Reading
Here is a list of the books I’ve read from 2022 forward. I wrote a couple years ago about why I keep a public reading list.
2026
Guns of the Dawn
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Emily Marshwic is a noblewoman living in a country at war with its closest neighbor. When an announcement is made that the country will draft women for the first time, she decides she will go herself rather than sending a servant like the other families of status. The book follows her through the war as she discovers many things about herself and her country. This was a little slow to get going, but I ended up really enjoying it. The different perspectives on the war were interesting and I enjoyed a lot of the characters. There was a little bit of magic, but it felt so inconsequential until the end of the book that I think there could’ve been a better way of incorporating it.
Laserblasted
By Michael Warren Lucas
By Michael Warren Lucas
This book is unapologetically a novel version of an 80s action movie. The author describes it as what he would have done with the premise of the movie Laserblast, where a teenager finds an alien laser gun that he wears on his arm. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. It’s pretty funny and I liked the characters.
Playground
By Richard Powers
By Richard Powers
From the description, this book seemed like a cool piece of ecology fiction. It wasn’t. The eco part was an obsession with the ocean which didn’t really matter other than as a way of justifying the desire to build floating (libertarian) cities. Apart from being reasonably dull, this book was rough around the edges. The reader is meant to feel sympathy for a billionaire with a degenerative illness, who basically invented a more libertarian version of Reddit and then went full AI-bro. There’s some race stuff that plays on stereotypes and the worst part, in my opinion, is the white author writing the Polynesian characters literally voting for their own colonization. I definitely won’t be reading any more from this author.
The Berry Pickers
By Amanda Peters
By Amanda Peters
This was another book club pick. The book tells the story of a Mi’kmaq family who spends the summers picking berries in Maine through the POV of two of the children. This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I was more engaged in the one POV than the other, which made getting through the book difficult at times. There’s a lot going on, and this book is depressing, but it a very realistic feeling way. Overall I think it was worth reading.
What Moves the Dead
By T. Kingfisher
By T. Kingfisher
This novella is a retelling and expansion of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. A soldier goes to see their old friend who has fallen ill, encounters a horrible gloom over the family’s estate, and must figure out what is causing it. The characters are neat and there’s a lot of cool stuff about mushrooms. There are several other books featuring the same character which I’ll probably read at some point.
2025
$git commit murder By Michael Warren Lucas
A Closed and Common Orbit By Becky Chambers
A History of the World in 6 Glasses By Tom Standage
A Prayer for the Crown Shy By Becky Chambers
A Psalm for the Wild-Built By Becky Chambers
A Short Stay in Hell By Steven L. Peck
Apprehension By Mary Robinette Kowal
Avery Lawson: The Last Pureblood By DJ Small
Ball Lightning By Cixin Lui (translated by Joel Martinsen)
Camp Damascus By Chuck Tingle
Children of God By Mary Doria Russell
Fugitive Telemetry By Martha Wells
God Didn't Make Us to Hate Us By Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail
Halfway to Better By Susan Kaye Quinn
Happy With Baby By Catherine O'Brien
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy By Jenny Odell
Mistborn: Secret History By Brandon Sanderson
Network Effect By Martha Wells
Of Boys and Men By Richard Reeves
Prohibition Orcs By Michael Warren Lucas
Red Star Hustle By Sam J. Miller
Remarkably Bright Creatures By Shelby Van Pelt
Shadows of Self By Brandon Sanderson
System Collapse By Martha Wells
The Aeronaut's Windlass By Jim Butcher
The Alloy of Law By Brandon Sanderson
The Bands of Mourning By Brandon Sanderson
The Birth Partner By Penny Simkin & Melissa Cheyney
The Emperor's Soul By Brandon Sanderson
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet By Becky Chambers
The Lost Metal By Brandon Sanderson
The Martian Contingency By Mary Robinette Kowal
The Midnight Library By Matt Haig
The Serviceberry By Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Spare Man By Mary Robinette Kowal
The Sparrow By Mary Doria Russell
The Sunlit Man By Brandon Sanderson
The Way Into Chaos By Harry Connolly
The Way Into Magic By Harry Connolly
Tress of the Emerald Sea By Brandon Sanderson
Wind and Truth By Brandon Sanderson
wordslut: a feminist guide to taking back the english language By Amanda Montell
Writing for Software Developers By Philip Kiely
Your Amazing Newborn By Mashall H. Klaus and Phyllis H. Klaus
2024
A Desolation Called Peace By Arkady Martine
A Memory Called Empire By Arkady Martine
All Systems Red By Martha Wells
Artificial Condition By Martha Wells
Before the Coffee Gets Cold By Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Trousselot)
Black Girl White Girl By Joyce Carol Oates
Braiding Sweetgrass By Robin Wall Kimmerer
Changer By Matt Gemmell
Diavola By Jennifer Thorne
Edgedancer By Brandon Sanderson
Elantris By Brandon Sanderson
Exit Strategy By Martha Wells
Gone for Good By Harlan Coben
Happy Place By Emily Henry
I Am Not a Serial Killer By Dan Wells
JINX By Matt Gemmell
Nothing is Promised By Susan Kaye Quinn
Oathbringer By Brandon Sanderson
Orbital By Samantha Harvey
Paved Paradise By Henry Grabar
Rhythm of War By Brandon Sanderson
Rogue Protocol By Martha Wells
Sea of Tranquility By Emily St. John Mandel
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers By Renni Browne and Dave King
Starter Villain By John Scalzi
Th1rt3en By Steve Cavanagh
The Calculating Stars By Mary Robinette Kowal
The Fated Sky By Mary Robinette Kowal
The Giver Quartet By Lois Lowry
The Golden Spoon By Jessa Maxwell
The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Last Thing He Told Me By Laura Dave
The Midlist Indie Author Mindset By T. Thorn Coyle
The Order of Time By Carlo Rovelli (translated by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell)
The Relentless Moon By Mary Robinette Kowal
The Staff Engineer's Path By Tanya Reilly
The Three Body Problem By Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu)
This Is How You Lose The Time War By Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Toll By Matt Gemmell
Words of Radiance By Brandon Sanderson
Yellowface By R. F. Kuang
Zero Days By Ruth Ware
2023
A Wizard of Earthsea By Ursula K. Le Guin
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism By Safiya Umoja Noble
Book Lovers By Emily Henry
Children of Dune By Frank Herbert
City of Light By Will Wight
Creating Short Fiction By Damon Knight
Dark One: Forgotten By Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells
Dune By Frank Herbert
Dune Messiah By Frank Herbert
Everything I Never Told You By Celeste Ng
House of Blades By Will Wight
How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids By Jancee Dunn
How to Be Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable By Ben Aldridge
Iron Widow By Xiran Jay Zhao
Lassoing the Sun By Mark Woods
Little Fires Everywhere By Celeste Ng
Looking for Alaska By John Green
Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics By Dan Harris
Nine Perfect Strangers By Liane Moriarty
On Writing Well By William Zinsser
Orconomics By J. Zachary Pike
Paper Towns By John Green
Racing to the Finish By Dale Earnhardt Jr. with Ryan McGee
Shock Wave By Clive Cussler
Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity By Charles Duhigg
The $100 Startup By Chris Guillebeau
The 12 Week Year By Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington
The City of Dusk By Tara Sim
The Crimson Vault By Will Wight
The Fault in Our Stars By John Green
The Hero of Ages By Brandon Sanderson
The Road By Cormac McCarthy
The Way of Kings By Brandon Sanderson
Warbreaker By Brandon Sanderson
Writing an Interpreter in Go By Thorsten Ball
You Deserve a Tech Union By Ethan Marcotte
2022
Bringing Nature Home By Douglas W. Tallamy
Clutter: An Untidy History By Jennifer Howard
Corsair By Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul
Designing Your Life By Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Golden Buddha By Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo
I'm Glad My Mom Died By Jeanette McCurdy
Pass Your Amateur Radio General Class Test By Craig Buck
Raise the Titanic! By Clive Cussler
The Man Who Died Twice By Richard Osman
The Mediterranean Caper By Clive Cussler
The Thursday Murder Club By Richard Osman
Thinking in Bets By Annie Duke
This is How They Tell Me the World Ends By Nicole Perlroth