Reading Log
2024
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
|
The Decision Book |
Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler |
January |
|
Seeds |
Bette Ann Moskowitz |
January |
|
The World's Last Night |
C.S. Lewis |
February |
|
Holbein's Hidden Gem |
Owen Emmerson and Kate McCaffrey |
February |
|
Vermeer's Maps |
Rozemarijn Landsman |
February |
|
Mage Merlin's Unsolved Mathematical Mysteries |
Satyan Linus Devadoss and Matthew Harvey |
February |
|
The Story of an Hour |
Kate Chopin |
February |
|
The Arts and Crafts Movement in America |
Gustav Stickley |
February |
|
The Gutenberg Bible of the General Theological Seminary |
General Theological Seminary |
February |
|
The San Francisco of Robert Louis Stevenson |
Robert Louis Stevenson |
February |
|
Rare Book and Manuscript Collections in the Libraries of the San Francisco Bay Area |
ed. Mary H. Silloway |
February |
|
A Man and His Watch |
Matt Hranek |
February |
|
The Grand Inquisitor |
Fyodor Dostoevsky tr. Boris Dralyuk |
February |
|
The Restoration of Beauty to Life |
A.J. Penty |
February |
|
Dear Mr. Denslow |
Elbert Hubbard |
February |
|
Passages |
Stefan Nemeth |
February |
|
The New World and the New Book |
Thomas Wentworth Higginson |
March |
|
Use and Abuse of Machinery and its Relationship to the Arts and Crafts |
Gustav Stickley |
April |
|
Bread and Wine |
|
April |
|
A Journalist at War |
Brooke Kroeger |
May |
| 1 |
A Time for Everything |
Karl Ove Knausgaard tr. James Anderson |
May |
|
Steam, Steel, and Stars |
O. Winston Link |
May |
|
Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About |
Donald E. Knuth |
June |
|
Printer at the Pass |
Al Lowman |
June |
|
The Infamous Bengal Ming |
Rajesh Parameswaran |
June |
|
Ginseng Roots |
Craig Thompson |
June |
|
Grant's: An Anthology at Forty Years |
ed. James Grant |
July |
|
Animal Farm |
George Orwell |
July |
|
The Trial of Joan of Arc |
tr. Daniel Hobbins |
August |
|
When We Cease to Understand the World |
Benjamin Labatut tr. Adrian Nathan West |
August |
|
Back to the Local |
Maurice Gorham |
August |
|
Four Quartets |
T.S. Eliot |
August |
|
Searching for the Sunbelt |
ed. Raymond A. Mohl |
September |
|
Journal of a Journey Across the Plains in 1859 |
James Berry Brown |
September |
|
Religion in America |
Timothy Beal |
September |
|
Roadside Picnic |
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky tr. Olena Bormashenko |
September |
|
The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns |
Benjamin Constant |
October |
|
Empire of the Summer Moon |
S.C. Gwynne |
October |
|
Ulysses |
James Joyce |
October |
|
Wonders of the World |
Simon Goldhill et al. |
October |
|
The Bootlegger |
Amor Towles |
October |
|
These Are the Meditations of My Heart |
Tom Hanks |
October |
2023
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
| 1 |
99 Variations on a Proof |
Philip Ording |
January |
|
The Book of Genesis |
illustr. R. Crumb |
January |
|
Live Forever |
Courtney S. Lennon |
January |
|
Gilead |
Marilynne Robinson |
January |
|
Masters of Doom |
David Kushner |
January |
|
The Great Divorce |
C.S. Lewis |
February |
| 1 |
The Lincoln Highway |
Amor Towles |
February |
|
Mayflower |
Nathaniel Philbrick |
February |
|
An Albion in the Antarctic |
James Freemantle |
February |
|
Home |
Marilynne Robinson |
March |
|
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám |
tr. Edward FitzGerald |
March |
|
Super-Infinite |
Katherine Rundell |
March |
|
The Invisible Collection |
Stefan Zweig |
March |
|
The Diversity of Life |
Edward O. Wilson |
April |
|
The Privately Printed Bible |
Ronald Patkus |
April |
|
A Day in the Bleachers |
Arnold Hano |
April |
|
California 49 |
ed. Warren Heckrotte |
April |
|
An August to Remember |
William L. Shirer |
April |
|
The Life of Charlemagne |
Einhard tr. Lewis Thorpe |
April |
|
Paul Among the People |
Sarah Ruden |
April |
|
True Grit |
Charles Portis |
April |
|
Death on the Nile |
Agatha Christie |
April |
|
Relativity |
Albert Einstein |
April |
|
Hills Like White Elephants |
Ernest Hemingway |
April |
|
How to Tell a True War Story |
Tim O'Brien |
April |
|
The Arrest of Arsène Lupin |
Maurice Leblanc |
April |
|
Preludes |
T.S. Eliot |
May |
|
As Far as You Can See |
Kenny Braun |
May |
|
The Dam Busters |
Paul Brickhill |
May |
|
A Far Away Country |
Ruth Boswell |
May |
|
Ignition! |
John D. Clark |
May |
|
Civil Wars |
Louis Auchincloss |
June |
|
Devil Take the Hindmost |
Edward Chancellor |
June |
|
The Lottery |
Shirley Jackson |
June |
|
Hands of Time |
Rebecca Struthers |
June |
|
The Wristwatch Handbook |
Ryan Schmidt |
August |
|
Doctor Faustus |
Thomas Mann tr. John E. Woods |
August |
|
Death of a Pig |
E.B. White |
August |
|
Rummy |
A.E. Coppard and Robert Gibbings |
August |
|
Paul's Case |
Willa Cather |
August |
|
Super-Frog Saves Tokyo |
Haruki Murakami tr. Jay Rubin |
August |
|
Portrait of Hemingway |
Lillian Ross |
September |
|
The Last Question |
Isaac Asimov |
September |
|
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler |
Italo Calvino tr. William Weaver |
October |
|
The First Seventy-Five Years |
Oscar Lewis |
October |
|
Unpacking My Library |
Walter Benjamin tr. Harry Zohn |
October |
|
Sailing Alone Around the World |
Joshua Slocum |
October |
|
Life of the Beloved |
Henri Nouwen |
November |
|
Natural History |
Pliny the Elder tr. John F. Healy |
December |
|
Ex Libris |
Michiko Kakutani |
December |
|
The Red and the White |
Calvin Trillin |
December |
|
Everything and More |
David Foster Wallace |
December |
|
The World of Odysseus |
M.I. Finley |
December |
2022
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
| 1 |
Albion's Seed |
David Hackett Fischer |
January |
|
Garner's Quotations |
Dwight Garner |
January |
|
The Captain's Verses |
Pablo Neruda |
January |
|
Tropic of Cancer |
Henry Miller |
January |
|
The History of Doctor Johann Faustus |
tr. Harry G. Haile |
January |
|
The Man Who Solved the Market |
Gregory Zuckerman |
February |
|
Bad Smoke, Good Smoke |
John R. Erickson |
February |
|
100 Things We've Lost to the Internet |
Pamela Paul |
February |
|
Outline |
Rachel Cusk |
February |
|
The Victorian Internet |
Tom Standage |
February |
|
The Franchise Affair |
Josephine Tey |
February |
| 1 |
Shackleton's Boat Journey |
Frank Worsley |
March |
|
Liberty's Exiles |
Maya Jasanoff |
March |
|
The World-Ending Fire |
Wendell Berry |
April |
|
Four Lost Cities |
Annalee Newitz |
April |
|
Clean Code |
Robert C. Martin |
April |
| 1 |
The World of Yesterday |
Stefan Zweig tr. Anthea Bell |
May |
|
Push Turn Move |
Kim Bjorn |
May |
|
API Design Patterns |
JJ Geewax |
June |
|
How to Be Idle |
Tom Hodgkinson |
June |
|
Nothing Like It in the World |
Stephen E. Ambrose |
June |
|
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs |
Steve Brusatte |
June |
|
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas |
Hunter S. Thompson |
June |
|
Honky Tonk Hero |
Billy Joe Shaver with Brad Reagan |
July |
|
Simply Christian |
N. T. Wright |
July |
| 1 |
Our Town |
Thornton Wilder |
July |
|
Dust to Dust, Arcadia to Academia |
Harry G. Haile |
July |
|
An Elegant Puzzle |
Will Larson |
July |
|
Twelve Rules for Life |
Jordan Peterson |
August |
|
Lit |
Mary Karr |
August |
|
Stanley Marcus, A Life with Books |
David Farmer |
August |
|
Fat City |
Leonard Gardner |
August |
|
How to Live Like a Monk |
Danièle Cybulskie |
August |
|
The Viewpoints of Stanley Marcus |
Stanley Marcus |
August |
|
The Twilight World |
Werner Herzog tr. Michael Hofmann |
August |
|
Life and Fate |
Vasily Grossman tr. Robert Chandler |
September |
|
Cannery Row |
John Steinbeck |
September |
|
At the Strangers' Gate |
Adam Gopnik |
September |
|
The Art of Clean Code |
Christian Mayer |
October |
|
A Fitzgerald Companion |
Steve Garbarino |
October |
|
Open Circuits |
Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer |
October |
| 1 |
Arcadia |
Tom Stoppard |
October |
|
The Great Man |
Leo Tolstoy tr. Valeria Zecchini |
October |
|
Here is New York |
E.B. White |
October |
|
Living in the Woods in a Tree |
Sybil Rosen |
October |
| 1 |
The Aeneid |
Vergil tr. Sarah Ruden |
November |
|
The Making of Prince of Persia |
Jordan Mechner |
November |
|
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read |
Pierre Bayard |
November |
| 1 |
Something To Do with Paying Attention |
David Foster Wallace |
December |
|
Murder on the Orient Express |
Agatha Christie |
December |
|
A Child's Christmas in Wales |
Dylan Thomas |
December |
|
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele |
Olivier Guez |
December |
|
On Grand Strategy |
John Lewis Gaddis |
December |
|
Arson Plus |
Dashiell Hammett |
December |
2021
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
|
On Liberty |
John Stuart Mill |
January |
|
Factfulness |
Hans Rosling et al. |
January |
|
The Beauty |
Jane Hirshfield |
January |
| 1 |
Confessions |
Augustine tr. Peter Constantine |
February |
| 1 |
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds |
Charles Mackay |
February |
| 1 |
Sculptures for the Blind |
Lenka Clayton |
February |
|
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk |
Ben Fountain |
March |
|
Selected Poems |
William Carlos Williams ed. Charles Tomlinson |
March |
| 1 |
Frankenstein |
Mary Shelley |
March |
|
East West Street |
Philippe Sands |
March |
|
Capitalism and Freedom |
Milton Friedman |
April |
|
The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath |
Robert Samuelson |
April |
|
So Many Books |
Gabriel Zaid tr. Natasha Wimmer |
April |
|
Envisioning Information |
Edward Tufte |
April |
|
Why Buddhism is True |
Robert Wright |
May |
| 1 |
The Overstory |
Richard Powers |
May |
| 1 |
The Screwtape Letters |
C.S. Lewis |
May |
|
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess |
Bobby Fischer et al. |
May |
|
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater |
Thomas De Quincey |
June |
|
What I Believe |
Bertrand Russell |
July |
|
The Lost City of Z |
David Grann |
July |
|
The Conquest of Happiness |
Bertrand Russell |
July |
|
Absalom, Absalom! |
William Faulkner |
July |
|
Psychoanalysis |
Janet Malcolm |
July |
|
The Man Who Planted Trees |
Jean Giono tr. unknown |
August |
|
Cherry |
Mary Karr |
August |
|
The Scout Mindset |
Julia Galef |
September |
|
Alex Stewart |
John Rice Irwin |
September |
|
Three Philosophies of Life |
Peter Kreeft |
September |
|
If Then |
Jill Lepore |
September |
| 1 |
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain |
George Saunders |
October |
| 1 |
Based on a True Story |
Norm MacDonald |
October |
| 1 |
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket |
Randall Jarrell |
November |
|
The Bibliophile of the Future |
Jacques Barzun |
November |
|
Petrushka |
Peter McCarey |
November |
| 1 |
Going to Church in Medieval England |
Nicholas Orme |
November |
|
The New York Stories |
Elizabeth Hardwick |
December |
2020
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
|
Wolf Hall |
Hilary Mantel |
January |
|
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits |
Philip A. Fisher |
January |
|
The Pure and the Impure |
Colette tr. Herma Briffault |
March |
|
These Truths |
Jill Lepore |
March |
| 1 |
Chess |
Stefan Zweig tr. Anthea Bell |
March |
|
The Savage Detectives |
Roberto Bolaño tr. Natasha Wimmer |
May |
|
The Longest Line on the Map |
Eric Rutkow |
May |
|
The Forgotten Man |
Amity Shlaes |
June |
|
Who |
Geoff Smart and Randy Street |
June |
|
Fifty Years in Wall Street |
Henry Clews |
June |
|
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator |
Edwin Lefèvre |
July |
|
God's Fugitive |
Andrew Taylor |
July |
|
Once in Golconda |
John Brooks |
August |
|
Where Wizards Stay Up Late |
Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon |
August |
| 1 |
The ABC of Relativity |
Bertrand Russell |
August |
| 1 |
My Struggle: Book 6 |
Karl Ove Knausgaard tr. Don Bartlett and Martin Aitken |
November |
|
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day |
Arnold Bennett |
November |
| 1 |
Walden |
Henry David Thoreau |
November |
|
How to Do Nothing |
Jenny Odell |
December |
| 1 |
Meditations |
Marcus Aurelius tr. Gregory Hays |
December |
2019
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
|
The Good Spy |
Kai Bird |
January |
| 1 |
The Tobacconist |
Robert Seethaler tr. Charlotte Collins |
January |
|
Can't and Won't |
Lydia Davis |
January |
|
Daily Rituals |
Mason Currey |
February |
|
Atomic Habits |
James Clear |
February |
|
A Study in Scarlet |
Arthur Conan Doyle |
February |
|
Histories of Nations |
Peter Furtado |
March |
| 1 |
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics |
John Mearsheimer |
March |
|
A Field Guide to the English Clergy |
Fergus Butler-Gallie |
March |
|
The Only Story |
Julian Barnes |
April |
|
The Zulu Principle |
Jim Slater |
April |
|
Designing an Internet |
David Clark |
May |
|
The Melancholy of Resistance |
László Krasznahorkai tr. George Szirtes |
May |
| 1 |
How to Behave in a Crowd |
Camille Bordas |
May |
|
Production-Ready Microservices |
Susan Fowler |
May |
|
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information |
Edward Tufte |
May |
| 1 |
The Hebrew Bible |
tr. Robert Alter |
June |
|
The Looming Tower |
Lawrence Wright |
June |
| 1 |
The Liars' Club |
Mary Karr |
June |
|
Collected Poems |
Dylan Thomas |
June |
|
The Intelligent Investor |
Benjamin Graham |
June |
|
Municipal Dreams |
John Boughton |
June |
|
Bad Blood |
John Carreyrou |
June |
|
My Friends |
Emmanuel Bove tr. Janet Louth |
July |
|
84, Charing Cross Road |
Helene Hanff |
July |
| 1 |
A History of Western Philosophy |
Bertrand Russell |
September |
| 1 |
Poems 1962–2012 |
Louise Glück |
September |
| 1 |
Flights |
Olga Tokarczuk tr. Jennifer Croft |
September |
|
The Media Training Bible |
Brad Phillips |
October |
|
Fathers and Sons |
Ivan Turgenev tr. Peter Carson |
October |
|
Difficult Conversations |
Douglas Stone et al. |
November |
|
The Gray Notebook |
Josep Pla tr. Peter Bush |
November |
|
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
Benjamin Franklin |
November |
| 1 |
East of Eden |
John Steinbeck |
December |
|
The Great Railway Bazaar |
Paul Theroux |
December |
2018
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
| 1 |
Swing Time |
Zadie Smith |
January |
|
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth |
Chris Ware |
January |
|
Ways of Seeing |
John Berger |
January |
|
Economics for the Common Good |
Jean Tirole tr. Steven Rendall |
January |
| 1 |
My House of Sky |
Hetty Saunders |
February |
|
SQL Performance Explained |
Markus Winand |
February |
|
Learning Spark |
Holden Karau et al. |
February |
|
Piano Notes |
Charles Rosen |
February |
|
Weapons of Math Destruction |
Cathy O'Neil |
February |
|
Platform Capitalism |
Nick Srnicek |
March |
|
Down Girl |
Kate Manne |
March |
|
My Struggle: Book 5 |
Karl Ove Knausgaard tr. Don Bartlett |
March |
|
The Walmart Book of the Dead |
Lucy Biederman |
March |
|
Poems |
Wilfred Owen |
March |
| 1 |
The Beast Within |
Émile Zola tr. Roger Whitehouse |
March |
| 1 |
Cosmicomics |
Italo Calvino tr. William Weaver |
March |
| 1 |
A Doll's House |
Henrik Ibsen tr. Simon Stephens |
April |
|
The Balkans |
Mark Mazower |
April |
|
The Secret Agent |
Joseph Conrad |
April |
| 1 |
Soho |
Richard Scott |
April |
|
Awe |
Dorothea Lasky |
May |
|
Fire Season |
Philip Connors |
May |
| 1 |
Melville |
Jean Giono tr. Paul Eprile |
May |
| 1 |
Wind, Sand and Stars |
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry tr. William Rees |
May |
| 1 |
Compass |
Mathias Énard tr. Charlotte Mandell |
June |
|
The Rise of Big Data Policing |
Andrew G. Ferguson |
June |
|
Effective Java |
Joshua Bloch |
June |
|
The Great Crash 1929 |
John Kenneth Galbraith |
June |
|
Regarding the Pain of Others |
Susan Sontag |
July |
| 1 |
Turtle Diary |
Russell Hoban |
August |
|
Broke and Patriotic |
Francesco Duina |
August |
| 1 |
My Year of Rest and Relaxation |
Ottessa Moshfegh |
August |
|
Lincoln in the Bardo |
George Saunders |
August |
| 1 |
Moby Dick |
Herman Melville |
September |
| 1 |
Coyote Doggirl |
Lisa Hanawalt |
September |
|
The Summer Book |
Tove Jansson tr. Thomas Teal |
September |
|
Wade in the Water |
Tracy K. Smith |
September |
| 1 |
Fictions |
Jorge Luis Borges tr. Andrew Hurley |
September |
|
At the Existentialist Café |
Sarah Bakewell |
October |
| 1 |
Milk |
Dorothea Lasky |
October |
| 1 |
Stoner |
John Williams |
October |
|
When Presidents Lie |
Eric Alterman |
October |
|
The Righteous Mind |
Jonathan Haidt |
November |
|
Call for the Dead |
John le Carré |
November |
| 1 |
My Name is Lucy Barton |
Elizabeth Strout |
November |
|
Gödel's Proof |
Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman |
November |
| 1 |
The Nix |
Nathan Hill |
December |
|
Selected Papers on Fun and Games |
Donald E. Knuth |
December |
|
Draft No. 4 |
John McPhee |
December |
|
Oil 101 |
Morgan Downey |
December |
| 1 |
Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants |
Mathias Énard tr. Charlotte Mandell |
December |
2017
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
|
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics |
Carlo Rovelli tr. Simon Carnell and Erica Segre |
January |
|
SPQR |
Mary Beard |
January |
| 1 |
Invisible Cities |
Italo Calvino tr. William Weaver |
January |
|
On Toleration |
Michael Walzer |
February |
| 1 |
A Whole Life |
Robert Seethaler tr. Charlotte Collins |
March |
|
The Dud Avocado |
Elaine Dundy |
April |
|
Amsterdam Stories |
Nescio tr. Damion Searls |
April |
|
Literature Class |
Julio Cortázar tr. Katherine Silver |
April |
| 1 |
The Idiot |
Elif Batuman |
May |
|
The Possessed |
Elif Batuman |
July |
|
a |
Sophie Robinson |
July |
| 1 |
The Peregrine |
J.A. Baker |
July |
|
Rasputin |
Douglas Smith |
August |
|
Last Look |
Charles Burns |
September |
|
War and War |
László Krasznahorkai tr. George Szirtes |
September |
|
Java 8 in Action |
Raoul-Gabriel Urma et al. |
October |
|
Autumn |
Ali Smith |
October |
| 1 |
The Name of the Rose |
Umberto Eco tr. William Weaver |
October |
|
You Must Change Your Life |
Rachel Corbett |
November |
| 1 |
Rome |
Dorothea Lasky |
November |
|
Night Walks |
Charles Dickens |
December |
|
Here |
Richard McGuire |
December |
|
Killing and Dying |
Adrian Tomine |
December |
| 1 |
The Sport of Kings |
C.E. Morgan |
December |
|
Bomb |
Steve Sheinkin |
December |
2016
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
| 1 |
Mercury |
Ariana Reines |
January |
|
Coeur de Lion |
Ariana Reines |
January |
|
Citizen |
Claudia Rankine |
February |
|
Garments Against Women |
Anne Boyer |
February |
|
The Unbearable Lightness of Being |
Milan Kundera tr. Michael Henry Heim |
February |
|
Civilwarland in Bad Decline |
George Saunders |
February |
| 1 |
Blindness |
José Saramago tr. Giovanni Pontiero |
March |
|
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. |
Adelle Waldman |
March |
|
Lust & Wonder |
Augusten Burroughs |
March |
|
Women in Public |
Elaine Kahn |
April |
| 1 |
Hopscotch |
Julio Cortázar tr. Gregory Rabassa |
April |
|
Ready Player One |
Ernest Cline |
May |
|
Crush |
Richard Siken |
May |
| 1 |
My Struggle: Book 4 |
Karl Ove Knausgaard tr. Don Bartlett |
May |
|
Blues Triumphant |
Jonterri Gadson |
May |
|
Private Citizens |
Tony Tulathimutte |
June |
|
The Crying of Lot 49 |
Thomas Pynchon |
July |
|
The Italians |
John Hooper |
July |
| 1 |
The Birds |
Tarjei Vesaas tr. Michael Barnes and Torbjorn Stoverud |
July |
| 1 |
The Importance of Being Earnest |
Oscar Wilde |
July |
|
Eternal Enemies |
Adam Zagajewski tr. Clare Cavanagh |
July |
| 1 |
Season of Migration to the North |
Tayeb Salih tr. Denys Johnson-Davis |
August |
| 1 |
Gooseberries |
Anton Chekhov tr. Constance Garnett |
September |
| 1 |
The Master and Margarita |
Mikhail Bulgakov tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky |
October |
| 1 |
How to Set a Fire and Why |
Jesse Ball |
October |
| 1 |
The Door |
Magda Szabó tr. Len Rix |
November |
|
Of Walking In Ice |
Werner Herzog tr. Martje Herzog and Alan Greenberg |
December |
2015
My Struggle, Books 1-3 by Karl Ove Knausgaard tr. Don Bartlett: So good, like everyone says.
The Martian by Andy Weir: A fun, gripping story about a man trapped on Mars. The science isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t need to be.
Redeployment by Phil Klay: A collection of stories about the war in Iraq from various perspectives. I was lucky enough to talk with President Obama earlier this year, and he mentioned that America lacks any compulsory military service, which is something that many other countries have. This book made me think about how our country would be different if we all had that shared experience.
The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker: An argument for why violence has declined. I read the chapters “The Long Peace” and “The New Peace” for my international security class. We heard a rubuttal from Tanisha Fazal that Pinker fails to take into account the shift of battle casualties from deaths to injuries (due to better battlefield medicine and armor). Nonetheless, I hope Pinker is right and that war stays rare.
Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter: A very readable re-telling of the history and workings of Stuxnet. Contains references to Symantec’s “Stuxnet Dossier” and ESET’s “Stuxnet Under the Microscope,” which contain more information. I also learned about crackmes, which are fun reverse-engineering puzzles.
A Drive into the Gap by Kevin Guilfoile: A thoughtful, loving story about a father suffering from Alzheimer’s and about baseball. I really liked not only the story, but also the format of this book. At only 70 pages and about 4.5 x 6.5 inches, it fit easily in my back pocket. As a result, I carried it around with me and read it in places where I would usually have only my phone. I wish I had more books like this, because I’d prefer reading a book to goofing around on my phone when I’m, say, waiting at the doctor’s office, but often I find myself with only my phone. I have the Kindle app, but even so, I prefer a real paper book.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan: I’m coming late to this review, but I remember liking this book about a prisoner of war in World War II and his life afterwards.
How to Live, or, a Life of Montaigne… by Sarah Bakewell: I have not read Montaigne’s essays, but this book does of good job of explaining what Montaigne has meant to generations of readers, a meaning that has changed a surprising amount since, as various readers have noted, everyone finds themselves in Montaigne.
2014
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
| 1 |
Spheres of Justice |
Michael Walzer |
January |
|
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest |
Ken Kesey |
January |
|
No Regrets: Three Discussions |
n+1 |
February |
| 1 |
Americanah |
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
February |
|
The Double |
Fyodor Dostoyevsky tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky |
March |
|
Slow Getting Up |
Nate Jackson |
March |
|
Post Office |
Charles Bukowski |
March |
|
Thinking, Fast and Slow |
Daniel Kahneman |
April |
|
It’s No Good |
Kirill Medvedev tr. Keith Gessen et al. |
April |
| 1 |
The Corrections |
Jonathan Franzen |
May |
| 1 |
Film Studies: An Introduction |
Ed Sikov |
June |
|
The Gulag Archipelago |
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tr. Thomas P. Whitney and Harry Willets |
June |
| 1 |
The Son |
Philipp Meyer |
July |
|
Why Does the World Exist? |
Jim Holt |
July |
| 1 |
Blankets |
Craig Thompson |
August |
|
Last Man in Tower |
Aravind Adiga |
August |
|
Quiet |
Susan Cain |
September |
|
Bartleby the Scrivener |
Herman Melville |
September |
| 1 |
Wolf in White Van |
John Darnielle |
October |
|
The News: A User’s Manual |
Alain de Botton |
October |
| 1 |
Life on Mars |
Tracy K. Smith |
November |
|
The Sleepwalkers |
Christopher Clark |
November |
| 1 |
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay |
Michael Chabon |
December |
2013
|
Title |
Author |
Date Read |
| 1 |
At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past |
A. Roger Ekirch |
February |
|
The Trouble Is the Banks |
Mark Greif |
February |
| 1 |
Gödel, Escher, Bach |
Douglas R. Hofstadter |
March |
|
Hamlet’s BlackBerry |
William Powers |
March |
| 1 |
One Hundred Years of Solitude |
Gabriel García Márquez tr. Gregory Rabassa |
April |
|
Higher Education in the Digital Age |
William G. Bowen |
May |
|
A Field Guide to Getting Lost |
Rebecca Solnit |
May |
|
Shoplifting from American Apparel |
Tao Lin |
June |
|
A People’s History of the United States |
Howard Zinn |
July |
|
The White Tiger |
Aravind Adiga |
July |
|
Creating a Class |
Mitchell L. Stevens |
July |
| 1 |
House of Leaves |
Mark Z. Danielewski |
August |
| 1 |
Maus |
Art Spiegelman |
August |
| 1 |
Harvard Square |
André Aciman |
August |
|
The Jews of Silence |
Elie Wiesel tr. Neal Kozodoy |
August |
| 1 |
White Noise |
Don Delillo |
September |
|
Agent Garbo |
Stephan Talty |
October |
|
Debating Immigration |
ed. Carol M. Swain |
November |
|
California |
Kevin Starr |
December |
| 1 |
Tenth of December |
George Saunders |
December |
| 1 |
Bleeding Edge |
Thomas Pynchon |
December |
2012
|
Title |
Author |
| 1 |
Infinite Jest |
David Foster Wallace |
|
20 Under 40 |
ed. Deborah Treisman |
|
Ways of the World |
Robert W. Strayer |
| 1 |
Travels with Charley |
John Steinbeck |
|
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore |
Robin Sloan |
|
What We Should Have Known |
n+1 |
|
What Was the Hipster? |
Mark Greif et al. |
|
Examined Lives |
James Miller |
| 1 |
American Rust |
Philipp Meyer |
|
The Ask |
Sam Lipsyte |
|
Next |
Michael Lewis |
|
The Devil in the White City |
Erik Larson |
|
You Are Not a Gadget |
Jaron Lanier |
|
Fargo Rock City |
Chuck Klosterman |
|
Eating the Dinosaur |
Chuck Klosterman |
|
Mountains Beyond Mountains |
Tracy Kidder |
|
Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip |
Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov ed. Erika Wolf |
| 1 |
The Art of Fielding |
Chad Harbach |
|
Why Europe? |
Jack A. Goldstone |
|
The Cold War |
John Lewis Gaddis |
|
Children Of The Sun |
Alfred W. Crosby |
| 1 |
Open City |
Teju Cole |
|
The Shallows |
Nicholas G. Carr |
|
Diary of a Very Bad Year |
Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager |
2011
|
Title |
Author |
|
Flatland |
Edwin A. Abbott |
|
Last Chance to See |
Douglas Adams |
| 1 |
Bashō’s Narrow Road |
Matsuo Bashō tr. Hiroaki Sato |
| 1 |
March |
Geraldine Brooks |
|
The Violence of Peace |
Stephen L. Carter |
|
Heart of Darkness |
Joseph Conrad |
| 1 |
The Waste Land |
T.S. Eliot |
|
One Bullet Away |
Nathaniel Fick |
|
Rework |
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson |
|
Moab Is My Washpot |
Stephen Fry |
| 1 |
The Age of Entanglement |
Louisa Gilder |
|
The Undercover Economist |
Tim Harford |
|
Bit Literacy |
Mark Hurst |
| 1 |
When Brute Force Fails |
Mark A.R. Kleiman |
|
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo |
Stieg Larsson tr. Reg Keeland |
|
The New New Thing |
Michael Lewis |
|
Selected Poems |
Charlotte Mew |
|
Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation |
Joseph S. Nye Jr. and David A. Welch |
|
Coders at Work |
Peter Seibel |
|
The Phone Book |
Ammon Shea |
|
Frankenstein |
Mary Shelley |
|
Super Sad True Love Story |
Gary Shteyngart |
|
Smile When You’re Lying |
Chuck Thompson |
|
The Death of Ivan Ilyich |
Leo Tolstoy tr. Lynn Solotaroff |
|
Here, Bullet |
Brian Turner |
| 1 |
Taming the Bicycle & Other Essays |
Mark Twain |
| 1 |
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again |
David Foster Wallace |
2010
|
Title |
Author |
|
How to Read a Book |
Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren |
|
Freedom in Exile |
Dalai Lama XIV |
| 1 |
The Mathematical Experience |
Phillip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh |
| 1 |
Crime and Punishment |
Fyodor Dostoyevsky tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky |
| 1 |
The Karamazov Brothers |
Fyodor Dostoyevsky tr. Ignat Avsey |
|
Zeitoun |
Dave Eggers |
|
Nickel and Dimed |
Barbara Ehrenreich |
|
The Great Gatsby |
F. Scott Fitzgerald |
|
A Raisin in the Sun |
Lorraine Hansberry |
|
Beowulf |
tr. Seamus Heaney |
|
Introducing Wittgenstein |
John Heaton |
| 1 |
Inherent Vice |
Thomas Pynchon |
|
The Street |
Ann Petry |
| 1 |
Midnight’s Children |
Salman Rushdie |
|
The Aeneid |
Virgil tr. Robert Fagles |
Pre-2010
|
Title |
Author |
| 1 |
A Confederacy of Dunces |
John Kennedy Toole |
| 1 |
Ishmael |
Daniel Quinn |
|
My Ishmael |
Daniel Quinn |
|
Providence |
Daniel Quinn |
| 1 |
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance |
Robert M. Pirsig |
|
The Red Badge of Courage |
Stephen Crane |
|
Night |
Elie Wiesel tr. Marion Wiesel |
|
The Good Citizen’s Handbook |
Jennifer McKnight-Trontz |
|
The Odyssey |
Homer tr. Robert Fagles |
|
Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things |
Cy Tymony |
|
It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be |
Paul Arden |
|
Fahrenheit 451 |
Ray Bradbury |
|
Digital Fortress |
Dan Brown |
|
Slaughterhouse-Five |
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
Sophie’s World |
Jostein Gaarder tr. Paulette Moller |
|
The Hobbit |
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
Romeo and Juliet |
William Shakespeare |
|
Everything Is Miscellaneous |
David Weinberger |
|
Guns, Germs and Steel |
Jared Diamond |
|
The Know-It-All |
A.J. Jacobs |
|
The Joy Luck Club |
Amy Tan |
|
The Tempest |
William Shakespeare |
|
The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens |
David Gardner |
|
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead |
Tom Stoppard |
|
The Catcher in the Rye |
J.D. Salinger |
|
The Stranger |
Albert Camus tr. Matthew Ward |
|
Lord of the Flies |
William Golding |
|
The Hound of the Baskervilles |
Arthur Conan Doyle |
|
The Scarlet Letter |
Nathaniel Hawthorne |
|
Gulliver’s Travels |
Jonathan Swift |
|
A Tale of Two Cities |
Charles Dickens |
|
Count Down |
Steve Olson |
|
Little Brother |
Cory Doctorow |
|
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! |
Richard P. Feynman |
|
The Tao Of Physics |
Fritjof Capra |
|
Never, Never, Never Give Up! |
Dr. John Hobbs |
|
The Best American Poetry 2007 |
ed. Heather McHugh |
|
The Pluto Files |
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
The Piano Lesson |
August Wilson |
|
The Linux Cookbook |
Michael Stutz |
|
An Introduction to Mechanics |
Daniel Kleppner and Robert Kolenkow |
|
The Big Switch |
Nicholas G. Carr |
|
Why Does E=mc²? |
Brian Cox |
|
Freakonomics |
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner |
|
A Man Without a Country |
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
Dubliners |
James Joyce |
|
10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military |
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg |
|
The Dangerous Book for Boys |
Conn and Hal Iggulden |
|
Hamlet |
William Shakespeare |