Here's what I ended up reading this year, in roughly chronological finishing order. (I usually have 3-4 books going on at once.)

• Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss.
• The Art of Stillness by Pico Ayer.
• Out of Your Mind by Alan Watts (audiobook, really a series of lectures).
• Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Mushashi (audiobook).
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.
• The Best American Short Stories 2016 edited by Junot Diaz.
• Feynman by Jim Ottaviani.
• My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik.
• From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author by Louis Markos (another lecture series).
• The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy.
• The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam.
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
• Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles.
• When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain: History's Unknown Chapters by Giles Milton.
• Widow Basquiat: A Love Story by Jennifer Clement.
• 32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line by Eric Ripert.
• Identify: Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks by Chermayeff & Geismar.
• Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch (audiobook).
• The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World by Brad Stone.
• The Leavers by Lisa Ko.
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
• Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman.
• The Executive's Compass by James O'Toole.
• Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
• Dance of the Possible by Scott Berkun.
• The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (short story).
• Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss.
• After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley by Rob Reid.
• Principles by Ray Dalio.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (audiobook).
• The Undiscovered Self: With Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams by C.G. Jung.

A fairly random selection, and hopefully I can get a few more in next year.

James Beshara has a really interesting read on how communication will change and evolve in a post-verbal world, namely one where human/brain interfaces like Neuralink can more directly transmit thought between people than the medium of language allows today.

After reading the essay I wonder if people's thoughts or the neural pathways they activate, if they could be directly transmitted into another brain, would actually make any sense to someone else with a unique internal set of pathways and framework for parsing and understanding the world. The essay assumes we'd understand and have more empathy with each other, but that seems like a leap. It seems likely the neural link would need it own set of abstractions, perhaps even unique per person, similar to how Google Translate AI invented its own meta-language.

Today idea-viruses that cause outrage (outrageous?) in today's discourse  have been weaponized by algorithms optimizing for engagement, and directly brain-transmitted memes seem especially risky for appealing to our base natures or causing amygdala hijack. But perhaps a feature of these neural interface devices could counteract that, with a command like "tell me this piece of news but suppress my confirmation bias and tribal emotional reactions while I'm taking it in."