I read nineteen books this past year, one more than in 2012, and three more than 2011. Only one of the books was read on my Kobo, the rest were deadtree.
Books Read in 2013
- The Confusion - Neal Stephenson
- Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster
- The Black Tower - P.D. James
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
- Lila - Robert M. Pirsig
- A Feast of Crows - George R.R. Martin
- Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
- Split Infinity - Piers Anthony
- Inferno - Dan Brown
- Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
- Virtual Light - William Gibson
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union - Michael Chabon
- Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
- The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho (re-read)
- Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
- The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
- Inheritance - Christopher Paolini
- Bluebeard - Kurt Vonnegut
- The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin
Read in this order. The only dud was Piers Anthony’s Split Infinity. The best of the lot were the three Stephenson novels (fan boy alert!) and Viktor Frankl’s search for meaning. Adams and Vonnegut provided the laughs. Following Snow Crash with Virtual Light highlighted the shared themes of corporate/religious nation-states, virtual worlds, and oddly, messenger culture. Zen and Lila remain fascinating fourteen years later, although I’ve switched which of the two I prefer.
Incomplete Reads
- The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Annotated Turing - Charles Petzold
I’ll attempt The Annotated Turing again. I might have enjoyed The Unconsoled in a different time and place, but I filled yearly postmodern-dream-world quota with Travels in the Scriptorium.
Audio Lectures
In 2013 I listened to sixty hours of lectures across five courses. Most of these lectures were heard while running outside in both summer and winter months.
- General Philosophy - Oxford - Peter Millican 7hrs
- Psychology - Yale - Paul Bloom 18.5hrs
- Ancient Greek History - Yale - Donald Kagan 20hrs
- Physics and Philosophy - Oxford - Ankita Anirban 1.5hrs
- How We Learn - TGC - Monisha Pasupathi 11.5hrs
A New Year
This year I’ll read the thirty-six short stories featured in A Day’s Read, an audio course from The Great Courses. I also hope to read more non-fiction than in past years.
Currently Reading and Listening
- Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
- No Death, No Fear - Thích Nhất Hạnh
- Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby - Sandi Metz
- Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition - The Great Course - Audio Lectures