Reading
I have always been a heavy reader, one with a wide variety of interests in both fiction and non-fiction. Like many, I spent a good numbers of years shifting towards aggressive news cycles and online short form content of little value. More recently, utilizing the approach of digital minimalism, and writers like Mark Manson on the news, I’ve been re-focusing on quality reading and note taking.
One of the elements of this approach is tracking what I would like to read, and what I have read. As I’ve written about, I use Instapaper for online content, and continue to work to cull the lower quality content, even if I sometimes still fall prey to it. A reading list for published books (physical and digital) has been a different challenge to find what works within my workflow.
The most common method, being GoodReads, I’ve excluded as I don’t want that level of tracking and algorithmic analysis of what I’m reading being used to generate advertisements and suggestions. In similar form, most other ‘apps’ that feel well developed have a similar purpose, which left me with more conventional methods.
As this page was originally published for, I tried building the list here in Markdown tables, but felt that was still time consuming to update and keep clean or organized. I also tried using index cards with some success, but that lead to a tendency to overkill, by trying to add details to each card like category, ISBN, publishing date/house and the like.
I’ve settled as a result on maintaining this as a reading journal, using one of my Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. A simple and direct way to record books by category that I want to read, and the date I’ve read them, no extra details.
Below, once it develops, will be links to lists, mainly by year reviewing what I’ve read, with any commentary or recommendations as I have them, and potentially links to other writers reading lists that I feel are well thought out.
[Favourite Reads Before 2023:]() – A general list of fiction and non-fiction I recall reading and enjoying in the past, in no particular order, given I have not consistently kept a list in the past.
Reading Now
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Caliban's War (The Expanse #2) | James S. A. Corey |
| Digital Minimalism | Cal Newport |
Would Like To Read
Non-Fiction
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Deep Work | Cal Newport |
| How to Live (Preface to Montaigne) | Sarah Bakewell |
| Montaigne | Stefan Zweig |
| The Moviegoer | Walker Percy |
| The Laws of Human Nature | Robert Greene |
| The Way of the Intelligent Rebel | Olivier Roland |
| Leisure: The Basis of Culture | Josef Pieper |
| The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca | Emily Wilson |
| Lincoln's Virtues | William Lee Miller |
| Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics | Stephen Greenblatt |
| Tiger Woods | Jeff Benedict & Armen Keteyian |
| Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill | Sonia Purnell |
| Blue Ocean Strategy | W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne |
| Blue Ocean Shift | W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne |
| Memoirs of Hadrian | Marguerite Yourcenar |
| Meditations | Marcus Aurelius |
| How to Be Free | Epictetus |
| Essentialism | Greg McKeown |
| Up From Slavery | Booker T. Washington |
| Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal | Ben Sasse |
| The Death of Expertise | Tom Nichols |
| Reasons and Persons | Derek Parfit |
| Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World | David Epstein |
| Average Is Over | Tyler Cowen |
| Speed & Scale | John Doerr |
| Shape Up | Ryan Singer |
| The Coddling of the American Mind | |
| Greg Lukianoff | |
| No Place To Hide | Glen Greenwald |
| Permanent Record | Ed Snowden |
| The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet | Roisin Kiberd |
| Will | Mark Manson |
In Progress
Reading List
Non-Fiction
Philosophy, Self-Help and Motivation
| Title | Author | Read | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discipline Is Destiny | Ryan Holiday | ||
| No More Mr. Nice Guy | Robert A. Glover | ||
| Everything Is F*cked | Mark Manson | 2020-06-06 | |
| Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff | Matt Paxton | 2022-04-07 | |
| MONEY Master the Game | Tony Robbins |
Psychology & Behavior
| Title | Author | Read | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thinking Fast and Slow | Daniel Kahneman | ||
| The Brain | David Eagleman | ||
| How The Mind Works | Steven Pinker | ||
| Incognito | David Eagleman | ||
| The Leading Brain | Freiderike Fabritius | ||
| How To Change Your Mind | Michael Pollan | ||
| Predictably Irrational | Dan Ariely | ||
| Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers | Robert M. Sapolsky | ||
| Brain Rules | John Medina | ||
| The Brain That Changes Itself | Norman Doidge | ||
| mindset | Carol S. Dweck | ||
| Your Brain At Work | David Rock | ||
| Stolen Focus | Johann Hari |
History
| Title | Author | Read | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dead Doubles | Trevor Barnes | 2022-03-01 | |
| A Higher Call (WWII) | Adam Makos |
Survival, Safety & Outdoors
| Title | Author | Read | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| How to Survive The Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life | Tim Larkin | ||
| When Violence Is The Answer | Tim Larkin | ||
Fiction
General
| Title | Author | Read | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winner Take Nothing | Ernest Hemingway | 2021-06-05 |
Sci-Fi
The Expanse (Series)
| Title | Series Order | Author | Read | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drive | 0.1 | James S. A. Corey | 2022-12-05 | |
| The Churn | 0.3 | James S. A. Corey | 2023-03-19 | |
| The Butcher of Anderson Station | 0.5 | James S. A. Corey | 2023-03-24 | |
| Leviathan Wakes | 1 | James S. A. Corey | 2022-10-28 | |
| Caliban's War | 2 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Gods of Risk | 2.5 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Abaddon's Gate | 3 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Cibola Burn | 4 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Nemesis Games | 5 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| The Vital Abyss | 5.5 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Babylon's Ashes | 6 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Strange Dogs | 6.5 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Persepolis Rising | 7 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Auberon | 7.5 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Tiamat's Wrath | 8 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| Leviathan Falls | 9 | James S. A. Corey | ||
| The Sins of Our Fathers | 9.5 | James S. A. Corey |