# My Favorite Books of 2022


_Previous book lists: [2021](/blog/2021/12/19/My-Favorite-Books-of-2021/),
[2020](/blog/2020/12/23/My-Favorite-Books-of-2020/),
[2019](/blog/2019/12/26/My-Favorite-Books-of-2019/),
[2018](/blog/2018/12/28/My-Favorite-Books-of-2018/). My [Reading List](/books)
has a full log of the books I read._

Another year, another slate of books to reflect back over! I read about as many
books this year as I usually do (perhaps slightly fewer), but many more of them
were read as audiobooks than I usually do.

## Non-fiction

![](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2022/12/27/My-Favorite-Books-of-2022/nonfiction-2022.png)

For this year's crop of non-fiction books, it was challenging to pick a top 3.
Each of these books strongly influenced my thinking during the year, so they're
effectively equal-weighted in terms of ranking.

1.  [The Phenomenological Mind](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2237142.The_Phenomenological_Mind)
    (Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi)

TPM is a philosophy textbook about phenomenology, but it's written in a pretty
accessible style if you're modestly familiar with philosophy. It was likely the
most illuminating books I read this year, as it gave me a much more complete set
of words/concepts to talk about consciousness. If you talk to people about
philosophy enough, or are in circles that discuss AI, you often get to this
frustrating breaking point in conversations around debates about what
consciousness _is_. Phenomenology, in a sense, is a study of that debate.

I haven't had time to digest the concepts in this book enough to give a full
treatment to them, but a couple key items I enjoyed reading in this book were:
(1) the idea of reflective and pre-reflective consciousness, (2) the idea that
consciousness and embodiment are intertwined at a deep level, (3) a description
of how conscious thought interacts with the passage of time, (4) the integration
of perception and intentionality into consciousness, and (5) the idea that there
is valuable scientific information to be discovered from using an "inside-out"
view of consciousness as the object of study.

On the methodology of phenomenology:

> Phenomenology has as its goal, not a description of idiosyncratic experience –
> ‘here and now, this is just what I experience’ – rather, it attempts to
> capture the invariant structures of experience. In this sense, it is more like
> science than like psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is focused on the subject as a
> particular person and may appeal to introspection in its concern about the way
> and the why of the person’s experience of the world, here and now. By
> contrast, phenomenology is not interested in understanding the world according
> to Gallagher, or the world according to Zahavi, or the world according to you;
> it’s interested in understanding how it is possible for anyone to experience a
> world. In this sense, phenomenology is not interested in qualia in the sense
> of purely individual data that are incorrigible, ineffable, and incomparable.
> Phenomenology is not interested in psychological processes (in contrast to
> behavioural processes or physical processes). Phenomenology is interested in
> the very possibility and structure of phenomenality; it seeks to explore its
> essential structures and conditions of possibility. Phenomenology aims to
> disclose structures that are intersubjectively accessible, and its analyses
> are consequently open for corrections and control by any (phenomenologically
> tuned) subject. (26)

Strong recommend if any of the above sound interesting.

2.  [The Man from the Future](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61089520-the-man-from-the-future)
    (Ananyo Bhattacharya)

A supremely entertaining book about the life of John von Neumann. I knew of von
Neumann (it's hard not to, after taking a Computer Science degree), and knew he
was a once-in-a-generation genius, but actually reading about his
accomplishments was still _staggering_. The man made substantive contributions
to quantum mechanics, effectively invented the field of game theory, designed
reprogrammable computers, worked on self-replicating machines (cellular
automata), and the list goes on. His Wikipedia page is... a sight to behold.

What I liked about this book is that, while it was a biography and not a
technical book, it had a fairly satisfying balance between information about von
Neumann's life (and peculiarities) and the technical background for the
contributions he made. This book also traces a very satisfying curve through the
history of early 20th century math/physics -- including bits about Gödel's
incompleteness theorem, the development of quantum mechanics, the Manhattan
project, early predictions of a technological singularity, and tons more.

On von Neumann nearly scooping Gödel's second incompleteness proof:

> Von Neumann kept thinking about Gödel’s proof after the Königsberg conference.
> On 20 November, he wrote excitedly to Gödel. ‘Using the methods you employed
> so successfully … I achieved a result that seems to me to be remarkable,
> namely,’ von Neumann continued with a flourish, ‘I was able to show that the
> consistency of mathematics is unprovable.’ Von Neumann promised to send him
> his proof, which he said would soon be ready for publication. But it was too
> late. Gödel, probably sensing that von Neumann was hot on his heels after
> their conversation in Königsberg, had already sent his paper to a journal. He
> now sent a copy to von Neumann. Crestfallen, von Neumann wrote back, thanking
> him. ‘As you have established the theorem on the unprovability of consistency
> as a natural continuation and deepening of your earlier results,’ he added, ‘I
> clearly won’t publish on this subject.’ So saying, von Neumann quietly passed
> up the opportunity to stake a claim on the most remarkable result in
> mathematical history.

On von Neumann's temperament affecting the development of classic game theory:

> Von Neumann’s biggest blind spot proved to be his failure to consider games in
> which coalitions were either forbidden or players could not, or simply did not
> want to, team up. As game theory gained a reputation for a relentless focus on
> cut-throat competition between calculating individuals, its progenitor did
> too. Yet the idea that anyone would choose to go it alone when cooperation
> produced better results was foreign to von Neumann’s central-European
> temperament. He did not think that was the way the world worked. ‘To von
> Neumann,’ says Leonard, ‘the formation of alliances and coalitions was sine
> qua non in any theory of social organisation.’

Strong recommendation for math/physics history enthusiasts. Would also recommend
reading this
[review of this book](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-man-from-the-future)
on ACX.

3.  [Chaos: Making a New Science](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64582.Chaos)
    (James Gleick)

I read Chaos ~directly after _The Man from the Future_, and they pair quite well
together. TMftF naturally concludes in the late 1950's, with von Neumann's death
-- quantum phenomena had been quantified, computing had been invented, and
mathematics had been proven to be incomplete. Chaos picks up where that left
off, with scientists and physicists puzzling about what to do with the shattered
pieces of the scientific optimism of the early 1900s.

I vaguely knew about chaos theory before reading this book, but only at a
[_Jurassic Park_ level](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lZy3teNY84). _Chaos_
doesn't get too deep into the actual mathematics of the theory (although, there
is a bit), but -- like the other 2 books I listed above -- gives enough
background to start building an intuition for the subject matter.

The biggest takeaway I had from _Chaos_ was that, even in a deterministic
universe, there are phenomena that are computationally predictable. The classic
example is weather systems -- even with perfect modeling, minuscule measurement
errors compound quickly to make long-term forecasting impossible. But, a
personally more interesting example is that of free will -- chaos theory makes
free will (or, really, the illusion of free will) compatible with a
deterministic universe. Even _if_ we could create a perfect simulation of a
brain, it would still functionally be unpredictable -- sustaining the illusion
of free will contra the "clockwork universe" alternative.

On free will:

> [Doyne] Farmer said, “On a philosophical level, [phenomenon of chaos] struck
> me as an operational way to define free will, in a way that allowed you to
> reconcile free will with determinism. The system is deterministic, but you
> can’t say what it’s going to do next. At the same time, I’d always felt that
> the important problems out there in the world had to do with the creation of
> organization, in life or intelligence. But how did you study that? What
> biologists were doing seemed so applied and specific; chemists certainly
> weren’t doing it; mathematicians weren’t doing it at all, and it was something
> that physicists just didn’t do. I always felt that the spontaneous emergence
> of self-organization ought to be part of physics.

On the rediscovery of self-similarity at a cultural level:

> Paradoxically, perhaps, the appreciation of scaling phenomena must have come
> from the same kind of expansion of human vision that had killed the earlier
> naïve ideas of self-similarity. By the late twentieth century, in ways never
> before conceivable, images of the incomprehensibly small and the unimaginably
> large became part of everyone’s experience. The culture saw photographs of
> galaxies and of atoms. No one had to imagine, with Leibniz, what the universe
> might be like on microscopic or telescopic scales—microscopes and telescopes
> made those images part of everyday experience. Given the eagerness of the mind
> to find analogies in experience, new kinds of comparison between large and
> small were inevitable—and some of them were productive.

_Chaos_ discusses fractals, geometry, self-similarity, and a philosophy of the
study of physics/mathematics -- particularly, the breakdown of reductionism with
the discovery of self-similar and scaling phenomena. I also particularly liked
the phrase "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", which is the more
technical name for the colloquial "butterfly effect"

This book sent me down many rabbit holes -- on
[strange attractors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor#Strange_attractor),
[Feigenbaum's constants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants) on
the universality of self-similarities, the
[snowball earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth) theory, B A
Huberman's [discovery](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3477120/) of chaos in the
eye movement of patients with schizophrenia, and many more.

Another strong recommendation for math/physics history enthusiasts.

## Fiction

![](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2022/12/27/My-Favorite-Books-of-2022/fiction-2022.png)

1. [Hyperion](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77566.Hyperion) (Dan Simmons)

The Canterbury Tales, _but in space_. Hyperion is a collection of short stories
tied together by an overarching frame narrative. Each story is a pastiche of a
classic scifi/literature subgenre (cyberpunk, noire, _Heart of Darkness_-esque,
etc.), which made this an interesting varied read. It's also a good monster
tale. Unfortunately, (mild spoiler), the ending isn't really satisfying and
requires you to read on to the second book.

2. [A Fire Upon the Deep](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77711.A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep)
   (Vernor Vinge)

I _finally_ got around to reading AFUtD after it being on my to-read list for
years. It was worth the wait. It's an excellent grand space opera, with tons of
interesting world building, alien races, foreign physics, interstellar travel,
and all the other attendant scifi tropes. It also features some quite evocative
ideas about how AIs ("transcendent powers") would interact with biological
creatures.

Later in the year, I read _A Deepness in the Sky_ -- the second book set in
AFUtD's universe. _Deepness_ was worth reading too, but didn't quite capture the
grandiosity of AFUtD.

3. [Sea of Tranquility](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58446227-sea-of-tranquility)
   (Emily St. John Mandel)

Another great Emily St. John Mandel novel. At this point, I'll blind buy
anything that she writes. _Tranquility_ retains Mandel's characteristically
ethereal style, but has more of a speculative fiction / scifi bend than her
earlier work. This is definitely a "post-pandemic" novel, and includes some
interesting autobiographical components of Mandel's experience of writing a
wildly popular pandemic novel
(_[Station Eleven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_Eleven)_).

_Tranquility_ isn't as easily recommendable as _Station Eleven_ or _The Glass
Hotel_, but it was an enjoyable read that I'd suggest to people who enjoyed her
previous novels.

## Honorable Mentions

-   [Thinking in Bets](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957157-thinking-in-bets)
    (Annie Duke) - I've recommended this book in several other posts. It didn't
    make my "top" list for this year _only_ because I'd already internalized
    most of the ideas present in this book before reading it, so much of the
    content didn't feel new to me. However, it's a great introduction to
    probabilistic thinking and reasoning under uncertainty, so 👍👍 from me.

-   [Klara and the Sun](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54120408-klara-and-the-sun)
    (Kazuo Ishiguro) - A short, sentimental book about a robot and her human
    friend. This book just barely made the list, since while I enjoyed the
    writing, the plot wasn't all that memorable. Klara featured some good world
    building though, and it was an enjoyable read. Halfhearted recommendation.

-   [The Evolving Self](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/345095.The_Evolving_Self)
    (Robert Kegan) - A great book on adult psychological development stages, but
    I'd recommend skipping reading the original source, and instead read David
    Chapman's fantastic summary:
    "[Developing ethical, social, and cognitive competence](https://vividness.live/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence)"

Happy reading!

_Cover: Gold Creek Pond_