My reading was severely hampered this year due to our son being at home all day. With helping him all day at home we ended up having much less energy at the end of the day for reading or watching something. But I was part of a bookclub at work and through that I got to read stuff from outside my "comfort zone". Some of the books I can recommend this year:
- Rendezvous with Rama: First book in Arthur C Clarke's Rama series. I love that these are short reads and how "hard" Clarke goes into the science of the worlds he creates. - Dune: Ok, so I finally got around to reading the classic in preparation for Denis Villeneuve's movie coming next year. The world building in the first two acts of this book is incredible, though the third act doesn't compare. BTW for Dune aficionados, watching the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune is a MUST. The man is positively insane, but it is nothing short of fantastic to watch. - The Invention of Nature: Biography of 19th century naturalist Humboldt, who traveled the world, discovered and catalogued so much of nature that there are more things/places named after him than anyone else in the world. I counted tens of places/counties/parks named after him in CA/OR itself. Beside learning about the man, the book gave me a good mental model of the global scientific community and how they worked at the turn of the 19th century. - How to be an Antiracist: Picked it up inspired by BLM, this was quite eye opening since I have not read much about racism in the US. - The Sound of the Mountain: Superlative literature, observation of passing life, with the peace of a Zen garden. I'm a fan of Yasunari Kawabata after this.
