2021 was another eventful year to put it mildly. We turned a corner in the pandemic response with widespread vaccine availability in the developed world, but suffered the human cost of disinformation in the form of vaccine hesitancy. Meanwhile, much of the world still doesn’t have vaccine access that they desperately need. We’ve entered an era where a dearth of societal scientific literacy is literally having life and death consequences. On the flipside, humanity is better equipped to handle a pandemic today than we have been at any point in human history and it does (famous last words) seem like the worst is finally behind us. 

For me personally, I made the bittersweet decision to move back stateside (the ratio of bitter to sweet changes a bit from day to day). I started a new job in genomics research, which was a pretty aggressive (and very appreciated) context switch from my past four-ish years deep diving on counter terrorism and child safety. I was able to spend a few months with some of my absolute favorite people road tripping from California to my new home in Boston, exploring the natural beauty of America along the way. 

I looked for inspiration from some of the great thinkers and innovators of our time: what motivated them, how did they navigate ambiguity or roadblocks, what questions inspired their curiosity? I looked to enrich my experience with nature by learning more: how did intelligence evolve in different branches of life; what the hell is fungus really; do birds have a sense of self? A quote I found myself revisiting often throughout the year was from Alexander von Humboldt: “Each step we make in the more intimate knowledge of nature leads us to the entrance of new labyrinths.” And sometimes I just looked for a good story to immerse myself into.

As with last year’s list, I’d love to know what you thought of these books, whether there are others you enjoyed that you think I should check out, and/or if there are books that you’d like for us to read together. I’m always looking for good recommendations. Without further ado, let’s jump in!

TL;DR

• [Fiction] Circe by Madeline Miller
  • Greek mythology; great story, prose, characters
• [Science] Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
  • History/future of CRISPR and gene editing
• [Science] Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman
  • Anecdotes from a Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist
• [Science] Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
  • Octopus are unbelievably interesting
• [Science] Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal
  • Survey of animal cognition research
• [Science] Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake
  • Everything relies on fungus and there’s a lot we still don’t understand
• [Science] The Premonition by Michael Lewis
  • The heroes of the early pandemic response
• [History] The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
  • Churchill and England during The Blitz of London by the Nazi Luftwaffe

Fiction

Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe is  a captivating story with robust character development featuring vibrant personalities and beautiful prose. It’s maybe the most prominent example of modern retelling of Greek mythology from the perspective of women – instead of women merely being secondary characters who help advance (or hinder) the story of men, the story is flipped here. I’m also a sucker for a good anti-hero and, in Circe,  there are facets of each major character that are relatable and others that are problematic.

I really just can’t overemphasize how much I adore Miller’s prose. I found myself in a tricky balance where I just wanted to devour page after page to know what happened next while also wanting to delicately savor each turn of phrase for its individual brilliance. There are so many quotes that I saved, but here’s one I especially enjoyed about the role of prophecy: “Not everything may be foreseen. Most gods and mortals have lives that are tied to nothing; they tangle and wend now here, now there, according to no set plan. But then there are those who wear their destinies like nooses, whose lives run straight as planks, however they try to twist. It is these that our prophets may see.”

I’m planning on starting 2022 with Miller’s other book: The Song of Achilles. I can’t wait and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see that featured in next year’s iteration of this list.

Nonfiction: Science

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

There was no way in hell I wasn’t going to read this book. Isaacson is our generation’s best biographer and the story of CRISPR and gene editing is a fascinating and timely one. This is more a biography of the science itself than of Jennifer Doudna, the main character, but Isaacson strikes a great balance of history, science, and personal anecdote. This and The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee are the two books that I’ve read so far that I’d consider to be absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in genomics.

One of the key takeaways from this book is that basic research is rarely as far away from applied research as we think. In this case, studying how bacteria defend themselves from  viruses gave us a blueprint and a toolbox for how we can precisely cut and modify DNA. It also showed that often the most elegant solutions come from  looking at how nature already solves problems instead of trying to engineer something from scratch.

Isaacson wraps up with an especially interesting section where he talks through the interesting ethical questions that we face now and will have to face in the future as this research becomes more robust, applicable, and widespread. I’ve heard some of these arguments before, but rarely communicated in a way with so much nuance and I found myself changing my opinion on some of these every few pages.

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman

Feynman is the perfect confluence of limitless intelligence, unbridled curiosity, and a mischievous playfulness. He’s most known for his work on theoretical physics which won him the Nobel prize and for his contributions to the Manhattan Project. One prominent theme is Feynman’s curiosity and wonder – how he’s able to reason laterally to think through and contribute to problems outside of his field of expertise.

This book pretty much single handedly reinvigorated my interest in physics and inspired a few of the other books I ended up reading this year (including his physics textbooks, which I’m still working my way through), which is as big of a compliment I can possibly give to a book. It also goes without saying that the chapters on the development of the atom bomb are unbelievably interesting.

Caveat: some of the anecdotes about his interactions with women are, in my opinion, quite misogynistic.

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith

If we chat at all frequently, you’ll know that I’ve developed an arguably unhealthy obsession with octopuses over the past few years. What spurred this was a simple question: how did intelligence evolve independently across two branches of life where the last common ancestor is a flatworm 750 million years ago? The more you think about octopus, they’re as close to aliens that we know of. Wherever there exists conventional wisdom, octopus are the exception to the rule. One of the leading theories for how intelligence came about was that it was required to keep track of complex social interactions, but octopus are almost entirely asocial. When we think about cognition, we think of sensory inputs being transmitted to the brain, which processes them and communicates back to the body with what to do, but octopus have two thirds of their neurons in their arms and thus don’t follow the “central command center” model.

Stepping back, we’re talking about a mollusk that at some point evolutionarily lost its shell and had to grow to be wicked smart (do I sound like a Bostonian yet?), but all without having access to social relationships from which to learn. There’s unbelievable intelligence required to camouflage as quickly as they do, while also being able to plan ahead far enough to know that they need to carry portable shelter like  coconut shells when traveling somewhere where they’ll be at risk.

One last fun fact (sorry, this is literally my favorite thing to talk about): cephalopods can be incredibly aware of how they’re perceived. “Alpha” cuttlefish will fight off rival males from the females to minimize mating competition. The rival male cuttlefish will present as a female to the side that’s visible to the male (convincing the male that he’s actually just a part of the harem), while presenting as a male to the females so he can sneakily mate with them right under the dominant male’s gaze. Video example. Stranger than fiction!

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

This is a really good summary of animal cognition research and why human-intellect-centric world views are limiting and informed by poor assessments of intelligence. The first big takeaway is that animals can be incredibly intelligent across a variety of criteria: self awareness, understanding, cooperation, inequality aversion, conformism, empathy, etc. It’s humbling to think that much of our understanding of what makes humanity unique is also expressed in other species to varying degrees, often more so than in humans.

The second big takeaway is that much of animal intelligence research has been informed by how well animals can perform on human tasks, while disregarding the context with which animals need to express intelligence in their lives. A prominent example from the book was a hasty conclusion that primates couldn’t differentiate faces because they struggled on tasks with human faces, however, they were able to perform very well on the same task when presented with faces of their own species. De Waal posits that instead of thinking of an intelligence hierarchy (is species A smarter than species B), we should think of intelligence in terms of adaptability to varying environments and their set of circumstances.

Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake

I really didn’t expect to like this book much because I thought fungus were pretty gross, but ended up very pleasantly surprised by both the ecological  importance of fungus and just how different they are from plants and animals. What really blew my mind was the discussion of intelligence: fungus can solve problems but don’t have a brain, they can precisely control animal behavior sometimes without accessing the animal’s brain, they can build robust networks to shuttle resources around and transmit information in what’s picked up the moniker the “Wood Wide Web.”

This is also an area of research with really exciting future potential. Early experiments with psilocybin have had very positive results as a therapy for mental health issues. Fungus is incredibly versatile at digesting a variety of substances and could be an effective tool for waste disposal, for example, for plastics or oil spills. It’s also another interesting counterpoint to how information can be processed in a way fundamentally differently to how humans do and can help inform decentralized computing systems.

There’s also just really bizarre and fascinating facts like that of the “zombie fungus” which will infect ants, take over their bodies, get them to climb a plant stem to a very specific height range (~25cm above forest floor), clamp down on the stalk, and then die so the fungus can sprout out of the ant’s head and drop spores on the ants below them. Another fun example is the ghost pipe which is a plant with no chlorophyll that co-evolved with fungus to get nutrients from neighboring plants instead of through photosynthesis. 

The Premonition by Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis is a master of storytelling and I’ve never been disappointed by anything he’s written. This is a very timely book that tells of the folks who were the first to realize the significance of COVID-19 and who were able to shape the response to it. I’d generally be quite skeptical of a written history of an event/period that’s still very much unfolding, but this is a well researched recap of the missteps and successes of the early response. 

It follows a compelling narrative of a small group of unexpected scientists, public health officials, and a teenager with a relevant science fair project who step up to the plate when the government was refusing to engage meaningfully with reality. It’s also a healthy dose of perspective that a lot of what’s now considered common sense about disease transmission and pandemic response best practices were very much not common sense two years ago.

Also, I’m biased, but any book with a group of heroes called “the Wolverines” is right up my alley.

Nonfiction: History

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

This is a book about Churchill’s leadership during The Blitz of London by the Nazi Luftwaffe. Larson writes in narrative nonfiction (it reads like a novel, but is real history) and leans heavily on primary source material (diaries/letters from key players, press clippings, archival documents, previously classified intelligence reports, etc). Naturally, anything about Churchill is going to feature some epic quotes like this one from a letter meant to assuage Lord Beaverbrook: “You must not forget in the face of petty vexations the vast scale of events and the brightly-lighted stage of history upon which we stand.” The whole book covers a relatively short period of time (about a year) when events were unfolding extremely quickly and is focused on a few characters so there’s quite a lot of detail. Larson also does a beautiful job of humanizing the main characters (for example, Colville’s wonky love life, Mary’s acts of rebellion, and Churchill’s love of baths) while contrasting that with the intensity of the destruction of the air raids. 

As a slight aside, I feel like Churchill’s one of those really interesting historical figures who was unquestionably a hero from a certain lens, but an unsympathetic and cruel antagonist from another. At different points in my life, I’ve swung from one extreme to another and I imagine my opinion of him will continue to evolve, but I felt remiss to recommend this book without the appropriate caveat.

Honorable Mentions

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

These were four books I loved reading this year also, but removed from consideration from my booklist because they’re so similar to books that already featured on my list. The Emperor of All Maladies is a history of cancer and is, in my opinion, far better than The Gene, which I recommended last year. Siddhartha Mukherjee is one of the few authors who I enjoy so much that I’m guaranteed going to read anything he publishes.

The Rosie Effect & The Rosie Result by Graham Simpson

The Rosie Effect/Result are the remainder of the Rosie trilogy that I recommended last year.

The Devil and the White City by Erik Larsen

The Devil and the White City is about the 1893 World Fair in Chicago and a serial killer and is written in a similar narrative nonfiction style as The Splendid and the Vile.