Best books of 2021

December 27, 2021

⊕This text was originally posted as a Twitter thread

With a “best-of-the-year-list spirit” on, and similar to last year, these past twelve months I have been able to maintain a bit more sanity and fill in the travelling gap with books. Here’s my Top-3 (with a bonus for good measure), in no particular order as they’re all equally different and amazing.

“The Ministry for the Future”, by Kim Stanley Robinson, is a space to think about life on earth in the next century more than anything else. This is what I said about it in April and, also related, here’re my thoughts from august about the IPCC recent report.

Blockchain Chicken Farm, by Xiaowei Wang, is a fascinating collection of short stories about how technology and the XXIst Century intersect with rural China. Insightful, respectful, and fun.

My favorite urban(-related) read of the year was Sarah Williams’s Data Action. Again, this is what I said back in March, and it’s still fresh as freshly ground coffee beans.

And Honorary mention (because I’m still reading, but already know it’s part of the List) goes to the 2nd Ed of Francois Chollet’s Deep Learning with Python. Intuitive, big-picture, and also practical. I wish every bit of data science had a book like this!

If you’re still reading and want to lurk more, here’s my list from 2020. I’m always on the hunt for good books on computers, cities, and data (or anything else worth reading!) so, if you have good recommendations, feel free to send them my way!