I think this was on Austin’s list a year ago. A much different book than I expected. The dude really goes back to core principles and tells a history of food, which creates the foil against which our modern food/agricultural system operates today. The guy is really depressed about the whole thing, weaving in racism, sexism, colonialism and nearly every bad -ism to describe the evils which the modern system represents and perpetuates. The last chapter starts with a recognition that this has not been an optimistic book and then he describes some positive movements that can build into a potential solution. So yeah, less ultra-processed foods.

• Author: Mark Bittman
• Nonfiction      Food and Drink

• Author: Lee Child
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

A one-off Connelly adventure featuring Henry Pierce, more or less a tech bro in Los Angelos that has some demons. The guy is a bit of a weenie and as such, it makes the book less enjoyable versus the steadiness of Bosch or Haller.

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

First in the Lincoln Lawyer series which is up to 6 books and several Bosch crossovers as of 2023. I saw the movie first years ago, and from my recollection it was pretty faithful to the book. Very suspenseful and keeps you guessing and Haller is an interesting guy - a slimy defense lawyer that still has morals.

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

A stand-alone book written in 2002 featuring Cassie Black, a burglar with a heart of gold. Very much in the Ocean’s Eleven theme. Entertaining and suspenseful, but I like Connelly’s protagonist’s to operate on the other side of the law.

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

• Author: Michael Connelly 
• Fiction      Crime

Essential reading if you are interested in Start-ups or Venture Capital. It covers some technical topics but keeps it fairly brief and lite, providing the awareness you’ll need to dig deeper if the topic comes up.

• Author: Brad Feld
• Nonfiction      Business

Non-fiction book covering the eureka moment with Bitcoin (and distributed ledgers in general) when law-enforcement found tools that actually made bitcoin payments easier to trace than traditional money laundering techniques. Goes into some of the technical aspects while also keeping the pace of a detective novel. Highly recommended for anyone interested in crypto currency or finance.

• Author: Andy Goldberg
• Nonfiction      True Crime

The former director of marketing for American Apparel and public relations strategists, this guy breaks down some of the tricks to generate free media for your brand. Some of it is dirty such as using aliases on social media to plant stories or start false gossip. Others are more common sense, such as reaching out to busy journalists who you would like to write about your company and providing potential headlines/copy so they see it will be a good story and that they can even borrow. Very cynical guy but helpful book.

• Author: Ryan Holiday
• Nonfiction      Business

Dope Sick and Painkiller are mostly sourced from this book. Whether you’ve seen them or not, this book is recommended. Arthur Sackler pretty much invented pharmceutical marketing, which is still shocking to see on so many American TV commercials and is part of the reason for the inefficiency of the US medical system. His nephew, Richard, deployed these learnings with OxyContin a powerfully addictive painkiller that was marketed as the opposite. In short, they got super rich as legal drug dealers, gaming the system without regard to externalities, an argument that all too often applies to outsized wealth generation.

• Author: Patrick Radden Keefe
• Nonfiction      Business

My first Stephen King novel. I am not so interested in the horror genre but I had heard he is an amazing writer and this one about a time traveler trying to stop the Kennedy Assassination seemed like a good fit. King did not let me down - there was great pacing and it never felt long despite being 800+ pages. Like the best science-fiction, he set clear rules for time-travel and then let the idea fall to the background as he explored how the character adjusted to these rules. I will definitely be reading more King.

• Author: Stephen King
• Fiction      Apocalyptic

My 2nd Stephen King and perhaps his most famous. Quite an epic that starts at a slow boil. It could fall into the pandemic genre, given its about a superflu that kills 99.9% of humanity. As King likes to write, he doesn’t really skip over any time periods, profiling the main characters before and during the pandemic in what can kind of droll on. However, it sets the stage for the post-pandemic conflict that is worth it.

• Author: Stephen King
• Fiction      Apocalyptic

Another good recommendation for those interested in learning the basics of investing in start-ups. As I was dabbling in this area with Angel Investing, I found it very engaging as the book is split based on the life cycle of a company.

• Author: Scott Kupor
• Nonfiction      Business

I’ve read most Michael Lewis books and thought I’d swing back to this one that profiled the couple years after the Great Recession. It’s a quick one, but it was interesting to fill out my knowledge of what happened in Iceland, Ireland, Germany and Greece

• Author: Michael Lewis
• Nonfiction      Economics

Building off his previous book, The Fifth Risk, Lewis profiles a couple people in the epidemiology space and their struggle working through the system during the pandemic. Often these people’s work is unseen but often prescient, and even a novel coronavirus is simpler to navigate than crafting good policy to deal with it. Given our recent memory of the pandemic and the fact that Lewis can be quite harsh in naming those who did a poor job, it is an interesting and quick read.

• Author: Michael Lewis
• Nonfiction      History

• Author: Tamsyn Muir
• Fiction      Fantasy

Saw this at Powell’s and thought it might be a fun read given I generally enjoy Offerman’s interviews as well as his character on Parks & Rec. This is really 3 short stories, one about him hiking with friends, another about him visiting a sheep farm in England and the last about a cross-country trip in an Airstream. His short stories diverge into lots of observations, largely on current events, that become a bit tired (the dude really hates Trump, get in line). If you pick this up, do so because you like Offerman’s humor and follow the advice to read a little bit at a time - you won’t lose track and it will help it remain fresh.

• Author: Nick Offerman 
• Nonfiction      Travel

Good, quick read explaining why government projects are so expensive and largely fail. I really enjoyed as I saw the same problems at Philips (bureaucracy is not just limited to governments). I’d recommend to anyone interested in government policy or any project manager at a corporation.

• Author: Jennifer Pahlka
• Nonfiction      Business

A good, quick read with some important messages for entrepreneurs. He lays out how Netflix actually wasn’t a great idea in its first iteration and how some key pivots ended up being the key to the business model (i.e. No late fees, subscriptions, the recommendation engine were only thought up 24 months after launch, and out of necessity). He also recognizes how having Reed as the original co-investor with some successful exits along the way were crucial to getting the capital in the first place and especially when things were most dire after the tech bubble popped and Netflix was burning money. It can be inspiring, as he urges people to just start and figure things out, however my cynical side can’t help but also see the important of having a network of millionaires in your social circle to start with.

• Author: Marc Randolph
• Nonfiction      Business

One of my favorite authors writing about beer - yes please! This is a short, fun read in a Robbins classic, playful prose.

• Author: Tom Robbins
• Fiction      Novels

There is no better way to understand history than to try grasp what the day-to-day events of that time period looked like to an average person. Roth had his grandfather’s diary edited and published and you get to see a detailed view from 1929 thru 1945 of the depression, including the starts/stops and daily efforts to plod through. Roth was able to maintain a living during this time, but many of his acquaintances went under, either at the beginning or by making speculative bets during temporary recoveries. If you lived through this, you certainly have a different mentality vs the buy the dip crowd we have today.

• Author: Benjamin Roth
• Nonfiction      Economics

Sanderson does really good fantasy writing and this is no exception. A bit of magic taking place in medieval type world with memorable characters and a solid plot line that has some surprises at good pace.

• Author: Brandon Sanderson
• Fiction      Fantasy

Another Sanderson stand-alone novel - great book, well-developed characters that often find humor in their situations and evolve throughout the book. Sanderson is really good at world-building, with each book/series featuring a different type of magic with it’s own history and mythology, while not overburdening the reader with rules.

• Author: Brandon Sanderson
• Fiction      Fantasy

Great book. Based on the Star Trek trope that characters that wear red shirts are disposable and likely to die early in the show. The main character is a red shirt in a world very similar to Star Trek, who starts to realize the implications of the shirt he wears.

• Author: John Scalzi
• Fiction      Sci-Fi

Climate Change, Dutch Royalty and an approaching China/India conflict intersect in this recent one by Stephenson. Very entertaining, and I always enjoy the depth that Stephenson goes into in order to really understand the topics he is writing about. As always, he presents some eccentric characters in somewhat believable scenarios as they attempt to consider climate mitigation scenarios.

• Author: Neal Stephenson
• Fiction      Apocalyptic

The first 150 pages read like a tabloid centered on a bunch of bad people that only focus on sex and money. It was a depressing read and wouldn’t usually be featured in a business book if not for Sumner himself being at the center of it. After that, it becomes a bit of business profile book mixed with a #MeToo investigation which is a more enjoyable read. I’ve found I need at least someone to root for, whether in fiction or non-fiction. If all the characters are schmucks, why should I care what happens to them.

• Author: James B Stewart
• Nonfiction      Business

The book covers the period between when Michael Eisner became CEO/Chairman in 1984 up until he stepped down from Chairman in 2005 (surprisingly released just months before he also stepped down as CEO in 2005). If you enjoy business profiles, you’ll love this - it reads fast, given all the milestones that occurred in the entertainment industry at this time as well as all the corporate machinations as Eisner pushed out any potential threat to his rein, whether it be successful executives, powerful board members and even the Disney family. Eisner was definitely of the Welch era, making himself amazingly rich at a time when corporate results were on the upswing everywhere and resistant to any criticism.

• Author: James B. Stewart
• Nonfiction      Business

After reading a couple Theroux travelogues, I decided I’ll just read all of the ornery old man’s work. This one features him traveling the entire coastline of the UK in 1982. I started this last year but took a break and finally completed it. I learned about a lot of places in the UK, although the author wasn’t particularly positive on many of them. His travels takes place during the Falklands War, which is a constant aside and was interesting to learn about as it was happening. I believe Theroux enjoys the act of traveling more so than the destinations he visits.

• Author: Paul Theroux
• Nonfiction      Travel

In this travelogue by Theroux, he drives down to Mexico in 2018, spends some time weaving between different towns on both sides of the border, before continuing on through Mexico City and Oaxaca. As the book begins with the border, the author spends a lot of time writing about Mexico in relation to the US rather than as it’s own distinct place. While he makes efforts to travel to various places and meet locals, a recurring question he asks his acquaintances is whether they’ve been to the US. He is also very focused on the topics of poverty, crime and corruption. However, he did like the food. Overall, I found the book interesting although quite pessimistic.

• Author: Paul Theroux
• Nonfiction      Travel

Subtitled “The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach”. Interesting book and I like how the author only briefly profiles SpaceX as a background piece while focusing on companies that are doing similar amazing things without hogging all the glory. Recommended.

• Author: Ashleigh Vance
• Nonfiction      Business

I selected this based on Austin’s prior year list. After reading this, it’s difficult to think about trees the same way. In summary, trees are like any other animal, responding to its environment, forming communities and fighting for survival, just on a much longer time horizon that is difficult for humans to perceive.

• Author: Peter Wohlleben
• Nonfiction      Science

If you like comic books and/or Marvel superheroes, you’ll find this book a very entertaining history of Marvel’s biggest characters and storylines.

• Author: Douglas Wolk
• Nonfiction      Culture