The Five Best Books I Read in 2015

A Storm Of Swords, George R.R. Martin. I’ve been a big fan of the show (Game of Thrones) for some years now but always averse to reading the books. I decided to give the first book a try and I couldn’t put it down. Of the 5 books A Storm of Swords was my favorite. This was the case because it revealed a ton of stories not covered in the show and made the entire series make a lot more sense to me. I don’t really read fiction or fantasy but this will forever be the exception.

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry  , Jacquie McNish. I owned a BlackBerry back in the day and I thought it was an amazing piece of tech but it seemed like over night I was using an Android phone instead. The background story of Blackberry always interested me and this was in depth coverage of the rise and fall of the company. It’s a real page turner and a case study in business strategy and failure to adapt.

Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak, Travis Sawchik. I grew up a huge fan of the MLB and the New York Mets but over the years baseball fell out of favor for me with it’s slow pace and forever long season. This book opened my eyes to the beauty in the statistics behind baseball. This book covers the rise of the Pittsburgh Pirates and their analytical organization. I think I read this book quicker than any other book.

How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy, Stephen Witt. As someone who used to pirate music I had no idea what it took for me to download music with the ease I did. There was an underworld of people getting music up and the music industry was going after them for it. This book chronicles all of this and I loved every minute of it.

Einstein: The Life of a Genius, Walter Issacson. I’ve been meaning to read this book for years and I’m glad I finally did because Einstein’s story is one to learn from. Besides being a genius he was extremely practical and just got things done. I was inspired by this book do do better and be better, both of which I didn’t expect.