+++ title = "Books Past and Present" +++ Particular favorites are **bolded**, books I particularly despised are in *italics*. ### 2020: currently reading - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff - The Long Utopia, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter ### 2020: read - The Long Mars, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - The Long War, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - Makers, by Cory Doctorow - First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde - Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde - The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde - A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, by Orlando Figes - La Conquête du Pain, by Peter Kropotkin - Anarchism, by Ruth Kinna - Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, by Ronan Farrow - Calypso, by David Sedaris - Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, by Anand Giridharadas - The Telling, by Ursula K Le Guin - Four Ways to Forgiveness, by Ursula K Le Guin - **The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin** - **On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong** ### 2019: read - Fear: Trump in the White House, by Bob Woodward - The Mueller Report, by Robert S Mueller III ### 2018: read - City of Illusions, by Ursula K Le Guin - Planet of Exile, by Ursula K Le Guin - Rocannon's World, by Ursula K Le Guin - The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K Le Guin - **The Dispossessed, by Ursula K Le Guin** - Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia E Butler - Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E Butler - **Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E Butler** - Fledgling, by Octavia E Butler - **Kindred, by Octavia E Butler** - The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri - Towards Zero, by Agatha Christie - Ordeal by Innocence, by Agatha Christie - Murder is Easy, by Agatha Christie - Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff ### 2017: read - Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth, by Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge, by Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation, by Isaac Asimov - Foundation, by Isaac Asimov - *Hard Choices, by Hillary Rodham Clinton* - The Sheperd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett - Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett - Snuff, by Terry Pratchett - I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett - Making Money, by Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett - Thud!, by Terry Pratchett - Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full of Sky, by Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett - Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett - The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett - The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett - Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams - The Truth, by Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett - The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett - **Jingo, by Terry Pratchett** - Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett - Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K Jerome - Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett - Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett - Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett - Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - **Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett** - Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett - Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett - Moving Pictures, by Terry Pratchett - Eric, by Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!, by Terry Pratchett - Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett - Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett - Sourcery, by Terry Pratchett - Mort, by Terry Pratchett - Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett - The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett - A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki - The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett - Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie - Candide, by Voltaire - Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, by Bradley K Martin - The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio - The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht - **To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis** ### 2016: read - **Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie** - **Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit** - Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson - All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr - Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis - I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov - The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky - The Twelve, by Justin Cronin - The Passage, by Justin Cronin ### 2015: read - Jia, by Hyejin Kim - Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi - The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood - Poirot's Early Cases, by Agatha Christie - The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever, by Greg Sestero - The Dark and Hollow Places, by Carrie Ryan - The Dead-Tossed Waves, by Carrie Ryan - Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson - Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith - Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions, by Neil Gaiman - Why Not Me?, by Mindy Kaling - *That Hideous Strength, by CS Lewis* - *Perelandra, by CS Lewis* - *Out of the Silent Planet, by CS Lewis* - *The Last Battle, by CS Lewis* - *The Magician's Nephew, by CS Lewis* - *The Horse and His Boy, by CS Lewis* - *The Silver Chair, by CS Lewis* - *Prince Caspian, by CS Lewis* - *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis* - *Lady Chatterley's Lover, by DH Lawrence* - *Sons and Lovers, by DH Lawrence* - *Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline* - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore - A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens - The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, by Agatha Christie - Five Little Pigs, by Agatha Christie - **Life after Life, by Kate Atkinson** - Curtain, by Agatha Christie - Elephants Can Remember, by Agatha Christie - Hallowe'en Party, by Agatha Christie - The Clocks, by Agatha Christie - Cat Among the Pigeons, by Agatha Christie - Dead Man's Folly, by Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock, by Agatha Christie - After the Funeral, by Agatha Christie - Mrs. McGuinty's Dead, by Agatha Christie - The Labours of Hercules, by Agatha Christie - Sad Cypress, by Agatha Christie - The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi - **The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis** - **The Great Divorce, by CS Lewis** - The Devil of Nanking, by Mo Hayder - Birdman, by Mo Hayder - The Hollow, by Agatha Christie - *Evil Under the Sun, by Agatha Christie* - *One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, by Agatha Christie* - Hercule Poirot's Christmas, by Agatha Christie - Appointment with Death, by Agatha Christie - Dumb Witness, by Agatha Christie - Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie - Murder in Mesopotamia, by Agatha Christie - Cards on the Table, by Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders, by Agatha Christie - Death in the Clouds, by Agatha Christie - Three Act Tragedy, by Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie - Peril at End House, by Agatha Christie - Lord Edgware Dies, by Agatha Christie - The Mystery of the Blue Train, by Agatha Christie - The Big Four, by Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie - Poirot Investigates, by Agatha Christie - The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie - *Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace* - **Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel** - The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters, by BR Myers - Atonement, by Ian McEwan - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami - **Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami** - The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides - The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, by Doris Kearns Goodwin - **Levels of Life, by Julian Barnes** - Miss Marple's Final Cases, by Agatha Christie - Sleeping Murder, by Agatha Christie - *Nemesis, by Agatha Christie* - **Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick** - At Bertram's Hotel, by Agatha Christie - A Caribbean Mystery, by Agatha Christie - The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, by Agatha Christie - 4:50 from Paddington, by Agatha Christie - A Pocket Full of Rye, by Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors, by Agatha Christie - A Murder is Announced, by Agatha Christie - **Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened, by Allie Brosh** - The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, by Chol-Hwan Kang - The Moving Finger, by Agatha Christie - The Body in the Library, by Agatha Christie - *Drinking and Tweeting and Other Brandi Blunders, by Brandi Glanville* - The Thirteen Problems, by Agatha Christie - Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie - The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling, by Robert Galbraith - Landline, by Rainbow Rowell - The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese, by Kathe Lison - Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda, by Omar Nasiri - **Good Omens, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman** ### 2014: read - Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris - Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church, by Lauren Drain - Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, by Wendy Lower - Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, by Neil Gaiman - Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman - **American Gods, by Neil Gaiman** - The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison - The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga - The Ocean at the End of the Road, by Neil Gaiman - **Yes Please, by Amy Poehler** - *Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn* - A Mercy, by Toni Morrison - The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene - To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, by Umberto Eco - *Neuromancer, by William Gibson* - The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling - Coraline, by Neil Gaiman - Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain - A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess - Silas Marner, by George Eliot - Roughing It, by Mark Twain - *The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain* - Goodbye Mr Chips, by James Hilton - Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians, by Mark Twain - The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain - A Double Barrelled Detective Story, by Mark Twain - A Murder, a Mystery and a Marriage, by Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer Abroad, by Mark Twain - Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain - We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin - After Dark, by Haruki Murakami - After the Quake, by Haruki Murakami - The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett - Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (Around the world in Eighty Days, read in French), by Jules Verne - Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett - **Middlemarch, by George Eliot** - **The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde** - Burmese Days, by George Orwell - Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, by John Waters - Dear Leader, by Jang Jin-Sung - The Fault in our Stars, by John Greene - Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Pearl, by John Steinbeck - Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'une femme (Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman, read in French), by Stefan Zweig - Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë - The Road, by Cormac McCarthy - *Bringing up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, by Pamela Druckerman* - Shadows in Flight, by Scott Orson Card - The Manson Murders, by Martin Fido - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin - Shadow of the Giant, by Scott Orson Card - Shadow Puppets, by Scott Orson Card - Shadow of the Hegemon, by Scott Orson Card - Ender's Shadow, by Scott Orson Card - Children of the Mind, by Scott Orson Card - Xenocide, by Scott Orson Card - Speaker for the Dead, by Scott Orson Card - Ender's Game, by Scott Orson Card - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera - An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro - A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro - *When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro* - **Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro** - *Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell* - The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro - The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle - His Last Bow, by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Valley of Fear, by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Sign of Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle - A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle - Little Bee, by Chris Cleave - Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison - Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, by Blaine Harden - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan - Re Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett - Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury - The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett - The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt - Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev - The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks, by Amy Stewart ### 2013: read - *Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez* - **The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, by Naoki Higashida** - Priestess of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Lady of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley - *Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler* (I am not a nazi kthx, I read this by historical curiosity - fwiw, even writing-wise it was absolutely terrible) - I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban, by Malala Yousafzai - The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner - *One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez* - Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti - Hitler, by AN Wilson - The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco - Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag Montefiore - The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank - The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury - Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, by Simon Schama - The History of Witchcraft, by Lois Martin - MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood - Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry - *Don't Get too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems, by David Rakoff* - Dress Your Family in Coruroy and Denim, by David Sedaris - When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris - Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, by David Sedaris - The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler - The Odyssey, by Homer - The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov - Oh Myyy!, by George Takei - Up from Slavery, by Booker T Washington - The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II, by Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV, by Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books V-VII, by Akeksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth - The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt - Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell - The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson - **War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy** - The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - *Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk* - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich - Villette, by Charlotte Brontë - Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë - The Call of the Wild, by Jack London - Life and Times of Michael K, by JM Coetzee - The Iliad, by Homer - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail, by Cheryl Strayed - The Castle, by Franz Kafka - The Trial, by Franz Kafka - A Dance with Dragons, by George RR Martin - A Feast for Crows, by George RR Martin - *Eleven Minutes, by Paulo Coelho* - At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson - *Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk* - Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck - The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane - The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka - *The Breast, by Philip Roth* - The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays, by Chinua Achebe - Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee Wilson - A Storm of Swords, by George RR Martin - A Clash of Kings, by George RR Martin - A Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin - **Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy** - *The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky* - The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Bossypants, by Tina Fey - In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote - The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, by Mark Twain - Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain - *Veronika Decides to Die, by Paulo Coelho* - A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe - The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver - I am America, by Stephen Colbert - The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë - Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe - The Forest House, by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë - **The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley** ### 2012: read - I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris - Zodiac, by Robert Graysmith - Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex - Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury - *World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooke* - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens - The Casual Vacancy, by JK Rowling - The Color Purple, by Alice Walker - La Chute, by Albert Camus - Amerika, by Franz Kafka - **Come September, by Arundhati Roy** - Wigfield: The Can-Do Town that Just May Not, by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello - *Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann* - Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe - Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote - **My Life in France, by Julia Child** - The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood - American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis - **Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood** - **The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood** - **Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe** - Moral Disorder and Other Stories, by Margaret Atwood - Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins ### Books important to me that I read previously (in no particular order): - A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M Miller Jr - Catch-22, by Joseph Heller - La peste, by Albert Camus - L'amant de la Chine du Nord, by Marguerite Duras - Hiroshima Mon Amour, by Marguerite Duras - Huis Clos, by Jean-Paul Sartre - The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy - The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood - Gender Troubles, by Judith Butler - Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott - The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Zazie dans le métro, by Raymond Queneau - Germinal, by Émile Zola - The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair - The Importance of Being Ernest, by Oscar Wilde - Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky ### Books I was unable to finish reading: - Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller - Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie - The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway