Reading Journal

2026

• The Feast of the Goat
  Mario Vargas Llosa★★★★★Book Club
• Focus: The ASML Way — Inside the Power Struggle Over the Most Complex Machine on Earth
  Marc Hijink★★★★★
• The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914
  David McCullough★★★★★
• Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
  Oliver Burkeman★★★★★
• James
  Percival Everett★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
  Susanna Clarke★★★★★Dropped

2025

• The Forever War
  Joe Haldeman★★★★★Book Club
• Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
  Tom Holland★★★★★Dropped
• Butcher's Crossing
  John Williams★★★★★Book Club
• The Origins of Efficiency
  Brian Potter★★★★★Dropped
• Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future
  Dan Wang★★★★★
• Contempt
  Alberto Moravia★★★★★Book Club
• The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
  Coleman Hughes★★★★★
• L'Oreille Cassée
  Hergé★★★★★Dropped
• Accidents in North American Climbing 2022
  American Alpine Club★★★★★
• Project Hail Mary
  Andy Weir★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• Life and Fate
  Vasily Grossman★★★★★DroppedBook Club
• Disgrace
  J.M. Coetzee★★★★★Book Club
• Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
  Ross Douthat★★★★★
• A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
  Patrick Leigh Fermor★★★★★DroppedBook Club
• Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos
  Jeff Bezos★★★★★

2024

• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
  Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares★★★★★
• Annihilation
  Michel Houellebecq★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• Self-Help Is Like a Vaccine: Essays on Living Better
  Bryan Caplan★★★★★
• Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
  J. Bradford DeLong★★★★★Dropped
• Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
  Nir Eyal★★★★★Dropped
• Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan
  Junichi Saga★★★★★Dropped
• Shōgun
  James Clavell★★★★★
• The Wall
  Marlen Haushofer★★★★★Book Club
• Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
  Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson★★★★★
• Spring Snow
  Yukio Mishima★★★★★DroppedBook Club
• China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict
  David Daokui Li★★★★★
• The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power from the Middle Kingdom to Mao and the China Dream
  Michael Wood★★★★★
• Les Misérables
  Victor Hugo★★★★★Dropped
• Submission
  Michel Houellebecq★★★★★
• Gilead
  Marilynne Robinson★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography
  Graham Robb★★★★★
• Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World
  Tyler Cowen & Daniel Gross★★★★★
• Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
  Chris Miller★★★★★
• Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
  Jon Kabat-Zinn★★★★★Dropped
• Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
  Pamela Druckerman★★★★★
• The Remains of the Day
  Kazuo Ishiguro★★★★★Book Club
• The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers and Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You (2nd reading)
  Rob Fitzpatrick★★★★★
• The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to Go from $0 to $100 Million
  Mark Roberge★★★★★
• The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible
  Fernand Braudel★★★★★Dropped
• Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier
  Kevin Kelly★★★★★
• The Great Mental Models, Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts
  Shane Parrish★★★★★
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
  Carl Sagan★★★★★Dropped
• The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
  Robert A. Heinlein★★★★★
• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
  David Deutsch★★★★★
• Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
  Charlie Munger★★★★★
• Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World
  Tim Marshall★★★★★Dropped
• Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe
  Laurence Bergreen★★★★★
• Severance
  Ling Ma★★★★★Book Club
• Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
  Peter Attia★★★★★
• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
  James McBride★★★★★

2023

• Stoner
  John Williams★★★★★Book Club
• Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
  Annie Duke★★★★★
• Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door — Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy
  Christopher Mims★★★★★
• Invisible Man
  Ralph Ellison★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers and Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You
  Rob Fitzpatrick★★★★★
• Grant
  Ron Chernow★★★★★
• Death's End
  Liu Cixin★★★★★
• The Dark Forest
  Liu Cixin★★★★★Book Club
• American Pastoral
  Philip Roth★★★★★Book Club
• Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool
  Emily Oster★★★★★
• The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You
  Julie Zhuo★★★★★

2022

• The Three Musketeers
  Alexandre Dumas★★★★★Book Club
• Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
  Marty Cagan★★★★★
• Yearbook
  Seth Rogen★★★★★
• The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
  John Green★★★★★
• Red Mars
  Kim Stanley Robinson★★★★★Book Club
• Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know
  Emily Oster★★★★★
• The Great Gatsby
  F. Scott Fitzgerald★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• All About H. Hatterr
  G. V. Desani★★★★★Book Club
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
  Jared Diamond★★★★★
• Empire of the Sun
  J. G. Ballard★★★★★Book Club
• Leadership in Turbulent Times
  Doris Kearns Goodwin★★★★★
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
  David Epstein★★★★★
• Fictions
  Jorge Luis Borges★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management
  Will Larson★★★★★

2021

• Justine
  Lawrence Durrell★★★★★Book Club
• The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
  Erik Larson★★★★★
• Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
  Gerd Gigerenzer★★★★★
• The Betrothed
  Alessandro Manzoni★★★★★Book Club
• Shadow & Claw: The First Half of The Book of the New Sun
  Gene Wolfe★★★★★Book ClubMy Pick
• Mindfulness in Plain English
  Bhante Henepola Gunaratana★★★★★
• The Influential Product Manager: How to Lead and Launch Successful Technology Products
  Ken Sandy★★★★★
• The Way of Kings
  Brandon Sanderson★★★★★Book Club

2020

• Lincoln
  Gore VidalBook Club
• The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
  Michael Finkel
• Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
  Vladimir NabokovBook ClubMy Pick
• Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness
  Catherine Cho
• Confessions
  AugustineBook Club
• True Grit
  Charles PortisBook Club
• Spring
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• Principles: Life and Work
  Ray Dalio
• A Gentleman in Moscow
  Amor TowlesBook ClubMy Pick
• Gambling with Other People's Money: How Perverse Incentives Caused the Financial Crisis
  Russ Roberts
• The Last Wish
  Andrzej SapkowskiBook Club
• Accidents in North American Climbing 2019
  American Alpine Club
• Accidents in North American Climbing 2018
  American Alpine Club
• Memoirs of Hadrian
  Marguerite YourcenarBook Club

2019

• 9 Out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes: Navigation Through the Maze of Advice for the Self-Coached Climber
  Dave MacLeod
• On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey
  Paul Theroux
• Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly
  Harriet Beecher StoweBook ClubMy Pick
• White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
  Robin DiAngelo
• Beloved
  Toni MorrisonBook Club
• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love
  Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
• Platform
  Michel HouellebecqBook Club
• Pirate Latitudes
  Michael Crichton
• Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
  Greg Carlisle
• Infinite Jest
  David Foster WallaceBook ClubMy Pick
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
  David Grann
• Kintu
  Jennifer Nansubuga MakumbiBook Club
• The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
  Dan Olsen
• State of Fear
  Michael Crichton
• Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
  Tyler Cowen
• Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution
  Tucker Carlson

2018

• A House for Mr. Biswas
  V. S. NaipaulBook Club
• Hopscotch
  Julio CortázarBook ClubMy Pick
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
  Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Kafka on the Shore
  Haruki MurakamiBook Club
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
  Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton
• Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
  Alice Munro
• The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
  Brad Stone
• Journey to the End of the Night
  Louis-Ferdinand CélineBook Club
• The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
  Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
• The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
  Peter F. Drucker
• The Three-Body Problem
  Liu CixinBook ClubMy Pick
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  Yuval Noah Harari
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F\*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
  Mark Manson
• Ironweed
  William KennedyBook Club
• Pachinko
  Min Jin Lee
• Politics and the English Language
  George Orwell
• The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation
  Joseph Goldstein
• The Crying of Lot 49
  Thomas Pynchon
• Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
  Robert Wright
• Elmer Gantry
  Sinclair LewisBook ClubMy Pick
• La Belle Sauvage
  Philip Pullman
• East of Eden
  John Steinbeck

2017

• Aesop's Fables
  Aesop (trans. Ennis Rees)Dropped
• Oliver Twist
  Charles Dickens
• Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
  Joshua Green
• Storm of Steel
  Ernst Jünger
• Sometimes a Great Notion
  Ken KeseyBook Club
• The Underground Railroad
  Colson Whitehead
• Under the Volcano
  Malcolm LowryBook ClubMy Pick
• Huck Out West
  Robert Coover
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
  Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
• The Moviegoer
  Walker PercyBook Club
• The Amber Spyglass
  Philip Pullman
• Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek
  John Branch
• The Subtle Knife
  Philip Pullman
• The Golden Compass
  Philip Pullman
• Love Far From Home
  Italo Calvino
• Deliverance
  James DickeyBook ClubMy Pick
• Logical Progression: Using Nonlinear Periodization for Year-Round Climbing Performance
  Steve Bechtel
• The I.O.U.
  F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
  Robert M. PirsigBook Club
• The Arabian Nights
  anonymous
• Pale Fire
  Vladimir NabokovBook ClubMy Pick
• The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
  Michael Lewis
• Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
  Sebastian Junger

2016

• My President Was Black
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
  Steven Pinker
• Shakespeare's Memory
  Jorge Luis Borges
• Training for Climbing: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Performance
  Eric J. Hörst
• My Struggle: Book Three: Boyhood
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
  Nathaniel Philbrick
• The Old Man and the Sea
  Ernest Hemingway
• One Move Too Many...: How to Understand the Injuries and Overuse Syndromes of Rock Climbing
  Thomas Hochholzer & Volker Schöffl
• Strength: Foundational Training for Rock Climbing
  Steve Bechtel
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  Mark Twain
• Gimme Kraft!: Effective Climbing Training
  Patrick Matros, Ludwig Korb & Dicki Korb
• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
  John Vaillant
• The Wright Brothers
  David McCullough
• The Self-Coached Climber: The Guide to Movement, Training, Performance
  Dan Hague & Douglas Hunter
• All the Light We Cannot See
  Anthony Doerr
• Alone on the Wall
  Alex Honnold & David Roberts
• On the Road
  Jack Kerouac
• The Alchemist
  Paulo Coelho
• A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City
  Anonymous (Marta Hillers)
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North
  Richard Flanagan
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
  Eric Ries

2015

• The Great Gatsby
  F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Overcoat
  Nikolai Gogol
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
  Ben Horowitz
• A Tale of Two Cities
  Charles Dickens
• My Struggle: Book Two: A Man in Love
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
  Kevin Fedarko
• Wizard and Glass
  Stephen King
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
  Elizabeth Kolbert
• The Waste Lands
  Stephen King
• How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness
  Russ Roberts
• Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences
  Nancy Duarte
• The Drawing of the Three
  Stephen King
• The Gunslinger
  Stephen King
• 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story
  Dan Harris
• The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier
  Bruce Barcott
• The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
  Will DurantDropped
• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
  Atul Gawande
• A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir
  Donald Worster

2014

• My Struggle: Book One: A Death in the Family
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• The Goldfinch
  Donna Tartt
• The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
  Louis Menand
• Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
  Wade Davis
• Shantaram
  Gregory David Roberts
• The Good Lord Bird
  James McBride
• The 42nd Parallel
  John Dos Passos
• Lord Jim
  Joseph Conrad
• The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
  Naoki Higashida (trans. KA Yoshida & David Mitchell)
• The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
  Christopher ClarkDropped
• The Stand
  Stephen King
• Mere Christianity
  C.S. LewisDropped
• The Orphan Master's Son
  Adam Johnson
• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
  Barbara Demick
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
  Ernest Hemingway
• The Catcher in the Rye
  J.D. Salinger
• All the Pretty Horses
  Cormac McCarthy

2013

• Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
  Tony Horwitz
• To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
  Daniel H. Pink
• I, Claudius
  Robert Graves
• Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence
  Joseph J. Ellis
• Catch-22
  Joseph Heller
• Brave New World
  Aldous Huxley
• Pride and Prejudice
  Jane Austen
• The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It
  Anat Admati & Martin HellwigDropped
• The Great Gatsby
  F. Scott Fitzgerald
• City of Thieves
  David Benioff
• The Sound and the Fury
  William Faulkner
• The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves
  Dan Ariely
• To the Lighthouse
  Virginia Woolf
• Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
  Joseph J. Ellis
• Let the Great World Spin
  Colum McCann
• Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment
  Tal Ben-Shahar
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The Art of the Sale: Learning from the Masters About the Business of Life
  Philip Delves Broughton
• The Cat's Table
  Michael Ondaatje
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich
  Leo Tolstoy

2012

• Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
  Herman Melville
• 1776
  David McCullough
• Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
  Edward J. Larson
• A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity
  Luigi Zingales
• The Phantom Tollbooth
  Norton Juster
• The God Delusion
  Richard Dawkins
• The Corrections
  Jonathan Franzen
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
  Stephen R. CoveyDropped
• Candide, or Optimism
  Voltaire
• Persuasion
  Jane Austen
• All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
  Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera
• Outliers: The Story of Success
  Malcolm Gladwell
• The Iliad
  Homer (trans. Richmond Lattimore)