Reading

This is a running list of the books I’ve read this year. Anything I near-universally recommend is marked with a star and I linked to any reading notes I published.

You can also find lists from 2018, 2019, and 2020 as well as an index of my reading notes.

  • The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt.
  • Plato: A Very Short Introduction by Julia Annas.
  • Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
  • Changing the Subject by Sven Birkerts.
  • Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
  • Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.
  • Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt.
  • To Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu.
  • On Politics by Alan Ryan.
  • A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green.
  • An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green.
  • Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami by David Karashima.
  • Ametora by W. David Marx.
  • Out on a Limb by Andrew Sullivan.
  • Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
  • Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.
  • Ruin and Renewal by Paul Betts.
  • Leave Society by Tao Lin.
  • Deep River by Karl Marlantes.
  • Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
  • The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
  • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
  • War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk.
  • The Winds of War by Herman Wouk. ★
  • The Best Service Is No Service by Bill Price and David Jaffe.
  • The Aeneid translated by Shadi Bartsch.
  • The Intellectual Life by A.G. Sertillanges.
  • Awareness by Anthony De Mello.
  • Content Design by Sarah Richards.
  • How to Think Strategically by Greg Githens.
  • The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
  • Nero by John F. Drinkwater.
  • Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.
  • On Writing Well by William Zinsser.
  • Words That Work by Frank Luntz.
  • Lost Horizon by James Hilton.
  • War and Peace and War by Peter Turchin.
  • Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
  • The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab.
  • The Great Sea by David Abulafia.
  • How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. ★
  • The Beggar Queen by Lloyd Alexander.
  • The Kestrel by Lloyd Alexander.
  • Westmark by Lloyd Alexander.
  • How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. ★
  • Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh.
  • Hild by Nicola Griffith.
  • The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama.
  • Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt.
  • Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem.
  • The Golden Rhinoceros by François-Xavier Fauvelle.
  • Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic by Leonard Berry and Kent Seltman.
  • The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.
  • The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.
  • The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson.