Books I read in 2022:

• The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden: The book argues that inequality is in part determined by genetic differences and that egalitarians should embrace this. I came to this book not know what scientists mean by “heritability” or how they measure it but came away from it with a basic understanding of the current state of the nature-nurture debate as it relates to education and class. It’s been almost a year since I read this book (as is the case with other books on this list) but I don’t remember finding the more politically focused parts of the book all that great, though I’m sure I agree with egalitarian ideals.
• Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich: Easily my favorite book of the year. I really inspired me to educate myself more on genetics and human history. I’ve recommended this book to multiple people: not a thing I can say about any other book on this list or even very many off it.
• Human Diversity by Charles Murray: A three part book focusing on cognitive differences rooted in class, sex, and race: ordered from most established to most speculative according to the author. The book is chock-full of info on psychometrics, genetics, and neurology but does a great job explaining everything.
• How to Read the Bible by James L. Kugel: An excellent book. I’m confident I’ll read it again and buy it next time. I wish I had made this book my companion while I was reading the Bible the first time. The book compares ancient interpretations of the Bible with modern scholarship. The author is an Orthodox Jew and has some interesting ideas about how people of faith can understand scripture in light of what we’ve learned but that’s not for me to comment on. I really want a text of this quality that covers the New Testament.
• The Bible (partially: Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the Poetic books except for Job, the Prophets, all of NT except for John): I feel a real sense of accomplishment having finish the whole Bible. I’ve taken the experience as a lesson in how, by making reading into a habit, you can complete any text. One thing I began to appreciate as I read, and only fully understood as a read secondary texts on the Bible, is how long time spans between its earliest and latest texts. In my head, everything in antiquity and beyond blended together. But reading the Bible, critical texts, and unrelated work on anthropology have inspired me to deepen my understanding of world history. I’m not sure when I’ll next revisit any part of the Bible but when I do, I’d like it to be the King James Version.
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: I finally finished this book after a near year long break from it. I’m disappointed I’ve got so little out of it. But it’s a short read so I’ll give it another go sometime.

Looking forward to this year:

• Shakespeare’s Collected Plays: I intend to read all of them. Wish me good luck! This will be the replacement of my Bible reading plan in the sense that I will make it a daily habit.
• The Cantebury Tales by Chaucer (translated by Nevill Coghill): Another collection culturally important tales. I probably won’t have time to read this unless I finish or take a break from Shakespeare.
• The Catechism of the Catholic Church: The same podcaster I followed along while reading the Bible is starting a similar podcast for the Catechism. I’m not sure what I could learn that I haven’t already either from the Bible, Sunday school, or elsewhere.

Aside from that, I’m non-commitant. I’ve tried picking up Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions again, only to be reminded why I dropped these texts in the first place. I may read more history, anthropology, or biology books. I’ve been telling myself to read more sci-fi for some time now.

I also need to read more an AGI x-risk. I got Superintelligence and The Alignment Problem from the EA book service and I do plan to read them. The problem is that the less I’m convinced by the AI don’t-kill-everyone (or whatever it’s called) argument, the less urgency I feel in getting up to speed on their arguments. I plan to write more about why I’m not worried to better organize my thoughts and motivate my learning. But between my job, working out, and reading, it seems like I have little time for anything else. In hindsight, much of my time as a student was wasted.