All the books I read since 2015. I also have a wishlist.

Rubric

Re-reads are marked with an asterisk (∗).
Works read in translation are marked with a dagger (†).
Things I read for book club are marked with a tilde (~).

2024

  1. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens. ~

  2. The Picses, Melissa Broder.

  3. Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kasulke.

  4. O Positive, Joe Dunthorne.

  5. The City & The City, China Miéville. ~

  6. An Applied Mathematician’s Apology, LLoyd N. Trefethen.

  7. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin. ~

  8. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, Richard W. Hamming.

  9. Crying in H-Mart, Michelle Zauner. ~

  10. God Complex, Rachael Allen.

  11. The Mask of Dimitrios, Eric Ambler. ~

  12. Roadside Picnic, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. † (Russian) ~

  13. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantell.

  14. Brother Poem, Will Harris.

  15. Golden Age, Wang Xiaobo. † (Mandarin)

  16. Cold Enough for Snow, Jessica Au. ~

  17. The Honjin Murders, Seishi Yokomizi. ~ † (Japanese)

  18. Dicing With Death, Stephen Senn.

  19. The Intellectuals and the Masses, John Carey.

  20. The Real North Korea, Andrei Lankov.

  21. Shogun, James Clavell.

  22. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, Mike Brown.

  23. The Infinities, John Banville. ~

2023

  1. You Are Not Expected to Understand This, Torie Bosch (ed.).

  2. This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone. (~)

  3. Gone: A Search for what Remains of the World’s Extinct Creatures, Michael Blencowe.

  4. Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne-Jones. (~)

  5. Dark Matter, Michelle Paver.

  6. Permanent Record, Edward Snowden. (~)

  7. Michel the Giant: An African in Greenland, Tété-Michel Kpomassie. † (French)

  8. My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite. ~

  9. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Kate Beaton.

  10. Secret Rendezvous, Kōbō Abe. † (Japanese)

  11. All In It Together: England in the Early 21st Century, Alwyn Turner.

  12. Behold the Man, Michael Moorcock. ~

  13. A Year in the New Life, Jack Underwood.

  14. Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

  15. Fictions, Jean-Luis Borges. † (Spanish)

  16. Braised Pork, An Yu. ~

  17. The Fifty-Nine Icosahedra, H. S. M. Coxeter, P. Du Val, H. T. Flather & J. F. Petrie.

  18. The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson.

  19. King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry, Siobhan Roberts.

  20. Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto. † (Japanese)

  21. Termush, Sven Holm. † (Danish)

  22. The Electric Forest, Tanith Lee.

  23. The Ascent of Rum Doodle, W. E. Bowman.

  24. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay.

  25. Worlds Fantastic, Worlds Familiar: A Guided Tour of the Solar System, Bonnie J. Buratti.

  26. Red Plenty, Francis Spufford.

  27. Halloween Party, Agatha Christie.

  28. Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro. ~

  29. Foreverism, Grafton Turner.

  30. The Secret Lives of Numbers, Kate Kitagawa & Timothy Revell.

  31. Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor.

  32. Mathematics and the Unexpected, Ivar Ekeland. † (French)

2022

  1. Flatland, Edwin A. Abbott.

  2. Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata. † (Japanese)

  3. Burmese Days, George Orwell.

  4. The Right to Sex, Amia Srinivasan.

  5. Hinton, Mark Blacklock.

  6. The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu. † (Mandarin)

  7. Innumeracy: mathematical illiteracy and its consequences, John Allen Paulos.

  8. Algorithms Illuminated Part II: Graph Algorithms and Data Structures, Tim Roughgarden.

  9. The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma, Thant Myint-U.

  10. Changing Places, David Lodge.

  11. The North Water, Ian McGuire.

  12. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky. † (Russian)

  13. Quantum Computing Since Democritus, Scott Aaronson.

  14. Exhalation, Ted Chiang.

  15. Chess Story, Stefan Zweig. † (German)

  16. The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry.

  17. A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro.

  18. My Life as a Dog, Reidar Jönsson. † (Swedish)

  19. Six Easy Pieces, Richard P. Feynmann.

  20. Small World, David Lodge.

  21. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen.

  22. Nice Work, David Lodge.

  23. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers.

  24. Persuasion, Jane Austen.

  25. Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh.

  26. Astral Season, Beastly Season, Tahi Saihate. † (Japanese)

  27. Abolish Silicon Valley, Wendy Liu.

  28. Tokyo Express, Seichō Matsuomoto. † (Japanese)

  29. Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes. ~

  30. The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen.

  31. ‘Twas the Nightshift before Christmas, Adam Kay. ~

  32. The English Understand Wool, Helen DeWitt.

  33. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel.

2021

  1. The Fens, Francis Pryor.

  2. The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers.

  3. The Lightness, Emily Temple.

  4. Understanding Coronavirus, Raul Rabadan.

  5. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys.

  6. The Three Body Problem, Liu Cixin. † (Mandarin)

  7. Joe Gould’s Secret, Joseph Mitchell.

  8. The Appointment, Katherina Volckmer.

  9. A Passion for Nature: the Life of John Muir, Donald Worster.

  10. The High House, Jessie Greengrass.

  11. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction, Martin Bunton.

  12. Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood.

  13. Time Travel: A History, James Gleick.

  14. Dune, Frank Herbert.

  15. Address Unknown, Kathrine Kressmann Taylor.

  16. Mountains and Desire, Margret Grebowicz.

  17. Heaven, Meiko Kawakami. † (Japanese)

  18. Dos and Don’ts: 10 Years Of Vice Magazine’s Street Fashion Critiques, Gavin McInnes.

  19. Pine, Francine Toon.

  20. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami. ∗, † (Japanese)

  21. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, David Graeber.

  22. Strange Weather in Tokyo, Hiromi Kawakami. † (Japanese)

  23. The Fortnight in September, R.C. Sherriff.

  24. Country Music, Will Burns.

  25. No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood.

  26. Shape, Jordan Ellenberg.

  27. The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov.

  28. Aesthetics: a very short introduction, Bence Nanay.

  29. Algorithms Illuminated Part I: The Basics, Tim Roughgarden.

  30. William Blake Vs The World, John Higgs.

  31. How Computers Really Work, Matthew Justice.

  32. Roarings from Further Out, Algernon Blackwood.

  33. Notes from an Island, Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pieitilä. † (Swedish)

  34. Botchan, Natsume Sōseki. † (Japanese)

  35. The Man from the Future: the Visionary Life of John von Neumann, Ananyo Bhattacharya.

  36. Paradoxes, R.M. Sainsbury.

2020

  1. The Wild Places, Robert MacFarlane.

  2. Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino.

  3. Where Do Numbers Come From?, Tom Körner.

  4. The Art of Statistics: learning from data, David Spiegelhalter.

  5. Because Internet: understanding the new rules of language, Gretchen McCulloch.

  6. The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster.

  7. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood.

  8. The Book of Tea, Kakazuō Okakura.

  9. Dear Boy, Emily Berry.

  10. Emma, Jane Austen.

  11. Running with the Kenyans, Adharanand Finn.

  12. Frank Ramsey: a sheer excess of genius, Cheryl Misak.

  13. Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan.

  14. Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer.

  15. The Plague, Albert Camus. † (French)

  16. Authority, Jeff VanderMeer.

  17. Acceptance, Jeff VanderMeer.

  18. Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years, Sue Townsend. ∗

  19. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner.

  20. Tales of Impossibility: the 2000-year quest to solve the mathematical problems of antiquity, David S. Richeson.

  21. The Eight Mountains, Paolo Cognetti. † (Italian)

  22. The Cult of Smart, Fredrik DeBoer.

  23. Under the Glacier, Halldór Laxness. † (Icelandic)

  24. Waterland, Graham Swift.

2019

  1. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding.

  2. Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose, Christopher Josiffe.

  3. Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata. † (Japanese)

  4. Levels of Life, Julian Barnes.

  5. Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell. † (Swedish)

  6. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith.

  7. Winter, Ali Smith. ~

  8. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli. † (Italian)

  9. Autumn, Ali Smith.

  10. The Birth of Korean Cool, Euny Hong.

  11. Hello World, Hannah Fry.

  12. The Adulterants, Joe Dunthorne.

  13. The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace.

  14. Bad Blood, John Carreyrou.

  15. The Assembly of the Severed Head, Hugh Lupton.

  16. Craze: gin and debauchery in an age of reason, Jessica Warner.

  17. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk. † (Polish)

  18. The Death of Ivan Ilych and other stories, Leo Tolstoy. † (Russian)

  19. Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant., Joel Golby.

  20. The Trial, Franz Kafka. † (German)

  21. Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: and other arguments for economic independence, Kristen Ghodsee.

  22. So Much Longing In So Little Space: the art of Edvard Munch, Karl Ove Knausgård. † (Norwegian)

  23. The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse. † (French)

  24. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh.

  25. Underland, Robert MacFarlane.

  26. Early Work, Andrew Martin.

  27. The Weil Conjectures: on math and the pursuit of the unknown, Karen Olsson.

  28. Lost Japan, Alex Kerr. † (Japanese)

  29. Proofs and Refutations, Imre Lakatos.

  30. Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang.

  31. The AI Does Not Hate You, Tom Chivers.

  32. Another Kyoto, Alex Kerr.

  33. The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton.

  34. The Collection, Nina Leger. † (French)

  35. A Walk-On Part: diaries 1994–1999, Chris Mullin.

  36. The Breakfast Bible, Seb Emina and Malcolm Eggs.

  37. Females, Andrea Long Chu.

  38. The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa. † (Japanese)

  39. I am a Cat, Natsume Sōseki. † (Japanese)

2018

  1. Longitude, Dava Sobel.

  2. A Doubter’s Almanac, Ethan Canin.

  3. Swing Time, Zadie Smith. ~

  4. Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, Douglas Adams & James Goss.

  5. How Not To Be a Boy, Robert Webb.

  6. On the Natural History of Destruction, W. G. Sebald.

  7. The Vegetarian, Han Kang. ~, † (Korean)

  8. Educated, Tara Westover.

  9. If I’m Scared We Can’t Win: Penguin modern poets 1, Emily Berry, Anne Carson & Sophie Collins.

  10. The Bend of the World, Jacob Bacharach.

  11. Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh. ~

  12. Politics and the English Language, George Orwell.

  13. Sight, Jessie Greengrass.

  14. H(A)PPY, Nicola Barker. ~

  15. Injection #1, W. Ellis, D. Shalvey & J. Bellaire.

  16. Possession, A. S. Byatt.

  17. On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan. ∗

  18. Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane.

  19. Stand Out of Our Light: freedom and resistance in the attention economy, James Williams.

  20. Philosophy of Mathematics, Øystein Linnebo.

  21. The Island of Doctor Moreau, H. G. Wells. ~

  22. The Idiot, Elif Batuman.

  23. Ada Lovelace: the making of a computer scientist, Christopher Hollings, Ursula Martin, Adrian Rice.

  24. Bit of a Blur, Alex James.

  25. Infinity to Dine, lazenby.

  26. Essays on the Theory of Numbers, Richard Dedekind. † (German)

  27. Dracula, Bram Stoker. ~

  28. Computation, Proof, Machine, Giles Dowek. † (French)

  29. Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami. † (Japanese)

  30. The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse. † (German)

  31. Lullaby, Leïla Slimani. † (French) ~

  32. Game Theory, Thomas Jones.

  33. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, David Sedaris.

  34. Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Mary Wollstonecraft.

  35. Normal People, Sally Rooney. ~

  36. Closing the Gap, Vicky Neale.

  37. Tintin: The Black Island, Hergé. † (French)

  38. The Red-Haired Woman, Orhan Pamuk. † (Turkish)

  39. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton.

  40. 33⅓: OK Computer, Dai Griffiths.

  41. Wise Children, Angela Carter.

  42. Mr Burns: a post-electric play, Anne Washburn.

  43. Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney.

  44. Coyote America, Dan Flores.

  45. Picture-Book Professors: academia and children’s literature, Melissa M. Terras.

  46. Carol, Patricia Highsmith.

2017

  1. Neoreaction a Basilisk, Phil Sandifer.

  2. I Hate the Internet, Jarett Kobek.

  3. Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, Anita & Solomon Feferman.

  4. A Winter Book, Tove Jansson. † (Swedish)

  5. The Fish Ladder, Katharine Norbury.

  6. Orkneyinga Saga, Anonymous. † (Old Norse)

  7. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters.

  8. The Secret History, Donna Tartt.

  9. Beyond the Northlands, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.

  10. A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki.

  11. Zero K, Don Delillo.

  12. Wild, Cheryl Strayed.

  13. The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa. † (Japanese)

  14. Concepts of Modern Mathematics, Ian Stewart.

  15. June, Gerbrand Bakker. † (Dutch)

  16. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams.

  17. The Descent of Man, Grayson Perry.

  18. Silas Marner, George Eliot.

  19. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson.

  20. Against Everything, Mark Greif.

  21. Kill All Normies, Angela Nagle.

  22. The Blue Fox, Sjón. † (Icelandic)

  23. Do No Harm, Henry Marsh.

  24. Heroes of the Frontier, Dave Eggers.

  25. In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan.

  26. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

  27. His Bloody Project, Graham Burnett Macrae.

  28. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt.

  29. Leviathan, or the Whale, Philip Hoare.

  30. Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman. ∗

  31. The Subtle Knife, Phillip Pullman. ∗

  32. The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman. ∗

  33. La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Vol. I, Phillip Pullman.

  34. Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family, David Kaczynski.

  35. The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkein. ∗

  36. The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkein. ∗

  37. The Return of the King, J. R. R. Tolkein. ∗

  38. Letters from Iceland, W. H. Auden & Louis MacNeice.

  39. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh.

  40. A Very British Coup, Chris Mullin.

2016

  1. Two Girls, One on Each Knee: the puzzling, playful world of the crossword, Alan Connor.

  2. Berlin Poplars, Anne B. Ragde. † (Norwegian)

  3. Consolations of the Forest, Sylvain Tesson. † (French)

  4. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf.

  5. Tamara Drewe, Posy Simmonds. ∗

  6. My Struggle 3: boyhood island, Karl Ove Knausgård. † (Norwegian)

  7. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Sydney Padua.

  8. Ludwig Wittgenstein: the Duty of Genius, Ray Monk.

  9. A303: the Highway to the Sun, Tom Fort.

  10. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson.

  11. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse. † (German)

  12. The Outrun, Amy Liptrot.

  13. Station Eleven, Emily StJohn Mandel.

  14. The Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare.

  15. All One Breath, John Burnside.

  16. The Greenlanders, Jane Smiley.

  17. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides.

  18. No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July.

  19. Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt.

  20. My Struggle 4: dancing in the dark, Karl Ove Knausgård. † (Norwegian)

  21. A Book for Her, Bridget Christie.

  22. Public Library (and other stories), Ali Smith.

  23. The Shpeherd’s Life, James Rebanks.

  24. An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, Jessie Greengrass.

  25. Blockchain Revolution, Don Tapscott & Alex Tapscott.

  26. Prime Numbers and the Riemann Hypothesis, Barry Mazur & William Stein.

  27. Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson.

  28. A Mathematician’s Year in Japan, Joel David Hamkins.

  29. From Asgard to Valhalla, Heather O’Donoghue.

  30. Space Below my Feet, Gwen Moffat.

  31. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome. ∗

  32. The Girl in the Spider’s Web, David Lagercrantz.

  33. Littlewood’s Miscellany, J. E. Littlewood.

  34. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx.

  35. Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter.

  36. The Collected Cat Rackham, Steve Wolfhard.

  37. The Woman in Black, Susan Hill.

  38. We Don’t Know What We’re Doing, Thomas Morris.

  39. My Struggle 5: some rain must fall, Karl Ove Knausgård. † (Norwegian)

  40. The One Hundred Nights of Hero, Isabel Greenberg.

  41. The Idea of North, Peter Davidson.

  42. Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake.

  43. The Wee Free Men, Terry Practchett. ∗

2015

  1. Ayoade on Ayoade: a cinematic odyssey, Richard Ayoade.

  2. My Struggle 1: a death in the family, Karl Ove Knausgård. † (Norwegian)

  3. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

  4. A View from the Foothills: the diaries of Chris Mullin 1999-2005.

  5. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro.

  6. Lords and Ladies, Terry Pratchett. ∗

  7. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson.

  8. Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane.

  9. The Cyberiad, Stanisław Lem. † (Polish)

  10. Lightning Rods, Helen DeWitt.

  11. In the All-Night Café, Stuart David.

  12. Foundation, Isaac Asimov. ∗

  13. Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov.

  14. Second Foundation, Isaac Asimov.

  15. This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein.

  16. Cakes, Custard, and Category Theory, Eugenia Cheng.

  17. My Struggle 2: a man in love, Karl Ove Knausgård. † (Norwegian)

  18. North, Seamus Heaney.

  19. Alan Turing: the Enigma, Andrew Hodges.

  20. The Innocence of Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton.

  21. A Room with a View, E. M. Forster. ∗

  22. Purity, Jonathan Franzen.

  23. Decline and Fall: the diaries of Chris Mullin 2005-2010.

  24. Everything and More, David Foster Wallace.

  25. Last Night in Montreal, Emily St.John Mandel.

  26. The Way of the Runner, Adharanand Finn.

  27. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson. † (Swedish)

  28. The Girl who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson. † (Swedish)

  29. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Stieg Larsson. † (Swedish)

  30. The Lady in the Van, Alan Bennett. ∗

  31. The Road to Little Dribbling, Bill Bryson.

  32. Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham.

  33. Look Who’s Back, Timur Vermes. † (German)

  34. 60 Degrees North, Malachy Tallack.

  35. Girls to the Front: the true story of the riot grrrl revolution, Sara Marcus.