Document: WM-003                                                 P. Webb
Category: Life                                                2017.01.01

                     Books I plan to read this year

Abstract

   Setting myself up for failure by making a public promise to read a
   long-ass list of books.

Body

   My girlfriend and I are in competition to see who can read the most
   books this year. Before going through my list, let’s have a look at
   my bookshelf.

   

   As you can see, I have a lot going on. Eagle-eyed observers will
   see that some books have red dot stickers on them. Those are there to
   symbolize which books I have not read yet, or started but haven’t
   finished. In alphabetical order, they are:

   - 1984 — George Orwell [1]
   - The 48 Laws of Power — Robert Greene
   - A Culture of Innovation: Insider accounts of computing and life at
     BBN — David Walden and Raymond Nickerson
   - The Art of Profitability — Adrian Slywotzky
   - The Art of the Start — Guy Kawasaki
   - Astronomy 101 — Carolyn Collins Petersen
   - Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
   - Bring the Outdoors In — Shane Powers and Gentl & Hyers
   - Business Model Generation — Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
   - The Cold Between — Elizabeth Bonesteel
   - Connectography — Parag Khanna
   - Cosmos — Carl Sagan
   - Count Zero — William Gibson [2]
   - Designing News — Francesco Franchi
   - Easy Origami — John Montroll
   - The Fabric of the Cosmos — Brian Greene
   - Getting Things Done — David Allen
   - HOLO 2 — Various Artists/Writers
   - Humans Of New York stories — Brandon Stanton
   - Illuminations: Wisdom From This Planet’s Greatest
     Minds — Illuminatiam
   - Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica Reissue — Kronecker Wallis
   - The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 — Lionel Shriver
   - The Mission Chinese Food Cookbook — Danny Bowien and Chris Ying
   - Mona Lisa Overdrive — William Gibson
   - NASA Graphic Standards Manual reissue — Jesse Reed & Hamish Smyth
   - The Nature of Code — Daniel Shiffman
   - NES/Famicom: a visual compendium — Sam Dyer
   - NLP: The New Technology of Achievement — NLP Comprehensive and
     Steve Andreas
   - Operating Systems: Design and Implementation — Andrew S Tanenbaum
     and Albert S Woodhull
   - A People’s History of the United States — Howard Zinn
   - Physics of the Future — Michio Kaku
   - Rayla 2212 — Ytasha L Womack
   - The Remnants of Trust — Elizabeth Bonesteel
   - The Secret Recipes — Dominique Ansel
   - Selling the Invisible — Harry Beckwith
   - Snowcrash — Neal Stephenson
   - Space Chronicles — Neil deGrasse Tyson
   - Universal Principles of Design — William Lidwell and Kritina Holden

   That’s 38 books in total. Of those, two of them aren’t actually in my
   possession yet. "Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica Reissue" and
   "NES/Famicom: a visual compendium" are both Kickstarter-backed books
   that should be delivered sometime this year.

   To hold myself accountable and make sure I retain the information I
   read, I’m going to do book reports on this blog which will basically
   be reviews. My girlfriend is going to do the same thing on her
   blog[3], so be sure to check that out.

   I am most excited to read "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive"
   because I absolutely love "Neuromancer" (all three of these books
   were written by William Gibson). I’ve read it a few times already.
   Funny story, while still in high school I visited a Borders bookstore
   (RIP) to buy Neuromancer. The store clerk thought I said "New
   Romancer" and wasted 10 minutes trying to find the incorrect book. In
   hindsight, I’m surprised that wasn’t a real book in the store.

   Anyhoo, the book I am reading right now is "A Culture of Innovation:
   Insider accounts of computing and life at BBN". I am fascinated
   about the beginnings of the Internet. To think that it didn’t always
   exist and now it’s in the very fabric of our lives thanks in part to
   the people at "Bolt Beranek and Newman" is so cool to me. 🕸