This is my first installment of the best books of 2020. If you’re curious about all the books I’ve read in 2020, see this page.

1. How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Also featured in my Reading Guide to Antiracist Books. A must-read for this moment that we inhabit. Kendi’s parsing of definitions and overlapping concepts brings so much clarity to the complex spheres that race touches. 

2. She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

I love investigative journalism stories. This book is the riveting behind-the-scenes account of Kantor and Twohey’s reporting on sexual harassment and abuse by Harvey Weinstein. 

3. Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

Also an unbelievable story behind Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Weinstein. Incredible reporting that also revealed systems that protect the rich and powerful.

4. Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World by Mark Miodownik

If you want to take a break from current issues and read an entertaining science book that evokes wonder, this is the book for it. This book is highly readable and informative, unveiling the hidden, scientific magic of everyday items like your utensils, chocolate, and more. It reminds me Hope Jahren’s quote in Lab Girl, “Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life.”

5. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–but Some Don’t by Nate Silver

Nate Silver, the man behind FiveThirtyEight.com, outlines fundamental principles on how we should relate to data. It is incredibly insightful, providing lasting lessons as we go deeper into the age of big data. The book is first published in 2012, but its insights become even more relevant now. (It even has a chapter on epidemic and data).

6. Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference by Timothy Keller and John Inazu

Insightful reflections from a variety of individuals on how the Christian faith can engage culture, more specifically a divided culture.

7. Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit by Krista Tippett

Often science and faith are pitted against each other. But that is not the only conversation that takes place. The other framing of the relationship between science and faith, one that I connect with more, is the one Tippett presents in this book: the connection between science and spirituality. 

Favorite Books Lists

2023: Best Books of 2023 Part 1, Best Books of 2023 Part 2.

2022: Best Books of 2022 Part 1, Best Books of 2022 Part 2.

2021: Best Books of 2021 Part 1, Best Books of 2021 Part 2.

2020: Best Books of 2020 Part 1, Best Books of 2020 Part 2.

2019: Best Books of 2019 Part 1, Best Books of 2019 Part 2.

2018: Best Books of 2018 Part 1, Best Books of 2018 Part 2.

2017: Best Books of 2017 Part 1, Best Books of 2017 Part 2.

2016: Best Books of 2016 Part 1, Best Books of 2016 Part 2.

2015: Best Books of 2015 Part 1, Best Books of 2015 Part 2.

*Amazon Product and Bookshop links on this blog are affiliate links, which means that each time you purchase something through those links, I get a small commission without you paying any extra. Of course you don’t have to use them, but if you want to chip-in towards content creation for this blog, I’d really appreciate it!

It’s the second round-up of the best books of 2019. Below are my favorites from the second half of the year. To see the list from the first half of the year, go to this post. And if you’re curious about all the books I’ve read in 2019, check out this page.

1. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Winners Take All is a thought-provoking book that makes you think about what kind of society we live in and what kind we want to live in. Anand Giridharadas is one of the main voices in the growing conversation on the role of the billionaire class in philanthropy and in “changing the world.” Some of the poignant questions the author asks: Should we trust billionaires to solve societal problems, when it is in their interest to preserve the status quo rather than promote changes that would eat into their profit? Instead of doing more good, how about doing less harm? Where does the idea that changing the world has to always be a win-win proposition (i.e., do well by doing good) come from? This book takes a critical look at “changing the world” when it is understood in a narrow, market-based paradigm that seeks to profit from it instead of giving something that true changes often require, true sacrifice. 

For more resources on the topic, check out these conversations:

When the Market is Our Only Language from On Being with Krista Tippett

Interview with Ezra Klein

Future Perfect podcast Season 2: Philanthropy vs. Democracy

2. Exhalation: Stories

I’m not a big science fiction reader, but I will read everything that Ted Chiang writes. Exhalation is his second collection of short stories after his first, which was one of my favorites in 2017. His stories have this breathtaking quality about them. Each story is a world unto its own, and Chiang is so good at making each world’s laws and rules consistent. But at the core of these stories are deep human questions that emerge whether the characters interact with time travels, parallel multiverse, or artificial intelligence. At the end of the book, Chiang includes some notes on how each story originated, which provide a glimpse of how his fascinating mind works.

For more, listen to his interview on the New York Times Book Review podcast:

Fiction About Unprecedented Situations 

3. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Arlie Hochschild is a sociologist who spent years immersing herself in Lake Charles, Louisiana, a community that strongly supports the Tea Party. As an academic from Berkeley, she seeks to understand a community, and individuals in that community, that are as different as can be to her political leaning. Her exploration, which she calls climbing an “empathy wall,” is generous and deeply human. What she uncovers is their “deep story,” reality as it is felt by each person she comes to know in this book. 

As a foreigner in America, one of my perpetual learning goals is to understand the society I’m a part of, its histories, narratives and “deep stories.” This is one of those valuable books in this respect, as it covers stories of lives that are not commonly covered in mainstream channels. 

Check out this conversation from the On Being podcast:

The Deep Stories of Our Time 

4. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

A great biography on the life of Ulysses Grant.

Read a nice review of the book here.

5. All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir

A lovely memoir on family, identity, and belonging. As a baby, Nicole Chung was adopted and raised by a white family. She grew up well loved, but also with a sense of not completely belonging or understood. She searched, and found, her birth (Korean) family as an adult, and in the process, explored the complexities of being a transracial adoptee and the different shades that “family” can mean.

6. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

A great follow up to the Ulysses Grant biography, this book tells the story of Andrew Garfield’s quick rise to the presidency and his murder quite early on in his presidency. He did not immediately die; what transpired after he was shot was an interweaving dynamic between politics, medical care (and their respective power struggles), and mental illness (on the side of his assassin).

7. The Underground Railroad

A gripping story of a slave’s escape from bondage, traversing several states, each with their own promises and horrors. It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for a very good reason.

8. The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown

This book is a wonderful discovery; I had never heard about The Moth before this book. The Moth is a storytelling phenomenon in which each person tells a personal story on stage. There’s something powerful in the first-person telling of one’s life. This book is a collection of these stories, lightly edited for print. 

Check out The Moth’s YouTube channel here.

Other Notable Mentions

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries by Safi Bahcall

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Favorite Books Lists

2023: Best Books of 2023 Part 1, Best Books of 2023 Part 2.

2022: Best Books of 2022 Part 1, Best Books of 2022 Part 2.

2021: Best Books of 2021 Part 1, Best Books of 2021 Part 2.

2020: Best Books of 2020 Part 1, Best Books of 2020 Part 2.

2019: Best Books of 2019 Part 1, Best Books of 2019 Part 2.

2018: Best Books of 2018 Part 1, Best Books of 2018 Part 2.

2017: Best Books of 2017 Part 1, Best Books of 2017 Part 2.

2016: Best Books of 2016 Part 1, Best Books of 2016 Part 2.

2015: Best Books of 2015 Part 1, Best Books of 2015 Part 2.

*Amazon Product and Bookshop links on this blog are affiliate links, which means that each time you purchase something through those links, I get a small commission without you paying any extra. Of course you don’t have to use them, but if you want to chip-in towards content creation for this blog, I’d really appreciate it!

Happy mid-year! It’s time for the first round-up of the best books of 2019. If you’re curious about all the books I’ve read in 2019, check out this page.

1. Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist

This is a fantastic book of an incredible story written by the Pulitzer Prize writer Eli Saslow. Derek Black grew up in the middle of white nationalism. His family was, and still is, at the head of the movement. Yet when Derek went to college, things began to change until he finally left the movement and is now actively fighting against it. This book tells the dramatic story of his evolution through interactions he had with college friends, a few of whom invited him to Shabbat dinners, and continued to do so even after they knew who he was. The story is presented with empathy toward everyone involved and contains so many lessons for us today. 

2. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life, Freedom, and Justice

This book is a memoir by Anthony Ray Hinton, a man who spent 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. As he retells the story of how they arrested and condemned him, and as you go through the years of him hoping and fighting for his innocence, you get this suffocating feeling because you know that he ultimately had to spend 30 years before he was finally released. Hinton shares the incredible darkness that he and his prison mates lived through, and also the humanity that could not be taken away from people, even on death row. It’s dark story of injustice, but also an incredible story of resilience, hope, and faith.

Hinton’s life is intertwined with Bryan Stevenson’s, author of Just Mercy, one of my all-time favorite books. Stevenson eventually became Hinton’s lawyer, who after years of work finally got him freed from death row. 

3. Almost Everything: Notes on Hope

In Almost Everything, Anne Lamott shares profound wisdom for a life of hope in her usual witty and humorous writing. The timing of when I picked this book up coincided with the 10th anniversary of my dad’s passing, which made this book such a welcome salve to what I was thinking and feeling at the time. It simply is a delightful book on the most essential things in life, and most of the credit goes to the writing.

4. American Hunger

Written by the same Eli Saslow who wrote the first book in this list, this collection of articles trace the lives of individuals across the country who are impacted or depended by America’s food stamp program. The challenge of having enough or anything to eat is very real for many American families, children, and senior citizens. I think these articles should be required reading, and for more sources that enlighten the complex problem of poverty, see this Understanding Poverty Reading List.

5. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

This book makes the list because it is such an infuriating story. John Carreyrou traces the story of Theranos, the one-time multibillion-dollar biotech startup, with the enigmatic Elizabeth Holmes at its helm. Yet Theranos’ unicorn status was based on a fraud, a technology that didn’t work. Selling the promise to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would be able to do a variety of blood tests with a single tiny prick of blood, Holmes was able to fool many high-ranking investors and became at one point the star young female tech CEO that the world was craving for. 

The infuriating part was the cost that many people bore from getting false blood test results, and Holmes seemingly walking away mostly unscathed from this whole ordeal. Presently, she faces criminal charges for fraud. Her trial date is just set for July 2020. As for her life, she got engaged to a hotel heir and reportedly living in luxury. 

6. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

Now how about a story about women who are true heroes. This book tells the under-told story of thousands of women who were codebreakers during World War II, their marvelous accomplishments, the challenges and stigmas they faced in the workplace and the changing role of women in society. Brilliantly researched by the writer.

What are your favorite recent reads? Comment below for reading recommendations!

Favorite Books Lists

2023: Best Books of 2023 Part 1, Best Books of 2023 Part 2.

2022: Best Books of 2022 Part 1, Best Books of 2022 Part 2.

2021: Best Books of 2021 Part 1, Best Books of 2021 Part 2.

2020: Best Books of 2020 Part 1, Best Books of 2020 Part 2.

2019: Best Books of 2019 Part 1, Best Books of 2019 Part 2.

2018: Best Books of 2018 Part 1, Best Books of 2018 Part 2.

2017: Best Books of 2017 Part 1, Best Books of 2017 Part 2.

2016: Best Books of 2016 Part 1, Best Books of 2016 Part 2.

2015: Best Books of 2015 Part 1, Best Books of 2015 Part 2.

*Amazon Product and Bookshop links on this blog are affiliate links, which means that each time you purchase something through those links, I get a small commission without you paying any extra. Of course you don’t have to use them, but if you want to chip-in towards content creation for this blog, I’d really appreciate it!