Reading

This is a running list of the books I’ve read this year. The stars indicate something I’d near-universally recommend. I hope to get better about posting reading notes, in which case I’ll link to those.

If you’re really curious you can find past reading lists from 2018 and 2019. I also keep an index of all the reading notes I’ve posted.

  • Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon by Jane Austen.
  • Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy by Max Hastings.
  • The Quiet American by Graham Greene.
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen.
  • The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley.
  • On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.
  • A Complaint Is a Gift by Janelle Barlow and Claus Møller.
  • Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic.
  • What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub.
  • Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang.
  • Kissa by Kissa by Craig Mod.
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.
  • Behind the Screen by Sarah T. Roberts.
  • Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.
  • Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs.
  • How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak.
  • Demand-Side Sales by Bob Moesta. ★
  • The High King by Lloyd Alexander.
  • Self Renewal by John Gardner.
  • Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander.
  • The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker.
  • Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark.
  • The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander.
  • The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander.
  • The Undefeated Mind by Alex Lickerman.
  • The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
  • What is Reading For? by Robert Bringhurst.
  • Working in Public by Nadia Eghbal.
  • Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby.
  • Scribes and Scholars by L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson.
  • Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper.
  • A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel.
  • The Grey King by Susan Cooper.
  • Greenwitch by Susan Cooper.
  • Privacy and Solitude in the Middle Ages by Diana Webb.
  • The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.
  • Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper.
  • Emma by Jane Austen.
  • How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett.
  • Powerful by Patty McCord.
  • The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts.
  • A Place of My Own by Michael Pollan.
  • The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree.
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.
  • The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word by Mitchell Stephens.
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
  • A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel.
  • Black Swan Green by David Mitchell.
  • The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs.
  • Deep Work by Cal Newport.
  • Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg.
  • The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear. ★
  • Letters from a Stoic by Seneca.
  • Dreamland by Sam Quinones.
  • Dignity by Chris Arnade. ★
  • 24/6 by Tiffany Shlain.
  • Destined for War by Graham Allison.
  • Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse.
  • Vaccinated by Paul A. Offit.
  • The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer.
  • Upstream by Dan Heath.
  • Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse.
  • The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.
  • What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.
  • Lost Horizon by James Hilton.
  • On The Good Life by Cicero.
  • The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse.
  • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. ★
  • White Noise by Don DeLillo.
  • How to Be an Epicurean by Catherine Wilson.
  • Exhalation by Ted Chiang.
  • The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday.
  • Naïve Super by Erlend Loe.
  • Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill.
  • Peak: The New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. ★
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.
  • The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.
  • High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil.
  • Weather by Jenny Offill.
  • Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling.
  • How to Be Bored by Eva Hoffman.
  • Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling.
  • How to Not Always Be Working by Marlee Grace.
  • Buyology by Martin Lindstrom.
  • The Dawn Watch by Maya Jasanoff.
  • Barcelona by Robert Hughes.
  • The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle.
  • The Great Mental Models by Farnam Street.
  • Draft No. 4 by John McPhee.
  • The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.
  • How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee.
  • Indistractable by Nir Eyal.
  • The Bells of Old Tokyo by Anna Sherman.
  • Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.