A list of books that I read each year, since I began tracking my reading in 2019. Some of these are recommendable, others are moderately embarassing. I may tag the recommendations in the future.

Due to a chronic injury sustained in 2018 I started listening to a lot of audio books, to give me something to do while I did physical therapy. Unfortunately the selection of recorded audio books is somewhat limited and pop-cultury. In 2021 I began to get more directed with my reading list — for which I now have a backlog for at least the next several years.

Read in 2021

  • Foucault’s Pendulum - Umberto Eco
  • The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything - Mike Rothschild
  • Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos - M. Mitchell Waldrop
  • Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics - Hal Roberts, Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris
  • The Human Condition - Hannah Arendt
  • Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right - Cynthia Miller-Idriss
  • Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy - Talia Lavin
  • Thinking in Systems: A Primer - Donella H. Meadows
  • The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values - Brian Christian
  • hyposubjects: on becoming human - Timothy Morton, Dominic Boyer
  • How to Take Smart Notes - Sönke Ahrens
  • Binding Chaos - Heather Marsh
  • Debt: The First 5,000 Years - David Graeber
  • Designing Freedom - Stafford Beer
  • An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination - Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang
  • The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935 - Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
  • Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right - Angela Nagle (ed: This book is really bad due to factually inaccuracies, plagarism, and biases on the part of the author)

Read in 2020

  • Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World - Timothy Morton
  • The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control - Steven Hassan
  • Team Human - Douglas Rushkoff
  • The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall - Mark W. Moffett
  • Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy - Cathy O’Neil
  • The Three Tensions: Winning the Struggle to Perform Without Compromise - Dominic Dodd, Ken Favaro
  • SSOTBME Revised - an essay on magic - Ramsey Dukes
  • The Complete Magician’s Tables - Stephen Skinner
  • Applied Magic and Aspects of Occultism - Dion Fortune
  • The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity - Toby Ord
  • Why We’re Polarized - Ezra Klein
  • The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times - Pema Chodron
  • When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times - Pema Chodron
  • Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living - Pema Chodron
  • The Ministry for the Future: A Novel - Kim Stanley Robinson

Read in 2019

  • The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power - Shoshana Zuboff
  • First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety - Sarah Wilson
  • Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions - Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
  • Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell
  • Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress - Steven Pinker
  • Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker
  • Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think - Hans Rosling
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
  • Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging - Sebastian Junger
  • The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups - Daniel Coyle
  • Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization - Scott Barry Kaufman
  • The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg
  • The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph - Ryan Holiday
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
  • Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator - Ryan Holiday
  • Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity - David Lynch
  • Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl
  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life - Mark Manson
  • Meditations - Marcus Aurelius