Books, continued

Keeping reading lists year-over-year has been fun. This year felt a bit different. I was still reading a couple of holdovers from my 2017 list and simply didn’t have the energy to create a new post for 2018. It felt unsustainable, like I was forcing it. So instead I’m following the lead of other smart folks who keep a single running list.

Currently

• Incerto by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A hardcover edition of 5 books that I already own. Taleb is one of a few writers good enough to buy multiple copies of when better editions come out. This is an excellent priting.
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson. Published by Stripe Press. This is a beautiful book.
• The Timeless Way of Building by Christoper Alexander. I never really put this one down from last year, the clarity of language and thought is unmatched. I foresee myself deep-reading (and re-reading) this for a long, long time.
• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. Keep at least one fiction book going at all times; the longer, the better. Started after finishing 100 Years of Solitude, staying on the theme of english translations of spanish lit.
• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

2019

• Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
• Every Tool’s a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It by Adam Savage
• Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James
• Makers and Takers by Rana Foroohar
• Ghosts of My Life by Mark Fisher

2018

• Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
• The Workbench Book by Scott Landis and Best Workbenches by the Editors of Fine Woodworking. I’ve taken on woodworking/joinery as hobby over the past year or so and a mentor recommended my next project be a cabinetmaker’s workbench.
• Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman
• Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching translation by Urula K Le Guin
• The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin
• They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Upcoming

• The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder
• Midnight’s Children by Salaman Rushdie
• Underworld by Don DeLillo
• City of God by E.L. Doctorow

Technophilia

• The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
• Cryptography Engineering: Design Principles and Practical Applications by Nies Ferguson, Bruce Schneier, and Tadayoshi Kohno
• Code Complete 2 by Steve McConnell
• Programming Beyond Practices by Gregory T. Brown
• SVG Animations by Sarah Drasner