January 5, 2021 Hello again! It's been a while since I've done a book update. 2020 has now come to a close and I have finished many books since my last update. The exact number that I have finished since my last update is 18. Because of the high volume of books in this update I've decided to split it into two parts. Enoy! ## Leonardo da Vinci [Walter Isaacson](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34684622-leonardo-da-vinci) I am not the type of person who enjoys going to art galleries unfortunately, but I am the kind of person who will marvel at engineering diagrams and the thought processes behind them. This meant that much of the art related material of the book was lost on me (I often found myself flipping back and forth between pages to try to see the "left handed hatch strokes" in the painting being referenced but I still often couldn't). Overall, it was an enjoyable read and falls neatly into Isaacson's desire to tell stories of people who stand at the intersection of art and science. ## The DevOps Handbook [Gene Kim, et al.](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26083308-the-devops-handbook) As a developer, I always look for ways to improve my craft. Adding the introductory knowledge of DevOps that this book offers has done exactly that. The book is paired with Gene Kims other two books 'The Phoenix Project' and 'The Unicorn Project', both of which I also recommend. Reading this books has helped me implement some of the best practices mentioned into my own workplace. ## How to Change Your Mind [Michael Pollan](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36613747-how-to-change-your-mind) If you have ready any of my other book updates then you know that I am a fan of Michael Pollan's work and this was no exception. I myself have never taken psychedelics so you could say that when reading this I was reading from a completely outsider perspective. I enjoyed how he approached the discussion of psychedelics and their history to help break down a lot of our preconceived notions around them that are largely false. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the anthropology of psychedelics and what role they will likely come to play in the future of psychotherapy. ## Code [Charles Petzold](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44882.Code) This book was an interesting read but had its faults. The book tries to take a bottom up approach to the history of computing but sometimes stays too close to the bottom. Too often I found the author relating concepts back to the basic circuitry of how computers work. In my opinion, one of the great things about computing is that over time we have naturally abstracted further and further away from the granularities that he always tries to bring it back to. While learning about the basic circuitry is interesting early on, he fails to escape this granularity later in the book when he approaches the point in history where IDEs and GUIs were interested that would lend better to greater abstraction. The author also takes a primarily male view of computing's history that often credits men for women's work (*ahem* Ada Lovelace). ## Vodka Politics [Mark Lawrence Schrad](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17847507-vodka-politics) This was a really interesting book to read. The book tells you the history of Russia through the lens of alcohol and more specifically Vodka and other distilled spirits. It's no mystery that when you often think of Russia you also think of Vodka and there are very good reasons for that. Written by an Associate Professor of Political Science at Villanova University the book is an academic approach so don't expect it to be a comedic book. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in anthropology of food and history. ## Barking Up the Wrong Tree [Eric Barker](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31706504-barking-up-the-wrong-tree) Surprisingly one of my favourite books I read in 2020. This book is difficult to explain but it is all about questioning our initial ideas about what makes us successful. The author has a blog of the same name read by millions of people where he tackles similar questions. On the surface the book looks like our typical "self-help" book but in actuality I think it's a lot more. ## The Innovators [Walter Isaacson](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators) I seem to have a theme where I read books about the history of computing. This is one of my least favourite books by Walter Isaacson, maybe because I've read so many books on the history of computing, maybe because it couldn't really figure out what story it wanted to tell. The book would sometimes focus on very specific people at very specific times and and then at other points gloss over large parts of computing history in an effort to get to what the author felt like was the "good stuff". The only really unique thing that I think this book offers up is the history of Bill Gates and Paul Allen as they were creating Microsoft. Famously the book cause the two to disagree about what each of them had said in it causing them to part ways until just before Allen's death. ## Energy at the Crossroads [Vaclav Smil](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/321776.Energy_at_the_Crossroads) I have been hearing Bill Gates rave about Vaclav Smil for a while now so when I saw a weathered copy of 'Energy at the Crossroads' in my local [Little Free Library](https://littlefreelibrary.org/) I jumped at the chance to read it. The book was marvellous and encouraged me to right a recent blog post I had been thinking about for some time, [Growing in Excess](https://connorsmyth.com/growing-in-excess-and-other-problems-of-modern-agriculture/). I will be reading many more of his books thanks to this introduction. ## Freakonomics [Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1202.Freakonomics) I don't have a lot to say about this book other than I didn't like it. It is flawed in so many ways and very dated especially in the use of sexist pronouns to denote specific professions (always using "he" when referring to doctors and lawyers and always using "she" when referring to teachers). Would not recommend and looking for a way to get rid of my copy. ## Unconventional Success [David F. Swenson](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17372.Unconventional_Success) This is the first book I have read to introduce me to the world of personal finance. I found it very valuable but I also felt that much of it could be skipped over. I would recommend reading chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, and 11 for sure. I would recommend only optionally reading chapters 4 and 5 if you want to learn more specifically about the topics than the other chapters touched on. Everything else can be skipped in my opinion. ## Becoming [Michelle Obama](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38746485-becoming) I loved every minute of Michelle Obama's 'Becoming'. She is an extraordinary story teller and tells you about her life in ways that Barack was even unable to for the same events. I think everyone should read it, I cannot praise it enough! ## Flash Boys [Michael Lewis](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24724602-flash-boys) My second Michael Lewis book this year (and ever, the first was Moneyball). I took interest in this one due to the very little research I had done into the ways high frequency trading firms were using fiber optic lines. I also took interest because the main person in the story is Canadian and worked at RBC (the same bank my mom works at). I enjoyed the story a lot and saw some people that I felt were a lot like me in the way that they are passionate about technology. Overall, a good and quick read. ## The Interior Design Handbook [Frida Ramstedt](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51152420-the-interior-design-handbook) Having just moved into a new apartment I thought it would be an excellent time to learn a bit about interior design. My girlfriend knows much more about the topic than I do so I wanted to learn a little myself so that I could be able to speak her language in a sense when we had discussions about things. I learned a lot and enjoyed the rules of thumb guidance. ## The Grid [Gretchen Bakke](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26073005-the-grid) A fascinating book and well worth the read. The author tells the history of the American electrical system in all of its flaws and glories, then describes how the modern grid works and how surprisingly little it has changed. Finally, they finish off with what the grid might look like in the future. If you have an engineering or curious mind then I would highly recommend this book. ## Shape Up [Ryan Singer](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50776459-shape-up) If you want to know how to make better products then I would highly recommend this book. It's very short but packed with a lot of knowledge. In it, the author describes Basecamp's very unique approach to building things. I have already turned some of my colleagues onto it and I know they enjoyed reading it as well. ## The Emperor of All Maladies [Siddhartha Mukherjee](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7170627-the-emperor-of-all-maladies) This book tells the history of cancer as well as tells the author's story of treating patients with cancer. I first was turned onto the author after learning about his other book 'The Gene' and decided that I would give this one a try first before tackling that one. This one did not disappoint. Medical history and medicine is a field where I have very little knowledge so this book taught me a lot. ## Programming Pearls [Jon L. Bentley](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52084.Programming_Pearls) This book provided me with a lot of useful heuristics when approaching programming problems. The author uses delightful anecdotes and then teaches you why certain ways of solving problems work best. I strongly believe that in order to be better at solving problems you need to have a wide array of heuristics to pull from and this book will certainly add to your repertoire. ## A Promise Land [Barack Obama](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55361205-a-promised-land) Wow! What a book! I finished reading this over the winter holidays and I thought it was great. He does a great job of taking you behind the curtain to see things like how bad the financial crisis was, the beginning of what has become the enormous partisan split in the American government, and the hard work it takes by everyone in public service to keep things intact. I actually like this so much that I read the last 100 pages on my last day of vacation.