Books & Reading

2016 felt like a slow reading year. That's mostly because I read so many long books. I also read a few books purely out of obligation (ahem, Harry Potter). But major life changes filled the year, and their emotional aspects had my brain frequently too distracted to read for long. But I persevered and found a few gems along the way. So here's my 2016 reading list, along with a quick thought on each book. I don't do reviews, so these aren't reviews. In no particular order:

Harry Potter 4-7 by J.K. Rowling

Years ago I promised my daughter

Every year, I set myself a two-books-per-month reading goal. It’s a pace I can hit without too much trouble, and it allows me time to navigate some of the 1000 page behemoths hoarding space on the to-be-read shelf.

In 2015, I managed to read thirty books. Some were fantastic. Others were boring. Most were educational in some sense.  I’m not much of a critic or reviewer.  Any book that holds my attention to the end must impart some knowledge, even if it that knowledge concerns effective fiction pacing.

Below is my 2015 reading list. I like keeping a

On a particular day in August 2015, the book gods declared a holiday. There was a new Harper Lee novel, a new Ernest Cline novel, and a highly-rated debut by Natasha Pulley. I learned about that last one on Goodreads, I think, as part of a New Releases email. It seemed like an interesting book, so I put it on my list. When I searched for it at the bookstore and found a delightful binding with a watchface showing through a cutout on the jacketless cover, it quickly joined the others in my hand.

I don’t have much to

This is no surprise, right?  Have you read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One? If you haven’t, you should. If you have, I bet you’re going to read Armada.

Ready Player One came out of nowhere. It was geeky, fun, and oh so memorable. It was the ultimate throwback for those of us who grew up playing Atari, Commodore, Intellivision (Note: Just like today, I didn’t like Apple, except maybe for Zaxxon and River Raid, which were awesome!). Ready Player One offered a sci-fi future that was somehow nostalgic, which seems impossible. How did Cline pull it

Not much to say about this one. Sometimes you read a book because it’s the pop culture thing to do. Sometimes that book is the sequel to a classic. Rarely does that sequel arrive more than fifty years after the original.

I don’t have high expectations, given what I know of the publishing story. With the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee could have published this book at any time. She chose not to. That says a lot.  I don’t buy claims it was a “lost” novel. Authors don’t forget writing a novel, especially

I spend a lot of time in the car. During most of that time I listen to music, but sometimes I try to multitask. That’s where audiobooks come in.

I spent years attempting to improve my audiobook listening skills. Early attempts were always thwarted by tangential thoughts. I’d hear a comment which would initiate a thought, and that thought would lead to other thoughts, and those thoughts would lead to unrelated thoughts, and inevitably a few minutes would pass during which I hadn’t heard a word of the narration. Rewind, rewind, rewind, try again. Fail again. Repeat.

I'm still undecided about Neal Stephenson. I'm drawn to his books, but I wouldn't say I love them. At a minimum, they're intelligent, and they deal with interesting technology. His writing is fast and active and unmuddled, which, given so many technological descriptions, is an impressive feat. Perhaps his story ideas and characterizations intrigue me, even if the execution is inconsistent. Regardless of the past, I know exactly why I'm reading his newest novel, Seveneves: It spans thousands of years in a single volume.

I love history. I love seeing how systems evolve over time, or how ideas drift through