Books Read

title / author / date completed – – – – bolded titles are year’s favorite(s)

2024

  1. Freakonomics (Dubner/Leavitt); Jan 1 (audiobook)
  2. The Glass Hotel (Emily St. John Mandel); Jan 3
  3. Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X (Deborah Davis); Jan 6
  4. Tom Lake (Ann Patchett); Jan 9
  5. Last Resort (Andrew Lipstein); Jan 13
  6. Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago (Mike Royko); Jan 20
  7. The Guest (Emma Cline); Feb 2
  8. The Splendid and The Vile (Erik Larson); Feb 24 (audiobook)
  9. Ask The Dust (John Fante); Feb 29
  10. The Fund (Rob Copeland); Mar 4
  11. The End of Everything and Everything That Comes After That (Nick Lantz); Mar 9
  12. Libra (Don DeLillo); Apr 12
  13. 60 Songs That Explain the 90s (Rob Harvilla); Apr 14
  14. Table for Two (Amor Towles); June 6
  15. The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block (Daniel J. Wakin); June 24
  16. Wellness (Nathan Hill); June 30
  17. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Patrick Radden Keefe); July 9
  18. The Man Who Knew Infinity (Robert Kanigel); July 30
  19. Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos (Donald J. Wheeler); Aug 8
  20. The Invention of the Darling (Li-Young Lee); Aug 18
  21. Performance-Focused Learner Surveys (Will Thalheimer); Sept 14
  22. The Librarianist (Patrick DeWitt); Oct 17
  23. The Anomaly (Herve Le Tellier) – Nov 25
  24. Pulphead (John Jeremiah Sullivan); Nov 26
  25. The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell) – dec 9
  26. The Good Spy (Kai bird) – Dec 10
  27. The Memory Palace (Nate DiMeo); Dec 21

2023

  1. Serious Face: Essays (Jon Mooallem); Jan 2
  2. The Ten Equations that Rule the World (David Sumpter); Jan 4
  3. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Terrance Hayes); Jan 10
  4. The Association of Small Bombs (Karan Mahajan); Jan 14
  5. Sonnets to Orpheus (Rainer Maria Rilke, trans Christiane Marks); Jan 15
  6. The Three Marriages (David Whyte); Jan 22
  7. People of the Book (Geraldine Brooks); Jan 30
  8. All The King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren); Feb 4
  9. The Man From The Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann (Ananyo Bhattacharya); Feb 7
  10. Under The Wide and Starry Sky (Nancy Horan); Feb 19
  11. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck); Mar 1
  12. The Bookseller of Kabul (Asne Seierstad); April 27
  13. Bringing up Bébé (Pamela Druckerman); May 7
  14. Devil In The Grove (Gilbert King); May 29
  15. March (Geraldine Brooks); June 6
  16. City of Thieves (David Benioff); June 9
  17. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers); June 9
  18. Union Atlantic (Adam Haslett); June 17
  19. The Absent Moon (Luiz Schwarcz); June 21
  20. Less is Lost (Andrew Sean Greer); June 25
  21. Trust (Hernon Diaz); July 1
  22. A Bell for Adano (John Hersey); July 4
  23. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (Ronald C. White); July 6
  24. Sea of Tranquility (Emily St. John Mandel); July 16
  25. The Wager (David Grann); July 21 (audiobook)
  26. Last Winter of Frankie Machine (Don Winslow); Aug 1
  27. Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann); Aug 28 (audiobook)
  28. The Disaster Artist (Greg Sestero) Sept 15 (audiobook)
  29. Larry’s Party (Carol Shields); Sept 28
  30. Solito (Javier Zamora); Oct 6
  31. The Lost City of Z (David Grann); Oct 24 (audiobook)
  32. Silas Marner (George Eliot); Nov 27
  33. The Anthroprocene Reviewed (John Green); Dec 3
  34. All The Beauty In The World (Patrick Bringley); Dec 4
  35. JR (William Gibson); Dec 12
  36. Leadership Strategy & Tactics (Jocko Willink); Dec 13

2022

  1. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith); Jan 4
  2. Fidelity (Grace Paley); Jan 11
  3. The Weil Conjectures: On Math And The Pursuit Of The Unknown (Karen Olsson); Jan 16
  4. In Search of Small Gods (Jim Harrison); Jan 27
  5. The Undressing (Li-Young Lee); Jan 27
  6. Solutions and Other Problems (Allie Brosh); Jan 30
  7. Mao II (Don DeLillo); Feb 4
  8. A Little Devil in America (Hanif Abdurraqib); March 21
  9. How Should A Person Be? (Sheila Heti); April 8
  10. Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel); April 10 (audiobook)
  11. Why Fish Don’t Exist (Lulu Miller); May 17
  12. On Bicycles: A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City (Evan Friss); May 30
  13. Also A Poet (Ada Calhoun); June 16
  14. This Time Tomorrow (Emma Straub); July 19
  15. Fear City (Kim Phillips-Fein); July 22
  16. Red Notice (Bill Browder); July 23 (audiobook)
  17. My Year Abroad (Chang-Rae Lee); July 31
  18. Art Quake (Susie Moore); Aug 5
  19. Poems of New York (selected and edited by Elizabeth Schmidt); Aug 6
  20. Bewilderment (Richard Powers); Aug 31
  21. Why Poetry (Matthew Zapruder); Sept 2
  22. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin); Sept 8
  23. Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994-2007 (Dan Ozzi); Sept 14
  24. frank: sonnets (Dianne Seuss); Sept 23
  25. Escape Into Meaning (Evan Puschak); Sept 30
  26. Long Road: Pearl Jam & The Soundtrack of a Generation (Steven Hyden); Oct 9
  27. The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake (Breece D’J Pancake); Oct 20
  28. The Hunters (James Salter); Nov 6
  29. The National’s Boxer (33 1/3, 162) (Ryan Pickard); Dec 14
  30. A Visit From The Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan); Dec 24
  31. The Candy House (Jennifer Egan); Dec 26

2021

  1. White Tiger (Aravind Adiga); Jan 10
  2. Born A Crime (Trevor Noah); Jan 16 (audiobook)
  3. A Moveable Feast (Ernest Hemingway); Jan 17
  4. A Whirlwind Tour of Python (Jake VanderPlas); Jan 30
  5. Teacher Man (Frank McCourt); Feb 13
  6. Wild Ones (Jon Mooallem); Mar 2
  7. The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides); Mar 7
  8. The Overstory (Richard Powers): Apr 6
  9. How to Prevent a Climate Disaster (Bill Gates); Apr 19
  10. Strangers on a Train (Patricia Highsmith); May 16
  11. The Kingdom (Emmanual Carrere); June 6
  12. The Professor and the Madman (Simon Winchester): June 9
  13. Satan Says (Sharon Olds); June 13
  14. The Bomber Mafia (Malcolm Gladwell); Augu 4 (audiobook)
  15. Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell); Aug 14
  16. Nothing to See Here (Kevin Wilson); Sept 4
  17. The Plot (Jean Hanff Korelitz); Sept 23
  18. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 (Rachel Kushner); Oct 6
  19. The World According to Garp (John Irving); Oct 22
  20. Cloud Cuckoo Land (Anthony Doerr); Oct 24
  21. The Lincoln Highway (Amor Towles); Oct 27
  22. No One Is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood); Oct 30
  23. Dream Work (Mary Oliver); Nov 12
  24. A Children’s Bible (Lydia Millet); Nov 25
  25. Stories Of Your Life and Others (Ted Chiang); Dec 12
  26. A Gate At The Stairs (Lorrie Moore); Dec 14
  27. Please Scream Inside Your Heart (Dave Pell); Dec 30

2020

  1. The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe); Jan 3
  2. Life Studies (Robert Lowell); Jan 16
  3. Bel Canto (Anne Patchett); Jan 26
  4. Atomic Habits (James Clear); Feb 1
  5. Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides); Feb 7
  6. The Geography of Bliss (Eric Weiner): Mar 5
  7. Dusk and Other Stories (James Salter); Mar 15
  8. The Nix (Nathan Hill); Mar 20
  9. The Power Broker (Robert Caro); Apr 9
  10. Begin Mortal (Atul Gawande); Apr 11
  11. Antipoems (Nicanor Parra, trans Liz Werner); Apr 15
  12. There Is No Good Card For This (Kelsey Crowe, Emily McDowell); Apr 22
  13. Think and Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill); Apr 25
  14. This Side of Brightness (Collum McCann); May 2
  15. House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski); June 3
  16. Hitomi (NIck Jaina); June 7
  17. True Grit (Charles Portis); June 20
  18. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Jean-Dominique Bauby); June 30
  19. Loving Frank (Nancy Horan); July 25
  20. Buddha’s Office (Dan Zigmond); July 31
  21. Build A Career in Data Science (Emily Robinson, Jacqueline Nolis); Aug 3
  22. The Biggest Bluff (Maria Konnikova); Aug 14
  23. The Alienist (Caleb Carr); Aug 21
  24. The Devil In The White City (Erik Larson); Aug 22 – audiobook
  25. On The Move (Oliver Sacks); Sept 4
  26. The Natural (Bernard Malamud); Sept 10
  27. We Ride Upon Sticks (Quan Barry); Sept 16
  28. The Bronx is Burning (Jonathan Mahler); Sept 26
  29. City Poet:  The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara (Brad  Gooch); Oct 7
  30. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt); Oct 21
  31. Sweet Theft: A Poet’s Commonplace Book (J.D. McCatchy); Nov 12
  32. A Gentleman In Moscow (Amos Towles) Nov 27
  33. The Wolf of Sarajevo (Matthew Palmer): Dec 17
  34. Fates & Furies (Lauren Groff); Dec 24
  35. How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (Jordan Ellenberg); Dec 25
  36. Night Sky With Exit Wounds (Ocean Vuong); Dec 26

2019

  1. Dotcom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company (Russell Brunson); Jan 2
  2. Parable Of The Sower (Octavia E. Butler); Jan 5
  3. Dr. Zhivago (Boris Pasternak); Jan 20
  4. Building A Storybrand (Donald Miller); Feb 4
  5. Crossing To Safety (Wallace Stegner); Feb 6
  6. Midwives (Chris Bohjalian); Feb 22
  7. How To Change Your Mind (Michael Pollan); Feb 24
  8. The Spirit of Science Fiction (Roberto Bolaño); Mar 4
  9. The Mastermind (Evan Ratliff); Mar 12
  10. Light Years (James Salter); Mar 21
  11. This is The Story Of A Happy Marriage (Ann Patchett); Apr 16
  12. The Sportswriter (Richard Ford); May 1
  13. Asymmetry (Lisa Halliday); June 13
  14. The Boys In The Boat (Daniel James Brown); June 26
  15. To Sell Is Human (Daniel Pink); June 29
  16. Wildlife (Richard Ford); July 9
  17. Inherent Vice (Thomas Pynchon); July 18
  18. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari); July 29 (audiobook)
  19. The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen); Aug 18
  20. Under The Volcano (Malcolm Lowry); Aug 26
  21. The Moviegoer (Walker Percy); Sept 3
  22. Robert Lowell in Love (Jeffrey Meyers); Sept 9
  23. Don’t Save Anything: Uncollected Essays (James Salter); Sept 10
  24. The Golden Ticket: P, NP, and the Search for the Impossible (Lance Fortnow); Sept 25
  25. Neon In Daylight (Hermione Hoby); Sept 30
  26. How To Do Nothing (Jenny Odell); Oct 10
  27. On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong); Oct 24
  28. The Vegetarian (Han Kang); Nov 1
  29. 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways…. (Clifton Hood); Nov 3
  30. The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan); Nov 7
  31. Garden Time (W.S. Merwin); Nov 14
  32. Cigarettes, Inc. (Nan Enstad); Nov 18
  33. Marshall McLuhan: The Medium And the Messenger (Philip Marchand); Dec 5
  34. Lost in Translation (Eva Hoffman); Dec 15
  35. Tribe Of Mentors (Tim Ferriss); Dec 18
  36. The Dolphin (Robert Lowell); Dec 21
  37. Man’s Search For Meaning (Victor Frankl); Dec 24

2018

  1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon); March 25
  2. The Secret History (Donna Tartt); April 23
  3. The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt); May 6
  4. Horace and Me (Harry Eyres); May 9
  5. The Little Friend (Donna Tartt); May 20
  6. Notes on Camp (Susan Sontag); June 12 
  7. Siddhartha (Herman Hesse); June 16
  8. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl); July 13
  9. The Caveman’s Valentine (George Dawes Green); July 19
  10. The Immortalists (Chloe Benjamin); July 21
  11. My Absolute Darling (Gabriel Tallent); July 23
  12. Less (Andrew Sean Greer); July 26
  13. Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of a Fist (Sunil Yapa); Aug 2
  14. Colorless Tsukuru Tazkai And His Years Of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami); Aug 6
  15. A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara); August 18
  16. American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis); August 24
  17. Old School (Tobias Wolff); September 1
  18. Lincoln In The Bardo (George Saunders); September 23
  19. The City In Which I Love You (Li-Young Lee): September 25
  20. The Hours (Michael Cunningham); September 27
  21. A Way In The World (V.S. Naipaul); Oct 1
  22. The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion); Oct 3
  23. What Wast Lost (Catherine O’Flynn); Oct 8
  24. The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead); Oct 21
  25. The Game (Neil Strauss); Oct 23
  26. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (Renni Browne, Dave King); Oct 23
  27. The Circle (Dave Eggers); Oct 26
  28. The Sellout (Paul Beatty); Nov 13
  29. Poetry Will Save Your Life (Jill Bialosky); Nov 21
  30. Letters To A Young Writer (Colum McCann): Nov 27
  31. Draft #4 (John McPhee); Dec 1
  32. Angle of Repose (Wallace Stegner); Dec 13
  33. Memory Wall (Anthony Doerr); Dec 16
  34. The Locals (Jonathan Dee); Dec 21
  35. Bright Lights, Big City (Jay McInerney) Dec 23