The books I finish reading each year. Sometimes with bad attempts at short reviews.

2026

1. Vigil - George Saunders

   Once again starting off the calendar year reading a George Saunders book I didn't know had come out. This time ripping through it in two days instead of struggling for over a month. Either the book is better or I'm back in my stride of reading. Not for me to say.

2. James - Percival Everett

3. On the Calculation of Volume I - Solvej Balle

2025

1. Liberation Day - George Saunders

2. The Promise - Damon Galgut

3. Orbital - Samantha Harvey

   Beautiful, serene.

4. The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante

   Difficult emotionally to read, well worth it.

5. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel

6. The Trees - Percival Everett

   A really powerful book that my words cannot do justice.

7. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver

   Heck, goddamn. Read this.

8. Erasure - Percival Everett

9. Translation State - Ann Leckie

   Leckie is still killing it when it comes to stories about being human (or not), or what it means to be human (or not) that just happen to be set in space.

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

   I'll return to this before I reread Cormac McCarthy.

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