For a few years now, a former colleague — an author and known book-hoarder — has suggested insisted I post an end-of-year reading re-cap. I promised to do so this year.

Here are the books I read in 2019, in the order I started them:

• Dune – Frank Herbert
• One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Re-Read)
• How to Train A Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures In Mindfulness – Jan Chozen Bays
• The Hike – Drew Magry
• Yoga Anatomy – Leslie Kaminoff
• A Rebours – Joris-Karl Huysmans
• Trout Fishing In America (and The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar) – Richard Brautigan
• What Are People For?: Essays – Wendell Berry
• Journal Of A Trapper: Nine Years in the Rocky Mountains 1834-1843- Osbourne Russell
• The Metropolitan Man – Alexander Wales
• The Conscientious Objector – Walter Guest Kellogg
• When In Doubt Go Higher: A Mountain Gazette Anthology – M. John Fayhee
• The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich – William L. Shirer
• Desert Solitaire – Edward Abbey (Re-Read)
• The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
• Assembling California – John McPhee
• Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession – Craig Childs
• El Viejo y El Mar – Ernest Hemingway
• Zen In The Art Of Writing – Ray Bradbury
• The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
• Foundation – Isaac Asimov
• The Thrill of The Chase – Forrest Fenn
• Concrete Island – JG Ballard
• Nothing But The Night – John Williams
• A Sand County Almanac – Aldo Leopold (Re-Read)
• Pillars of The Earth – Ken Follett
• 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos – Jordan Peterson
• The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea – Jack E. Davis
• The Patch – John McPhee
• Farewell, My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
• History of Flyfishing Fifty 50 Flies – Ian Whitelaw
• The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation – Rich Cohen
• The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World – Andrea Wulf
• The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass – EO Wilson & Robert Hass
• Suttree – Cormac McCarthy (Re-Read)
• The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War – Joanne Freeman
• Tarazan & The Castaways – Edger Rice Burroughs
• The Name of The Rose – Umberto Eco
• The Lost City of The Monkey God: A True Story – Douglas Preston
• Where The Side Walk Ends – Shel Silverstein (Re-Read)
• Messiah – Gore Vidal
• A Connecticut Yankee In Kind Arthur’s Court – Mark Twain (Re-Read)
• Riding Toward Everywhere –
• Kwaidan (And Other Weird Tales) – Lafcadio Hearn
• Survival of the Bark Canoe – John McPhee
• Ghombo Zebes – Lafcadio Hearn –
• Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
• The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life – David Quammen
• The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses – Dan Carlin
• The High Window – Raymond Chandler
• The Headmaster: Frank L. Boyden of Deerfield – John McPhee
• The Limerick – G. Legman
• The Way of Kings – Brian Sanderson
• No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference – Great Thunburg
• 40s: The Story of a Decade – The New Yorker
• Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders – L. David Marquet

Here are a few 2020 book recommendations from this list:

The Tangled Tree – David Quammen

Most people are probably not familiar with Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) and, accordingly, may possess a slightly outmoded understanding of evolution. The Tangled Tree is a good introduction to HGT. David Quammen is one of my favorite nature writers, and I would recommenced his other books as well. (Quammen’s short story collection, The Boilerplate Rhino, is a good place to start.) The academic history of evolutionary thinking is quite interesting. The near future of biology — inevitably to impacted by the operationalization of genetic editing via CRISPR — is sure to be even more so.

No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference – Great Thunburg

She was on the cover of Time Magazine. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. I was walking though San Francisco last week and saw her face 40-feet tall on the side of a building. Worldwide, people know the name “Greta,” and they didn’t last year. This short collection of her speeches is worth reading because it is perfectly of-the-time.

To better understand the facts, assumptions, and projections tied to the oft-referenced 1.5°C warming threshold, I suggest also reading the 20-page “Summary for Policymakers” section of the “IPCC Special Report on Climate Change”, which has set the tone for the broader discussion on climate change.

The Patch – John McPhee

John McPhee is one of my favorite non-fiction writers (and even tops the aforementioned David Quammen as one my favorite nature writers). What I love about this collection of previously unpublished snippets from McPhee is what I love about reading shorter bits by EB White. McPhee, known for his sprawling essays, is just as compelling in unpolished bits and bites. If you’re new to McPhee, I would recommend starting by first sampling a collection like The John McPhee Reader, or a single notable essay like “Atachafalya,” then eventually working you way back to The Patch, but The Patch was probably the book I enjoyed reading most in 2019.

The Metropolitan Man – Alexander Wales

People think I’m joking when I say that Harry Potter rationalist fan fiction is more enjoyable than the original. They also typically don’t take me up on reading recommendations a hundred thousand words longer than War and Peace. I tell the I-don’t-like-reading-on-a-screen crowd that their issue can be solved for as well, but it doesn’t seem to matter. For those who don’t want to commit several dozen hours to reading Yudkowsky — or reading at all, for that matter — The Metropolitan Man audio is now available for free via The Methods of Rationality podcast. It’s similarly entertaining and thought-provoking, clocking in at only 7 hours long.

Journal Of A Trapper – Osbourne Russell

Russell is a name you’ll hear less than Coulter, Lewis, Clark, or Jackson, but his first person account of 8 years as a trapper in frontier Yellowstone-country is as compelling as any other account. The edition I read was shaped like a giant floppy workbook with tiny print which added some additional novelty value to the read.

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This post 2019 Reading Recap & Recommendations originally appeared on williamwickey.com.