Recommendations you can check.
China economy researcher in Beijing who writes about Chinese political economy, history and culture on his personal blog.
14 things
Red HarvestBook Dashiell Hammett
I re-read all of Hammett's novels this year, and this, his first, held up the best.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
OrbitalBook Samantha Harvey
One of the most perfectly crafted pieces of prose I've ever read; short, basically plotless, almost unbearably intense.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
Crossing to SafetyBook Wallace Stegner
Stegner's last, great work is an understated, closely observed portrait of the relationship between two couples.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Lantern-Bearers and Other EssaysBook Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson is best known as a novelist, but I think I prefer his nonfiction: he had an interesting life and was interested in lots of things, and the sentences are marvelous and daring.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Indian IdeologyBook Perry Anderson
Out of all the reading on India I did this year to prepare for my first visit, this was my favorite: compact, punchy, and argumentative, packed with erudition and information.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnBook Mark Twain
Twain's original is, still, the better book.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
Cahokia JazzBook Francis Spufford
A hard-boiled mystery set in an alternative 1920s America, by turns familiar and strange.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Lumumba PlotBook Stuart A. Reid
Nominally a biography of Patrice Lumumba, this book is actually a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how the Congo stumbled to independence from Belgian rule.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
Specimen DaysBook Walt Whitman
Tying them all together is Whitman's love for the American landscape and people, and his unique voice, so fresh he still seems like a contemporary.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Secret of Our SuccessBook Joseph Henrich
Not every plank in his argument is convincing, and the research has evolved since the book first came out a decade ago, but the ambition is impressive and the framework holds up.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Wide Wide SeaBook Hampton Sides
The causes and meaning of those events have been debated ever since, and Sides delivers a careful, sympathetic and engaging account of the entirety of Cook's final expedition.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
I Deliver Parcels in BeijingBook Hu Anyan
Perhaps the best of the various gig-worker memoirs published in recent years.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great WarBook Perry Anderson
I also enjoyed Anderson's Disputing Disaster: A Sextet on the Great War
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
The Ebb-TideBook Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson's last published novel is not particularly famous but deserves to be better known.
Batson's annual round-up of the most memorable books he read that year, split into fiction and nonfiction.
2025-12-16·andrewbatson.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
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The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
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