{"id":2137,"date":"2024-12-05T14:06:17","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T19:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/?p=2137"},"modified":"2024-12-05T14:06:19","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T19:06:19","slug":"recommended-books-for-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2024\/12\/recommended-books-for-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Books for 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA metaphor for good information design is a map.\u00a0 Hold any diagram against a map and see how it compares.\u201d \u2013<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edward_Tufte\">Edward Tufte<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-dropcap\">F<\/span>or me, reading a book is like reading a map and following a path to a destination set by the author.\u00a0 Both books and maps make you work: figuring out where you are, finding the destination, critiquing a route, judging obstacles or shortcuts, and marveling at oddities along the way.\u00a0 Both map designers and book authors solve problems of information design, and it is rewarding to study books and maps to assess the designs. Today, the convenience of digital apps obviates actual map-reading and distills whole books into short summaries.\u00a0 Therefore, why take the trouble to read actual maps and books?<\/p>\n<p>One reason is that apps can fail, forcing you to fall back on older skills.\u00a0 For instance, despite the prevalence of geolocation apps, the U.S. Navy has resumed teaching midshipmen how to use a sextant as a defense against the possibility of a cyber-attack.<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Another reason is that reading a lot is great exercise for the brain and builds a fund of knowledge that can come in handy.\u00a0 Warren Buffett counseled an inspiring investment manager to read a lot every day, \u201cThat\u2019s how knowledge works.\u00a0 It builds up like compound interest.\u201d<a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\">[ii]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0Third, many worthwhile topics entail complexity, nuance, and disagreements about analysis and evidence.\u00a0 If you want to master a subject, you must dive into the depths of argument.\u00a0 Mark Zuckerberg said, \u201cBooks allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media today.\u201d<a href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\">[iii]<\/a>\u00a0 As I have argued previously, reading books sharpens one\u2019s purpose and performance as a leader (see \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2011\/11\/reading-to-be-a-full-person\/\">2011<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2012\/12\/2012-recommended-readings\/\">2012<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2013\/12\/2013-book-recommendations\/\">2013<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2014\/12\/the-reading-leader-recommended-books-2014\/\">2014<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2015\/12\/the-reading-leader-recommended-books-2015\/\">2015<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2016\/12\/recommended-books-for-2016\/\">2016<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2017\/12\/recommended-readings-for-2017\/\">2017<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2018\/12\/recommended-readings-for-2018\/\">2018<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2019\/12\/recommended-readings-for-2019\/\">2019<\/a>, \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2020\/12\/recommended-books-of-2020-reading-and-rudder\/\">2020<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2022\/12\/good-books-a-list-of-recommended-readings-2022\/\">2022<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2023\/11\/the-importance-of-reading-and-my-recommended-books-for-2023\/\">2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Annually, my holiday gift to blog readers is a list of books that dazzled, surprised, or usefully challenged me in the past year.\u00a0 I read 35-60 books a year and pick a few besties.\u00a0 I hope you enjoy these suggestions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Business<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not a big fan of sensational books about business, many of which are hyped, tendentious, poorly researched, and not well-written.\u00a0 But I try to keep track of the better critics of business for the same reasons that it is important to listen to short-sellers, whistleblowers, street protesters, and the opposing political party: can they offer <em>facts <\/em>(not just opinions) that might warrant an adjustment in the way we see things?\u00a0 Three recent books caught my attention.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Dana Mattioli, 2024. <em>The Everything War: Amazon\u2019s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 I would guess that readers of this blog have been customers and investors in Amazon with growing brio for the breadth and quality of its services and for its vaulting share price.\u00a0 Mattioli\u2019s book gives a backstory to the firm\u2019s rise and reports anti-competitive behavior, toxic work culture, and a domineering leader.\u00a0 At the heart of Amazon\u2019s astonishing advance (and the advances of other prominent tech companies) are <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Platform_economy\">platform economics<\/a>.\u00a0 Platforms enable firms to facilitate transactions in ways that attract more customers.<strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>As the number of customers grows, the platform becomes more valuable, enabling the firm to raise money and scale quickly.\u00a0 Recent antitrust lawsuits by the FTC and Department of Justice allege that platform companies flex their growing market power to the detriment of consumers, workers, suppliers, and competitors.\u00a0 Mattioli\u2019s book is essentially an exploration of that thesis.\u00a0 Her depth of reporting (she writes for the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>) is impressive and largely sustains <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lina_Khan\">Lina Khan\u2019s<\/a> assessment that \u201cthe company has positioned itself at the center of e-commerce and now serves as essential infrastructure for a host of other businesses that depend upon it.\u00a0 Elements of the firm\u2019s structure and conduct pose anticompetitive concerns\u2014yet it has escaped antitrust scrutiny.\u201d (page xi)\u00a0 \u00a0I think that the effects of platform economics upon competition are likely to be an important concern for years to come.\u00a0 Whether one agrees with Mattioli\u2019s (and Khan\u2019s) conclusions about Amazon, the profile presented in this book will prepare you for antitrust debates springing from the digital economy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zeke Faux, 2023. <em>Number Go Up: Inside Crypto\u2019s Wild Ride.<\/em> <\/strong>Trading in cryptocurrencies is a so-called \u201cshadow market\u201d because it lies beyond the reach of regulators and the kinds of private institutions that might moderate market excesses.\u00a0 To those of us who study financial instability, the outlandish personalities, the hyperbolic claims that crypto will displace government currencies, and the volatile cycles in crypto prices invite attention.\u00a0 We should care about what happens in the shadowy outreaches of the financial system.\u00a0 Crises tend to break out there, rather than the center, of the financial system.\u00a0 Institutional guardrails keep the mainstream in check, but don\u2019t constrain the shadow firms and markets very much.\u00a0 The absence of guardrails underpinned the fraud at the heart of Faux\u2019s book.\u00a0 Richly researched, the book narrates the boom and bust of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/FTX\">FTX<\/a> and its \u201cboy genius,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sam_Bankman-Fried\">Sam Bankman-Fried<\/a>.\u00a0 The book garnered more \u201cbest book of the year\u201d accolades than I could track.\u00a0 The author is an investigative reporter for <em>Bloomberg Businessweek<\/em>.\u00a0 Faux concluded that \u201cFrom the beginning, I thought that crypto was pretty dumb.\u00a0 And it turned out to be even dumber than I imagined.\u00a0 Never before has so much wealth been generated with such flimsy schemes.\u00a0 But what shocked me was not the vapidity of the crypto bros.\u00a0 It was how their heedlessness had devastating consequences for people across the world.\u201d (page 6)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rob Copeland, 2023. <em>The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em> The more extreme the advertising pitch the less likely I am to pick up a book. \u00a0This one garnered blurbs including \u201cunsettling expos\u00e9,\u201d \u201cexplosive, mind-blowing,\u201d \u201cdefining,\u201d \u201ctaut,\u201d \u201cclassic American story,\u201d \u201cshock and entertain\u201d. I have wise friends who have had positive things to say over the years about Bridgewater Associates and its founder, Ray Dalio.\u00a0 \u00a0And his books about financial instability (<em>The Changing World Order<\/em>, which I recommended in 2023, and <em>Big Debt Crises<\/em>) reveal someone who likes to distill big complex events into provocative insights.\u00a0 Therefore, skeptical of the hype and the book\u2019s promise of a take-down (the \u201cUnraveling\u201d) I came to it ready to discount its thesis.\u00a0 Instead, what I found was award-winning research and reporting, cogent argument, and an unsettling profile of a firm and its leader.\u00a0 Copeland is a finance reporter for the <em>New York Times.\u00a0 <\/em>Essentially, the book describes Dalio\u2019s career and the history of Bridgewater, a macro-oriented hedge fund that grew to be one of the largest with some $172 billion in discretionary assets under management in March 2024.\u00a0 Over the past three decades, Bridgewater beat the market by an average of 5-6 percent annually.<a href=\"#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\">[iv]<\/a>\u00a0 Such out-performance attracts attention: what is Bridgewater\u2019s secret to success?\u00a0 Dalio points to an intense internal culture stimulated by \u201cradical transparency,\u201d psychology, real-time performance evaluations, and plenty of employee turnover.\u00a0 However, most hedge funds would feature an intense internal culture but without hoo-ha terminology\u2014is this just verbiage, or is there a there there?\u00a0 Copeland\u2019s answer is yes, maybe, and no.\u00a0 The \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cmaybe\u201d stem from the fact that Dalio\u2019s design of management and incentive systems initially reflected provocative HR practices in the 1990s and 2000s.\u00a0 Then Dalio put those systems on steroids punctuated by his philosophizing and bizarre interventions.\u00a0 Anecdotes and interviews depict Dalio as impulsive, tyrannical, prone to seize briefly on one new fad after another\u2014all bound up in a fascination in human personality.\u00a0 Copeland wrote, \u201cFor Dalio, a mistake was never just a mistake.\u00a0 It was an opportunity to dive into the individualistic human psychology that led to errors\u2014particularly ones that Dalio himself might have avoided.\u00a0 He often said that he had made a string of them early in his career\u2014allowing his emotions to rule in his blowup with his boss, for one, and being too categorical in predicting calamity ahead in his testimony to Congress.\u00a0 He believed he had successfully identified the causes of these mistakes and corrected for them, and he was determined to impart this wisdom to his charges, to prevent such errors from repeating in the future.\u201d (page 50.) However, the workforce monitoring and intervention this entails borders on Orwellian; a degree of surveillance, public shaming, and detailed correction that most people would not tolerate.\u00a0 Some people admire Dalio\u2019s management philosophy.\u00a0 But were the incredible internal turmoil, anxieties, and posturing that Copeland documents necessary to achieve Bridgewater\u2019s success? For enterprise leaders in the world of practice, this book will summon serious reflections on styles of managerial intervention in the work of employees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Histories of Infrastructure Investment and Project Management<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in 2021 (authorizing $1.2 trillion in spending) put the word, \u201cinfrastructure,\u201d in the daily lexicon of journalists and pundits.\u00a0 <em>Should <\/em>governments commit to such investments?\u00a0 If so, which ones?\u00a0 <em>How <\/em>should the projects be managed and the funds disbursed?\u00a0 By what standards should the projects be assessed?\u00a0 Efficiency versus effectiveness?\u00a0 Employment? Social justice? Environment? Political outcomes?\u00a0 We\u2019ve been here before.\u00a0 Two histories\u2014about the Panama Canal and the first steel bridge across the Mississippi River\u2014depict the challenges of major infrastructure projects: cost overruns, funding constraints, technological failures, political obstacles, natural disasters, labor disputes, engineering mistakes, delays in completion, and once the project is completed, revenue shortfalls.\u00a0 The histories also display the impact of human agency, typically in the form of a charismatic promoter, a larger-than-life personality who shapes an appealing vision and lifts expectations for success.\u00a0 To the extent that history repeats itself (or rhymes, as Mark Twain allegedly said), the issues in the following books are likely to recur in the wake of the IIJA.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>David McCullough, 1978. <em>The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em>\u00a0 For hundreds of years, the creation of a waterway through the Isthmus of Panama had been the dream of leaders in politics and business.\u00a0 But not until the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 was the construction of a canal in Panama deemed plausible.\u00a0 Then, the promoter of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, brought to the French Government a proposal to fund construction in Panama.\u00a0 The government and French investors bought in.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the usual challenges\u2014not least of which was the difficulty of digging a canal overt a mountain range&#8211;drove the French venture into bankruptcy.\u00a0 In 1903, the U.S. Government purchased a perpetual lease and restarted the project at the insistence of President Theodore Roosevelt.\u00a0 The proponent of a muscular navy, Roosevelt deemed the canal a matter of national security.\u00a0 The U.S. Congress bought in.\u00a0 Despite the expense, widespread malaria, engineering challenges, labor shortages, and infighting in Panama and Washington, the canal opened to traffic in 1914.\u00a0 McCullough concluded, \u201cFor millions of people after 1914, the crossing at Panama would be one of life\u2019s memorable experiences.\u00a0 The complete transit required about twelve hours, and except for the locks and an occasional community along the shore, the entire route was bordered by the same kind of wilderness that had confronted the first surveyors for the railroad\u00a0 \u2026For those on board a ship in transit, the effect for the greater part of the journey was of sailing a magnificent lake in undiscovered country\u201d (page 614).\u00a0 Much lauded, including the National Book Award for history, this book cemented McCullough\u2019s stature as a writer of popular history.<\/li>\n<li><strong>John K. Brown, 2024. <em>Spanning the Gilded Age: James Eads and the Great Steel Bridge<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em> This book tells the history of the first bridge to span the Mississippi River below the Missouri River\u2014indeed, the first steel structure in the world. The bridge advanced uninterrupted railroad travel across the continental U.S.\u00a0 The promoter and chief engineer of the project was <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Buchanan_Eads\">James B. Eads<\/a>, who educated himself in science and engineering and made his name salvaging wrecks from the Mississippi River and building military ships for the Federal side in the Civil War.\u00a0 \u00a0And other outsized personalities including J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Jay Cooke weave in and out of the tale.\u00a0 \u00a0Built between 1867 and 1874, the bridge traversed more than a mile across the river in three spans.\u00a0 The caissons (piers) extended 100 feet below water level using a novel pneumatic technology that James Eads perfected.\u00a0 And Eads\u2019s demand that the bridge should employ steel rather than iron was unheard of.\u00a0 Naysayers abounded.\u00a0 Despite the challenges that plague all big infrastructure projects, the bridge opened in July 1874, upon which Eads announced that the bridge would be \u201ca great financial success\u201d (page 217).\u00a0 Yet within a year of completion, the bridge\u2019s operating company declared bankruptcy owing to a revenue shortfall: the railroads, on whom the company depended for business, boycotted the company to drive it into their arms.\u00a0 P. Morgan restructured the operating company and organized a syndicate to control it, bringing most of the interested parties into the deal.\u00a0 Brown reflected on the entire story: \u201cthe strength and breadth of [Eads\u2019s] vision continued to shape St. Louis Bridge, the city, and the region for many decades.\u00a0 The bridge was the central piece in a mosaic of transformations across a half century or more.\u00a0 \u2026It had such broad influence partly because Eads proposed far more than the structure.\u00a0 \u2026he integrated the bridge into plans for rail, road, river, and commercial infrastructures to shape the entire region.\u00a0 In this era before activist government or urban planning, Eads demonstrated how a private-sector entrepreneur could build wealth for himself by offering a blueprint for his city as a whole.\u201d (page 249).\u00a0 The author taught history of technology at University of Virginia\u2019s School of Engineering and Applied Science.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These two stories prompt various lessons for the IIJA.\u00a0 There will be delays.\u00a0 There will be cost overruns.\u00a0 The optimistic visions of promoters will be dashed.\u00a0 Yet in the long run, if the project meets an obvious social and economic need, its impact is likely to be transformational.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Artificial Intelligence (AI)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We are swamped with potential readings on artificial intelligence, more than 50,000 books according to one search.\u00a0 AI is important: it would appear on any short list of possible disruptors in the near, intermediate, and long-term future.\u00a0 Where should one start?\u00a0 If you are not a computer technologist, I recommend the following two books, which speak clearly to an enterprise leader about this technology, its significance, and implications for the future of work.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar, 2023. <em>The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century\u2019s Greatest Dilemma.<\/em> <em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>If you question whether AI is hype or reality, this book is a good point of departure.\u00a0 The title reveals the thrust of the book\u2014a \u201cwave\u201d is \u201cThe global diffusion or proliferation of a generation of technology anchored in a new general-purpose technology.\u201d (page 15).\u00a0 The authors\u2019 thesis is that we face dramatic change similar to earlier technology revolutions.\u00a0 But this time, the change will be bigger, more pervasive, and both more beneficial and possibly pernicious than earlier waves.\u00a0 They declare, \u201cThe very scale and interconnectedness of the coming wave create new systemic vulnerabilities: one point of failure can quickly cascade around the world. The less localized a technology, the less easily it can be contained\u2014and vice versa. \u2026 However many safeguards and security protocols are in place, the scale of impact is far wider than we\u2019ve seen before.\u201d (pages 139-40). Suleyman knows AI: he is the CEO of Microsoft AI and is a leader in artificial intelligence.\u00a0 This book has garnered a host of commendations and has appeared on the <em>New York Times <\/em>bestseller list.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ethan Mollick, 2024. <em>Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em>\u00a0 Where Suleyman describes a coming revolution, Mollick discusses (in general terms) how AI can augment human intelligence\u2014how to make it work <em>for<\/em> us rather than <em>against <\/em>\u00a0 He is a professor at the Wharton business school and in 2024 was designated by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in AI.\u00a0 Mollick offers four principles for engaging with AI: (1) \u201cAlways invite AI to the table\u201d: only by actively engaging with AI will you really learn how it can help you.\u00a0 (2) \u201cBe the human in the loop.\u201d\u00a0 AI needs regular feedback and coaching from humans, especially about hallucinations.\u00a0 (3) \u201cTreat AI like a person (but tell it what kind of person it is).\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0By telling AI what its point of view must be and what problems it must solve, you put guardrails around the responses AI will give you.\u00a0 And (4) \u201cAssume this is the worst AI you will ever use\u201d because AI is evolving and improving very rapidly.\u00a0 What\u2019s the value proposition with AI?\u00a0 Mollick reports the results of one study: \u201cParticipants who used Chat-GPT saw a dramatic reduction in their time on tasks, slashing it by a whopping 37 percent.\u00a0 Not only did they save time, but the quality of their work also increased as judged by other humans.\u00a0 These improvements were not limited to specific areas; the entire time distribution shifted to faster work, and \u2026to higher quality \u2026[and] helped reduce productivity inequality.\u201d (page 111.)\u00a0 This book has also been listed for some time among the <em>New York Times <\/em>bestsellers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Politics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A long interest of mine has been the U.S. Presidents: their autobiographies as well as leading presidential biographies by (a) excellent writers unaffiliated with the president and (b) political contemporaries. \u00a0For instance, in the first category (a), see works by Robert Caro, David McCullough, Ron Chernow, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.<a href=\"#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\">[v]<\/a>\u00a0 Presidential biographies in the second category (b) can be myopic and self-serving.\u00a0 An outstanding exception is the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stuart Eizenstat, 2018. <em>President Carter: The White House Years<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em> This book stands out for its remarkable balance and objectivity, its depth of documentation (some 5,000 yellow pads in Eizenstat\u2019s own archive and over 350 interviews of major figures including Carter), insights about federal policy-making and electoral politics, and its quality of writing.\u00a0 This is a comprehensive history of the Carter Administration and Carter\u2019s life to 2018&#8211;it strikes me as a likely candidate to be the <em>definitive <\/em>\u00a0 But weighing in at 900 pages, why devote such attention to Carter?\u00a0 Starting as a peanut farmer from Georgia, he never gained the cachet of embrace by coastal opinion-makers. \u00a0The economic stagflation of the 1970s clung to him like a wet blanket, as did his iconoclasm, his prickly personality, the internal Democratic Party conflicts, the second oil shock, and the Iran embassy crisis. He served only one term, failing in his re-election bid to Ronald Reagan. Over the past decade, he has ranked only at the middle of all presidents.<a href=\"#_edn6\" name=\"_ednref6\">[vi]<\/a>\u00a0 To many people, Carter seems to have been a weak and hapless president.\u00a0 Eizenstat\u2019s aim is to correct the conventional view: \u201cI believe that the single term served by the thirty-ninth president of the United States was one of the most consequential in modern history.\u00a0 Far from a failed presidency, he left behind concrete reforms and long-lasting benefits to the people of the United States as well as the international order.\u00a0 \u2026He was not a great president, but he was a good and productive one.\u00a0 He delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.\u00a0 He was a man of almost unyielding principle.\u00a0 Yet his greatest virtue was at once his most serious fault for a president in an American democracy\u2026[he] took on intractable problems with comprehensive solutions while disregarding the political consequences.\u00a0 He could break before he would bend his principles or abandon his personal loyalties.\u201d (pages 1-2).\u00a0 Eizenstat details the lows of Carter\u2019s administration, as well as its durable successes, such as the Camp David Accord, the Panama Canal Treaty, support for Jews in the USSR, the reversal of decline in defense spending, response to the USSR\u2019s aggression in Afghanistan, deregulation of transportation, and the appointment of Fed Chair Paul Volcker to tame inflation.\u00a0 I think this is a valuable and instructive book for enterprise leaders because of its frank illumination of presidential policymaking, crisis-management, diplomatic negotiations, and the strengths and foibles of an honorable leader.\u00a0 As I write this (December 2024) Jimmy Carter has surpassed his 100<sup>th<\/sup> birthday and lies in hospice with a terminal illness\u2014this book affords a timely retrospective on his life and work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Crime Fiction\u2014the \u201cGuilty Pleasure\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Once again, I confess that not all of my reading is serious stuff.\u00a0 This past year, I finished and commend:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>John Mortimer, 1998. <em>The Third Rumpole Omnibus<\/em><\/strong>. This is a compilation of short stories about a fictional public defender in Britain.\u00a0 These ingenious mysteries afford witty commentary on life and the legal profession.\u00a0 Each chapter is the perfect antidote to a busy day, just before lights out at night.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lee Child\u2019s <em>Jack Reacher<\/em> Series<\/strong>. Amounting to some 29 books, of which I read the first six in 2024, these books are addictive page-turners about good people chasing bad people.\u00a0 I especially enjoyed <em>Without Fail <\/em>(book six in the series).\u00a0 The character of Jack Reacher has been depicted in two movies featuring Tom Cruise (<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jack_Reacher_(film)\">Jack Reacher<\/a> <\/em>and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jack_Reacher:_Never_Go_Back\">Jack Reacher: Never Go Back<\/a><\/em>) and two season-length features on Amazon featuring Alan Ritchson (for samples, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/videos\/riverview\/relatedvideo?&amp;q=movies+about+Jack+Reacher&amp;qpvt=movies+about+Jack+Reacher&amp;mid=29BD440D171FB5CC851929BD440D171FB5CC8519&amp;&amp;mcid=A5A69D627C8A4FBE897CA225B1649C63&amp;FORM=VRDGAR\">this<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/videos\/riverview\/relatedvideo?&amp;q=movies+about+Jack+Reacher+Alan+Ritchson&amp;&amp;mid=9AB129ED5144AA606EB39AB129ED5144AA606EB3&amp;&amp;mcid=100D507D380A459883883684C55D068F&amp;FORM=VRDGAR\">this<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Enjoy your reading.\u00a0 Best wishes to all for the holidays and for 2025!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[i]<\/a> See \u201cU.S. Navy Midshipmen Returning to the Sextant,\u201d The Maritime Executive, 2015, <a href=\"https:\/\/maritime-executive.com\/article\/us-navy-midshipmen-returning-to-the-sextant\">https:\/\/maritime-executive.com\/article\/us-navy-midshipmen-returning-to-the-sextant<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\">[ii]<\/a> 2013 April 28, Omaha World-Herald, Investors earn handsome paychecks by handling Buffett\u2019s business by Steve Jordon (World-Herald Staff Writer), Omaha, Nebraska.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\">[iii]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zuck\/posts\/10101828640656261\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zuck\/posts\/10101828640656261<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\">[iv]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/atticcapital.com\/bridgewater-associates-average-return-and-the-man-behind-the-money\/\">https:\/\/atticcapital.com\/bridgewater-associates-average-return-and-the-man-behind-the-money\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\">[v]<\/a> I commend Robert Caro\u2019s four volumes (eventually to be five) on <em>Lyndon Johnson, <\/em>\u00a0David McCullough\u2019s biographies of <em>Truman <\/em>and <em>John Adams,<\/em> Ron Chernow\u2019s biographies of <em>Washington<\/em> and <em>Grant,<\/em> and Doris Kearns Goodwin\u2019s <em>Team of Rivals <\/em>(about Lincoln and his cabinet.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\">[vi]<\/a> In the 2024 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States\">poll by the American Political Science Association<\/a>, Carter ranked 22 out of 46.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA metaphor for good information design is a map.\u00a0 Hold any diagram against a map and see how it compares.\u201d \u2013Edward Tufte &nbsp; For me, reading a book is like&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.10 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Recommended Books for 2024 - Robert F. 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