50 Books I Read in 2019: Freedom, Innovation and Humanity

I didn’t set out to read 50 books in 2019. There was no New Year’s resolution, no Goodreads challenge. I just let curiosity pull me from one book to the next — each one opening a door to something I hadn’t considered before.

📖 Looking back, some fascinating themes emerged.

🏛️ Rome

Learning about Roman history hit differently than I expected. The parallels between the fall of the first republic and our current political moment? Unsettling. I want to dig deeper into the famous Caesars next.

SPQR
Outline of Roman History
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

📜 Philosophy

Reading the old masters felt like having conversations across centuries. There’s something liberating about engaging with ideas that have stood the test of time. Note to self: do more of this.

On Liberty
Adam Smith (biography)

🇺🇸 Biographies + Americas

Whatever else happened in 2019, America remained the engine of innovation and hope. Reading about the people who shaped it taught me new frameworks for thinking about my own contributions.

Keeping at It
Becoming (Michelle Obama)
Shoe Dog
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Radical

🌏 Asia

China’s rise dominated my thinking in 2019. I wanted to understand the history, the current dynamics, and what it all means for the future. Korean culture also snuck in after I fell down a K-drama rabbit hole.

Asia’s Reckoning
Xi Jinping: The Backlash
Silk Roads
The New Koreans

💹 Economics

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics went to researchers whose work fascinated me. Raghuram Rajan’s Third Pillar (he ran India’s central bank) was another standout.

The Third Pillar
Economy for the Mass
Poor Economics
Good Economics, Bad Economics

🏛️ Politics

My political reading orbited around understanding the Trump presidency in historical context. The Vatican book was… unexpectedly shocking.

The Mueller Report
In the Closet of the Vatican
Leadership
Banking Bad

🤖 New-wave Capitalism

How tech is encroaching on democracy and reshaping the future of work became a major focus. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism was probably my book of the year. Genuinely important reading.

Uberland
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Super Pumped
Mindfuck

🧠 Psychology

A solid quartet on understanding people — and getting better at working with them.

How to Win Friends & Influence People
Never Split the Difference
Talking to Strangers
Range

✨ The takeaway? Let curiosity lead. The best reading years happen when you stop optimising and start following threads.

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