At the end of 2012, inspired by this blog post, I decided to read one book every week for all of 2013. And I did it! You can check out the full list here, so this post is mostly going to be some wrap-up thoughts.
First off, reading one book every week was hard. Sometimes I didn’t like the book, sometimes I didn’t have time, and sometimes I was just lazy. That meant that I needed to read a lot of short, easy books to fill in gaps. I think I read a few too many (I would have liked to read more meaty fare), but that’s just part of the process. Overall, I read 14 filler books (labeled “Misc” in the chart below) compared to 11 fiction, 11 non fiction, and 8 literature.
Sorry about the numbering on the left axis, I can’t figure out how to make Google Docs do it by ones instead of fours.
The Best and Worst
In true end of year wrap-up fashion, I want to go through these genres and talk about my favorite and least favorite books in each category.
Business
Best: Rework
I like Rework because it’s daring. It’s short, and not entirely practical for everyone, but one thing it definitely doesn’t do is rehash the same “play it safe” advice you see in every other business book. For that reason alone, it’s worth the read.
Honorable Mention: Little Bets
Great book about iterative product development. It’s not the best written or organized, but the message is spot on. Even if you only read the first three chapters you’ll see a benefit.
Worst: The Startup of You
Not actually a bad book, just boring. As I said in the review, maybe all of the advice is common knowledge these days, but I just didn’t take much from it. This is basically the opposite of the Rework style of “throw out the rules” book. One thing I do have to credit Startup with is introducing me to “A, B, Z planning” which is a cool framework to think through problems with.
Fiction
Best: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
This is now one of my favorite books. Considered to be Le Carre’s best, it’s just a really, really well written spy thriller. If you like that genre, or you’re interested in it, this is the right book. End of story.
Honorable Mention: A Song of Ice and Fire
I didn’t write much about these books because there’s way too much to say about them and I didn’t think you’d be interested. I do want to take this chance to say that the first 5,000 or so pages of this (still incomplete) series are awesome, and I can’t wait for the next installment.
If you watch Game of Thrones on TV, but you think the books are going to be boring, please read these books right away. Everything that makes the show awesome (sex, violence, political intrigue) is even more so in the books. I promise you’ll love them.
Worst: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
I really wanted to like this book, and the joke was funny for the first couple chapters, but it just drags on. Eventually I was suffering through the zombie bits just to get to the actual love story, and at that point, it’s better to just toss this book and read Pride and Prejudice instead.
Literature
Best: Heart of Darkness
One of my favorite books for years, this is just incredibly well written. It’s dense, but if you put a little work into it you’ll start to pick up a feel for the language, and once that happens, the last 15 pages or so will blow your mind. I love this book.
Honorable Mention: MacBeth
I read a few Shakespeare plays this year, and I’m starting to get a much better picture of Shakespeare as a writer (much better than I ever did reading Romeo and Juliet in middle school). It’s cool to see how so many of the writing and plot conventions he used (or even invented!) are still around in our stories, 400 years later.
Worst: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Like I said in the review, this book one the Nobel Prize for Literature, so it’s possible that I just didn’t get it, but I gotta say that I just didn’t get it. 400 pages of beautiful descriptions of six generations of a Mexican family and not one hint of a unifying plot. That just doesn’t do it for me.
Misc
Best: The Action Hero’s Handbook
Of all the short/filler books I read, this was by far my favorite. It wasn’t the best edited, and the good parts were way too short, but it’s the only book I read this year that taught me how to secure a crime scene, interrogate a suspect, and then beat him up on top of a moving train.
Honorable Mention: Dr. Seuss Stories
I got some Dr Seuss stories with the express intention of reading them as filler while I chipped away at longer books, but that was probably one of the best decisions I made for this project. I haven’t heard these stories in years, so hearing them for the first time as an adult, I appreciate the writing much more.
Worst: Kindle Welcome Letter
This was by far the most bullshit “book” I read. I had 10 minutes in a cab before going to my friend’s celebration dinner, so I read the two page quick start guide and called it a day. Stupid, but it kept me on track for the year, so there’s that.
Nonfiction
Best: The Signal and the Noise
I’m really upset that I didn’t write a review of this book, because it’s so good. Nate Silver isn’t by any means the best statistician living today, but he is probably the best statistics or popular science writer I’ve ever read. Unlike Malcolm Gladwell, Silver isn’t afraid to get into more technical details about his subject, but he’s still able to do it in an easily understood, friendly voice.
Honorable Mention: One Way Forward
Lawrence Lessig’s short manifesto about campaign finance reform. I really liked it, and I think it’s important for people to read it, whether they agree or disagree, because it gives us a common starting point to talk about improving our government. It’s awesome.
Worst: Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell is a great popular science writer, but he just doesn’t go in depth enough for me. I know that his forte is telling stories, and in Outliers he told some great ones, I just wish there was some scientific meat on the anecdotal bones.
Philosophy
Best: The Tao Te Ching
I’m not going to say a lot about this book. I didn’t necessarily understand a lot of it, but the parts I did gave me some really good advice. I’m also into Chinese culture, so I liked it for that reason as well. It’s short, you could read it over a weekend without difficulty.
Self Help
Best: The Underachiever’s Manifesto
This was a funny book, and it was also the only book that I categorized as “self-help,” so it was the de facto winner, but the real reason that it’s on this page is because The Underachiever’s Manifesto is one of the top search terms for my blog, so by posting this link, maybe I’ll get a little more search traffic.
Travel
Best: Vagabonding
This is another book I wish I had reviewed. It’s a different approach to long-term travel. It’s a handbook for life on the road for six months, six years, or six decades. If you liked 4 Hour Work Week, you’ll like this more.
Honorable Mention: Immersion Guides’ Mandarin Phrasebook
This was a hard book to read, but while I was reading it I could feel my Chinese improve to a level that it hasn’t been since I lived in China, and that alone is enough to get it the honorable mention.
Overall, was it worth it?
Honestly, no. I’m obviously a lot better read, and I’m sure that reading has been only further ingrained as a life-long habit, but I still feel like I don’t read enough books (which is crazy, because I’m pretty sure I read more than anyone I know, but there it is). I’ve seen so many lists of good books and had so many book recommendations that when I look at my paltry list of 52 books, I’m a little disappointed that I couldn’t read more.
And for the books I did read, the one week clock only meant that I didn’t get to spend enough time enjoying them. I was always just trying to push faster and finish the book. So the smart books only gave me some of their knowledge, the fun books only gave me some of their entertainment, and the bad books I finished just as quickly as possible (as usual).
I just started David Slansky’s The Theory of Poker, and I’m really looking forward to taking my time and reading it slowly. Maybe over a whole month. Now that I’m not on the clock, I can actually do some deep reading (and re-reading) and make the most of my book.
You can see the full list of books I read for this project here.
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