Books – a record of the books I’ve read

My goal is to finish one book a month, and write summaries when time allows. My habit is to rotate between several books at a time; I like the ability to switch between titles depending on my mood and interests, like flipping TV channels or alternating Netflix shows. So all the books below are ones I’ve read from beginning to end; the ratio of books I start versus books I finish is probably something like 1:10 or even 1:20. The ratio seems to grow over time

Here’s a list of the summaries I’ve written. Most of them are also linked to below.

February 2024 – nada 🥲

January 2024 – nada

December 2023 – Open by Andre Agassi — forgot I bought it, but once I got into it (again), it was almost impossible to put down. Incredible and well-written story

November 2023 – also nada

October 2023 – nada

September 2023 – Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace (Japanese crime fiction)

August 2023

  • Balls Deep by Nick Krauser
  • Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky (absolutely incredible, I’ve been on a Tchaikovsky binge since Children of Men)

July 2023 – The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (inspired by this series of tweets)

June 2023 – none this month, reading too many blogs

May 2023 – Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke (book highlights)

April 2023 – no finished books, though lots of podcasting

March 2023

  • Collateral by Stuart Beattie (script)
  • Children of Men by Adrian Tchaikovsky (highlights)

February 2023

  • J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise (highlights)
  • Intimations of a new worldview by Brett Andersen

January 2023

  • Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
  • Ra by qntm

December 2022 – none, but really enjoyed sample of Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace

November 2022 – All You Need is Kill (manga) by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (on which Edge of Tomorrow is based)

October 2022Why Buy Bitcoin by Andy Edstrom

September 2022Breath by James Nestor (a life-changing book; I reacted to it in a similar way to Power of Habits)

August 2022 – John Rain by Barry Eisler

July 2022 – 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson (started reading it years ago, picked up again this month and finished the last ~20%)

June 2022 – none

May 2022 – none

April 2022 – none, instead I spent the time jumping back into video games (PS5: Sifu, Elden Rings)

March 2022 – 21 lessons on bitcoin by Gigi (yes, just “Gigi”)

February 2022 – more manga

  • I Am A Hero
  • Helck

January 2022 – more manga

  • Record of Ragnarok
  • Ranking of Kings (Ousama)

December 2021 – read all of the Kengan Omega manga (~150 issues)

November 2021 – read all of the Kengan Ashura manga (~250 issues)

October 2021 – failed to finish a book 🥲

September 2021

  • 28 Days Later screenplay by Alex Garland
  • Tremors screenplay by S.S. Wilson

August 2021

  • Two unpublished screenplays
  • Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey (audiobook)
  • Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (audiobook)
  • Do Androids dream of electric sheep? by Philip Dick (audiobook)

July 2021

  • Tombstone screenplay by Kevin Jarre
  • Logan screenplay by James Mangold
  • Dune audiobook by Frank Herbert
  • War for the Planet of the Apes screenplay by Matt Reeves
  • The Graveyard Book audiobook by Neil Gaiman (again)
  • Hacks TV show, pilot screenplay

June 2021 – re-read The Matrix script by the Wachowskis, reading some Chinese books (eg, Hunger Games Book 3, and 活着)

May 2021 – didn’t finish any

April 2021

  • Desperate Hours screenplay by Nicholas Mariani (amazing)
  • Hunger Games Book 2 (Chinese version)
  • 2 unproduced screenplays

March 2021

  • Gattaca screenplay by Andrew Niccol
  • Bright screenplay by Max Landis
  • Se7en screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker
  • Upgrade by Leigh Whannell

February 2021

  • Layered Money by Nik Bhatia [highlights]
  • Avatar screenplay by James Cameron

January 2021 – didn’t finish any

December 2020 – the Chinese version of Hunger Games Book 1

November 2020 – another screenplay month

  • What has government done to our money? by Murray Rothbard [free version here]
  • Screenplay of Collateral by Stuart Beattie
  • Screenplay of The Two Popes by Anthony McCarten
  • Screenplay of The Brigands of Rattleborge by S. Craig Zahler (amazing)

October 2020 – big month for screenplays

  • Screenplay of Knives Out by Rian Johnson
  • Screenplay of Star Wars: The Force Awakens by JJ Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt
  • Screenplay of Unforgiven by David Webb Peoples (amazing)

September 2020 – didn’t finish any books, but have begun sharing notes from articles and podcasts in weekly random notes posts

August 2020

July 2020 – didn’t finish again, although I did listen to a lot of podcasts lol

June 2020

  • World After Capital by Albert Wenger [highlights]

May 2020 – didn’t finish; spending a LOT more time on Twitter and reading Pocket articles, a lot less on books…

April 2020

  • Ender’s Game whitepaper by Parker Lewis [source]
  • The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth [highlights]

March 2020

  • eBoys by Randall Stross

February 2020 – didn’t finish

January 2020

  • Maxims and Reflections by von Goethe
  • Pimp by Iceberg Slim (gripping)

December 2019 – also didn’t finish (first two month lapse since early 2018)

November 2019 – didn’t finish

October 2019

  • The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh

September 2019

  • 三字经 – the Confucian “Three Character Classic”

August 2019

  • The Great CEO Within by Matt Mochary
  • Looper by Rian Johnson (script)
  • 道德经 by 老子 (Dao De Jing by Lao Zi) – for the 3rd or 4th time

July 2019

  • The Systems Bible by John Gall
  • Writing Screenplays that Sell by Michael Hauge
  • It Follows by David Robert Mitchell (script)

June 2019

  • Get Out by Jordan Peele (script)
  • Lost S1E04 (script)
  • Rick and Morty S1E06 (script)
  • The Matrix by the Wachowskis (script)
  • Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant [highlights]

May 2019

  • Absent Superpower by Peter Zeihan [highlights]
  • The Shochu Handbook by Christopher Pellegrini
  • Lost S01E01 – Pilot by Damon Lindelof (script)
  • Lost S01E02 (script)
  • Lost S01E03 (script)
  • Bourne Ultimatum by Tony Gilroy! (script)
  • Kubo and the Two Strings by Marc Haimes (script)
  • Rick and Morty – Meeseeks (script)
  • Training Day by David Ayer (script)
  • The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous

April 2019

  • Japan by Jim Stewart
  • Beat the Dealer by Edward Thorpe
  • The Everything Store by Brad Stone [highlights]
  • Paying For It by Chester Brown (graphic novel)
  • Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick (graphic novel)
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre (screenplay)
  • Letter from a Birmingham Jail by MLK Jr. (shorter memo)

March 2019

  • Election by Alexander Payne (script)
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts [nuggets]
  • Michael Clayton by Tony Gilroy (script)
  • Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson and team (script)

February 2019

  • What If? by Randall Munroe
  • Shonda Rhimes’s Masterclass (30 videos)
  • The Anatomy of Story by John Truby [a summary of writing advice]
  • Sideways by Alexander Payne (script)
  • Handmaid’s Tale (episode script)
  • The Americans (episode script)
  • Sicario by Taylor Sheridan (script)

January 2019

December 2018

  • Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card
  • Setting the Table by Danny Meyer [highlights]
  • Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (in Chinese)
  • Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

November 2018

  • Analects by Confucius [excerpts]
  • Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card

October 2018 – failed, not sure why, I did read a lot from Pocket, but perhaps I’m trying to read too many books at once (something close to six or eight)

September 2018

  • Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
  • The Little Prince by Antoine St Exupery (in Mandarin)
  • The Ava screenplay by Alex Garland

August 2018

  • Crux by Ramez Naam
  • The Untold History of Ramen by George Solt
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

July 2018

  • The Dhammapada, translation by Eknath Easwaran [highlights]
  • The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler [highlights]
  • Love Arcadia screenplay

June 2018

  • Hit Makers by Derek Thompson [highlights]
  • Save the Cat by Blake Snyder [highlights]
  • Lost in Translation screenplay
  • Pulp Fiction screenplay

May 2018

  • Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
  • Shot by Shot by Steven Katz
  • Earthsea Book 1 by Ursula K. Le Guin

April 2018

  • My Struggle: Book 2 by Karl Ove Knaussgard

March 2018 – none

February 2018 – none

January 2018

  • The Art of the Pimp by Dennis Hof

December 2017 – none

November 2017

  • The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson
  • Homo Deus by Yuval Harari

October 2017

September 2017 – none

August 2017

  • Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

July 2017

  • Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne

June 2017

  • Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale
  • How To Fail At Almost Everything by Scott Adams (for the 2nd time, here were my book notes from the 1st time)

May 2017

  • The History of God by Karen Armstrong

April 2017 – although I read a lot of long essays and Pocket articles and crypto-related white papers this month, I failed to finish a book for the first time since I began to track this activity in August of 2012 (!). The streak ends at 4 years and 9 months. So this becomes a must-fix for May and beyond. Need to make more time during the day for serious book-reading

March 2017

  • American Born Chinese

February 2017

  • Game of Thrones Book 1 (for the 2nd time)
  • Lonesome Dove [some excerpts]

January 2017

  • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (loved it)

December 2016

  • A Confession by Leo Tolstoy
  • True Believer by Eric Hoffer (for the 2nd time) [1-pager]
  • Dao De Jing by Lao Tzu, a translation by Ursula K Le Guin (for the 3rd time, although this is a new translation)

November 2016

  • The Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer
  • The Broken Buddha by Ven Dhammika
  • On The Road by Jack Kerouac
  • The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

October 2016

  • The Internet of Money by Andreas Antonopoulous
  • The Dhammapada

September 2016

  • Brands of Faith by Mara Einstein
  • The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

August 2016

  • The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson
  • I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

July 2016

  • The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran
  • Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  • A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean (9 beautiful sentences)
  • 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
  • Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (a great passage)

June 2016

  • Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
  • Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
  • The New Case for Gold by James Rickards
  • From Chocolate to Morphine by Andrew Weil
  • Boomerang by Michael Lewis (2nd time)
  • Money, Real Quick: The Story of M-PESA by Tonny Omwansa and Nicholas Sullivan

May 2016

  • Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (2nd time)
  • Cybersecurity and Cyberwar by P.W. Singer
  • The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (favorite excerpts)
  • The World’s Religions by Huston Smith

April 2016

  • The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (2nd time)
  • Dune by Frank Herbert (2nd time)
  • The Naked Voice by W. Stephen Smith
  • The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

March 2016

  • Law School Confidential by Robert Miller
  • The Law School Admissions Game by Ann Levine
  • No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
  • Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals by AL Duckworth and C Peterson [my review]

February 2016

  • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  • The Book of Psalms in The Old Testament
  • Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (2nd time)
  • The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz
  • Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (amazing)

January 2016

  • The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (summary)
  • A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
  • What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly (2nd time, read my summary here)
  • Here is New York by E.B. White (2nd time)

December 2015

  • Straw Dogs by John Gray (favorite ideas)
  • a standup comedy ebook by Jerry Corley

November 2015

  • East of Eden by John Steinbeck (the book was amazing and I started Cannery Row immediately after)

October 2015

  • Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  • Be Slightly Evil by Venkatesh Rao

September 2015

  • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
  • Wild Swans by Jung Chang
  • Here is New York by EB White
  • Appletopia by Brett Robinson
  • Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marques

August 2015

  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (2nd time)
  • The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
  • Turning Japanese by David Mura
  • On Writing Well by William Zinsser (wrote about it here)
  • Technology Matters by David Nye (2nd time, here was my original cheatsheet)

July 2015

  • The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
  • The True Believer by Eric Hoffer [1-pager]
  • FOB by Eddie Huang
  • The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
  • Darwin’s Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson (wrote about it here)

June 2015

  • The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (2nd time)
  • Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  • The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

May 2015

  • The Accidental Asian by Eric Liu
  • Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  • Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton (2nd time)

April 2015

  • Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  • The New New Thing by Michael Lewis

March 2015

  • Gold by Matthew Hart
  • I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
  • The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
  • Ubik by Philip Dick
  • Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  • Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

February 2015

  • No Exit by Gideon Lewis-Krauss
  • Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
  • Getting Real and Rework by Jason Fried and DHH
  • Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

January 2015

  • How to Fail at Almost Everything by Scott Adams (book notes)
  • Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulous

December 2014

  • The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
  • The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
  • The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall [partial summary]

November 2014

  • Technology Matters by David Nye [1-pager]
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marques (AMAZING)

October 2014

  • Waking Up by Sam Harris
  • Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko

September 2014

  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons

August 2014

  • 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout (for the 2nd time)
  • My Struggle: Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard

July 2014

  • A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
  • College Unbound by Jeffrey Selingo
  • Recruit or Die by Chris Resto, Ian Ybarra and Ramit Sethi
  • The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly [summary]

June 2014

  • One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan

May 2014

  • 道德经 by 老子 (Dao De Jing by Lao Zi)

April 2014

  • Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville – paused
  • The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen
  • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott – paused
  • Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders by Warren Buffett – read ~10 of them
  • Windfall by McKenzie Funk – paused

March 2014

  • Antifragile by Nassim Taleb
  • So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport (great!!) [summary]

February 2014 [update]:

  • The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
  • Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson
  • Daily Rituals by Mason Currey [summary]
  • The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller

January 2014 [update]:

  • A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin
  • That Used to Be Us by Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

December 2013 [update]:

  • A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
  • A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
  • Be Slightly Evil by Venkatesh Rao
  • DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman
  • Race Against The Machine by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson [summary]

October and November 2013 [update]:

  • David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  • South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

September 2013 [update]:

  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  • Hard-Boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry

August 2013

  • Stardust by Neil Gaiman
  • Stein on Writing by Sol Stein
  • The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
  • On Writing by Stephen King
  • The Launch Pad by Randall Stross

July 2013 [Monthly review

Monthly review]

June 2013 [Monthly reviewMonthly review]

  • Levels of the Game by John McPhee
  • Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer [Cheatsheet]
  • The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

May 2013 [Monthly review]

  • Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

April 2013 [Monthly review]

  • Postcards from Tomorrow Square by James Fallows [Cheatsheet]
  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

March 2013

  • Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan

February 2013 [Monthly review]

  • Language Intelligence by Joseph Romm [Cheatsheet]
  • The Big Miss by Hank Haney
  • Talent Code by Daniel Coyle [Cheatsheet]
  • Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

January 2013 [Monthly review]

December 2012

  • The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren [Guide]
  • The 13 Virtues by Ben Franklin [Guide]

November 2012

  • Fantastic Voyage by Ray Kurzweil

October 2012

  • What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami [Blog post]
  • The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
  • The Billion Dollar Kiss by Jeffrey Stepakoff

September 2012

  • Infamous Scribblers by Eric Burns [Blog post]
  • Life of Pi by Yann Martel

August 2012

  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Some completed books from the past:

*Keeping track so I can write about them in the future

  • Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton
  • Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini (a must if you enjoy social psychology)
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (my first foray into techno-utopia/techno-sci-fi)
  • The Hunger Games trilogy (all 3) by Suzanne Collins
  • Game Change: Obama and the Clintons by Heilemann and Halperin (a great blow-by-blow of the ’08 campaigns)