to the “back half of the chessboard” that the impact will be far greater than we can surmise, given that humans are pre-disposed to thinking linearly rather than exponentially.
7. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer — I don’t feel like I can add much to the plaudits that this one received this year. The story of the woman in Youngstown, OH was the most affecting.
8. Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen — I’m more of a passive reader of Tyler Cowen, but did not find much new in this after having read Race Against the Machine and Wisdom of Cities. Thought the “freestyle chess” analogy was an interesting one and a helpful framework for understanding the fears around computers displacing workers.
9. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler — Great overview of “choice architecture” although not sure this needed to be a book.
10. Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon — Cool idea. Creates poetry by blacking out select (well, most) words from a newspaper article. Will be cutting a few out to put on my walls.

Fiction? I’m sure I read some. Add this to the resolutions for 2014…

Other books worth a read: Lean In (quick read as it repeats a lot from other interviews; drives home the fact that it is a complicated issue and being well-meaning is not enough), The Signal and the Noise (yet another book to drive home the wisdom of index funds), and Personal History (very revealing auto-biography of Kay Graham, long-time publisher of the Washington Post; unique amongst books I’ve read in her willingness to admit she didn’t always have things under control).

The Lean Start-up is a good concept, but should be a blog post — not a book.