2022: Books Read

Non-Fiction

Media and Technology

  1. Brian Christian - The Alignment Problem
  2. Tim Wu - The Attention Problem: The Epic Struggle To Get Inside Our Heads

Politics, Current Affairs, and World Affairs

  1. Erik Larson - The Splendid and the Vile
  2. Marina Hyde - What Just Happened?!: Dispatches from Turbulent Times

Essays

  1. Joan Didion - Slouching Towards Bethlehem
  2. Ta-Nehisi Coates - Between the World and Me

Memoirs, Biographies, and Autobiographies

  1. Matthew Perry - Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir
  2. Jennette McCurdy - I'm Glad My Mom Died
  3. John Cho - Troublemaker

Self-Help

  1. Sönke Ahrens - How to take Smart Notes

Graphic Novels

  1. Art Spiegelman - Maus 1 & 2

Fiction

Contemporary

  1. Elif Shafak - The Island of Missing Trees
  2. Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven
  3. Emily St. John Mandel - The Glass Hotel
  4. Julian Barnes - Elizabeth Finch
  5. Ruth Ozeki - My Year of Meats
  6. Elif Batuman - The Idiot (did-not-finish, god knows I tried)

Sci-Fi and Fantasy

  1. Becky Chambers - A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot 1) (audiobook)
  2. Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven
  3. Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary (audiobook)
  4. Christopher Priest - The Prestige

Children's Books / Young Adult

  1. E. Nesbit - The Enchanted Castle (audiobook)
  2. Lucy Maud Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables (audiobook)
  3. John Cho - Troublemaker (audiobook)
  4. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (audiobook)
  5. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (audiobook)
  6. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (audiobook)

2021: Books Read

Non-Fiction

Media and Technology

  1. Peter Pomerantsev - This Is Not Propaganda
  2. Eliot Higgins - We Are Bellingcat: An Intelligence Agency for the People
  3. Margaret Sullivan - Ghosting the News
  4. Julia Ebner - Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists
  5. Nina Jankowicz - How to Lose the Information War
  6. Richard Ovenden - Burning The Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack
  7. Tim Hwang - Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet
  8. Ronald J. Deibert - Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
  9. Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang - An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination

Politics, Current Affairs, and World Affairs

  1. Anne Applebaum - Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends
  2. Kathleen Belew - Bring The War Home
  3. Lee Fang - The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right
  4. Jane Mayer - Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
  5. Steve Coll - Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden*
  6. Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
  7. Erik Larson - The Splendid and the Vile
  8. Beth Macy - Dopesick (audiobook)

Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Biographies

  1. Joan Didion - South and West: From A Notebook
  2. Robert A. Caro - Working
  3. Colette - The Pure and the Impure
  4. Samantha Harvey - The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping (audiobook)
  5. Dave Grohl - The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music (audiobook)

Essay Collections and Diaries

  1. Georges Perec - Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books (Penguin Great Ideas)
  2. Philip Pullman - Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling
  3. Zadie Smith - Intimations: Six Essays

Philosophy

  1. Eric Hoffer - The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Miscellany

  1. Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and Ola Rosling - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Technical Books

  1. Steven S. Skiena - The Algorithm Design Manual*

Fiction

General Fiction

  1. Elena Ferrante - The Lying Life of Adults
  2. Lauren Oyler - Fake Accounts (did-not-finish)
  3. Jhumpa Lahiri - Whereabouts
  4. Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the Sun
  5. Haruki Murakami - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
  6. Vladimir Nabokov - Pnin
  7. David Mitchell - Utopia Avenue
  8. Kate Elizabeth Russell - My Dark Vanessa
  9. Barbara Noble - Doreen (Persephone Nº60)
  10. Brit Bennett - The Vanishing Half
  11. Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility (audiobook, Audible's The Jane Austen Collection)
  12. Jane Austen - Emma (audiobook, Audible's The Jane Austen Collection)
  13. Yōko Ogawa - The Memory Police
  14. Patricia Lockwood - No One Is Talking About This
  15. Sunjeev Sahota - China Room
  16. Sarah Waters - The Paying Guests (audiobook)
  17. Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You
  18. Michael Chabon - Wonder Boys (audiobook)
  19. Ray Bradbury - Dandelion Wine
  20. Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before the Coffee Gets Cold I (audiobook)
  21. Damon Galgut - The Promise
  22. Richard Powers - Bewilderment
  23. Andrew Sean Greer - Less (audiobook)
  24. Megha Majumdar - The Burning (audiobook)

Novellas and Short Story Collections

  1. Yukio Mishima - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
  2. Carson McCullers - The Ballad of the Sad Café
  3. Simone de Beauvoir - The Inseparables
  4. Calvin Kasulke - Several People Are Typing

Mystery / Suspense Thrillers

  1. Agatha Christie - The Clocks
  2. Agatha Christie - The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and other stories

Sci-Fi and Fantasy

  1. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (re-read)
  2. David Mitchell - Slade House
  3. Malka Older - Infomocracy
  4. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (re-read)
  5. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (re-read)
  6. Erin Morgenstern - The Starless Sea
  7. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (re-read)
  8. N.K. Jemisin - The Fifth Season (Broken Earth Trilogy 1)
  9. Leigh Bardugo - Ninth House
  10. Andy Weir - The Martian (audiobook)
  11. Annalee Newitz - The Future of Another Timeline
  12. Isaac Asimov - Foundation (re-read)
  13. Isaac Asimov - Foundation & Empire (re-read)
  14. Becky Chambers - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers 1) (audiobook)
  15. Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation

Mythology

  1. Stephen Fry - Mythos (audiobook)
  2. Madeline Miller - The Song of Achilles

Children's Books / Young Adult

  1. Eleanor Graham - The Children Who Lived In A Barn (Persephone Nº27)
  2. Elizabeth Anna Hart - The Runaway (Persephone Nº37)
  3. John Green - Looking for Alaska (audiobook)
  4. Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden (audiobook, re-read)
  5. Frances Hodgson Burnett - Little Lord Fauntleroy (audiobook, re-read)

Graphic Novels

  1. Owen D. Pomrey - Victory Point

* Currently reading

2020: Books Read

Non-Fiction

Media and Technology

  • Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie - Stick It Up Your Punter!: The Uncut Story of the Sun Newspaper
  • Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway - Merchants of Doubt
  • Anne Nelson - Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right

General Non-Fiction

  • Shelby Lorman - Awards for Good Boys: Tales of Dating, Double Standards, and Doom (Probably one for 'Humour' but...)
  • Bryan Stevenson - Just Mercy†

Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Biographies

  • Joan Didion - Blue Nights
  • Lauren Graham - Talking As Fast As I Can†
  • Patti Smith - M Train
  • Silvana Paternostro - Solitude & Company: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez Told with the Help from His Friends, Family, Fans, Arguers, Fellow Pranksters, Drunks, and a Few Respectable Souls*
  • Cathy Park Hong - Minor Feelings: A Reckoning on Race and the Asian Condition

Fiction

  • Elizabeth Strout - Olive, Again
  • Yoko Ogawa - The Housekeeper and the Professor
  • Han Kang - The Vegetarian
  • Yukio Mushima - Life for Sale
  • Ben Lerner - The Topeka School

Short Stories, Essays, and Novellas

  • Stefan Zweig - Confusion
  • Jia Tolentino - Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion†

Children's Books, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy

  • Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, 2) (re-read)†
  • Philip Pullman - The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, 3) (re-read)†
  • Anthony Horowitz - Stormbreaker (Alex Rider, 1)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Point Blanc (Alex Rider, 2)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Skeleton Key (Alex Rider, 3)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Eagle Strike (Alex Rider, 4)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Scorpia (Alex Rider, 5)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Ark Angel (Alex Rider, 6)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Snakehead (Alex Rider, 7)
  • Anthony Horowitz - Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider, 8)
  • Susanna Clarke - Piranesi†

* currently reading
† audio book

Wishful Reading 2020

The best laid plans and all that. I barely made a dent in my 2019 wishful reading list, and I didn't even hit the fifty book milestone I set myself. C’est la vie. So, of course, here I go again in 2020. The target's still a book a week or more. And, the books on the list? Well, here goes:

  • Barthes - Camera Lucida
  • Catmill, Ed - Creativity, Inc.
  • Chippindale, Peter & Horrie, Chris - Stick It Up Your Punter!
  • Farrell, Henry & Newman, Abraham L. - Of Privacy and Power
  • Hachiya, Michihiko - Hiroshima Diary
  • Hari, Johann - Chasing The Scream
  • Huff, Darrell - How to Lie with Statistics
  • MacLean, Nancy - Democracy in Chains
  • Postman, Neil - Amusing Ourselves to Death
  • Sontag, Susan - On Photography
  • Vance, JD - Hillbilly Elegy

2019: Books Read

Non-Fiction

Media and Technology

  1. Kai Fu Lee - AI Superpowers
  2. Meredith Broussard - Artificial Unintelligence
  3. Susan Crawford - Fiber
  4. Harold Ebelson, Gerald Jay Sussman and Julie Sussman - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs*
  5. Ken Kocienda - Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
  6. Jonathan Taplin - Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy
  7. Pratik Sinha, Dr. Sumaiya Shaikh, Arjun Sidharth - India Misinformed: The True Story
  8. Nick Diakopoulos - Automating the News

Autobiographies, Biographies, and Memoirs

  1. Michelle Obama - Becoming (audio book)
  2. Nadia Murad - The Last Girl
  3. Leander Kahney - Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level

Geopolitical | History and Current Affairs

  1. Ronan Farrow - War On Peace*
  2. Astra Taylor - Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone
  3. Ronan Farrow - Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators (audio)
  4. Anand Gopal - No Good Men Among the Living

General Non-Fiction

  1. Johann Hari - Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions
  2. Melinda Gates - The Moment of Life: How Empowering Women Changes the World
  3. David Spiegelhalter - The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data

Fiction

  1. Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine
  2. Lisa Halliday - Asymmetry
  3. Donna Tartt - The Secret History
  4. Elizabeth Strout - Olive Kitteridge
  5. Sally Rooney - Normal People
  6. Sally Rooney - Conversations with Friends
  7. Daphne Du Maurier - Rule Britannia
  8. Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing

Children's Books, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy

  1. Philip Pullman - La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust 1)
  2. Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem (audio book)
  3. Cixin Liu - The Dark Forest
  4. Cixin Liu - Death's End
  5. Cressida Cowell - The Wizards of Once
  6. Cressida Cowell - The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic
  7. J.K. Rowling - The Tales of Beedle the Bard
  8. Patrick Ness - The Knife of Never Letting Go
  9. Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer
  10. Patrick Ness - Monsters of Men
  11. Philip Pullman - The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust 2) (audio book)
  12. Philip Pullman - Northern Lights (His Dark Materials 1) (audio book) (re-read)

Essays, Short Stories, and Novellas

  1. Neil Gaiman & Chris Riddell - Art Matters
  2. Stefan Zweig - Chess
  3. Edith Wharton - Roman Fever & Other Stories

*currently reading

2019: Wishful Reading List

Non-Fiction

Media/Tech

  1. Meredith Broussard - Artificial Unintelligence
  2. Marshall Phelps and David Kline - Burning The Ships
  3. Thomas H. Davenport - Only Humans Need Apply
  4. Neil Postman - Technopoly
  5. Yuval Noah Harari - 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
  6. Tim Wu - The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
  7. Ken Kocienda - Creative Selection
  8. Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed
  9. Hans Rosling - Factfulness
  10. Ed Catmull - Creativity, Inc.
  11. Matt Bai - All The Truth Is Out
  12. Peter Chippindale - Stick It Up Your Punter!
  13. Ken Auletta - Three Blind Mice
  14. Richard R. John - Network Nation
  15. Susan Crawford - Fiber
  16. An Xiao Mina - From Memes to Movements
  17. Arthur C. Clarke - Profiles of the Future
  18. Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie - The Book of Why
  19. Caroline Criado Perez - Invisible Women

Current Affairs/History

  1. Jeffrey Sachs - A New Foregin Policy
  2. Jill Lepore - These Truths
  3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago
  4. Ta-Nehisi-Coates - Between the World and Me
  5. Charles C. Mann - The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World
  6. Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
  7. Julia Boyd - Travellers in the Third Reich
  8. Matthew Scully - Dominion
  9. Michael McFaul - From Cold War to Hot Peace
  10. Yuri Slezkine - The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution
  11. Matt Haig - Notes on a Nervous Planet

Non-Fiction Biographies/Memoirs

  1. Dava Sobel - Galileo's Daughter
  2. Jason Rezaian - Prisoner
  3. Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential

Other

  1. Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness
  2. Chris Hayes - Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy

Fiction

  1. Donna Tartt - The Secret History
  2. David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest*
  3. Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow*
  4. Lisa Halliday - Asymmetry
  5. Mary McCarthy - The Group
  6. Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Journey To The End Of The Night
  7. Jean Genet - The Thief's Journal
  8. Nadine Gordimer - July's People
  9. Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son
  10. Yu Miri - Tokyo Ueno Station
  11. Heather Morris - The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Sci-Fi and Fantasy

  1. Cixin Liu - Death's End
  2. Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons
  3. Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games
  4. Iain M. Banks - Consider Phlebas
  5. Edgar Rice Burroughs - Pricess of Mars
  6. Ursula Kroeber Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
  7. Frank Herbert - Dune
  8. Samuel R. Delany - Fall of the Towers trilogy
  9. Margaret Atwood - Lady Oracle
  10. Stanisław Lem - The Futurological Congress

Essays and Short Stories

  1. Niccoló Machiavelli - On Conspiracies (Penguin Great Ideas)
  2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (Penguin Great Ideas)
  3. George Orwell - Facing Unpleasant Facts
  4. Alice Munro - Dear Life
  5. David Foster Wallace - A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
  6. Fred Brooks - The Mythical Man-Month
  7. Thomas Mann - Death in Venice and Other Stories
  8. Isaac Asimov - Franchise

*been on my reading list for about five years

2018: Books Read

Fiction

  1. Mohsin Hamid - Exit West
  2. Julian Barnes - The Only Story
  3. George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo
  4. Michael Chabon - Moonglow
  5. Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology (audio book)
  6. Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
  7. Tove Jansson - The Summer Book

Non-Fiction

  1. David Foenkinos - Charlotte
  2. Scott Anderson - Fractured Lands
  3. George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia
  4. Olivia Laing - The Lonely City
  5. Naom Chomsky - The Responsibility of Intellectuals
  6. Azar Nafisi - Reading Lolita in Tehran
  7. Frank Pasquale - The Black Box Society
  8. Franklin Foer - World Without Mind
  9. Lawrence Wright - God Save Texas
  10. John Carreyrou - Bad Blood
  11. Leander Kahney - Jony Ive
  12. Atul Gawande - Being Mortal
  13. David Kahneman - Thinking Fast and Slow
  14. Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus
  15. Antonio García Martínez - Chaos Monkeys
  16. Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts - Network Propaganda
  17. Swati Chaturvedi - I Am A Troll
  18. Steve Coll - The Deal of the Century
  19. Tara Westover - Educated (audio book)

Short Stories & Essays

  1. Gabriel García Márquez - Strange Pilgrims

Poetry/Music

  1. Florence Welch - Useless Magic (Lyrics and Poetry)

Emma Watson's Reading List

Compiled from multiple sources, but by no means definitive. Her Feminist Book Club was the starting point for this list, and then a some online searching resulted in this. 

  1. Altschuler, Glenn C. - All Shook Up: How Rock'n'Roll Changed America

  2. Angelou, Maya - Mom And Me And Mom

  3. Angelou, Maya - Phenomenal Women

  4. Austen, Jane - Emma

  5. Blackman, Calorie - Noughts and Crosses

  6. Bauby, Jean-Dominique - The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

  7. Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre

  8. Brownstein, Carrie - Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl

  9. Cain, Susan - Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking

  10. Chbosky, Stephen - The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

  11. Chekov, Anton - The Three Sisters

  12. Clark, Colin - The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me

  13. Collins, Suzanne - The Hunger Games

  14. Dahl, Roald - The BFG

  15. Dellaria, Ava - Love Letters To The Dead

  16. de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine - The Little Prince

  17. Eggers, Dave - The Circle

  18. Emin, Tracey - Strangeland

  19. Foster, E.M. - A Room With A View

  20. Fowle, John - The Magus

  21. Frank, Anne - The Diary Of A Young Girl

  22. Gibran, Khalil - The Prophet

  23. Green, John - The Fault In Our Stars

  24. Gregory, Philippa - The Constant Princess

  25. Hesse, Hermann - Siddhartha

  26. Hooks, Bell - All About Love: New Visions

  27. Hooks, Bell - Feminism Is For Everybody: Passionate Politics

  28. Hosseini, Khaled - A Thousand Splendid Sons

  29. Hosseini, Khaled - The Kite Runner

  30. Ishiguro, Kazuo - The Remains Of The Day

  31. Johansen, Erika - The Queen Of The Tearling

  32. Joyce, James - Dubliners

  33. Keegan, Marina - The Opposite Of Loneliness

  34. Márquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years Of Solitude

  35. Maynard, Joyce - Was Salinger Too Pure For This World?

  36. Moran, Caitlin - How To Be A Woman

  37. Moran, Caitlin - Moranifesto

  38. Murakami, Haruki - Norwegian Wood

  39. Myers, Stephanie - Twilight

  40. Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita

  41. Nelson, Maggie - The Argonauts

  42. Ovid - Metamorphoses

  43. Pullman, Philip - His Dark Materials

  44. Rand, Ayn - The Fountainhead

  45. Roosevelt, Theodore - The Man In The Arena

  46. Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher In The Rye

  47. Satrapi, Marjane - Persepolis

  48. Shakespeare, William - Hamlet

  49. Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet

  50. Smith, Dodie - I Capture The Castle

  51. Smith, Patti - Just Kids

  52. Strayed, Cheryl - Tiny Beautiful Things

  53. Strayed, Cheryl - Torch

  54. Strayed, Cheryl - Wild

  55. Steinbeck, John - East Of Eden

  56. Steinem, Gloria - My Life On The Road

  57. Streatfield, Noel - Ballet Shoes

  58. Walker, Alice - The Colour Purple

  59. Williamson, Marianne - A Return To Love

  60. Zafón, Carlos Ruiz - The Angel's Game

  61. Zafón, Carlos Ruiz - The Shadow Of The Wind

Steve Jobs' Reading List

Compiled from multiple sources (...and books I'm likely to read): 

  1. Christensen, Clayton M. - The Innovator's Dilemma
  2. Dass, Ram - Be Here Now
  3. Grove, Andrew S. - Only The Paranoid Survive 
  4. James, Geoffrey - The Tao Of Programming
  5. Lappe, Frances Moore - Diet For A Small Planet
  6. Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
  7. Moore, Geoffrey A. - Inside The Tornado
  8. Orwell, George - 1984
  9. Rand, Ayn - Atlas Shrugged
  10. Shakespeare, William - King Lear
  11. Suzuki, Shunryu - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
  12. Thomas, Dylan - The Collected Poems
  13. Trungpa, Chögyam - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
  14. Yoganandya, Paramahansa - Autobiography Of A Yogi