With 2025 coming to a close, I'm going through the annual tradition of reflecting on, and summarizing the year. One of the things I'm reviewing is my reading log, so here's a few of the books I read this year that most standout in my memory.
The Bobiverse Series
A 5-book series by Dennis E. Taylor.
This is almost certainly the most fun read on this list. I bought the first book on a recommendation from my brother, and then went through all five books over the next couple months. It's a light, somewhat corny sci-fi story based on a formerly-human "replicant" named Bob -- his mind uploaded onto some specialized hardware, he's sort of an AI with human memories -- who is placed in command of a self-reproducing Von Neumann probe and sets off to explore the galaxy. Over the centuries, he ends up building a whole new post-organic civilization.
Apparently, book 6 is coming, and I look forward to it.
The Control of Nature
This is a book of three journalistic essays by John McPhee, published in 1989.
The essays are:
- A story of the Army Corp of Engineers and it's struggles to keep the Mississippi river on its course.
- The 1973 Heimaey eruption in Iceland, and how a ragtag team worked to aquire every pump they could to move enough sea-water to redirect the lava flows and save the harbor.
- Debri flows in the San Gabriel mountains around Los Angeles, and the cities struggle to contain them
The Icelandic eruption was my favorite. The stories of walking, driving bull dozers, and keeping hoses running across the barely solidified lava fields as things spontaneously caught on fire and lava bombs fell from the sky are great. I ended up visiting Iceland shortly after reading it, and was disappointed I didn't have time to take the ferry to the island where it took place.
The Nvidia Way
A profile of Jensen Huang and the rise of Nvidia by Tae Kim. I found this to be a very well written book filled with interesting details and stories. I think this kind of book can easily be very boring, but this one really held my attention, and I learned some things.