CityReads | Best Reads in 2020 by CityReads

328

Best Reads in 2020 by CityReads

Dear readers, Happy New Year of the Ox!

1. Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill

Humanity is vulnerable to the infectious diseases. COVID-19 is a case in point. Plagues and Peoples offers a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact–political, demographic, ecological, and psychological–of disease on cultures. It has become a classic influencing many important thinkers, such as Jared Diamond. And it will change your worldviews.

2.The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic by Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson is such a good storyteller and so prolific that basically every book of his is worth reading. This book talks about the ongoing cholera outbreaks in 19th century London and how a doctor named John Snow first found the source of the cholera by mapping the disease, which not only laid the groundwork for modern epidemiology, but also made urban life possible on a large scale.

3. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

A classic. Endless imagination.

4. The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt

If Calvino's Invisible City is imaginary, this book, The 99% Invisible City, teaches us to see the construction and design of buildings or objects that are invisible to us in everyday city life. Most of us may only know 1% of it, but not 99% of it, but this 99% is the best part.

5. Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty

It is War and Peace in academic works, not only because of the sheer volume, but also the readability of Piketty's writing, which often cites literature. Piketty emphasizes that public educational institutions play an important role in the success of individuals, so it is reasonable to tax personal income at a high rate to give back to society. Piketty practices what he is preaching. He proposes that the top 1% of the richest should be taxed 90% of their income. He himself belongs to the top 1%, so he thinks that the French government imposes 60% of income tax is not high enough.

6. Invisible Women Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado Perez

There is gender disparity across the globe. What is perhaps less obvious is a widespread lack of gender disaggregated data, a gap that has far-reaching consequences across around the world. In this book, Criado Perez carefully amassed and synthesized hundreds of examples from a wide range of sources, describing at length the existence of systemic discrimination against women. This discrimination, she argues, contributes to and is based on biased or missing data, which results in significant impact for women and society. The impact, she contends, can be minor (e.g., women feeling cold in offices set at the average male temperature norm) or deadly (e.g., women dying in cars designed for the average male or dying from heart attacks as women's typical symptoms are viewed as 'atypical' as compared to men’s symptoms).

7. Truth or truthiness: Distinguishing fact from fiction by learning to think like a data scientist by Howard Wainer

Don't be put off by the data, scientists and charts on the cover. This book is actually more interesting than it looks. The authors use real-life cases to explain how to use some mathematical tools to analyze and reveal the truth, and how not be fooled by so-called "alternative facts". For example, the author analyzes why the time interval between breaking the world record for the mile run is getting shorter and shorter. How does compound interest explain the increasing weights of classmates at class anniversary reunion?

8. The economic accounts of the Rongguo Mansion by Chen Dakang (in Chinese)

9. Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics Ben Blatt

Both books use numbers to analyze literature in a sensible and interesting way. The former analyzes the classical Chinese masterpiece Dream of the Red Chamber, while the latter analyzes the classics of British and American literature. The seemingly simple word frequency counts reveal profound findings. The two books both use the word frequencies of a few words to determine whether a work is written by the same author. The written word and the world of numbers should not be kept apart.

10. Nina G. Jablonski, 2014. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color, University of California Press.

We are united, and divided, by our skin color. We can raise many questions about the skin color from the perspectives of biology, anthropology, sociology, evolution and medicine. One of the best scholars to consult is probably professor Nina G. Jablonski. She is an American anthropologist and palaeobiologist, known for her research into the evolution of skin color in humans. This book shares information on the origin and meanings of skin color and the ways it affects our daily lives.

11. Daniel Susskind, 2020.A world without work: technology, automation, and how we should respond, Metropolitan Books.

From mechanical looms to the combustion engine to the first computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. For centuries, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. But as Daniel Susskind demonstrates in his book, A world without work: technology, automation, and how we should respond, this time really is different. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk. While the author's predictions about the future may not come true, the book is a fascinating read, especially about the history of technology and the current state of artificial intelligence.

12. West with the night by Beryl Markham

Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix―she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic. Hers was indisputably a life full of adventure and beauty.

This book is free of any gender stereotype. Beryl Markham says nothing about her beauty, marriage or children, and does not brag about her extraordinary accomplishments or the hardships and dangers involved. Her writing on darkness, flight and loneliness are beautiful and extraordinary.

13. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the tone of a letter to a friend, Nigerian writer Adichie offers fifteen suggestions on how to raise a feminist daughter. In fact, if you want to know how to raise a feminist son, you can also read this book.

14. Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly

Human being are migratory species, moving around not only on Earth, but also into space and to other planets. This book is the story of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly's year living on the International Space Station and how he has become an astronaut. The International Space Station is by far the longest inhabited space building, has been occupied since Nov. 2, 2000, and has hosted more than 200 visitors from 16 countries inside. In other words, humans are not all staying on Earth at the same time. It seems that being away from home makes people realize the preciousness of home, and life in space makes people appreciate the beauty and fragility of life on Earth.

15. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

16. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

These two memoirs can be seen as the same story of how individuals defy the odds, overcome structural disadvantages to achieve extraordinary education, except that the two authors face different structural disadvantages.

17. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

Naval immigrated from India to the United States as a child with his parents and grew up in New York City, where his parents later divorced.  His mother struggled to raise two children on her own. He was very introverted and had few friends, but books were his friends. He later got into a good high school in New York, which led to a successful admission to Dartmouth, an Ivy League school, where he studied economics and computers. Now Naval is a successful entrepreneur and investor. His success shows the importance of public educational institutions for poor children.

18. Ha Jin, The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai, Patheon, 2019.

Li Bai is my favorite ancient Chinese poet, and I especially love the otherworldly feeling of his poetry. Li Bai is a solitary figure in Chinese poetry, like a blazing star whose light also comes from a deep indifference to the world below. Li Bai is a household name in China. He is considered as one of the greatest poets in Chinese history. Students learn his poems at school and recite his poems by heart. However, people know very little about the details of his life. Ha Jin, a novalist and professor at Boston University, published a biography about this beloved Chinese poet in 2019.

Related CityReads

162.CityReads│61 Books Nassim Taleb Recommends: 31-61（Click the title or enter our WeChat menu and reply number ）

CityReads ∣Notes On Cities

"CityReads", a subscription account on WeChat, 

posts our notes on city reads weekly. 

Please follow us by searching "CityReads"