I ended 2012 with a string of really good books. Reviews below.
How Children Succeed by Paul Tough
I've read a lot of parenting books, and they all seemed to say the same things and not be as empirically based as I would like. This book was clearly the most research-based book I've read on helping children learn and is the only book that I would recommend to others for help with both parenting and teaching. Very interesting and well written. Grade: A-
The Success Equation by Michael J. Mauboussin
A good book about the balance of luck and skill in our lives. The book does a good job of helping us to appreciate that luck plays a bigger role than most of us would like to acknowledge. The book is good, but it covers a lot of the same material as other books that I have read. For example, it covers a lot of the material in Outliers by Gladwell and The Signal and the Noise by Silver, and both of those are better written. Grade: B-
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Another extremely interesting book that tackles how important habits are to our everyday lives. It does a good job of covering the various aspects of our lives that are largely controlled by habits, how to overcome bad habits, and how to develop good habits. I think most people could benefit from reading this book. Grade: A-
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is probably the best fiction book I've ever read so I had unrealistically high expectations here. The book is good, but it did not live up to my impossible expectations (I suspect the movie will be the same). It just didn't have the suspense of LOTR. Grade: B
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I used to judge the quality of fiction books by how late I was willing to stay up to finish a book. I'd stay up to midnight for a really good book. One or two AM for a great book, and 3 or 4 am for the best books (LOTR by Tolkien or Sphere by Crichton). Ready Play One is forcing me to reconsider that measure. It was so good that I did not want to stay up late because I did not want it ever to end. It was easily one of the 3 best fiction books I've ever read, and maybe the best.
The book is set in the future, but it really focuses on pop culture and video games from the 1980's. Hence, the book is really written for people born in the early 70's that went through childhood in the 80's and were into video games. That's pretty much me, but I am definitely on the younger end of that spectrum and I grew up in a very rural area and it took longer for pop culture to diffuse to me. I think anyone would enjoy this book, but if you grew up in the 80's and played video games -- it is a must read.
Overall, just an incredibly enjoyable and well written book. Please Mr. Cline, write more books! Grade: A+
