Must Read Books in 2021

1. The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J.Sandel.The Tyranny of Merit deftly exposes the flaws and fallacies of meritocratic philosophy. In lucid, illuminating prose, Sandel makes a compelling case for uprooting inequality and building a fairer society shaped by true principles of justice. A seminal work. I like books where I don’t always 100% agree with the author, because it helps me to question what I think and to consider whether I should change my own stance. Otherwise, we live in echo chambers sucking up everything that validates our lifestyle, politics, values, and actions.
2. Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Steward Brand.This is the most important book I have read in a decade with respect to the environmental problems we face. Brand has impeccable credentials as an environmentalist and he has done a 180 degree turn and now advocates nuclear energy as fast as possible to avoid the worst of the train wreck climate change coming fast on us. He compelling shows how solar and wind cannot do the job fast enough, if ever, because we’d need literally a continent-sized area covered with solar and wind to power the great cities of the world. Renewable works for small towns and individuals but not cities of 10 million people crammed together.
3. Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse (Author), Jonathan Todd Ross (Narrator), Simon & Schuster Audio (Publisher). A great book to remind me of the distinction between playing within the limits of our perception and playing with those limits. It frames the concepts of play, rules, cultures, explanations, … and then shows me how to step out of those frames and see them for what they are: self-imposed limitations we use to play games in.The language is poetic, the insights are deep but not complicated, the narrative is engaging like a story rather than imposing like a lecture.
4. Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn by Richard W. Hamming.Hamming describes the difference between those who do, and those who might have done. He also clearly tells you how you can be one of those who do. Read this book.
5. The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman.A completely engrossing book you will find hard to put down. Jim Simons used applied math to create the greatest money-making machine in Wall Street history. But this is really a rich human story of how Simons built a team of brilliant and fascinating personalities.
6. How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom by Matt Ridley. Ridley goes on to explain, “Innovations come in many forms, but one thing they all have in common, and which they share with biological innovations created by evolution, is that they are enhanced forms of improbability.” He thoroughly explains how and why Schumpeter’s assertion – with rare exception – is true. He also has much of great value to say about resistance to innovative thinking. “Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of innovation is how unpopular it is, for all the lip service we pay to it.”

7. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke. This is probably the best book on decision-making that I have read. The Basic idea of the book is that thinking in bets will substantially improve the decision-making skills in our day-to-day life. Annie Duke is a professional poker player and according to her life imitates poker, not chess. Poker is a decision-making game under uncertainty over time. It has valuable information hidden, there is the element of luck in any outcome. The decision we make in our lives-raising kids, health, business- have uncertainty, hidden information and luck.

8. The Future Is Asian by Parag Khanna. I have been looking for the book which can give me an understanding of the role of Asia in shaping of the future of the world. This book gave me a powerful story where business, technology, globalization and geopolitics are intertwined. Parag Khanna brilliantly explains the whys and hows and extrapolates future trends.

9. The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for The Thoughtful Investor by Howard Marks

10. Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower by Henry M. Paulson (Author), Kevin Stillwell (Narrator), Hachette Audio (Publisher)

11. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for developing a gene-editing tool. I have been read papers from this research and I think there is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects all humanity in the near future and I was looking for a book which can give a full picture about the genetics and it’s history. This book on the gene by physician and writer Siddhartha Mukherjee paints on a canvas as large as life itself. It deals with both the history of genetics and its applications in health and disease. It shows me that studying the gene not only holds the potential to transform the treatment of human disease and to feed the world’s burgeoning population, but promises to provide a window into life’s deepest secrets and into our very identity as human beings.

To be continued…