Let Me Introduce You to a Friend: Tony’s Top Reads of 2021

Reading was my solace in 2021. Through the ups of downs of lockdowns, immigration challenges, and international relocations I fell back in love with reading. I am sharing here some of the friends I met that helped me through the year and opened my eyes to the world.

2021 commenced in the depths of Boston blizzards. Daily, I would strap up my winter boots, layer up my winter protection and tour the Little Free Libraries of Harvard Square, perusing future friends donated by fellow bibliophiles in the community. Each quaint wooden box, generously hosted by volunteers, was populated with the gifts of words. These daily walks were my favorite times of the day. As a child, I loved going to bookstores with my father and perusing the shelves and these winter walks evoked happy memories of those experiences.

As the weather improved, and the world moved with an increased sense of confidence, I hoped to finally complete my move to India. Yet as we are all now intimately aware, pride comes before the fall. At the last moment, as India was ravaged by our enemy, I traveled to Australia and embraced a life of lockdown — déjà vu. Through three months of nocturnal Zooming, I discovered yet more friends, often loaned to me through the public library system.

Finally, we were able to complete our relocation to Delhi, India, and were awed by a world that even words cannot adequately portray. While my senses were in overdrive, I found comfort and a sense of home in the pages of still more friends.

This is a quick introduction to some of these friends that helped me through the year. If you would like to be introduced to some of my other friends, you can find me and my friends on Goodreads.

Development Theory: Guns, Germs, and Steel (by Jared Diamond) & Why Nations Fail (by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson)

The authors of these two friends both used historic anecdotes to bring to life economic and anthropological theory. Both sought to answer the question, “What is the cause for the relative prosperity and poverty that we observe in our current world?” What could easily have been dry, academic rhetoric was delivered through highly engaging, tours de force through human history.

One friend (Guns, Germs and Steel) took the long lens of history and argued that the role of geography and climate through agricultural development helps explain differences we observe even today. While the other friend (Why Nations Fail) looked at our most recent past and the role of extractive institutions and colonialism. Two different, yet not mutually exclusive, arguments for our current predicament.

Long-Term Existential Risks: The Precipice (by Toby Ord) & Human Compatibility (by Stuart Russell)

From looking back to the long look forward, these friends engaged with the likelihood and urgency of humanity’s role in mitigating existential risks.

One friend (The Precipice) took on the task of synthesizing the evidence for long-term risks that may impinge on human and sentient future flourishing. This friend could have been a harbinger of doom, a real party pooper. Instead, it brought solutions and hope for a future of great joy. The other friend (Human Compatible), put into plain English the risk of artificial general intelligence and provided a framework for how we may harness artificial intelligence for good.

Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction: The Foundation Series (by Isaac Asimov) & The Sprawl Series (by William Gibson)

While some friends brought me theory, I really loved getting to know other more whimsical friends who lived in the land of make-believe. These friends were heavily grounded in science but liked to let their minds wander to what could be.

One set of friends (The Foundation Series) engaged with questions of free will and technological determinism. The other set of rather prescient friends (The Sprawl Series) introduced a world that may be coming true before our very eyes — the Metaverse.

Mindfulness: Mindfulness in Plain English (by Henepola Gunaratana) & The Mind Illuminated (by John Yates)

All these friends living in the ‘artificial’ world, also led me to engage with new friends who could help me introspect.

These two friends, gently guided me into the world of mindfulness and what a mindfulness practice, grounded in modern realities, could look like. I will be honest; I was not a believer at the start of the year and did not want to buy into what I feared may be spiritual hocus-pocus. However, one friend (Mindfulness in Plain English) did as its name suggests and stripped away the religious clamor, while the other friend (The Mind Illuminated) provided a clear and practical path for the development of a mindfulness practice in my own life.

Ethics: The Essential Writings (edited by Gordon Daniel Marino)

Finally, I met a friend after wandering into a local, independent bookstore. It jumped off the shelf, into my arms, and I am so grateful it did. This friend held within it the secrets of millennia of ethical texts, shared with prefaces that unlocked their deep wisdom. In the years to come, I look forward to more deeply engaging with these ethically-minded friends on their home turf to see how they may inform the way I continue to live my own life.