These are a few of my favorite books that I read in 2022.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
This is among my favorite books I've ever read. It is a mediation on nature, life, science, and religion, driven by a series of observations made during walks in the woods around Tinker Creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's like Walden but better.
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
This book is a fascinating mix of history and fiction, dealing with the links between abstract scientific/mathematical discovery and madness. It tells the stories of several scientists and mathematicians like Alexander Grothendiek, Karl Schwarzschild, and Werner Heisenberg, each of which made discoveries in their respective fields that were so earth-shaking that they led their discoverers to question the foundations of reality.
Siddartha by Herman Hesse
Siddartha is a fictional account of a man's spiritual journey in ancient India. You are brought along the main character's entire life through many different stages, careers, and ways of living, always searching for spiritual enlightenment but never quite finding it. I found the book to be a very accesible and engaging introduction to Eastern philosophy.
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Ways of Seeing is a brilliant little book exploring how we engage with art and visual media, and how our perception of art is shaped by layers of cultural assumptions we often fail to notice. The book itself is very thoughtfully designed and filled with artworks that emphasize Berger's points.
Incompleteness by Rebecca Goldstein
This is a really interesting biography of the logician Kurt Gödel, who's two incompleteness theorems shook the foundations of mathematics by demonstrating that any mathematical system will contain true statements that cannot be proven, shattering the dreams early 20th century mathematicians.
The Endurance by Caroline Alexander
The Endurance tells the dramatic story of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the south pole, and it's filled with beautiful full page prints of photographs taken during the expidition by Frank Hurley which managed to survive.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves by Richard Holloway
This is a very thought-provoking book on the intersection of science and religion, where Holloway - the former Bishop of Edinburgh - explores how humans use stories to create meaning in an apparently meaningless universe.
Scale by Geoffrey West
Scale gives a fascinating overview of how basic scaling laws govern everything from cells and organisms to cities and coorporations. I think it is a must read for anyone with an interest in the study of complex systems.