In many ways, the books I read are my mind’s zeitgeist, and naturally the favourites reflect this. This year, the list is along broad lines of History & Culture, Mind & Philosophy, Systems of the World, and Fiction. And with that little prologue, as per tradition – from 2019, 2020, and 2021, and 2022 – we have this year’s list of ten (plus a few 🙈). From the 65 books I read in 2023…
Geoffrey West
I am quite a fan of patterns. It is difficult to look around and not believe that there is some grand order in the scheme of things. But it becomes even more difficult when one does not have the luxury of faith. And thus it is a pleasure when science points to a possible unifying theory that brings some amount of order to what could be mistaken for randomness. Scale begins with showing how ‘there are scaling relationships that quantitatively describe how almost any measurable characteristic of animals, plants, ecosystems, cities and companies scales with size.‘ We are talking of things as varied as metabolic rate, patents, and companies’ income and assets! The simplicity underlying the complexity is what this book is about.
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