The Best Books I Read in 2020: Non-fiction
This is Part II in my two-part series on the best books I read in 2020. It has been such a productive year for reading that I’ve had to create separate lists for fiction and non-fiction. Check out the list of the best fiction books if you have missed it.
The best non-fiction books I read 2020 (in the order I read them)
“Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman
I have read this book many times, and each time I read it, it scares me more. Postman starts with the idea that of the two prominent prophets of the depressing future—Orwell and Huxley—perhaps it was Huxley who was right after all. Orwell feared a totalitarian dystopia where books would be banned, whereas Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban books since there would be no one who wanted to read them. The end of the typographic age brought on the death of certain ideas and forms of discourse since the media we use necessarily define which ideas can continue to be discussed and analyzed. In short, you can’t share complex ideas via an Instagram story or a tweet, or, as Postman puts it, “You can’t use smoke to do philosophy. Its form excludes the content.”
This is an important book that should be read by anyone willing to understand what is happening to our culture. I re-read it every year.
“Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg
When I first read this book a few years ago, I knew very little about fascism. It’s hard to describe the impact that book had on me—I learned so much about Hitler, Mussolini, Woodrow Wilson and FDR, and what all those dear leaders had in common. I learned to connect the seemingly disconnected events, trends, personalities. This book helped me build a foundation for my future understanding of the history of totalitarian thought.
It’s a fascinating book that is hard to put away, filled with little known facts from the history of the “fascist moment.” And even though the book describes the roots of some of the most evil regimes in the history of the world, somehow it makes for a fairly light read.
“Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President” by Candice Millard
I remember I hesitated to buy this book for a couple of months: I didn’t believe that you can write a gripping book about an assassination of an American president I’ve never even heard of. Was I wrong!
It’s so much more than simply a story about a killing of a largely forgotten president by a lunatic. It is a story of how a man rose from abject poverty, became a scholar, a Civil War hero, a widely respected senator and a reluctant president—and how his slow death united the war-torn country. It’s also a story of how different life was in America 150 years ago. Back then it was possible for someone like James Garfield to pay for a college education by working as a janitor at the university where he studied (yes, he really did that and felt no shame about it). Back then it was also possible for the government to run out of money—Washington Memorial stood unfinished for years because first, the government ran out of funds to finish it, and then the Civil War started. Back then anyone could actually go talk to the President at the White House Garfield accepted visitors every day, for several hours, which was exhausting but was considered a part of a President’s job. Back then presidents had no security to guard them whatsoever—Americans still believed that assassinating a President was an ultimately un-American thing to do. Why bother if you can just elect a different guy in a few years?
Candice Millard is one of the most brilliant writers of history books of our times, and I look forward to reading “The River of Doubt” though I am not a fan of Teddy Roosevelt. Her book “Hero of the Empire” got me hooked on everything Churchill, and is also a must-read.
“Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel” by Francine Klagsbrun
Golda Meir led an impressive life, moving from her humble beginnings as a carpenter’s daughter from Tsarist Kyiv to being the third female prime minister of an independent state in the history of the world. Although people liked to view her achievements in the context of her gender, Golda never associated herself with feminist movements and didn’t like to think of her as a female prime minister, rather simply as a prime minister. That’s refreshing.
Golda was an idealist throughout her whole life, a hopelessly misinformed socialist, as they tend to be. She believed the state had the responsibility of taking care of people and did a lot to set Israel on a road to its ruinous socialist future (her obsession with building roads particularly amused me). The curious thing is that no matter how much I despise socialists, I found a lot about Golda’s idealism and dedication to certain first principles to be endearing. She never saw people in terms of color and found racism abhorrent. She made it a lifelong mission to fight for the right of Israel to exist and did her best to make sure Israel was never seen as a beggar or a victim, but always as a serious force to reckon with. After the horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust, she made it her life mission to never see Jews in a position of weakness. And Israel was always at the forefront of her existence, from her early childhood to her youth days at a kibbutz to her career as a world diplomat.
I recommend this book to anyone looking for a thick, beautifully written biography about someone remarkable. This is the kind of book that shakes you and makes you wonder what the hell you are doing with your own life. This is also a story about women's empowerment, or rather about the fact that women often have all the empowerment they need within themselves. Nothing could ever stop Golda from achieving her dreams, and she was born more than a century ago. Her parents disapproved of her going to high school because she was a girl and they thought she didn’t need that much education. She ran off from Milwaukee to Chicago to live with her sister and go to school. She was 14 years old back then. It was 1912, not exactly an empowering time for anyone.
What is stopping you? Be a badass, be like Golda.
“The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
It’s a curious combination of a self-help book and a book about creativity. However, it is definitely not meant only for artists. It’s a book that explains how any creative process is much more about hard work and showing up than about creativity or inspiration. We all are inspired every five minutes of every day, but how much work does actually come out of it? Not much. If you want to do some great work, you have to put in the hours, and inspiration will follow, and things will start falling into place. There are also a lot of great insights into procrastination, or Resistance, as Pressfield calls it, “the most toxic force on the planet.” In his view, we are all so miserable because we aren’t doing what we are supposed to be doing. There is something to this, right?
I also agree with the author’s idea that you were born, or created, for a reason, and you have a mission. So if you aren’t doing what you are supposed to be doing, the whole universe suffers. This idea is easy to grasp if you think that your life mission is to cure cancer and you don’t do it out of laziness or fear. Then you hurt everyone, even people who haven’t been born yet. But your mission in life doesn’t have to be that heroic to be important. Any kind of creative work is a gift to the world. Nobody can do what you can do.
“Turning Pro” by Steven Pressfield
This book is a sequel to “The War of Art,” and while “The War of Art” is mostly about the Resistance that keeps you from doing what you are supposed to do, “Turning Pro” is about how we can beat down the Resistance by adopting certain work habits that distinguish pros from amateurs.
There are no groundbreaking productivity rules in this book. I didn’t exactly fall off my chair when I read that in order to do great work I have to show up every day, remove distractions, do the actual work, and have a routine. However, the way that Pressfield talks about all those self-evident truths spoke to me and helped me find strength and discipline while working on my own book. If you are in a rut and can’t bring the best of you to your art or your work, this book will help.
“The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity” by Douglas Murray
When I was an editor at a libertarian magazine, I had to deal with the madness on a daily basis: transgender bathroom wars, gay weddings and Christian cake makers, a white lady pretending to be black for a better job, trucks killing people at Christmas markets... I stopped reading the news when we stopped publishing the magazine. The world certainly hasn’t stopped getting more messed up in the meantime though.
This book brought back all the frustrating memories of the time when I thought it was my life mission to fight this madness and preserve the truth. In “Madness of Crowds” Douglass Murray does a great job dissecting all the controversial issues of the day: sex, race, identity, and everything in between. If you feel like you can’t make sense of the battles being fought in the USA and Western Europe in recent years, read this book instead of the badly written ones condescendingly suggested in “reading lists for white people.”
“From Bauhaus to Our House” by Tom Wolfe
If you like contemporary architecture (i.e. glass boxes), this book will invoke some butthurt. Modern buildings are ugly, soulless and all the same, and it scares me that most people I meet seem to love them and want to see more of them built. It scares me that where we used to aspire for greatness and individuality, we now conform with uniformity and meekness. It scares me that people actually move from Kraków to Warsaw of their own free will. They, gulp, like it there! And Kraków has such narrow streets…
This book is the story of Bauhaus as an architectural style and the profound and destructive influence it has had on the world since it was invented by a bunch of doofuses in a German compound. Told with unmistakable Tom Wolfe’s wit, an utterly delightful read.
This is not an extensive list by any stretch of the imagination, rather some of the books that have had the most lasting impression on me. Some other great books I read this year include:
“The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ” by Andrew Klavan. A successful writer tells his story of coming to Jesus. Don’t be scared by the Christ part though, it’s more of a writer’s memoir than a preachy tirade. It’s well-written, and you’ll learn a lot about history, religion, literature, academia, and Westen Civilization.
“Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense” by Rory Sutherland. A witty marketing book about the importance of thinking outside the box and asking stupid questions. Get the audiobook, enjoy the British accent.
“The Diary of a Bookseller” by Shaun Bythell. Sarcastic notes of a bookseller about the day-to-day realities of running a second-hand bookshop in Scotland, utterly delightful reading that you can do in chunks of 15 minutes.
"The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter" by David Sax. For everyone who is sick of all things digital and wants to understand why the analog forms of entertainment are making a comeback. You’ll learn about film photography, vinyl records, and moleskins among other things.
“Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It” by Steven Pressfield and “On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction” by William Zinsser: read these two books if you want to be a better writer. Read “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” by Stephen King if you also want to read some disgusting stories about King’s childhood in addition to writing advice.
“Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad” by Austin Kleon, “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert, and “The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” by Julia Cameron are all great books for treating your inner artists and helping unblock your creativity, these three helped me a lot while I was working on my own book.
You can check out all the books I read this year on Goodreads (add me as a friend there if we are not friends yet).
I hope you will choose to add some of these books to your to-read shelf. Let me know what you think of them. And if you find my reading list emails valuable, please share this newsletter with your book-ish friends and invite them to subscribe to receive more book reviews in the future.
Happy New Year! Happy reading in 2021 📚
Best,
Nadia.