My 2020 books: full list and top 3

BOOK REVIEWS BY BINOD

The book is an essential part of my daily routine. These days I read so much that I feel I must a) keep some record and b) share my findings with the world. Because some books are simply spectacular and unforgettable.

In this blog post, I write on all the books I’ve read and reviewed from 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Dec 2020 and the three books I liked the most.

All I read

Below is the list of all the books. The ones with (R-B) means I penned a review on my website in the book review section. The ones with (R-L) means I posted my comments on LinkedIn but didn’t bother writing a detailed review on the website.

The books with nothing in brackets means I didn’t bother to write a review, because it either wasn’t of interest to the majority of my audience (Like In Siberia by Colin Thubron which is a dense and gloomy but brilliant travelogue) or it was one of the rare instances where I picked a crap book (like In Praise of walking by Shane O Mara).  The list is all non-fiction- I can’t recall the last time I read any fiction.

Here's the list, in the order in which I read them.

1. Economyths by David Orell 

2. The Man who solved the market by Gregory Zuckerman (R-B)

3. Humans are underrated by Geoff Colvin

4. The checklist manifesto by Atul Gawande

5. The 4-hour workweek by Tim Ferris (R-B)

6. New power by Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans  

7. Prisoners of geography by Tim Marshall

8. Nine lies about work by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall (R-B)

9. How India works by Aarti Kelshikar (R-B)

10. The age of kali by William Dalrymple

11. Leaders: myth and reality by Gen Stanley McChrystal (R-B)

12. Loser think by Scott Adams (R-B)

13. In Siberia by Colin Thubron  

14. Why we sin by Jack Lewis (R-B)

15. Inner engineering by Sadhguru (R-B)

16. Job be damned by Rishi Piparaiya

17. Quantum economics by David Orrell (R-B)

18. Range by David Epstein  

19. Weapons of math destruction by Cathy O’Neil (R-B)

20. Truth by Hector Macdonald

21.  Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das (R-B)  

22. Cool by Steven Quartz and Anette Asp

23. The Quants by Scott Patterson

24. Smarter by Dan Hurley (R-B)

25. Mental Toughness by Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk

26. Crushing it by Gary V

27. Principles by Ray Dalio (R-B)

28. Reinventing capitalism by Viktor Mayer - Schonberger (R-B)

29. Quiet by Susan Cain (R-B)

30. Messengers by Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks (R-B)

31. The hope circuit by Martin Seligman

32. Flash crash by Liam Vaughan (R-B)

33. In Praise of walking by Shane O Mara

34. Always day one by Alex Kantrowitz (R-B)

35. Twelve rules for life by Jordan Peterson (R-B)  

36. Human kind by Rutger Bregman (R-B)

37. Out innovate by Alexandre Lazarow  

38. Indistractable by Nir Eyal (R-B)

39. A world without work by Daniel Susskind (R-B)

40. Bad blood by John Carreyrou (R-B)

41. The top ten regrets of the dying by Bronnie Ware  

42. Made to stick by Chip and Dan Heath

43. Trillion-dollar coach by Eric Schmidt (R-B)

44. Talking about strangers by Malcolm Gladwell (R-B)

45. Man’s search for meaning by Victor Frankl  

46. Skin in the game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (R-B)

47. Influence by Robert Cialdini (R-B)

48. Think like a freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

49. Educated by Tara Westover (R-L)

50. The lessons of history by Will and Ariel Durant (R-L)

The Top 3

This is of course difficult and highly subjective. I rate them based largely on how well I recall their message/examples and how much I enjoyed reading the book.

My top three books for the year 2020 are:

1.    Influence by Robert Cialdini  

2.    Human kind by Rutger Bregman

3.    Bad blood by John Carreyrou

I hope you find entertainment, education and insight in the above books.

Reading. And everything.