Books I read in 2023
Here’re the names of the 16 books I read and enjoyed in 2023. I’ll try to keep my commentary at a minimum. I know 16 is an embarrassingly low number for a grand total, but it’s still one more than last year’s. So here goes.
1. Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft by Paul Allen
I wish I’d read this book in high school. It chronicles an unusually meaningful life lived to the fullest. Bill Gates wasn’t always as ‘nice’ as he’s apparently become now. And he wasn’t clearly the only genius that made Microsoft an epoch-defining company. The initial phase of Allen’s life is particularly interesting. On the list of most underrated geniuses of our time, Allen’s name would be right next to Steve Wozniak’s of Apple.
2. The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel
Going by the global reception the book has received, it’s become a modern-day classic of sorts. Everyone should read it regardless of their educational or social background. It offers deep financial insights in plain language that one can put to use in everyday handling of their savings and investments.
3. The Second Mountain: A Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks
The book is about Christian values. It’ll have a calming effect on you. It’s like the usual NYT column by David Brooks. His writing style makes one slow down while reading in order to savour his unique turn of phrase.
4. Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan
I reviewed this book for Dawn’s Books & Authors. Have a look at it if Western music or Dylan interests you. It’s as authentic as any book can get. Dylan will win you over, even though winning anyone over would never be a priority for someone like Dylan.
5. Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker by David Remnick
I have come up with a rule of thumb: if a book on any topic whatsoever is written by a staff writer of The New Yorker, I buy it without any hesitation. Remnick is a long-time staff writer and editor of The New Yorker. The book consists of his essays on a variety of topics that range from American and Middle Eastern politics to sports and literature. Its spellbinding prose makes the tome a treat to read.
6. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero by David Remnick
I watched cricket while growing up, but now I’m not much of a sports person. Boxing has never interested me anyway. Yet I bought this biography of Muhammad Ali because Remnick wrote it. Even if you know nothing about boxing, you’ll get so much out of this wonderful book. It’s the writer, and never the topic, that makes writing interesting. Highly recommended!
7. Joe Biden: American Dreamer by Evan Osnos
Once again, I went by my rule of thumb about the books by The New Yorker staff writers. Biden is more than a folksy bootstrapper with the right amount of politics in his bone marrow. Read Osnos’s book to get a glimpse into the life of a political survivor who has stayed at the apex of American politics for more than 50 years. It’s not hagiography.
8. No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics by Naomi Klein
Dogmatic writing is always passionate. It appeals to emotion, not reason. I enjoy Klein’s writing as much as I enjoy the writing of conservative public intellectual Thomas Sowell for the same reason: it comes straight from the writer’s heart. If you’re looking for reasons to hate the American corporate sector or capitalism in general, this book can help you load up on left-wing talking points.
9. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates is yet another staff writer of The New Yorker. From a purely literary point of view, this autobiography of sorts is probably the best on the list. It’s the story of Black America. Of all the books I read in 2023, I annotated this one most heavily. Want to get a taste of Coates’ prose? Here’s a random passage from page 123:
Nowadays, I cut on the tube and see the dumbfounded looks, when over some minor violation of name and respect, a black boy is found leaking on the street. The anchors shake their heads. The activists give their stupid speeches, praising mythical days when all disputes were handled down at Ray’s Gym. Politicians step up to the mic, claim the young have gone mad, their brains infected, and turned super-predator. Fuck you all who’ve ever spoken so foolishly, who’ve opened your mouths like we don’t know what this is. We have read the books you own, the scorecards you keep — done the math and emerged prophetic. We know how we will die with cousins in double murder suicides, in wars that are mere theory to you, convalescing in hospitals, slowly choked out by angina and cholesterol. We are the walking lowest rung, and all that stands between us and beast, between us and the local zoo, is respect, the respect you take as natural as sugar and shit. We know what we are, that we walk like we are not long for this world, that this world has never longed for us.
10. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
Yep, that’s right. I read a book on the wisdom of Naval Ravikant right after finishing the autobiography of Ta-Nehisi Coates. To be honest, I bought and read this book only because I once watched (on YouTube) my favourite writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb share a stage with Ravikant. The book didn’t disappoint me. It read like a long LinkedIn post. Sometimes it sounded clichéd, but mostly I found it genuinely good. For example, one insight I gleaned from the book (as annotated in the margins in my own words) was: “In the newsroom of a conventional newspaper, the reporter always owns the upside and the editor always owns the downside.” The book is full of such insights.
11. A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston
Cranston is among the best actors alive today. Breaking Bad is a cult and Cranston is its leader. Full of surprises, the book is written neatly. Buy and read it. You won’t find a single boring paragraph in there.
12. Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me by Sheryl Weinstein
It’s a racy story of the guy who pulled the biggest securities fraud in the history of capitalism. It’s the second book I’ve read about Bernie Madoff. Unlike Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff by Andrew Kirtzman that mainly focuses on the nature of Madoff’s fraud with commentary on his personal life on the side, this one is mostly about his romantic escapades.
13. The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns by Alan Greenberg
If I were to name just one book that I enjoyed reading the most in 2023, it’d be this. I have no words to describe how thrilling the story of Bear Stearns is. It’s not ghost-written, I can tell you. The parts about Greenberg’s early days in investment banking are too damn fascinating. If you’re in business or business journalism, it should be at the top of your must-read list.
14. Erdogan Rising: A Warning to Europe by Hannah Lucinda Smith
This is a book I bought and read in anticipation of my move to Istanbul. It’s a detailed account of Turkish politics and history by a British journalist based in Istanbul. All in all, it paints a not-so-flattering picture of Turkiye under Erdogan.
15. Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings by Craig Brown
It’s a fun read about chance encounters between famous people. The uniquely structured book has 101 chapters, each discussing a meeting between two great personalities in exactly 1,001 words. One of the two characters from every chapter appears in the subsequent chapter as well. So you read about the encounters between H.G. Wells and Stalin, Stalin and Gorky, and Gorky and Tolstoy. Read this book if you’re interested in typically weird encounters between historic figures.
16. Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama by Bob Odenkirk
Odenkirk is an outstanding actor — as good as Bryan Cranston, dare I say. But his book lacks the oomph of Cranston’s writing even though the Better Call Saul star has been a proper comedy writer all his adult life. I found his writing convoluted. I could say it’s my least favourite book of 2023.