My ten most influential books of 2024
Not everything I read — the books from 2024 that left the deepest mark, counted down from the honorable mentions to number one.
Honorable mentions
Click a cover to turn it over. After the first one, hovering another turns it too.
Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir
Irvin D. Yalom
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Jonathan Haidt
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
Cyber Crisis: Protecting Your Business from Real Threats in the Virtual World
Eric Cole
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
Simon Baron-Cohen
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
Noam Chomsky
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism
Yanis Varoufakis
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness
Todd Rose
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
Gladiators, Pirates and Games of Trust: How Game Theory, Strategy and Probability Rule Our Lives
Haim Shapira
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
Has the West Lost It? A Provocation
Kishore Mahbubani
One sentence on what this one was — to be written.
Nos. 15–11
What Is ChatGPT Doing… and Why Does It Work?
Stephen Wolfram
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going
Michael Wooldridge
A Dose of Hope: A Story of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy
Dan Engle & Alex Young
The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World
Peter Frankopan
The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating
David M. Buss
The ten
No.10
The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity
Steven Strogatz
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.9
The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism
John Gray
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.8
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration
Peter Turchin
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.7
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.6
Man’s Search for Himself
Rollo May
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.5
A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters
Steven C. Hayes
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.4
Malady of the Mind: Schizophrenia and the Path to Prevention
Jeffrey A. Lieberman
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.3
How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration
Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.2
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans
Melanie Mitchell
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.
No.1
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
What this one changed — to be written. One or two sentences on the idea that moved something, not a summary of the book.