Made it through another year! And a pretty good one, I must say. I made it to 40 last year! As I did last year, my top ten list follows, and then down below it is a list of everything I read. Enjoy!

10. A Brief History of Japan by Jonathan Clements

I’ve always enjoyed books in this series, and this installment didn’t disappoint. Pretty much on the nose for what its title promises.

9. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

The first book of the Neapolitan Novels, a four-part series set in mid-20th century Naples. Very gritty and eye-opening, but I adored the main character. High quality literary work, and a great lens on a place and time I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

8. Deep Learning with Python by François Chollet

Informative, clear, dense but understandable, well-organized, and a good introduction overall.

7. The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter

Surprisingly less about putting the sweat in and more about putting together the blueprint to build a life that is satisfying to you.

6. The Chancellor by Kati Marton

An incredible book about an incredible woman. Marton was able to work within Merkel’s orbit several years, and the depth and breadth of this biography shows how carefully it was put together.

5. Ultralearning by Scott H. Young

Great for any autodidact (aspiring or otherwise!). Provides invaluable meta-learning and other help on moving forward with self-designed projects.

4. Cities: the first 6,000 years by Monica L. Smith

A delightful tour through the history of life in urban settings. Touches on all sorts of topics, from patterns of consumption to infrastructure, division of labor, trade, and architecture.

3. Germany: A Nation in its Time by Helmut Walser Smith

A terrific overview of German history. Hefty but very informative.

2. The Gates of Europe by Serhii Plokhy

Picked this up in large part because of current events, but it was a wonderful book regardless. Really shines a light on much of the region’s history and culture; gives a much deeper appreciation of what is at stake and why.

1. Dirt by Bill Buford

I picked this up because I read Heat back in 2021 and wanted to see where Buford took this story, and he didn’t disappoint. While framed as a follow-up (studying French cuisine after studying Italian cuisine), this was incredibly dense and could easily stand on its own.

I forgot how much fun doing a review like that was! Well, until next year :).

All books read in 2022 — hit the 40-mark!

  • The Wedding Ringer — Kerry Rea
  • The Night Circus — Erin Morgenstern
  • Afghanistan — Thomas Barfield
  • Cities: the first 6,000 years — Monica L. Smith
  • Apache Spark in 24 hours — Jeffrey Aven
  • A Brief History of Japan — Jonathan Clements
  • The Theoretical Minimum — Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
  • Getting Things Done — David Allen
  • The Chancellor — Kati Marton
  • If He Had Been With Me — Laura Nowlin
  • Syrian Requiem: the civil war and its aftermath — Itamar Rabinovich and Carmit Valensi
  • Set Boundaries, Find Peace — Nedra Glover Tawwab
  • Germany: a nation in its time — Helmut Walser Smith
  • From the Soviet Bloc to the European Union — Iván T. Berend
  • Ukraine — Serhy Yekelchyk
  • Lost Apothecary — Sarah Penner
  • Peak: secrets from the new science of expertise — Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool
  • Heartless — Marissa Meyer
  • The 10x Rule — Grant Cardone
  • Discover your Dharma — Sahara Rose Ketabi
  • Ultralearning — Scott H. Young
  • Algorithms to Live By — Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
  • How to Think like a Roman Emperor — Donald Robertson
  • The Habsburg Monarchy, 1490 – 1848 — Paula Sutter Fichtner
  • Deep Learning with Python — François Chollet
  • Deep Learning and the Game of Go — Max Pumperla and Kevin Ferguson
  • The Earned Life — Marshall Goldsmith
  • Smarter Faster Better — Charles Duhigg
  • Linear Algebra Done Right — Sheldon Axler
  • City of Fortune — Roger Crowley
  • Istanbul — John Freely
  • My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante
  • Dirt — Bill Buford
  • Vector Calculus — Susan Jane Colley
  • Lost to the West — Lars Brownworth
  • Introduction to Machine Learning with Python — Andreas C Müller and Sarah Guido
  • The Bookseller of Florence — Ross King
  • Python Data Analytics — Fabio Nelli
  • Your Best Year Ever — Michael Hyatt
  • The Gates of Europe: a History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy