Non-fiction

Malcolm X - The Autobiography
Max Fisher - The Chaos Machine
Mark Lanegan - Sing Backwards and Gently Weep

Fiction

Barbara Kingolver - Demon Copperhead
Susanna Clarke - Piranesi
Marilynne Robinson - Gilead
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi
My Year of Rest of Relaxation - Otessa Moshfegh
Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo - Ntozake Shange
Sula - Toni Morisson

real for malcolm x, truly enjoying how enlightining this is so far

outside of number one order doesn’t matter and gonna restrict listing to author or book type

1. Capital Volume 1 by Marx
2. Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche
3. Prison Notebooks by Gramsci
4.Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel
5. Road to Terror by Getty
6.Canada in the world by Tyler Shipley
7.Blood Meridan by Cormac McCarthy
8.Black Skins White Masks by Fanon
9. The Apprrentice Sorcerer Liberal Tradition and Fascism by Ishay Landa
10. For Marx by Louis Althusser

Naming and necessity was really good

Crime and Punishment, The Republic, Notes from the Underground, Siddhartha, Inferno (Divine Comedy)

I read voraciously as a kid, now getting back into it

how is genealogy of morals? got it on the shelf and need to start a new one to deep dive soon

my favourite Nietzsche work it’s his most systematic so easiest to follow along with compared to other works like Beyond Good and Evil or The Gay Science which is basically bunch of aphorism with him jumping from topic to topic. It’s his most interesting cause it’s a deep dive into morals while the aphorism style of other works tends to scratch the surface level of a topic before going deeper into it with another aphorism 40 pages later which at that point u might have forgotten about it already he completely avoids that with Genealogy of Morals while retaining his personality that makes him enjoyable to read

alright i can’t wait

my top 5 this year:

out of sight - elmore leonard
happy hour - marlowe granados
lapvona - ottessa moshfegh
elvis and me - priscilla beaulieu presley
s***and the city - candace bushnell

my goal this year was to read 30 books but i only made it to 20. i still did pretty good. my goal is to read more black authors in 2024

My Top 5 (6):

Biophilia - Edward O Wilson

A Promised Land - Barack H Obama

Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Wilke

A Natural History of the Senses - Diane Ackerman

The Order of Time - Carlo Rovelli

MetaZoa - Peter Godfrey-Smith

Honorable mentions:

The Woman in Me - Britney Spears

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

Books I started this year but haven't finished yet and I really want to include in my Top 10:

Book of Lies - Aleister Crowley

Daughter of Moloka'i - Alan Brennert

Not one of my strongest reading years admittedly we coming back strong in 2024 tho

N* by D*** Gregory
(almost done) The Origins of Anti-Semitism by John G. Gager

A Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Cixin Liu
Easily the best and most profound piece of fiction I’ve read this year. I really hope Netflix does not f*** up the show

Outside of that, spent pretty much the last quarter of the year reading Brandon Sanderon’s Cosmere novels.

Oathbringer
The Emperor’s Soul
The Hero of Ages
The Way of Kings
Shadows of Self

Would be my standouts among them.

Ignore the numbering. That’s for my general list.

28 books this year. A personal accomplishment. couple of graphic novels, short stories, and non fiction thrown into the mix. But mostly just novels.

82. The Jaguar’s Smile - Salman Rushdie
83. Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
84. Languages of Truth - Salman Rushdie
85. Victory City - Salman Rushdie
86. A Dab of D***ens Volume 1 & 3 - Elliot Engel
87. The Stranger - Albert Camus
88. White Nights - Fyodor Dostoevsky
89. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
90. The Mimic Men - V.S. Naipaul
91. The Story of India - Michael Wood
92. The Case of the Reincarnated Client - Tarquin Hall
93. Ivan Turgenev - District Doctor
94. Sabbath’s Theater - Philip Roth
95. Tales of Fosterganj - Ruskin Bond
96. Flashman - George Macdonald Fraser
97. The Coromandel Sea Change - Rumer Godden
98. 1984: The Graphic Novel - Fido Nesti
99. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden - Denis Johnson
100. Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
101. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
102. I Married a Communist - Phillip Roth
103. The Jewel in the Crown - Paul Scott
104. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie
105. The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C. Clarke
106. The Killing Joke - Alan Moore
107. Year One - Frank Miller
108. The Long Halloween - Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale
109. Animal Farm - George Orwell
110. India: A Wounded Civilization - V.S. Naipaul

a little early but end of year lists dropping now 👀

Jobs not done

best year of reading I've ever had with 56 books read (will get to at least 58 by year's end)

also didn't try to stat pad, as my previous record of 54 books had an average length of 260 while this year's average is 309. some amazing reading experiences too. my top 3 of the year are probably in my top 5 all time

1. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
2. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
3. The Border Trilogy (especially The Crossing) by Cormac McCarthy
4. The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
5. Deacon King Kong by James McBride
6. The City & Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
7. Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
8. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
9. St. Agnes' Stand by Thomas Eidson
10. My Year of Rest & Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Facing The Other Way: The Story of 4AD

That’s it. Didn’t read anything else

i set my goal to 20 and made it to 22 (and might make it to 25)

i did end up reading more black authors, i’m happy about that

top 5 (no particular order):

luckys lady - tami hoag
to die for - joyce manard
intercepted - alexa martin
waiting to exhale - terry mcmillan
nitro - guy evans

you did the damn thing man. congrats

Intermezzo worth picking up?
Heard it's a bit difficult to read due to the author not using quotation marks or something, any truth to that?

damn i read some good s*** last year

Lolita - Nabokov
Pale Fire - Nabokov
Blood Meridian - McCarthy
The Maniac - Labatut
Steppen Wolf - Hesse
But I really havent read much fiction at all this year. Think I read max 25 books in total this year.

putting all these titles in my TBR knowing damn well i’m not gonna read them anytime soon like

yea I definitely think it's worth reading. especially if you like chess, are dealing with grief, and/or have a complex relationship with a brother

didn't notice it being difficult to read because of a lack of quotes but imo that's something you get used to after a while anyways