Books I plan to read this year

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.

📸My bookshelf has more than books on it

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:

1̶9̶8̶4̶ ̶—̶ ̶G̶e̶o̶r̶g̶e̶ ̶O̶r̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ 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

C̶o̶u̶n̶t̶ ̶Z̶e̶r̶o̶ ̶—̶ ̶W̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶m̶ ̶G̶i̶b̶s̶o̶n̶ 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 blog3, 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. 🕸