Also Read

Not all the books I read this year led to any special insights about being a reader at the start of the 21st century. I’ll briefly note some of the other books I finished below. For sickos and completists, a full list of the books I read can be found on my website.

• Something led me to books about Zen practice, including Discovering the True Self: Kodo Sawaki’s Art of Zen Meditation, Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice, and The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation.
• Meanwhile, I kept a foot firmly in the material world with Scott Galloway’s perfect airplane read The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security and the oddly-fascinating Become a Franchise Owner!: The Start-Up Guide to Lowering Risk, Making Money, and Owning What You Do.
• I kept another (third?) foot in the door of academia with Gail Pool’s Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America and Anna Kornbluh’s Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism.
• My favorite non-fiction book of the year was Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper.