Books per year

I started counting the books I read in 2018, which helped me form the habit of reading a little bit every day. "That which is measured, improves".

Cumulative books over time

Every book I've logged, plotted as a running total.

Favorites bookshelf

Every book I've read that I gave an A+. I keep all of these on the same bookshelf in my home.

TitleAuthorYear readGrade
Infinite Jest (read twice)David Foster Wallace2025A+
The Last SamuraiHelen Dewitt2025A+
If on a Winter's Night a TravelerItalo Calvino2025A+
Meditations (Hays Translation)Marcus Aurelius2024A+
Death's End (read four times)Cixin Liu2024A+
The Iliad (Twice: Wilson translation, Fagles, some Pope)Emily Wilson2024A+
Number 9 DreamDavid Mitchell2023A+
Lincoln in the Bardo (read twice)George Saunders2023A+
Siddhartha (read four times)Hermann Hesse2023A+
The Brothers Karamazov (read twice)Fyodor Dostoevsky2023A+
Moby-Dick; or, The WhaleHerman Melville2023A+
The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer #1)Viet Thanh Nguyen2023A+
The Overstory (read twice)Richard Powers2021A+
The Remains of the DayKazuo Ishiguro2021A+
The Diary of a Young GirlAnne Frank2020A+
Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and JapanA.C. Grayling2020A+
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common ReaderAnne Fadiman2020A+
AmericanahChimamanda Ngozi Adichie2020A+
Contact (read three times)Carl Sagan2020A+
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since ThoreauBill McKibben2020A+
Man's Search for MeaningViktor E. Frankl2020A+
Cloud AtlasDavid Mitchell2019A+
The Making of the Atomic BombRichard Rhodes2019A+
Civil DisobedienceHenry David Thoreau2019A+
Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at SeaRichard Henry Dana Jr.2019A+
WaldenHenry David Thoreau2019A+
East of EdenJohn Steinbeck2019A+
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated AmericaRichard Rothstein2019A+
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show BusinessNeil Postman2019A+
Seven Years in TibetHeinrich Harrer2019A+
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North KoreaBarbara Demick2019A+
Fahrenheit 451Ray Bradbury2018A+
John AdamsDavid McCullough2018A+
Catch-22Joseph Heller2017A+
Brave New WorldAldous Huxley2017A+
War and PeaceLeo Tolstoy2015A+
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee2014A+
LolitaVladimir Nabokov2014A+
The Selfish GeneRichard Dawkins2010A+

How I've graded books

My letter-grade distribution. I'm pretty good at finding books I like, so most get pretty good grades.

Genres I read

Genre breakdown across all logged books. College days and series really pump those sci-fi/fantasy numbers, which is probably also 90:10 sci-fi:fantasy. I wouldn't actually say I read all that much sci-fi in the last 10 years.

Average rating by genre

Within genres I've read at least 5 books from. Perhaps I should read more travel books. Plus, classics are classics for a reason.

Most-read authors

Series would really skew this, so I've excluded them. This list now tracks pretty well with some of my favorite authors.

My ratings vs. Goodreads' average rating

Hover over a point to see the book. Books above the dashed line, I liked them more than the average Goodreads reader. If below, less. r^2 value of 0.018, so almost no correlation between my rankings and Goodread's scores. So, Goodreads is a useless resource for book recommendations for me.

Genre by year

A heatmap of what I was reading, when. College = sci-fi. 2019 = philosophy. My general reading breadth has definitely increased over time, but also in recent years I've been reading more literary fiction than anything else.

Books I've re-read

I really like these ones.

TitleAuthorTimes readMost recent
Death's EndCixin Liu42024
SiddharthaHermann Hesse42023
The Dark ForestCixin Liu32024
Three Body ProblemCixin Liu32024
ContactCarl Sagan32020
The OdysseyHomer22026
Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace22025
The Buried GiantKazuo Ishiguro22025
Meditations (Hays Translation)Marcus Aurelius22024
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de ZoetDavid Mitchell22024
Lincoln in the BardoGeorge Saunders22023
The OverstoryRichard Powers22021
On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas)Seneca22019

I liked it more than Goodreads.

TitleAuthorMy gradeGoodreads avgDiff
Moby-Dick; or, The WhaleHerman MelvilleA+3.54+1.46
Lincoln in the BardoGeorge SaundersA+3.75+1.25
WaldenHenry David ThoreauA+3.78+1.22
If on a Winter's Night a TravelerItalo CalvinoA+3.84+1.16
The Last SamuraiHelen DewittA+3.86+1.14
Number 9 DreamDavid MitchellA+3.87+1.13
LolitaVladimir NabokovA+3.88+1.12
The Iliad (Fagles, some Pope)HomerA+3.90+1.10
Civil DisobedienceHenry David ThoreauA+3.94+1.06
Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and JapanA.C. GraylingA+3.97+1.03
Fahrenheit 451Ray BradburyA+3.97+1.03
Brave New WorldAldous HuxleyA+3.99+1.01

Goodreads liked it more than me

TitleAuthorMy gradeGoodreads avgDiff
Saga, Compendium OneBrian K. VaughanD4.72-3.72
The Dying of the LightJ.L. CoopersteinC5.00-3.50
UzumakiJunji ItoD+4.45-3.45
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)Suzanne CollinsD4.33-3.33
House of LeavesMark Z. DanielewskiD4.09-3.09
The Mote in God's Eye (Moties, #1)Larry NivenD4.07-3.07
Why Buddhism is TrueRobert WrightD+4.02-3.02
A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)Ursula K. Le GuinC-4.01-3.01
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)J.K. RowlingC4.43-2.93
The Diamond as Big as the RitzF. Scott FitzgeraldD+3.86-2.86
ZealotReza AslanD+3.86-2.86
The Power of One (The Power of One, #1)Bryce CourtenayC4.35-2.85

Books I didn't finish

Incomplete records here.

BookAuthorDateReason
The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir2025Realllly long, and quite dated in parts. But I enjoyed parts as well.
Diamond as Big as the RitzF. Scott Fitzgerald2024First story was not good. In fact it was bad.
The Satanic VersesSalman Rushdie2023Good, but dense and difficult to parse with many words I don't understand. I think it's probably a great book, just about things I don't much understand which makes it difficult to follow.
These TruthsJill Lepore2021On audio, very slow.
Ministry of the FutureKim Stanley Robinson2021On audio, quite slow. But a very memorable start and I'm interested in picking it up again one day.
EuropeNorman Davies2020This book is simply too big. I liked it, and I made it ~350 pages/1100. But too big.
UlyssesJames Joyce2019Wow, so hard. Every sentence contains references I do not understand. I tried reading with a guide, but that was too sluggish. I made it 100 pages in. Perhaps I'll give it another go one day.