Book Burnout

For the first time in my life, I think I’m getting sick of reading. Maybe it’s just bad selection of books right now — I’m stuck in the middle of three different books[ref]Woodward’s Fear, a book on git, and Philip Pullman’s Daemon Voices.[/ref] — and I just can’t seem to find any traction with any … Read more

An Assessment

reading

Unless I can find a way to read 11 books in the next 19 days, I’m going to fail on my annual reading goal for 2016. That’ll make two years in a row. Not pleased by that. On the other hand, it’s 11 books in 19 days. A book every 1.72 days. Maybe if I … Read more

2014: Reading Review

Good year for reading, man. It started off rough, but then I started taking the bus to work every day and that gave me two uninterrupted hours a day to pound through the pages. My goal for 2014 was to read 50 books. When I started the regular commute in June, I was 8 books behind schedule. I ended the year well past my goal. I’ve posted a full run-down of the metrics similar to what I did for 2012.

Besides the goal for reading 50 books, I was also of the mindset that I wanted to branch out and not read mostly science fiction, like I had done in years past. Thus, I made pointed choices to start reading a lot more non-fiction, and that helped. Sci-fi was still the lion’s share, but 2014 was a lot more balanced than previous years.

That said, by mid-November, I was getting pretty sick of reading. I finished The Girl With All the Gifts, and then floundered about for what to read next. Which is exactly what happened after I read Dataclysm. Clearly, I’d crammed a lot of reading into the previous six months.

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Revisiting 2012: Reading

reading

I’ve been meaning to get to this post for awhile now, and with the kid, the framebuilding, work, and more craziness in 2013, I haven’t been able to sit down and really dig into my booklist analysis. So, here’s some insights into my reading list from last year. (For the list of titles and thoughts on them, along with my movie-watching, please refer to my 2012 Media Intake posting.)

Overview

I read a lot of science fiction, which is typical. I also read for entertainment more than anything else and was very quickly grabbing time wherever I could, as the kid kept me pretty busy. Two books really sucked the life out of me — Stephenson’s REAMDE, which was a letdown from about a third of the way through, and 1634: The Ram Rebellion, which completely annoyed the shit out of me. The former took over a month, the latter took a month.

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2012 Media Intake

Books: Flood by Stephen Baxter, Science Fiction, 488 pages, finished on 1/3/12 This is, as much as most of Baxter’s near-term science fiction, pretty bleak stuff. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the heck out of it and plan to read the sequel, Ark, in 2012, as well. Seed by Rob Ziegler, Science Fiction, 339 pages, finished … Read more

2011’s Reading List

Non-Fiction:

The Four-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss

Ferriss left me thinking a lot about hacking in 2011. Not just one’s body, but everything. I didn’t put much of this into practice in 2011, but for 2012, I’ll be trying more of it.

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

Left me saying “fuck yeah!” and inspired me greatly. This is one of those, like King’s On Writing… that I will probably read every year or two.

SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Didn’t have the same impact as the first.

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell continues to be one of my favorite non-fiction writers, and this is a collection of his shorter essays. Good stuff.

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