What I read in 2018

This is the fifth time I’ve published my book diet for the year (though admittedly a few days late). It’s a pretty eclectic mix this year, and I’m happy to report I did manage to squeeze in a few classics amidst my steady diet of not-so-classics. Not gonna lie, Gilgamesh (humankind’s earliest surviving written story) is kinda awesome. I did fail in my promise to myself to stop reading anything approaching pop-pseudo-psychology and self-help. I keep telling myself it’s because it’s background for all the writing on the topic I have planned, but it’s really a poor excuse.

This number is also totally inflated because I decided to include a few things from Audible that not only did I not “read” but aren’t exactly even books. Audible recently started giving members two free “Audible Originals” downloads every month, which are a combination of short books, plays, and…episodic treatments of a theme? Either way, they’re neat! (And audible is still offering two free books when you sign up.)

1. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss (This book is so frequently referenced and has generated so much copycat drivel that I’m shocked I hadn’t read the actual source before. Unfortunately, you can’t be a practicing physician in 4 hours a week, and most of the other insights I liked have remained unchanged since the time of the ancient Stoics.)
2. The Doctors Guide to Smart Career Alternatives and Retirement by Cory S. Fawcett (I wouldn’t mind retiring to write books either; writing them while gainfully employed is hard work!)
3. The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell (I wouldn’t want to live in Scandinavia, but I would like their social benefits please)
4. Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook by David Galef (Nanoism and I get a shoutout and a couple of reprints in the final chapter, which is neat)
5. So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport (Along with Deep Work, Newport has written two of the least cringe-worthy entries in the productivity/self-help genre. I don’t regret reading either one.)
6. American Sniper by Chris Kyle
7. What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami
8. SP4RX by Wren McDonald (‏One thing that I love about graphic novels is how different art styles can inform and reflect the story. Grabbing a random new one off the shelf is always fun when I take my son to the library)
9. Can’t and Won’t (Stories) by Lydia Davis (it took me over a year reading this book in small chunks to get through it. Had high hopes, as I tend to enjoy (and of course publish) very short stories. Ultimately many of the shortest ones felt empty, while the longer ones generally felt somewhat plodding and maybe even indulgent?)
10. Island by Aldous Huxley (a treatise on the benefits of Buddhism and magic mushrooms loosely masquerading as a story. Brave New World it is not.)
11. Dockwood by Jon McNaught (beautiful, unique art, almost like a nearly silent film; very short graphic novel (really two graphic short stories) but so quietly depressing).
12. Mooncop by Tom Gauld
13. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang
14. How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields (ugh. answer = buckets)
15. Catch Me if You Can by Frank W. Abagnale (fascinating)
16. Stephen Colbert’s Midnight Confessions (Weak. I did almost belly laugh once though. I also read it in Barnes and Noble for free, so well worth the price of admission).
17. The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein (awesome near-future techno-romp)
18. Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer (Magic 2.0 #2)
19. First Man: Reimagining Matthew Henson by Simon Schwartz
20. Buzz! by Ananth Panagariya and Tess Stone
21. An Unwelcome Quest by Scott Meyer (Magic 2.0 #3)
22. Fight and Flight by Scott Meyer (Magic 2.0 #4) (Ugh this was so weak compared to the first three.)
23. Ikigai by Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia (I told myself I wouldn’t buy any more terrible self-help Audible daily deals, but I’m a sucker for Japanese wisdom. This was really terrible but at least mercifully short)
24. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (a unique trip, novels within novels *inception horn*)
25. The Elements of Style by Strunk & White (I think this my third re-read)
26. You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
27. The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster (published in 1909! probably the inspiration for WALL-E)
28. Consciousness and the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene (not the fastest or easiest read, but a fascinating one nonetheless. His writing for a general audience is much more palatable than his papers from the 90s and early 2000s I read during one of my college seminars).
29. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
30. Infinite by Jeremy Robinson (I thought this was an awesome sci-fi thriller thingie)
31. See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng (highly recommended, particularly if you liked the Curious Incident)
32. What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Richard P. Feynman
33. Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (Robots #1)
34. The Sky Below by Scott Parazynski
35. The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov (Robots #2)
36. The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov (Robots #3)
37. You Do You by Sara Knight (her first book was far funnier and superior)
38. Out of Spite, Out of Mind by Scott Meyer (Magic 2.0 #5)
39. Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell
40. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (I read this so many years ago that it took me a few chapters to realize I’d already read it! A true science fiction classic)
41. Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for Ultrahuman Protection by Alexander C. Kane (fun!)
42. Outcasts of Order by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (I don’t know if I’m just getting older, but the writing in this subseries is more repetitive and the characters more two-dimensional than I seem to remember. Nonetheless, Modesitt may always be my guilty pleasure.)
43. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (really good! Arthur C. Clarke Award winner)
44. Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson
45. The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
46. No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin
47. Misbehaving by Richard Thaler
48. Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive #3) (#4 please…)
49. Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner
50. Capital Gaines by Chip Gaines (If I could see deep inside myself, I’d still never know why I read this)
51. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss (This is an excellent [the best?] book on negotiating. Probably should be a must-read for every graduating resident)
52. One Doctor by Brendan Reilly (This is a beautiful doctor memoir. It really is lovely. Reilly also deftly weaves in the frustrations and issues with the changes in the practice of American medicine deftly and with excellent perspective).
53. You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham (by the creator of the software of the same name)
54. Bushido Online: The Battle Begins by Nikita Thorn (I can’t fully express how utterly silly and fun this book is. It’s a LitRPG. I didn’t know what a LitRPG was before, but it’s basically a book where the action and character development occurs like a roleplaying game. People have hitpoints. Gain abilities. Go on quests. It’s just so adorably goofy.)
55. Bushido Online: Friends and Foes by Nikita Thorn
56. The Coming Storm by Michael Lewis
57. Girls and Boys by Dennis Kelly
58. Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe #2)
59. Boomerang by Michael Lewis
60. Atomic Habits by James Clear
61. Laid Waste by Julia Gfrorer
62. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” By Richard P. Feynman (I feel like if I had a spirit animal, it would have been Feynman.)
63. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay (a diary version of the medical coming-of-age tale. You know the end before it starts, but it’s still a good ride with some laugh out loud funny bits. It was also neat to make sense of how training works in the UK)
64. Twain’s Feast by Andrew Beahrs
65. No Land’s Man by Aasif Mandvi
66. The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
67. I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (not great even as far as super-powered YA goes, but when I discovered that Lore is a pen-name for a group of writers including literature’s greatest modern liar [James Frey], I was curious).
68. Zero G by Dan Wells
69. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell (Why do I keep reading this tripe??)
70. Victorian Secrets by Stephen Fry
71. The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi (The Interdependency #2)(I really enjoyed this one. Has some echoes of Asimov’s Foundation but written with foul-mouthed contemporary style and pacing)
72. Out of My Mind by Alan Arkin (um, this was odd and meh)
73. Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger

I’ve read some long books over the years, but Sanderson’s 1248-page epic Oathbringer was a monster.

I have so many unread books on the shelf it’s almost embarrassing (I practice the art of Tsundoku), and also I really want to finish writing book #4 this year—I need to get to work!