- A list of books I’ve read since October 2016. For more on what I’m reading right now, check out my currently reading posts.
- Reverse chronological order of when I read them. Most recent is at the top.
- Books I strongly recommend are starred ★
2024
12 BOOKS
- My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (2011)
- Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz (2023)
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2018) ★
- Potty Training in 3 Days by Brandi Brucks (2016)
- Oh Crap! Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki (2015)
- The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone (2017) ★
- The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Norr (2020)
- Turning Wood by Richard Raffan (1985) ★
- The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (2024) ★
- Dare to Sketch by Felix Scheinberger (2017) ★
- Freehand by Helen Birch (2013)
- Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig (1987) ★
2023
29 BOOKS
- Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer (2023)
- The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli (2017) ★
- Birdseye: Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky (2012) ★
- System of the World (Baroque Cycle book 8) by Neal Stephenson (2004)
- The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (2023) ★
- Candle by John Barnes (2000)
- Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards (2017)
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss (2016)
- The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier (2016)
- Currency (Baroque Cycle book 7) by Neal Stephenson (2004)
- Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte (2022)
- Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara (2022)
- Shores of Bohemia: A Cape Cod Story, 1910-1960 by John Taylor Williams (2022) ★
- Simone by Eduardo Lalo (2011)
- Cod by Mark Kurlansky (1997) ★
- American Terroir by Rowan Jacobsen (2010) ★
- Golden Son by Pierce Brown (2015)
- Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez (2023)
- Delta-v by Daniel Suarez (2019)
- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (2016)
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown (2014)
- Solomon’s Gold (Baroque Cycle book 6) by Neal Stephenson (2004)
- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (1945) ★
- The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (1995)
- Freedom™️ by Daniel Suarez (2010)
- Daemon by Daniel Suarez (2006) ★
- Recursion by Blake Crouch (2019) ★
- The Juncto (Baroque Cycle book 5) by Neal Stephenson (2004)
- Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky (2002)
2022
26 BOOKS
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020) ★
- The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky (2006)
- Trust by Hernan Diaz (2022) ★
- Woodswoman by Anne LaBastille (1976) ★
- A Wild Idea: How the Environmental Movement Tamed the Adirondacks by Brad Edmondson (2021)
- The Adirondack Reader by Paul F. Jamieson (1982) ★
- Bonanza (Baroque Cycle book 4) by Neal Stephenson (2004)
- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019) ★
- Odalisque (Baroque Cycle book 3) by Neal Stephenson (2003)
- English Creek by Ivan Doig (1984) ★
- King of the Vagabonds (Baroque Cycle book 2) by Neal Stephenson (2003)
- 12 ways to be better to work with by Jaimee Finney (2021)
- Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle book 1) by Neal Stephenson (2003)
- A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (2005)
- American Buffalo by Steven Rinella (2008)
- Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022)
- The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi (2006)
- Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson (2021)
- The Valley of the Horses by Jean M. Auel (1980)
- The Amish: A Concise Introduction by Steven M. Nolt (2016)
- Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb (2018) ★
- The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (1923)
- Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (1934) ★
- Dust by Hugh Howey (2016)
- The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (1980)
- Truffle Hound by Rowan Jacobsen (2021) ★
2021
36 BOOKS
- Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse (1954) ★
- Very Important People by Ashley Mears (2020)
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (1963) ★
- The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)
- Shift by Hugh Howey (2013)
- Mexico by James A. Michener (1992)
- The End of All Things by John Scalzi
- Wool by Hugh Howey (2011)
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
- Smalltime by Russell Shorto (2021)
- The Human Division by John Scalzi (2013)
- Very Good, Jeeves! by P. G. Wodehouse ★
- Apex by Ramez Naam (2015)
- Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (2012)
- The Last Colony by John Scalzi (2007)
- The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin (2018) ★
- The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930) ★
- The Tide: The Science and Stories Behind the Greatest Force on Earth by Hugh Aldersey-Williams (2016) ★
- The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi (2007) ★
- The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain (2019) ★
- Looking for a Ship by John McPhee (1965) ★
- Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (2005) ★
- Friday by Robert Heinlein (1982)
- Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021)
- The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson (1975)
- Outland by Dennis E. Taylor (2015)
- The Singularity Trap by Dennis E. Taylor (2018)
- The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch (2018) ★
- Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein (2017)
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (2002) ★
- The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo (2019)
- Building an Adirondack Guideboat by John D. Michne (2018)
- Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord (2018)
- Intimations by Zadie Smith (2020)
- Oranges by John McPhee (1967) ★
- The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse (1938) ★
2020
27 BOOKS
- Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler (2016)
- Turing’s Cathedral by George Dyson (2012)
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Pearl Poet (Tolkien translation) (1925) ★
- Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor (2020) ★
- Once Upon a Time in the North by Phillip Pullman (2008)
- Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse (1915) ★
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
- Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard (1990)
- Heaven’s River by Dennis E. Taylor (2020) ★
- Homeland by Cory Doctorow (2013)
- Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
- Goodbye to a River by John Graves (1959) ★
- Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee (1975) ★
- The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials, Book 3 by Phillip Pullman (2000)
- Crux by Ramez Naam (2013)
- Nexus by Ramez Naam (2012)
- Veil by Eliot Peper (2020)
- The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (2020)
- Buffalo Girls by Larry McMurtry (1990)
- The Powers of the Earth (Aristillus Book 1) by Travis J. I. Corcoran (2017)
- Xenogenesis by Octavia Butler (1987) ★
- Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff (2016)
- The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials, Book 2 by Phillip Pullman (1997)
- God’s Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher (2015)
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (2007) ★
- The Anarchist’s Tool Chest by Christopher Schwarz (2011) ★
- Exhalation by Ted Chiang (2019) ★
2019
33 BOOKS
- The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book 1 by Phillip Pullman (1995)
- Malagash by Joey Comeau (2017)
- Basin and Range: Annals of the Former World, Book 1 by John McPhee (1981)
- Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg (2014)
- Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee (2006) ★
- The Founding Fish by John McPhee (2002) ★
- Atmosphaera Incognita by Neal Stephenson (2019)
- Wolf Boys by Dan Slater (2016)
- Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday (2019)
- Masters at Work: Becoming a Sommelier by Rosie Schaap (2019)
- Radicalized by Cory Doctorow (2019) ★
- The Pine Barrens by John McPhee (1967)
- The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972) ★
- The Last Pirate of New York by Rich Cohen (2019) ★
- Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson (2019) ★
- The Boatbuilder by Daniel Gumbiner (2018)
- The Mastermind by Evan Ratliff (2019)
- The River of Kings by Taylor Brown (2017)
- Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression by Johann Hari (2018) ★
- A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean (1976)
- The New Right by Michael Malice (2019) ★
- Keep Going by Austin Kleon (2019)
- The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower (1978) ★
- When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink (2018)
- Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London by Mohsin Hamid (2014)
- Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (2018) ★
- Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (1990)
- Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen (2018)
- Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport (2019)
- A Work in Progress: A Journal by René Redzepi (2019) ★
- Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin (1983) ★
- The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen (2012) ★
- Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone (2006)
2018
38 BOOKS
- The World is a Narrow Bridge by Aaron Thier (2018)
- Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau (1908)
- The Outermost House by Henry Beston (1928) ★
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
- Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (2017)
- Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark (2017)
- Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins by Garry Kasparov, Mig Greengard (2017)
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss (2016)
- Fashion Climbing by Bill Cunningham (2018)
- Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford (2009)
- Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda (2018)
- Bobiverse Trilogy by Dennis E. Taylor (2016) ★
- Niche Down by Christopher Lochhead & Heather Clancey (2018)
- Island by Alistair MacLeod (2000) ★
- The Great Halifax Explosion by John U. Bacon (2017)
- Hooked by Nir Eyal (2014)
- Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown (2017)
- Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World by Rand Fishkin (2018)
- Secret Sauce by Austen Allred (2017)
- Luna: Wolf Moon by Ian McDonald (2017)
- High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil (2018)
- The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (2014) ★
- Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (2017) ★
- Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick (2011)
- Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney (2016) ★
- Rise and Fall of the Dodo by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (2017)
- “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” by Richard Feynman (1988)
- Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday (2018)
- Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb (2018)
- Reamde by Neal Stephenson (2011) ★
- Mr. Eternity by Aaron Thier (2016)
- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)
- The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany (1967)
- Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday (2013)
- Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown (2007)
- Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller (2017)
- Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979) ★
- A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (2017) ★
2017
22 BOOKS
- Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams by Philip K. Dick (2017)
- Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (2002) ★
- A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh (2015)
- The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice by Trevor Corson (2006)
- The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto (2004) ★
- Boon Island: Including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley by Kenneth Roberts (1956)
- The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean by Trevor Corson (2004) ★
- Show Your Work by Austin Kleon (2014) ★
- Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan (2011)
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968)
- The Gentle Giants of Ganymede by James P Hogan (1978)
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (2016)
- Inherit the Stars by James P Hogan (1977)
- Giants’ Star by James P Hogan (1981) ★
- On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks (2015)
- The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz (1959)
- The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber (1985)
- ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!’: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman (1985) ★
- The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin (2007)
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz (2014) ★
- Forward Tilt: An Almanac for Personal Growth by Isaac Morehouse with Hannah Frankman (2017) ★
- Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald (2015)
2016
14 BOOKS
- Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss (2016)
- Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III (2011)
- Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (2016) ★
- Deep Work – Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport (2016)
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (2015) ★
- Maus I – My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (1986) ★
- Algorithms to Live By – The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths (2016)
- Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison (1979)
- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962)
- Pivot – The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One by Jenny Blake (2016)
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992) ★
- Rework by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson (2010)
- My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir (1911)
- Touching the Wild by Joe Hutto (2014)