Books Past and Present

3105 words · 16 min

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Particular favorites are bolded, books I particularly despised are in italics.

2020: currently reading

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff
• The Long Utopia, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

2020: read

• The Long Mars, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
• The Long War, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
• The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
• Makers, by Cory Doctorow
• First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde
• Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde
• The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde
• Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde
• The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
• A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, by Orlando Figes
• La Conquête du Pain, by Peter Kropotkin
• Anarchism, by Ruth Kinna
• Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, by Ronan Farrow
• Calypso, by David Sedaris
• Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, by Anand Giridharadas
• The Telling, by Ursula K Le Guin
• Four Ways to Forgiveness, by Ursula K Le Guin
• The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

2019: read

• Fear: Trump in the White House, by Bob Woodward
• The Mueller Report, by Robert S Mueller III

2018: read

• City of Illusions, by Ursula K Le Guin
• Planet of Exile, by Ursula K Le Guin
• Rocannon's World, by Ursula K Le Guin
• The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K Le Guin
• The Dispossessed, by Ursula K Le Guin
• Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia E Butler
• Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E Butler
• Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E Butler
• Fledgling, by Octavia E Butler
• Kindred, by Octavia E Butler
• The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
• Towards Zero, by Agatha Christie
• Ordeal by Innocence, by Agatha Christie
• Murder is Easy, by Agatha Christie
• Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff

2017: read

• Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
• Foundation and Earth, by Isaac Asimov
• Foundation's Edge, by Isaac Asimov
• Second Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
• Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
• Hard Choices, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
• The Sheperd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett
• Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett
• Snuff, by Terry Pratchett
• I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett
• Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett
• Making Money, by Terry Pratchett
• Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett
• Thud!, by Terry Pratchett
• Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
• A Hat Full of Sky, by Terry Pratchett
• The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett
• Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett
• The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett
• The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett
• Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett
• Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams
• The Truth, by Terry Pratchett
• The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett
• Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett
• The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett
• Jingo, by Terry Pratchett
• Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett
• Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett
• Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K Jerome
• Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett
• Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett
• Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett
• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett
• Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett
• Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett
• Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett
• Moving Pictures, by Terry Pratchett
• Eric, by Terry Pratchett
• Guards! Guards!, by Terry Pratchett
• Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett
• Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett
• Sourcery, by Terry Pratchett
• Mort, by Terry Pratchett
• Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett
• The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett
• A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki
• The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett
• Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie
• Candide, by Voltaire
• Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, by Bradley K Martin
• The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht
• To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis

2016: read

• Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit
• Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
• All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
• Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
• I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
• The Twelve, by Justin Cronin
• The Passage, by Justin Cronin

2015: read

• Jia, by Hyejin Kim
• Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi
• The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood
• Poirot's Early Cases, by Agatha Christie
• The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever, by Greg Sestero
• The Dark and Hollow Places, by Carrie Ryan
• The Dead-Tossed Waves, by Carrie Ryan
• Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson
• Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith
• Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions, by Neil Gaiman
• Why Not Me?, by Mindy Kaling
• That Hideous Strength, by CS Lewis
• Perelandra, by CS Lewis
• Out of the Silent Planet, by CS Lewis
• The Last Battle, by CS Lewis
• The Magician's Nephew, by CS Lewis
• The Horse and His Boy, by CS Lewis
• The Silver Chair, by CS Lewis
• Prince Caspian, by CS Lewis
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis
• Lady Chatterley's Lover, by DH Lawrence
• Sons and Lovers, by DH Lawrence
• Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore
• A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
• The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, by Agatha Christie
• Five Little Pigs, by Agatha Christie
• Life after Life, by Kate Atkinson
• Curtain, by Agatha Christie
• Elephants Can Remember, by Agatha Christie
• Hallowe'en Party, by Agatha Christie
• The Clocks, by Agatha Christie
• Cat Among the Pigeons, by Agatha Christie
• Dead Man's Folly, by Agatha Christie
• Hickory Dickory Dock, by Agatha Christie
• After the Funeral, by Agatha Christie
• Mrs. McGuinty's Dead, by Agatha Christie
• The Labours of Hercules, by Agatha Christie
• Sad Cypress, by Agatha Christie
• The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
• The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis
• The Great Divorce, by CS Lewis
• The Devil of Nanking, by Mo Hayder
• Birdman, by Mo Hayder
• The Hollow, by Agatha Christie
• Evil Under the Sun, by Agatha Christie
• One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, by Agatha Christie
• Hercule Poirot's Christmas, by Agatha Christie
• Appointment with Death, by Agatha Christie
• Dumb Witness, by Agatha Christie
• Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie
• Murder in Mesopotamia, by Agatha Christie
• Cards on the Table, by Agatha Christie
• The ABC Murders, by Agatha Christie
• Death in the Clouds, by Agatha Christie
• Three Act Tragedy, by Agatha Christie
• Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
• Peril at End House, by Agatha Christie
• Lord Edgware Dies, by Agatha Christie
• The Mystery of the Blue Train, by Agatha Christie
• The Big Four, by Agatha Christie
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie
• Poirot Investigates, by Agatha Christie
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie
• Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace
• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
• The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters, by BR Myers
• Atonement, by Ian McEwan
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
• Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami
• The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Levels of Life, by Julian Barnes
• Miss Marple's Final Cases, by Agatha Christie
• Sleeping Murder, by Agatha Christie
• Nemesis, by Agatha Christie
• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick
• At Bertram's Hotel, by Agatha Christie
• A Caribbean Mystery, by Agatha Christie
• The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, by Agatha Christie
• 4:50 from Paddington, by Agatha Christie
• A Pocket Full of Rye, by Agatha Christie
• They Do It With Mirrors, by Agatha Christie
• A Murder is Announced, by Agatha Christie
• Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened, by Allie Brosh
• The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, by Chol-Hwan Kang
• The Moving Finger, by Agatha Christie
• The Body in the Library, by Agatha Christie
• Drinking and Tweeting and Other Brandi Blunders, by Brandi Glanville
• The Thirteen Problems, by Agatha Christie
• Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie
• The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith
• The Cuckoo's Calling, by Robert Galbraith
• Landline, by Rainbow Rowell
• The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese, by Kathe Lison
• Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda, by Omar Nasiri
• Good Omens, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

2014: read

• Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris
• Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church, by Lauren Drain
• Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, by Wendy Lower
• Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, by Neil Gaiman
• Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
• American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
• The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
• The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
• The Ocean at the End of the Road, by Neil Gaiman
• Yes Please, by Amy Poehler
• Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
• A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
• The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, by Umberto Eco
• Neuromancer, by William Gibson
• The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
• Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
• Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
• A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
• Silas Marner, by George Eliot
• Roughing It, by Mark Twain
• The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain
• Goodbye Mr Chips, by James Hilton
• Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians, by Mark Twain
• The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain
• A Double Barrelled Detective Story, by Mark Twain
• A Murder, a Mystery and a Marriage, by Mark Twain
• Tom Sawyer Abroad, by Mark Twain
• Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain
• We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin
• After Dark, by Haruki Murakami
• After the Quake, by Haruki Murakami
• The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
• Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (Around the world in Eighty Days, read in French), by Jules Verne
• Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
• Middlemarch, by George Eliot
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
• Burmese Days, by George Orwell
• Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, by John Waters
• Dear Leader, by Jang Jin-Sung
• The Fault in our Stars, by John Greene
• Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Pearl, by John Steinbeck
• Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'une femme (Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman, read in French), by Stefan Zweig
• Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë
• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
• Bringing up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, by Pamela Druckerman
• Shadows in Flight, by Scott Orson Card
• The Manson Murders, by Martin Fido
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Shadow of the Giant, by Scott Orson Card
• Shadow Puppets, by Scott Orson Card
• Shadow of the Hegemon, by Scott Orson Card
• Ender's Shadow, by Scott Orson Card
• Children of the Mind, by Scott Orson Card
• Xenocide, by Scott Orson Card
• Speaker for the Dead, by Scott Orson Card
• Ender's Game, by Scott Orson Card
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
• An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
• The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• His Last Bow, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Valley of Fear, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Sign of Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
• Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
• Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, by Blaine Harden
• Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan
• Re Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett
• Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
• The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett
• The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
• Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
• The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks, by Amy Stewart

2013: read

• Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, by Naoki Higashida
• Priestess of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Lady of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler (I am not a nazi kthx, I read this by historical curiosity - fwiw, even writing-wise it was absolutely terrible)
• I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban, by Malala Yousafzai
• The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Hitler, by AN Wilson
• The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco
• Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
• The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
• Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, by Simon Schama
• The History of Witchcraft, by Lois Martin
• MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood
• Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry
• Don't Get too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems, by David Rakoff
• Dress Your Family in Coruroy and Denim, by David Sedaris
• When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris
• Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, by David Sedaris
• The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
• The Odyssey, by Homer
• The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
• Oh Myyy!, by George Takei
• Up from Slavery, by Booker T Washington
• The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II, by Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV, by Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books V-VII, by Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
• The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt
• Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson
• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
• The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
• Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
• Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë
• The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
• Life and Times of Michael K, by JM Coetzee
• The Iliad, by Homer
• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail, by Cheryl Strayed
• The Castle, by Franz Kafka
• The Trial, by Franz Kafka
• A Dance with Dragons, by George RR Martin
• A Feast for Crows, by George RR Martin
• Eleven Minutes, by Paulo Coelho
• At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson
• Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
• Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
• The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
• The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
• The Breast, by Philip Roth
• The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays, by Chinua Achebe
• Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee Wilson
• A Storm of Swords, by George RR Martin
• A Clash of Kings, by George RR Martin
• A Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin
• Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
• The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Bossypants, by Tina Fey
• In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, by Mark Twain
• Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
• Veronika Decides to Die, by Paulo Coelho
• A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe
• The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
• I am America, by Stephen Colbert
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë
• Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe
• The Forest House, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
• The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

2012: read

• I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris
• Zodiac, by Robert Graysmith
• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
• Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooke
• A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
• The Casual Vacancy, by JK Rowling
• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• La Chute, by Albert Camus
• Amerika, by Franz Kafka
• Come September, by Arundhati Roy
• Wigfield: The Can-Do Town that Just May Not, by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello
• Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann
• Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote
• My Life in France, by Julia Child
• The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood
• American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis
• Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
• The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood
• Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
• Moral Disorder and Other Stories, by Margaret Atwood
• Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
• Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
• The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Books important to me that I read previously (in no particular order):

• A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M Miller Jr
• Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
• La peste, by Albert Camus
• L'amant de la Chine du Nord, by Marguerite Duras
• Hiroshima Mon Amour, by Marguerite Duras
• Huis Clos, by Jean-Paul Sartre
• The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
• The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• Gender Troubles, by Judith Butler
• Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks
• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
• Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
• The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Zazie dans le métro, by Raymond Queneau
• Germinal, by Émile Zola
• The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
• The Importance of Being Ernest, by Oscar Wilde
• Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Books I was unable to finish reading:

• Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
• Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie
• The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
• The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
• A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway