As is my wont, I read a fair bit in 2024. Here are the books I tackled this year that I found most interesting, challenging, engaging, and/or compelling:

(Note: I get a bit of a commission if you buy any of these books through my links.)

• Designing Games: I was keen to read this based on the topic alone, and even more when I realized it was penned by Tynan Sylvester, the designer behind Rimworld (the computer game which has consumed more hours of my adult life than any other). It did not disappoint. It engagingly and systematically walks through all of the considerations and pitfalls involved in creating a video game. To my surprise, however, this was also the best book on management I read this year, with a trove of insights on shepherding and motivating people. I’ll definitely be applying lessons from this book to my own management practice.
• In Cold Blood: My son read this in high school and recommended it to me then. It took me 10 years to get to it (sorry, boyo!) but I’m glad I finally did. In addition to simply being a gripping tale, it also presaged a couple of literary movements: the rise of true crime stories — perhaps most common in podcasts and documentaries currently — and historical accounts told narratively, with a combination of the writer’s extensive research and informed imagination creating a vivid account of events. (Erik Larson is one of my favorite contemporary authors doing this sort of writing.)
• The Dark Forest & Death’s End: books 2 and 3 in Cixin Liu’s celebrated Remembrance of Earth’s Past series. Caveats: I found the reading itself less enjoyable than with many of my favorite books. The characters feel somewhat wooden, the translation from Chinese reads a bit stilted, and the foreshadowing is at times so heavy I was left wishing my audiobook app had a “skip to where the other shoe drops” button. But oh boy, for sheer number of interesting ideas woven into a compelling narrative and for epic scope, I can’t think of anything to beat it. 
• Educated: my son’s girlfriend recommended this autobiographical account of a young woman’s emergence from a very sheltered religious upbringing into the wider world of people and ideas. Westover’s luminous prose, the harrowing accounts of the abuse and neglect she navigated, and her compulsion to understand herself and the compelling beauty she finds in the arts make this a riveting read, front to back.
• Piranisi: I discovered Susanna Clarke’s first book, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, entirely by accident in a bargain bin some years back. It was rich and wonderful, and I was eager for more from the freshman author. Unfortunately, health challenges have kept her from publishing very often, but Piranisi was a delight that turns, by book’s end, into an entirely different delight. Recommended for fans of mystery or the fantastic. (Note: I just now learned the origin of the protagonist’s name. Further wonders!)
• White Too Long: the first church I attended willingly, rather than under duress from my parents, was Trinity, a Southern Baptist Church in San Antonio. I was shocked and dismayed to learn early in this book that the Southern Baptist denomination had its 19th century roots in the pro-slavery movement. From there, the book traces the history of white nationalism in the US. It was a good history lesson for me as well as providing some excellent insight into the current state of the nation. (This book was also notable to me because I picked it up at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King used to preach.)
• The Everything War: a history of Amazon, from its scrappy founding, to the wake of would-be partners that have had their ideas and products appropriated, to the difficult conditions under which company employees labor. This was a revelatory read, and has given me plenty of motivation to buy things from other vendors whenever possible. (Balance this, however, with the fact that I loved touring one of their distribution centers a few years back and seeing human and machine working together in an intricate dance of logistics.)
• Surrender: As a long-time fan of U2, I was keen to grab a copy of Bono’s book as soon as it came out. It took me a good spell to read through it all because of its rich, poetic, episodic nature — reading a single story was delightful and left me satisfied for a week or two before I’d want to go back for another. The Irish love of storytelling comes through strongly, and it’s fascinating to get to better know Paul Hewson, his loves, his family, his thoughts on art, and his reflections on getting into an on-stage fistfight in the early days of the band.
• Let Your Life Speak: My brother recommended this short book to me a few years back, and when I finally got to reading it, I was annoyed that I hadn’t gotten around to it sooner. It’s a stirring and honest exploration of one’s calling in life, and affirms the idea that we’ll be most fulfilled when we’re working with the fabric of our innate natures rather than fighting against it. I also very much appreciated, enjoyed, and occasionally burst into laughter at Palmer’s account of his experiences with Quaker spiritual practices.
• Games: Agency as Art: As an enthusiastic player (and occasional designer) of both computer and board games, I sometimes feel a little bit defensive of the hobby. This book provides an excellent exploration of the unique value of the medium as a conveyor and creator of experiences, and puts into clear words many ideas I’d had lurking in the recesses of my mind (as well as providing a wealth of new ones). If you feel that games have value and want to be able to articulate what that value is, find a copy of the English translation and dig in!
• After On: AI has been much on my mind the last couple of years. I’ve been using LLMs in both my programming practice and personal life, as well as building AI-based products at work. Last year’s reading of Human Compatible gave me some good grist for the brainmill on how to keep runaway AI from turning us all into paperclips. This novel provides a very entertaining alternative vision for how a human-aligned AGI might come about (and nearly doesn’t). The plot threads do eventually all come together, I promise!
• Stories of Your Life and Others: For sheer pleasure per word, Ted Chiang’s short story collection topped my reading list this year. From his reimagining of the Tower of Babel tale, to Story of Your Life, the linguist’s reminisce that was the inspiration for Denis Villeneuve’s movie Arrival, to Liking What You See, a fascinating gendankenexperiment on how society would change if we didn’t see human beauty, there was so much to savor in this collection that I’ve spent the rest of the year recommending it to anyone who would listen.
• A City on Mars: I have quite complicated feelings about Elon Musk. But I don’t know of anyone better at starting from first principles and taking the necessary steps to move toward a goal. His compelling vision that humanity should be a multiplanetary species has driven his successes at SpaceX, Tesla, and Starlink, and has been amazing to see put into action. When the Wienersmiths announced their exhaustively researched (and liberally cartooned) examination of the challenges of humanity setting up shop on the nearest likely planetary neighbor, I preordered immediately. Simultaneously scholarly and full of delightful off-color jokes, it’s a must-read for anyone with an interest in the subject matter.
• The Perfectionists: This was the first book by Simon Winchester that I’d read, and I was so taken with it that I followed up with Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman later in the year. This far-ranging history of precision engineering, from the challenges of building cannons and steam engines precisely enough to not leak or blow up, to the staggeringly sensitive gravity observatories that detect subtle distortions in spacetime and are arguably the most precision-engineered artifacts ever created, is engaging throughout. Hearing it in Winchester’s delightful English accent is a bonus of the audiobook version.

What a rewarding year in the stacks! I’d love to know what your favorites have been, as I’m always eager to hear what ideas, tales, and provocations have engaged my friends, and constantly looking for good recommendations. Please drop me a note!