The books I finish reading each year.

2025

1. Liberation Day - George Saunders
2. The Promise - Damon Galgut
3. Orbital - Samantha Harvey
4. The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante
5. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
6. The Trees - Percival Everett

2024

1. Neuromancer - William Gibson
2. Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin
3. The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin
4. When We Cease To Understand The World - Benjamín Labatut
5. How To Focus - Thich Nhat Hanh

2023

1. In The Distance - Hernan Diaz

2022

Kept up with buying photography books, kept up with not really completing any other books.

1. Guide - William Eggleston
2. Pickpocket - Daniel Arnold
3. All That Life Can Afford - Matt Stuart
4. The Imperfect Atlas - Peter Funch
5. On Landscape and Meaning - Richard Misrach
6. The Nature of Photographs - Stephen Shore

2021

The second year of the pandemic meant another year with no commute to devote to reading. Finally I realized I needed to make new space in my days, and I filled that space with photography and buying and "reading" photography books.

1. Having and Being Had - Eula Biss
2. The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
3. The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead
4. The Collected Works Vol. 1 - Scott McClanahan
5. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
6. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
7. Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov
8. Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov
9. The Americans - Robert Frank
10. Think Like A Street Photographer - Matt Stuart
11. Des oiseaux - Terri Weifenbach
12. Book - Brian Karlsson
13. The Company of Strangers - Gus Powell
14. Family Car Trouble - Gus Powell
15. Event - Matthew Beck
16. 42 and Vanderbilt - Peter Funch
17. Landing Lights Park - David Rothenberg

2020

1. Make Time - Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

   I read this before the pandemic started when I thought I had a whole year to experiment with.

2. Hollow - Owen Egerton

   The right amount of crazy just as the pandemic started.

3. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

   Yes, I read this during the summer of 2020.

2019

1. The Empathy Exams - Leslie Jamison

   A stunning set of essays on expressing, experiencing and understanding empathy.

2. Night Moves - Jessica Hopper

   A wild bike ride down Damen of a memoir of a Chicago that no longer exists. Hopper writes of a Chicago I can never move back to, before smart phones when biking the city was the only way to make sense of it.

3. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden - Denis Johnson

   I was reading this on the subway one morning and a woman said to me, with a slight smile, "What a wonderful title!" It is a good title, it's also an amazing set of short stories. Some how I hadn't read Denis Johnson before but I will be reading more of his work soon.

4. The Strange Bird - Jeff VanderMeer

5. The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie

   Another great book from Ann Leckie. This book, like her others, provide great characters and a story that pulls you right in.

6. How To Do Nothing - Jenny Odell

7. Milkman - Anna Burns

8. The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath - Leslie Jamison

9. Transit - Rachel Cusk

10. Kudos - Rachel Cusk

2018

1. Barbarian Days A Surfing Life - William Finnegan

   I've never surfed yet I truly enjoyed this surfing autobiography. It's a profile of surfing, of growing up, of being single minded, of getting old and of times changing. I've never surfed and I still don't want to, but I will probably read this book again.

2. White Tears - Hari Kunzru

3. Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace

4. A Loving, Faithful Animal - Josephine Rowe

5. Abbott Awaits - Chris Bachelder

6. Outline - Rachel Cusk

7. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay - Elena Ferrante

8. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid

9. The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson

10. The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

11. Ayiti - Roxanne Gay

12. The Throwback Special - Chris Bachelder

13. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

14. Provenance - Ann Leckie

15. Autumn - Karl Ove Knausgard

16. The Devil and Sherlock Holmes - David Grann

17. Winter - Karl Ove Knausgard

2017

1. Invisibility Cloak - Ge Fei
2. The Sellout - Paul Beatty
3. Hope In The Dark - Rebecca Solnit
4. Lincoln In The Bardo - George Saunders
5. In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin
6. Half An Inch Of Water - Percival Everett
7. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
8. Wait Till You See Me Dance - Deb Olin Unferth
9. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
10. In the Heart of the Heart of the Country - William Gass
11. The Sarah Book - Scott McClanahan
12. Notes from No Man's Land - Eula Biss
13. Found Audio - N.J. Campbell
14. Every Day is for the Thief - Teju Cole
15. Ways of Curating - Hans Ulrich Obrist
16. On Immunity - Eula Biss

2016

1. Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie
2. A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James
3. Can't and Won't - Lydia Davis
4. Karate Chop - Dorthe Nors
5. The Last Policeman - Ben H. Winters
6. Archangel - Andrea Barrett
7. On Such a Full Sea - Chang-Rae Lee
8. The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
9. Falling Out of Time - David Grossman
10. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour - Joshua Ferris
11. Young Skins - Colin Barrett
12. How to Do Things with Videogames - Ian Bogost
13. Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
14. In the Cafe of Lost Youth - Patrick Modiano
15. The Meaning of Human Existence - Edward O. Wilson
16. Studs Terkel's Working A Graphic Adaptation - Harvey Pekar
17. The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe - D.G. Compton
18. But Beautiful - Geoff Dyer
19. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
20. So Much For That Winter - Dorthe Nors
21. Nonviolent Communication - Marshall Rosenberg
22. The Story of a New Name - Elena Ferrante
23. Sag Harbor - Colson Whitehead
24. We Gon' Be Alright - Jeff Chang
25. The Sea - John Banville
26. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers - Yiyun Li

2015

1. The Braindead Megaphone - George Saunders
2. Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
3. My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
4. Man V. Nature - Diane Cook
5. Dusk and Other Stories - James Salter
6. Do Not Sell At Any Price - Amanda Petrusich
7. In Paradise - Peter Matthiessen
8. The Strange Case of Rachel K - Rachel Kushner
9. Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
10. Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill
11. The Blue Fox - Sjón
12. Half the Kingdom - Lore Segal
13. Redeployment - Phil Klay
14. The Big Short - Michael Lewis
15. The Martian - Andy Weir
16. Bobcat - Rebecca Lee
17. Break It Down - Lydia Davis
18. Wabi Sabi for Artists Designers Poets & Philosophers - Leonard Koren
19. Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie
20. Seven Nights - Jorge Luis Borges
21. Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
22. Here - Richard McGuire
23. The Balloonists - Eula Biss
24. Butcher's Crossing - John Williams
25. Crapalachia - Scott McClanahan
26. The Emerald Light in the Air - Donald Antrim
27. Killing Floor - Lee Child
28. Fortune Smiles - Adam Johnson
29. Paulina & Fran - Rachel B. Glaser

2014

1. Civilwarland in Bad Decline - George Saunders
2. Pitch Dark - Renata Adler
3. Berlin Stories - Robert Walser
4. The Train - Georges Simenon
5. Letters to Emma Bowlcut - Bill Callahan
6. Outer Dark - Cormac McCarthy
7. Godzilla: Awakening - Max Borenstein & Greg Borenstein
8. Saga, Vol. 1-3 - Brian K Vaughan
9. X-Men: Days of Future Passed
10. X-Men: House of M
11. Ghosts - César Aira
12. Out of Sheer Rage - Geoff Dyer
13. How Best To Avoid Dying - Owen Eggerton
14. Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard
15. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John le Carré
16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
17. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver
18. Brief And Frightening Reign Of Phil - George Saunders
19. Echo of the Boom - Maxwell Neely-Cohen
20. By Blood - Ellen Ullman
21. Stoner - John Williams
22. A Most Wanted Man - John le Carré
23. Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer
24. Authority - Jeff VanderMeer
25. Acceptance - Jeff VanderMeer
26. Saga, Vol. 4 - Brian K Vaughan

2013

1. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
2. Dr. No - Sir Ian Fleming
3. The Signal and the Noise - Nate Silver
4. Will Oldham on Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Will Oldham
5. Speedboat - Renata Adler
6. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
7. Interaction of Color - Josef Albers
8. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
9. Pastoralia - George Saunders
10. Various Small Books - Brouws, Burton & Zschiegner
11. In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders
12. Interactive Data Visualization for the Web - Scott Murray
13. Hombre - Elmore Leonard
14. Tenth of December - George Saunders
15. Catching the Big Fish - David Lynch
16. The Information - James Gleick

2012

1. Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino
2. Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City
3. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
4. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
5. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
6. Genius: The Life And Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick
7. Dune - Frank Herbert
8. The Devil in the White City - Eric Larson
9. The Influencing Machine - Brooke Gladstone
10. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More - Roald Dahl
11. Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer
12. A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
13. A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
14. Once There Was a War - John Steinbeck
15. Design Is A Job - Mike Monteiro
16. Mindstorms - Seymour Papert
17. Cathedral - Raymond Carver
18. The Contract With God Trilogy - Will Eisner