Creation Lake was a shortlist finalist for the Booker Prize which has become one of my go-to sources of great reading. I have read maybe…
Why I decided to buy and read Man's Search for Meaning at this moment I do not know. However I am glad that I did. I have heard of it…
After reading Fever House I knew that I would need to read The Devil by Name which is the sequel. Like nearly all sequels, the most novel…
I heard about Fever House from a NYT Book Review podcast episode about favorite horror books from a couple famous horror authors. Joe Hill…
Deep Work has been sitting on my shelf for over a year. I had some time being sick to do some reading so I decided to pull it off the shelf…
2666: A Novel is insane. I think it was quite good but it took me forever to read and it was one of the most unique things I have ever read…
The Border is the last in the Power of the Dog trilogy. Maybe not as good as the others, but it was great to have an ending and was good in…
The Committed is the sequel to The Sympathizer. Both are very good.
The WEIRDest People in the World was a really great book. I don't have much of a review to write at the moment, but I highly recommend it.
I listen to the A16Z podcasts and one of them is One on One with A and Z which is pretty good. I think it is just recording a Clubhouse show…
Managing Humans was a recommendation from someone at work. It is basically a collection of blog posts turned into a book. That does not make…
I took a pretty serious hiatus from reading. Part of it is the move, part is just being generally busy with work and the rest of life. I…
I loved Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond so I have been looking forward to reading Collapse and I finally got around to it. It was a…
I am really glad I decided to read The Talented Mr. Ripley. I was thinking that I had seen the movie but after reading it I don't think I…
Hunt, Gather, Parent is the best parenting book I have read so far. It has many faults and I don't think you should just follow her advice…
Black List is yet another Scot Harvath novel by Brad Thor. It was still fun to read but they keep getting worse. This was did quite a bit of…
Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned is less of a book and more of a series of blog posts. It contains a great kernel of a idea, namely goal…
The Philosophical Baby is an interesting book from when viewed as a parenting book. It presents a lot of modern scientific understanding of…
Thinking in Systems is a great book about, well, thinking in systems. I have never heard of this field before which I am now realizing is…
Confronting The Classics I picked up because Taya had suggested that I might like it given my recent interest in history podcasts…
The Kingdom is both really annoying and amazing. It radically altered how I view Chistrianity, The Bible, and the church. But the author is…
The Athena Project is the next installment in the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor. Once again not much to talk about. I like these books, I…
Say Nothing is a history of "The Troubles" which is a part of history that I only vaguely understood before reading this book. This is a…
I heard about The Mom Test several times on different startup and tech podcasts. I decided to pick it up even though I'm not planning on…
Ghost Wall is very short and quite good. It starts off a little slow, but once it pulled me in I couldn't put it down until I found out how…
We are in a pandemic so I decided to pick up The Stand and give it a shot. This was a good book although not really that relevant to the…
The Whole-Brain Child is part of the current parenting zeitgeist mostly coming out of Southern California psychology practices. Like many…
I think I heard about The Three-Body Problem on the A16Z podcast, but I do not exactly recall. This was an enjoyable read, even more…
I heard about Atomic Habits on a podcast I listen to and decided to give it a shot. As basically a self-help book it is not bad. You have to…
I really like Joe Hill and the latest novel of his for me was The Fireman. The idea is great, the story was good, but I didn't really care…
I forget how I came across The Forever War, but I read it rather quickly when I did get around to it and it is pretty good. Similar to Old…
I picked up Old Man's War after hearing about it a few times. It is a fun and somewhat thought provoking science fiction book. It has some…
I fell behind on writing these after reading, so this is just going to be a marker. I read How to Change Your Mind and it was great. This…
Halfway through reading Less I came to the conclusion that I don't think I have read a novel before with a gay protagonist. That says…
From the author of An Officer and a Spy comes Munich yet another wonderful piece of historical fiction. This is a fictional spy thriller…
I am not sure why this one got recommeneded to me but The Spy and the Traitor as been on my list for a while now. I am happy to have watched…
2001: A Space Odyssey is a classic science fiction novel as well as a classic movie. I have seen the movie several times, but didn't really…
Having children changes your outlook on life. The Last Stone is a true crime story about the kidnapping and murder of two young girls in the…
I could not stand Pale Fire. I barely read it to tell the truth. Or I should say I had a lot of trouble so I just forced myself to get…
I enjoyed Ready Player One so much that I knew I was going to read Armada eventually. A great idea, executed okay, resulting in a good book…
The first I had heard of The Illustrated Man was in a reference on a tv show about a dead body covered in tattoos. Little did I know that I…
Taya had a book club with some friends, and for some reason they decided to read The Silent Wife. As we share Kindle books, I decided to…
Winner of a few awards and top of quite a few lists, Asymmetry is a book that defies a normal categorization. The book has three parts which…
Foreign Influence is the next entry in the Scot Harvath series from Brad Thor. An indulgent page turner from the get go, this one falls in…
Sometimes a book comes along where I'm convinced it is either horrible or amazing and I vacillate between the two. Typically the process…
I still need to read Lolita. It is one of the only audiobooks that I have ever made it all the way through and actually felt like I followed…
In the same general genre as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, In a Dark, Dark Wood is a thriller with some violence and a few twists and…
The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell is actually two essays really put together as a book. The first The Doors of Perception is…
Iron Gold is the fourth book in the Red Rising series which I originally thought was intended to be a trilogy. It has been a while since I…
Another member of the drug related books on Taya's bookshelf, Acid Test is yet another historical look at psychedelics in the United States…
The Apostle is book eight in the Scot Harvath series by Brad Thor. Not much to say about this one, it was about on par with the other books…
Give People Money is yet another book on Universal Basic Income. The writing is decent, the range of topics is worthy, and if you know…
I enjoyed all the other Joe Hill books I have read so far, and Heart-Shaped Box is no exception. This was a engaging and actually somewhat…
A classic sci-fi (although I think he classified it as fantasy) novel, The Martian Chronicles, is one that has always been on my list but…
The Shock Doctrine is a book detailing how capitalism has been spread throughout the world on the back of disaster and violence. I was…
The Last Patriot is the next installment in the Scot Harvath series after The First Commandment. Not much to say here, the books in this…
I have been thinking about universal basic income (UBI) a lot lately, and luckily enough so have a lot of other people. The New York Times…
I had this book Flow on my Kindle and couldn't remember whether I had read it yet or not, so I decided to read it. Just now as I sat down to…
A Brief History of Seven Killings, winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, is a challenging read spanning several decades centered on the…
The Shining is yet another Stephen King book that made it on to my list. I have seen the movie more than a few times over my life but never…
The last in the batch of parenting books that I bought, The Danish Way of Parenting turns to Denmark as a bastion of happiness to explain…
The Harvard Psychedelic Club was recommended to me by Taya as she was surprised I had not read it already. I had a decent understanding of…
Bringing Up Bébé is a book memoir combined with a book on parenting advice. The main point is that the culture of parenting in Paris is…
American Gods made its way on to my reading list again for some unknown reason. I think someone asked me if I liked Neil Gaiman and as usual…
Taya recommend another Ursula K. Le Guin book, The Dispossessed, which is set roughly in the same scifi universe as The Left Hand of…
Authority is the second book in the Southern Reach trilogy, the first being Annihilation. I would classify these both as literary science…
From the author of The Martian, Artemis is a great heist story set on the moon in the future. Once again he strikes just the right balance…
I saw a review for Rise and Kill First a month or so ago and immediately put it on my reading list. I decided to read it after I picked up…
The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee was recommended by our future pediatrician. In many ways it is a book about living a Jewish life and how that…
Another suggestion from Amazon's list of best books, Station Eleven is a story about humanity and civilization. The setting is before…
In trying to keep the sources of my books diverse I pull from some lists periodically just to keep an eye on what other people are reading…
Shoe Dog, the autobiography or memoir by Phil Knight, is a thoroughly engaging and entertaining account of the rise of the most iconic brand…
Horns is a wonderful dark comedy by Joe Hill. This one was recommended to me by my wife while we were walking in Washington D.C. and came…
The Left Hand of Darkness was recommended to me by Taya after she read this as well as The Dispossessed which I understand to be in the same…
Continuing in my reading trend of all things about inequality, The Great Leveler is a history book attempting to find causes for how income…
I added this book to my list some months ago after I believe seeing a review in a newspaper. I bought it in the last batch of books along…
A letter from a father to his son, Between the World and Me is something that got inside my brain. I had a lot of thoughts while reading…
Another book made it onto my list for a reason I can no longer remember. I decided to pick up The War of Art and power through it because…
Part of being married is experiencing new things that you would otherwise have not because of your partner. I can't say that I always…
A recommendation from Taya led me to pick up 11/22/63, yet another Stephen King book that she said I would enjoy. It turns out that I should…
Yet another Scot Harvath book from Brad Thor, The First Commandment was just as good as the rest. These books are a bit of my guilty reading…
When one gets married, there is an expectation of a gift or favor given to the attendees by the bride and groom. Taya and I had both been to…
Nausea was not that good. In some sense I feel bad saying that, especially when the Amazon tagline is "Sartre's greatest novel — and…
The Cartel is the sequel to Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog which blew me away when I read it in January of last year. I immediately put…
I am not entirely sure why I avoided reading Stephen King all these years, but now that I have started I don't want to stop. It is the…
Again on my search for things to read I went back to books that have won prizes and came up with The Sympathizer the winner of the Pulitzer…
Taya started watching the Hulu show based on this book, and before I wanted to watch it I had to read the book, so I picked up The Handmaid…
Chuck Palahniuk is one weird dude, I knew that after reading Fight Club. Reading Lullaby has solidified my opinion. Describing this book…
I guess I am reading the Dark Tower series now, so this was the second installment, The Drawing of the Three. Having enjoyed the first book…
Winner of the Man Booker Prize, The Sellout is an hilarous, irreverent novel set in roughly present day southern California. This is really…
Written by the author of Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals is the next step in a philosophical system…
Every once in a while a book comes along that many people talk about wanting to read or bragging about having read and I often find it hard…
Country of My Skull is a very good book both in content and style. I had never heard about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) or…
I thoroughly enjoyed Guns, Germs, and Steel as it presented a narrative that was based on the entirety of human history. This long time…
I was recommended to read one of the books in this series, so I chose the first one, The Color of Magic. It is super weird. I am not really…
I have delayed writing this post for over a month now. I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying because the Tibetan Book of the Dead was…
On Writing came to my attention through an interaction with a friend. I have always loved the creative process of writing, both fiction and…
I think I ended up reading The Good Girl because it was on the list of free books from Amazon for July or August. It was a decent book, at…
I am dragging this year on my reading. Part of that has to do with skydiving taking up a lot of my time. Part has to do with that I recently…
I kept hearing about or seeing Water for Elephants so that I came to the conclusion that it must be worth checking out. Overall it was an…
There are many books that for one reason or another exist in my mind as part of a list of classics. Books that I feel are quoted or read…
I picked The Last Girl as my choice for the free book of the month from Amazon, at least that is how I think I got this for free. It was an…
I heard about When Breath Becomes Air coming out probably because of the New York Times article that the author wrote, but I am not entirely…
Giraffe is the debut novel by J.M. Ledgard although it is the second book of his that I have read. I forget why I initially read Submergence…
The third and final book in the Red Rising trilogy, Morning Star was equally as good as the first two books. None of them are liteary…
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is not at all what I thought it was going to be. I had envisioned a book that had some general…
Fates and Furies is yet another work of literary fiction with a dramatic amount of metaphor and flowery language. This is a heavy book with…
Thank goodness for leap day as I managed to technically get in another book in February. I forgot why I added The Bell Jar to my wishlist…
I was in an airport bookshop and saw The Goldfinch on the shelf. I picked it up and glanced at the back cover, decided that yes I would like…
I am not sure where I had first heard of Siddhartha, but it has been in the back of my head as a book that I should read at some point…
All the Light We Cannot See has been constantly recommended to me, it was a top book of the year a couple years ago, as well as a Pulitzer…
Amazon created a TV series semi-based on this book and it was available as part of the Unlimited Kindle reading program on Amazon, so I…
Amazon started a program called Kindle First where you can pick one of six books each month to get for free. Of the six choices for January…
The movie Fight Club was good, but I always heard that I should read Fight Club as it was much better. Typical. In fact, this is such a…
I have seen The Power of the Dog on Amazon for quite some time now; the cover kept drawing my eye and the description was enough to have me…
Another Amazon recommendation that hit the spot, Bull Mountain is a fast paced, well written, crime thriller. The writing style is one that…
I have always been interested in the criminal justice system both from a fiction and non-fiction perspective. Forensics is a non-fiction…
Even though this book kept popping up on Amazon recommendations and other lists, for some reason every time I read the description I put off…
In my attempt to read a book a week this year, I have gone through a variety of different strategies to find new things to read. Amazon has…
Philip K. Dick is widely regarded as one of the top tier science fiction writers of all time. At the same time, he seems to have a bit of…
After reading a few of the Scot Harvath books by Brad Thor, Amazon recommended The Lost Codex which is part of the OPSIG series by Alan…
Gillian Flynn has proven to be one of my favorite authors. I have yet to read something by her that I did not like. This short story, The…
I have been trying to figure out how Submergence got added to my reading list and honestly I have no idea. I have a feeling this came from…
I just finished Takedown, which is book 5 in Brad Thor's Scot Harvath series. These books take me less than 24 hours to put down, mostly…
Wow, Dune was long, a bit complex, and good; Dune Messiah was similarly good, with a bit more complexity; Children of Dune took the…
I forget what movie I was at when I first saw the preview for this upcoming movie, but I was pretty excited when I saw it. There was a lot…
I happened upon an article in Slate that basically says adults should read books for adults and should be embarrassed about reading young…
Pop psychology books are usually not my bag, but I have had Mindset lying around for awhile after someone gave it to me and I finally broke…
Blowback is book four in Brad Thor's Scot Harvath series. I am not sure why I am sometimes able to suspend disbelief and sometimes I am…
Since I am back on the reading train, I went all in and plowed through Pretty Girls, which I decided to check out after an Amazon…
I started reading another book right after Dune but it proved too dense for me to keep up my motivation to get past the first third. What I…
I had only vaguely heard of Dune before I decided to add it to my reading list. Well, I had heard of it as this classic science fiction…
Movies and books are often times two sides of the same coin, but recently they seem to have diverged to the point of being unrecognizable…
After reading The City of Ember, I was sufficiently interested to see what the next installment in this series would have to offer. Thus, I…
Walden is yet another reminder that not all classics are good. I have a suspicion that those who pontificate on Walden only read the first…
I decided to put State of the Union on my reading list after reading a couple of the other Scot Harvath books. I have to say the first two…
Another science fiction book, another one in the class of important scifi books, but this one, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I think…
I have always enjoyed reading science fiction books, but for whatever reason I sometimes disagree with the status quo when it comes to what…
I read Red Rising a while ago and enjoyed it enough to put the second book in the trilogy, Golden Son on my reading list. Red Rising did not…
After reading a few young adult trilogies, Amazon recommended The City of Ember. This book was pretty similar to Red Rising and that trilogy…
I was looking for books related to the history of unconvential warfare, and Spec Ops kept popping up. This book presents a theory for how to…
I read Everything I Never Told You and The Girl on The Train for whatever reasons (I think because of some Amazon list), and hence A Small…
While reading Chosen Soldier, there was a reference to the book Masters of Chaos as a good historical account of the missions of the Green…
After reading The Lions of Lucerne, I really wanted to read more about Scot Harvath, so I followed up with the second book in the series…
There has been an increasing amount of discussion and interest in what is now known as the Autism spectrum, which includes Asperger's…
I don't completely know what to say about On the Road. It was an okay read, although I had trouble staying awake throughout as it was so…
Chosen Soldier is an account of how the US Army recruits and trains special forces soldiers. This was the state of affairs as of around 200…
I am usually not a fan of psychology books, especially not pop psychology, and even more typically not a fan of what could commonly be…
This is the last of Gillian Flynn's books that I needed to read. I read them nonchronologically, reading Gone Girl first, then Sharp Objects…
I have been reading a few military books recently, so naturally I would eventually come to read something about Delta Force. What better…
The Amazon lists of top books seems to be a bit hit or miss with me, but more hit than miss. The Girl on the Train is definitely a hit on…
Cryptonomicon was a long and at times convulted read, but overall it was entertaining. Although the book was not ridiculously long (around…
One of the more eye opening books I have read in a while, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a look at why some parts of the world advanced faster…
I just finished another book that further reinforced how much I like science fiction. Red Rising felt quite a bit like the Hunger Games and…
The Green Berets form an interesting part of our military. They are the Army's tier 2 special forces operators analogous to the SEALs which…
Another weird book that made it onto my list, but this one turned out to just be weird in a bad way. The Strange Library is a very short…
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is another book that made it's way onto my list via being a top rated book on Amazon. I am really…
I have always liked thrillers like Rainbow Six and The Bourne Identity, so when I heard about the Scot Harvath series, I decided to through…
Everyone in Silicon Valley has been talking about Peter Thiel's book Zero To One, so I had to add it to my list. I just finished it and I…
Rearranging my reading list to mix up the content and genre was definitely a good idea. Ready Player One got bumped up in my queue because I…
Historical fiction is a strange genre. The first example of this that I remember reading was The Agony and the Ecstasy. That was a very good…
I really need to stop reading books about families with dead daughters. I have read 8 books so far this year and 3 of them have their main…
See How Small is Amazon's Spotlight pick for January 2015, whatever that means. Basically, there was a list on Amazon of books and I picked…
Somehow The Martian ended up on my reading list and I am quite happy that it did. I found it difficult to put down, even more so that some…
Focus is one of the attributes that I like most about myself. It allows me to drop out of the rest of the world and engross myself in a book…
A couple years ago I picked up Gone Girl and was quite impressed. It was the kind of book that was really hard to put down, and more than…
This may seem like a bit of an odd choice for me to read, but I've been wondering what the big fuss was about this series of books…
I had heard about the story of Chris Kyle through various sources over the past couple years, but I had never got around to reading this…
Through a series of comedic errors I was recommended the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. I had never heard of it before it was…
I recently made a transition from writing Objective-C all day to writing Ruby all day. Part of this transition was facilitated by many Ruby…