Books
Like any normal, well-adjusted person, I keep track of which books I read each year. A lot of them are fun, trashy books about aliens or dragons, while others are not very fun, trashy books about aliens or dragons.
Ratings are how I felt about the book at the time, which in some cases has changed a lot.
I didn’t start tracking until about 2011, everything before then is from shaky memory, so there’s a bunch missing that maybe I’ll fill out some day.
2026
22 books · 7,958 pages
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Like many self-help books, this one really depends on your similarity to the author. I share some strengths and weakness with Cate Hall, so this book resonates with me, but I know plenty of people for whom this would be a terrible fit. If you enjoy the blog post that inspired the book or the rest of her blog posts, then the book is definitely worth reading.
Easy reading, but gets repetitive after a while
- All Systems Red (read 2023)
- Artificial Condition (read 2023)
- Rogue Protocol (read 2023)
- Exit Strategy (read 2023)
- Network Effect (read 2023)
- Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (read 2023)
- Fugitive Telemetry (read 2023)
- System Collapse (read 2023)
- Platform Decay
Not sure I’m convinced by the primary thesis here (that culture and artistic innovation have stagnated in the 21st century), but does a good job of giving a history of the last 25 years and just how much cultural production has changed in such as short time. Even though I lived through all these years, a lot of the fashion and celebrity stuff was new to me.
2025
28 books · 10,262 pages
Great overview of China's engineering-driven approach in contrast to the US legalistic approach, and why both countries need to learn from each other.
Read more: Breakneck
A moderately accessible introduction about the very real risks of superintelligent AI.
Read more: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
2024
23 books · 11,009 pages
Series starts strong, though the most recent books were just OK. Waiting on the final five books to be written.
- The Way of Kings (read 2017)
- Words of Radiance (read 2017)
- Oathbringer (read 2017)
- Edgedancer (read 2017)
- Dawnshard (read 2020)
- Rhythm of War (read 2021)
- The Sunlit Man
- Wind and Truth
I embarked on this (silly) goal to read ten Spanish-language books in 2023, but stupidly picked this 555-page monster with plenty of challenging Castilian vocabulary as my first book. Unsurprisingly, my reading speed in Spanish is far slower than English, and I discovered how much of my love of books is due to reading quickly. I kept on pausing this book to read other quick (English language) reads, so it took me about a year and half to finish this. I enjoyed the book, though my Spanish isn’t quite at the level to fully appreciate the quality of the writing.
The two books are interesting takes on foreign intelligence. The third book is skippable.
- Children of Time (read 2018)
- Children of Ruin
- Children of Memory
Heard a lot of hype about Emily Wilson’s modern translation, so decided to give it a shot. I found the preface and initial notes to be fairly interesting, and the translation is definitely more readable than what I remember in high school. However, finishing this ended up being a bit of a slog for me.
2023
21 books · 6,141 pages
Don't mistake this for a book about FTX, the focus here is Sam Bankman-Fried. Worthwhile if you're interested in his story and the genesis of FTX.
Read more: Going Infinite
Bob’s consciousness is uploaded into a spaceship’s, which heads out to explore the universe. Breezy reading, with style reminiscent of The Martian at times.
- We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (read 2019)
- For We Are Many (read 2019)
- All These Worlds (read 2019)
- Heaven's River
I know a lot of people that love this 10-book series, but I wasn’t a fan of the first, though the second was better
- Consider Phlebas (read 2011)
- The Player of Games
2022
36 books · 16,287 pages
I haven’t played the games or watched the show, but the books are enjoyable enough if you like the genre.
- The Last Wish (read 2020)
- Sword of Destiny (read 2020)
- Blood of Elves (read 2020)
- The Time of Contempt (read 2020)
- Baptism of Fire (read 2020)
- The Tower of Swallows
- The Lady of the Lake
- Season of Storms
2021
25 books · 10,908 pages
Space antics with realistic physics. Quality dips midway through, but first few books are great. I haven’t watched the show yet.
- Leviathan Wakes (read 2014)
- The Butcher of Anderson Station (read 2014)
- Caliban's War (read 2014)
- Gods of Risk (read 2014)
- Drive (read 2015)
- Abaddon's Gate (read 2014)
- The Churn: An Expanse Novella (read 2016)
- Cibola Burn (read 2014)
- Nemesis Games (read 2015)
- The Vital Abyss (read 2015)
- Babylon's Ashes (read 2016)
- Strange Dogs (read 2017)
- Persepolis Rising (read 2017)
- Tiamat's Wrath (read 2019)
- Auberon (read 2020)
- Leviathan Falls
2020
17 books · 6,866 pages
- The Collapsing Empire (read 2019)
- The Consuming Fire (read 2019)
- The Last Emperox
2019
25 books · 12,353 pages
Could have been edited down a bit, but overall was a fun series to read
- The Black Prism (read 2015)
- The Blinding Knife (read 2015)
- The Broken Eye (read 2015)
- The Blood Mirror (read 2016)
- The Burning White
A detailed history of the settlement and development of south Florida, focusing on the environment impact on the Everglades. Before this book, I didn’t have a great notion of just how young most of Florida is, it was a sparsely populated backwater up until recently (now it’s a highly-populous backwater).
This took a long while to read. Drags a bit in the middle, but finishes strong.
- The Eye of the World (read 2018)
- The Great Hunt (read 2018)
- The Dragon Reborn (read 2018)
- The Shadow Rising (read 2018)
- The Fires of Heaven (read 2018)
- Lord of Chaos (read 2018)
- A Crown of Swords (read 2018)
- The Path of Daggers (read 2018)
- Winter's Heart (read 2018)
- Crossroads of Twilight
- Knife of Dreams
- The Gathering Storm
- Towers of Midnight
- A Memory of Light
2018
13 books · 9,773 pages
2017
17 books · 9,431 pages
2016
26 books · 11,902 pages
Can be a little tricky to keep the Chinese names straight, but some really interesting ideas. Each book is quite different.
- The Three-Body Problem (read 2014)
- The Dark Forest
- Death's End
2015
26 books · 10,422 pages
2014
40 books · 16,306 pages
2013
20 books · 9,228 pages
2012
9 books · 4,599 pages
2011
17 books · 11,120 pages
2010
5 books · 2,149 pages
2009
7 books · 2,860 pages
2008
34 books · 12,282 pages
I read the Portuguese (Portugal) translations of these
- Harry Potter e a pedra filosofal (read 2004)
- Harry Potter e a Câmara dos Segredos (read 2004)
- Harry Potter e o prisioneiro de Azkaban (read 2005)
- Harry Potter e o Cálice de Fogo (read 2005)
- Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fénix (read 2006)
- Harry Potter e o Príncipe Misterioso (read 2006)
- Harry Potter e os Talismãs da Morte
2007
23 books · 9,106 pages
2006
20 books · 7,508 pages
2005
11 books · 4,830 pages
2004
12 books · 3,437 pages
2003
15 books · 5,252 pages
2002
17 books · 6,533 pages
2001
11 books · 4,576 pages
I’ve since read a lot of valid criticism about the book, so unfortunately best to treat this a bit more as entertainment / messy theorizing than purely factual. Still, I absolutely loved this when I read it and it put me on a path to read all sorts of history, evolutionary biology, and linguistics books.
2000
10 books · 4,911 pages
1999
4 books · 847 pages
1998
6 books · 1,775 pages
1997
5 books · 3,129 pages
1996
15 books · 4,956 pages
The first book is definitely worth reading, the rest are quite different.
- Ender's Game (read 1995)
- Speaker for the Dead
- Xenocide
- Children of the Mind
1995
9 books · 4,132 pages
1994
7 books · 2,489 pages
1993
2 books · 1,215 pages
