Books in 2014

1. Seeing what others don't by Gary Klein
2. Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter
3. Iron War by Matt Fitzgerald
4. Hark! A vagrant by Kate Beaton
5. Ingenious by Jason Fagone
6. Shenzen by Guy DeLisle
7. Jerusalem by Guy DeLisle
8. Best Efforts by Kenny Moore
9. Unbroken by Laura Hildenbrand
10. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron by Jai Arjun Singh
11. The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters
12. If it's Monday it must be Madurai by Srinath Perur
13. Calories and Corsets by Louise Foxcroft
14. My Autobiography by Usain Bolt
15. The Media Relations department of Hizbollah wishes you a Happy Birthday by Neil Macfarquhar
16. Running with the Mind of Meditation by Sakyong Mipham
17. Which comes first, Cardio or Weights? by Alex Hutchinson
18. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life - by Scott Adams
19. Gulp by Mary Roach
20. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande*
21. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield*

I read fewer books in 2014 than I have in the last 5 years but I am happy to say that I loved every one of them, unlike in previous years. I read zero books for review's sake alone. While that meant I made no money from reading the books, the experience was wonderful in each case. Bolt's book was perhaps the weakest in the list above and Mipham's book didn't leave such a memory as the other 19 did but that's it. Admittedly there' a sports bias and more generically, a non-fiction bias but that's been a conscious choice.

The best book of the lot was not so easy to pick, given the rationale above. However Gawande's book pushed out Jai Arjun's & Fagone's in the end, since it has several overlaps with my current choice of a career and the influence of good health on it.

I am currently reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Adam Grant's Give and Take, among a bunch of others including Bryson's One Summer. There's a couple of Hitchens' books which have been partially read in the last 2 years which I will try and finish in 2015. So there's much to look forward to in 2015.

Wish you all a splendid new year. Let me know if you have any book recommendations from your own reading last year.

* Both these books were still being read at the time of making this post, but I am so far into them that it felt weird to include both in next year's list.