Favorite Books of 2014

Previously: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 I read 100 books this year. Each year I blog about my favorite books, an idea I got from the incomparable Aaron Swartz.

What follows are the books I most enjoyed in 2014.

* Drive by Daniel H. Pink - A lot of great ideas about how to motivate creative problem solving in a business environment. Pink clarifies the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the workplace. Pink also makes a compelling case that creative employees work best when they are given autonomy, an opportunity for mastery of their craft, and a sense of purpose.

* The James Bond books by Ian Fleming - My favorites were "Moonraker," "To Russia With Love," "Live and Let Die," "Dr. No," "The Man With the Golden Gun," "Diamonds are Forever," "Thunderball," "In Her Majesty’s Secret Service," "The Spy Who Loved Me," "For Your Eyes Only," and "Casino Royale." I’ve seen all the Bond movies and think there is still opportunity to do justice to the depth and complexity of Bond’s character.

* Red Mars and Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - Extremely well-researched and fun imagining of Mars colonization and terraforming. A bit like Asimov's Foundation series in that there is no clear protagonist - it’s really more about the ideas than the plot.

* American Sniper by Chris Kyle - Extremely compelling read; a complete page turner. A really fascinating portrait of an American hero.

* Letters to a Young Poet by Ranier Maria Rilke - The first letter is brilliant - the idea that one should only become a writer if one sees no alternative. The next nine letters contain little to no specific advice on writing, but rather give increasingly vague ideas on love and loneliness. Nevertheless, some moments of extraordinary prose.

* The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar - Astonishingly clear prose reflecting an incredible mind. Caesar is a tireless worker, a brilliant politician and diplomat, and an incredibly successful general. Each strategy and ruse-de-guerre is breath-taking.  So little has changed in politics and warfare in 2000 years; a fascinating book.

* The Civil War by Julius Caesar - Just astonishingly good. Possibly the greatest military leader of all time. He fought in hundreds of military engagements and won all of them against staggering odds. When Bibulus uses his naval superiority to try to blockade Caesar and cut off all supply ships to Greece, Caesar blockades the entire Aegean so Bibulus has nowhere to land his fleet and dies of thirst and exposure. That is just the ultimate testament to Caesar's confidence and his extraordinary mind.

* Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury - I reread from my childhood. Astonishingly lyrical prose; like Jimi Hendrix lyrics - a jumble of language that works together to form perfectly evocative imagery.

* Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - I reread for the third time. This book is just wonderful on every level.

* Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell - This year I read "Sharpe's Gold," "Sharpe's Havoc," "Sharpe's Eagle," "Waterloo," "Sharpe’s Sword," and "Sharpe’s Regiment." I love everything about these books. I particularly admire Cornwell's ability to craft insidious antagonists who are often more incompetent, racist, haughty, or immoral, than one-dimensionally evil. "Sharpe’s Regiment" may be my favorite of this bunch, though "Sharpe’s Eagle" is also fantastic.

* The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts by Issai Chozanshi - I find these old Japanese texts to be 10% brilliant and 90% inscrutable.  But I suppose that's the point of zen.

* The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris - An ingenious book that feels extremely current despite being published in 1967. Sort of the Malcolm Gladwell of its day, it evaluates humans from the perspective of a zoologist, and finds how - for all our sophisticated behaviors - we are just fancy chimpanzees.

* Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin & The Way to Wealth and other letters by Benjamin Franklin - I reread for the first time in ten years. Such a fantastic piece of work - just an astonishing human being of myriad accomplishments. There is so much to be learned from this book.

* Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson - Fascinating, astonishing, inspiring, and revolutionary. What an amazing man with an amazing life. A brilliant diplomat, from the Declaration of Independence, to the treaty with France that saved the American Revolution, to the British peace treaty ending the war, to the Constitution. Massive contributions to science - he coined the language of electricity with words like “current,” “conductor,” “positive,” “negative,” and “battery.” An incredible mind - so far ahead of his time - and so well accomplished in all things.

* Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - If you ask me, the Stoics are sanctimonious bores. Still, it was interesting to read the diary of an emperor who lived 2,000 years ago.

* Travels by Michael Crichton - Very readable and interesting. To a certain extent a biography, to another extent a travelogue, but mostly it is a man's quest for meaning. I didn't realize how successful Crichton was by age 30; that he was a Hollywood director and a Harvard Med School grad. I really just knew of him as a sci-fi best seller.

* Tell-All by Chuck Paluhniak - He's an astonishing talent. The first few chapters are mesmerizing. Ultimately, this book is not too heavy on plot, but it is a tour-de-force of style.

* Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins - Beautifully planned and structured, with a plausible heroine we root for from start to finish.

* Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth - Quite the page-turner. Hard to put down.

* Freeway Rick Ross by Rick Ross - The story of his rise from an illiterate high school dropout in South Central Los Angeles to becoming the largest crack cocaine dealer in LA. An interesting piece of history. Ultimately, the book is slightly disturbing in that Rick Ross comes across as unabashedly proud of what he accomplished as a crack dealer and really shows no remorse.

* Cyrus the Great (Cyruspaedia) by Xenophon - Cyrus was an extraordinary leader, conqueror, and humanitarian. This 2400 year-old book sets the stage for modern biography in that it seeks to instruct in moral character.

* Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters - Very fun. Lots of linguistic British cleverness and certainly a page turner.

* Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull - A very insightful book on how to manage a creative company like Pixar. Fascinating to gather the inside history of the most consistently successful movie studio in history, and how Pixar’s philosophy turned around Disney animation. Building that creatively supportive culture drew a lot from Silicon Valley ideas.

* Hombre by Elmore Leonard - Very well crafted with lots of cleverness and believable details woven into the prose.

* Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom by Amy Chua - Permissive American parenting is a big issue that doesn't get talked about nearly enough. I understand why this book is controversial, but it prompts a discussion worth having.

* Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy - I've never encountered a writer with McCarthy's virtuosic powers of word choice, description, and simile; he utters a phrase and the picture springs into the mind's eye both familiar and fully formed. He is the greatest American author, the greatest living author, and possibly the greatest author, period. Better even than Nabokov in turning a perfect phrase.

* To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway - Say what you will, he is always interesting.

* Einstein by Walter Isaacson - A fast primer on Einstein.

* Pimp: The Story of My Life by Iceberg Slim - Utterly gorgeous prose writing, like Electric Kool-Aid acid test or William Boroughs. Very shocking material. It’s astonishing how all of the 1990's rap slang was alive and well in the 1930’s. There is nothing new under the sun. This book is far ahead of its time; delving into the Pimp's psychology, the prostitute's psychology, and the criminal mindset.

* The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton - Well researched and enjoyable.

* Dataclysm by Christian Rudder - Some interesting observations on the information age.

* Anabasis: The March Up Country by Xenophon - Fascinating tale of Xenophon’s 10,000 Hellenic mercenaries who were hoodwinked by Cyrus the Younger into fighting the King of Persia. The Greek army officers were assassinated by the Persians in a red wedding. So Xenophon, only a young warrior, rallied the Greek mercenaries to fight their way home through hostile territory. A fascinating read and a great adventure.

* Bossypants by Tina Fey - Very funny and with jokes in every sentence. And yet ultimately, this book is an important meditation on feminism.

* Selected Works by Cicero - I found this book tedious and interminable. Cicero himself I found insufferably vain, self-pitying, self-righteous, back-stabbing, and egotistical. Nearly every moral argument in this book fell flat for me. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to glimpse how surprisingly modern Roman society was, in its law, politics, and business.

* What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell - Gladwell is always fun and interesting.  Such a treat.

* Myth and Meaning by Claude Levi-Strauss - I am not clever enough to decide whether structural anthropology is blithering, unsubstantiated nonsense.  Still, I’ll read anything that discusses the mono myth.

* The Hard Way - A Jack Reacher Story by Lee Childs - Really terrifically smart and well-executed.

* Not Taco Bell Material by Adam Carolla - Really entertaining.

* Rumi Translation by Coleman Barks - Really wonderful modern poetry from a 13th century poet. I slowly savored this poetry collection over the past five or six years.