Reading

2025

In 2025 I read 41 books. These are the six books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. The Whalebone Theatre (Joanna Quinn) - this is a "multigenerational saga" that follows the characters in a family as they grow up and live their lives in the period before, during, and after World War II. The sheer scope of this story left me with the feeling that I hadn't merely been witness to a particular series of events, but that I had lived alongside these characters as they grew up and figured out who they were.
2. Virgin (Hollie McNish) - a beautiful collection of poetry arranged into chapters with prose introductions that set the stage and give some context. All of the poems explore, question, deconstruct, and reconstruct, the concept of virginity, what we think it means, and what it could mean.
3. Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World (Helen Czerski) - most of the world we live on is covered by oceans and yet most of us have a deeply superficial understanding of what these places are and how they work (at least I certainly did). This fantastic book reveals the beautiful inner workings of the oceans and explores what this means for our relationship to this vast and beautiful place. Also it includes some pretty incredible details about whale earwax and the ability of some whales to communicate across thousands of miles of open ocean.
4. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will (Robert M. Sapolsky) - a fascinating and compassionate discussion of the evidence that we don't have free will and what this means for society. One of the examples discussed towards the end is the evolving way that society treats epileptics. If an epileptic has a seizure while driving and this results in them killing someone, we no longer condemn them. However, if the epileptic "chooses" not to take their medication and then the same events happen, then we do hold them responsible for their "choice" even though we can trace this back to involuntary processes in the brain in exactly the same way as the seizure itself. This book preaches a position of radical empathy. A lack of free will doesn't mean that we allow everybody to do whatever they want, but it does mean that the only moral response to bad actions is to treat people through a medical quarantine and restorative justice lens rather than a punitive justice lens.
5. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking (Samin Nosrat) - a fantastic examination of some of the absolutely key underlying principles that explain how cooking works and how you can approach cooking as a flexible skill set rather than a collection of magic spells (recipes) that must be followed carefully and precisely.
6. The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism (Jen Gunter) - Menopause is something which many of the people I know and love in this world are going to experience (or already have). This was a topic which I knew very little about before reading this book and so I really appreciated reading such a good summary of what it involves and how to think about navigating it as well as possible. This book was also a great reminder to me about the general process of aging which tends to result in a slow but steady loss of muscle mass over time. If I want to stay healthy and capable into my older age then I'm going to have to take active steps to build muscle mass, just to try and balance out the losses which will happen by default.

2024

In 2024 I read 45 books. These are the six books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. Orbital - this is my most recent recommendation since I only read it on Dec 29th. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but I loved it. It's a fictional account of a day on the international space station, and it uses that context to cast a lens back at humanity, and the earth. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous and there were multiple moments which caused me to have upwellings of feelings.
2. Soil: The Incredible Story [...] - this has immediately earned a place on my imaginary list of books which I wish everyone would read. It turns out that soil is much richer, and more complex, and more *alive* than I had ever realised. More importantly, the way that soil is treated by industrial farming has terrible consequences for both the food we eat today and the prospect of future harverts. I never understood before what regenerative agriculture is and why it's important, and this book makes that all fascinatingly and accessibly clear.
3. The Lost Rainforests of Britain - This was another eye opener for me. A key part of learning to care about the environment is finding out about the things which should be there, which aren't any more. Britain should have lots of temperate rainforest, and the three biggest reasons why we don't are sheep, deer, and rhododendrons. Also, the Victorians *loved* ferns, so much so that the very first environmental protection laws in the UK were specifically aimed at trying to stop Victorians from stealing wild ferns.
4. How Migration Really Works - Chapter by chapter, this book examines 22 mainstream claims about migration, and then looks at what the underlying evidence actually tells us. At a time when rhetoric around migration drives so much of our politics, I think it really matters to dive into the details of how it actually works and what really drives it. Plus I love a book which isn't afraid to include graphs.
5. The Years of Lyndon Johnson - In 2020 I read “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro, which I continue to believe is one of the best books I'll ever read. Lyndon Johnson is the other figure that Robert Caro has spent the rest of his life since the Power Broker writing about. The first four books were published over a 30 year period (1982 - 2012) and the final volume is still being written. These are long books, with the four published books totalling ~145 hours as audiobooks. I don't think they're quite as consistently readable as “The Power Broker” as Caro is definitely writing partially for the historical record as well as for you the reader, but they are still collectively a fascinating study in the brutal realities of the gaining and exercising of power. In the words of Caro - “But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.”
6. Good Material - This is an excellent book about a breakup. The first half made me mad because it's got a lot of classic men being unable to talk about their feelings nonsense in it, but I swear it's all worth it. Funny, heart warming, and a bit heart breaking.

2023

In 2023 I read 55 books. These are the five books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity: An incredible book which opened my eyes to the rich history of social experimentation in early human society. However, this is an interesting critique which claims that the authors overstate or oversimplify some of their presentations of the academic research. The book also left me wanting more, as it doesn't attempt to address the important question of whether or not the kind of social experimentation which was historically common could still work in the modern world in the face of modern technology and a global population of billions.
2. Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within - This provides a powerful insight into the weird realities of being an elected MP within the current remarkably dyfunctional Westminster system.
3. The Overstory - A fantastic fiction book which has given me a genuinely new perspective on the value, importance, and complexity of forests. Woven into the story I learned things like that in north america there are entire forests of genetically identical aspen trees that are all connected together into a single giant root system. Each trunk grows and eventually dies, but the underlying root system, the collective genetically distinct organism lives on. The biggest known example of this is called Pando. We're not sure how old Pando is. Probably more than 10,000 years old.
4. How to Speak Whale - The remarkeable story of the scientific project to learn how to talk to whales.
5. Cloud Cuckoo Land - A beautiful story about the very human process of handing down stories through time.

2022

In 2022 I read 46 books. These are the five books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. Nothing But The Truth: Stories of Crime, Guilt and the Loss of Innocence - Funny and revealing memoir about the author's experience of becoming a criminal barrister in the UK.
2. Bury the Chains - The incredible true story of the multi decade political effort to end slavery in the British empire.
3. Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir - Beautiful prose by one of my favourite authors (Rebecca Solnit).
4. Fingersmith - Incredible queer fiction which keeps you guessing till the very end.
5. The Power - Excellently written fiction that considers a world where women are suddenly able to physically dominate men and all the ways in which this might affect society.

2021

In 2021 I read 47 books. These are the five books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace - A beautifully written book which argues for a new relationship with cooking as a day by day process rather than a transactional chore. May change your life.
2. Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography - A critical examination of several of the pervasive myths about what testosterone is and what role it plays.
3. Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity - Through interviews with dozens of young boys and young men, Orenstein recounts in painstaking and sometimes graphic detail the world that young boys are growing up in and the world that they are learning how to navigate. She writes about toxic masculinity, sexual assault and rape, the Me Too movement and so much more all through the lens of how it is affecting the world that young boys are growing up in. She writes about how so many boys still see themselves as one of the good guys even though many of them have committed sexual assault against women they know. (Description copied from a Goodreads review).
4. Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs - Never have I laughed so hard while learning so much! Ina Park is a master at breaking down barriers and making uncomfortable topics accessible and enjoyable. This is a must read for anyone who has had, is having, or will have sex. (Description copied from a Goodreads review)
5. The Hate U Give - highly recommended: 16-year-old Starr Carter's life unravels when she becomes sole witness to the brutal murder of her childhood friend, Khalil Harris. Khalil was an unarmed black boy gunned down by a white police officer. (Description copied from a Goodreads review).

2020

In 2020 I read 49 books. These are the five books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. The Power Broker - 1200 page true story about how Robert Moses wielded enormous power for decades in the US. Vital reading to better understand how power works.
2. Fake Law - Essential and enraging. An informed look at the myths we're forcefed about the operation of the law (it's biased in favour of criminals! we pay far too much in legal aid!) and analyses not only the dreadful damage that's done to our rights and the body politic, but also takes a good look at who stands to gain from peddling these lies. Clue: it's not the general public. (Description copied from a Goodreads review).
3. Revolting Prostitutes - Why sex work is work, and why criminalising sex work is so harmful.
4. Mere Christianity - This book from 1942 is an attempt to examine what the core of Christianity is all about.
5. Education of an Idealist - True story of one woman's journey from war reporter in Bosnia to being the US Ambassador to the UN - from trying to get the attention of the US government to being one of the key people attempting to effect change on the international stage.

2019

In 2019 I read 51 books. These are the five books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. Hope In The Dark - Rebecca Solnit: An important source of hope in these difficult times.
2. This Changes Everything - Naomi Klein: Explains why the status quo of WTO global trade rules are incompatible with the action we need on climate change. I'm not doing the book justice with that technical description - Naomi Klein is a powerful writer, and you should read what she has to say.
3. MIT Press Essential Knowledge: Sexual Consent - Milena Popova: The scripts and discourses which we learn about sex are not working for us. This book provides a concise and important introduction to thinking on this topic.
4. Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky - Probably one of the most important books I've read in a while. Sets out the reasons why a free press still fails to impartially report on events. I found the book a bit too in depth, and skimmed some sections, but the underlying message is so important.
5. Economix - Michael Goodwin: An excellent look at the history of why we run our economy the way we do, and the reasons that it's so broken. I found this to be a super accessible and compelling read.

2017

In 2017 I read 45 books. These are the six books which I would recommend most strongly:

1. Sexual Politics - excellent book from the 1970s about feminism.
2. Happy City - the cities we have built suit our needs very poorly.
3. Debt: The First 5000 years - the origins of money and how it has shaped our history.
4. Drugs without the hot air - an evidence based examination of illicit drugs written by the same author as a paper arguing horse riding is more dangerous than MDMA.
5. When Breath Becomes Air - biography of a man who tried to find meaning by studying literature, then working as a neurosurgeon and finally dealing with his own mortality.
6. Tiny Beautiful Things - beautifully written life advice. I've bought copies of this for two people since I read it.