50 Books I’ve Read This Year, and My Chase for 100 in 2017
Last year, over a year after graduation, I started to miss learning. Not workplace learning or relationship learning, but book learning. I missed exploring new worlds through novels and non-fiction.
To start, I began gleaning recommended books from friends, family, and podcasts like The Tim Ferriss Show, on which interviewees share the book(s) that they have gifted the most to other people.
In the last few months of 2016, I finished eleven books. Feeling empowered, I wanted more, and at a faster pace.
I calculated how much I would need to read per month to reach different totals. 25? Two a month. 50? Four.
What about 100? Eight or nine each month. Somehow, I thought this was achievable.
Last night, I made it halfway to my goal. These steps helped me get there:
Simplify the complex: One hundred is a big number, but division makes it doable. If I read two books a week, I could finish 104 books in a year. One book every few days is a lot, but increasing speed helps drastically.
Increase reading speed: The app Bookout calculated my pages-per-minute rate, accelerating my reading pace. Because audiobooks read slower than physical books, I listened on Audible and Overdrive at 1.5x speed to achieve similar results. At this rate, I could finish an eight-hour audiobook in six.
Balance long and short books: Reading 100 War and Peace’s in a year is impossible. I supplemented lengthier books with collections of short stories and poems, all of which were between 100 and 400 pages.
Replace distractions with reading: The most effective hack was setting my phone to black-and-white mode to check social media apps less. Single-handedly, this trick converted hours of Insta time to reading time.
Take notes: In order to retain information on all the books, I used my Notes app to record quotes and ideas. There is no chance that I could store all that I have read without writing things down. I do not take copious notes, just enough to remember a few ideas from each book.
Below are the 50 books that I’ve read so far this year. Because I love spicy food, my favorites are marked with an appropriately red-hot pepper (still waiting for the orange habanero pepper emoji). Here they are, in order of completion:
. . .
“Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.”
2. The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle
“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time — past and future — the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
3. Siddhartha — Herman Hesse 🌶
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
4. Daring Greatly — Brene Brown
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
5. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up — Marie Kondo
“The best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one’s hand and ask: “Does this spark joy?” If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it. This is not only the simplest but also the most accurate yardstick by which to judge.”
6. Peace Is Every Step — Thich Nhat Hanh
“When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.”
7. Meditations — Marcus Aurelius
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
8. The E-Myth Revisited — Michael E. Gerber
“Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.”
9. Modern Romance — Aziz Ansari
“We want something that’s very passionate, or boiling, from the get-go. In the past, people weren’t looking for something boiling; they just needed some water. Once they found it and committed to a life together, they did their best to heat things up. Now, if things aren’t boiling, committing to marriage seems premature.”
10. The Miracle of Mindfulness — Thich Nhat Hanh
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
11. The Mastery of Self — Don Miguel Ruiz
“For a Master of Self, peace comes with forgiveness, by letting go of any poison you’re holding on to. If you let that poison drown you, then you become part of the cycle that has brought suffering into this world.”
12. Steal Like an Artist — Austin Kleon 🌶
“The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there’s a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.”
13. The Strange Library — Haruki Murakami
“The world follows its own course. Each possesses his thoughts, each treads his own path. So it is with your mother, and so it is with your starling. The world follows its own course.”
14. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“A rigour passed over him, blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a steady thumping in his ears. It was first love.”
15. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win — Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
“Our freedom to operate and maneuver had increased substantially through disciplined procedures. Discipline equals freedom.”
16. The Doors of Perception — Aldous Huxley
“To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.”
17. Into the War — Italo Calvino
“For the conquering man every land is enemy territory, even his own.”
18. Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor E. Frankl 🌶
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
19. Musicophilia — Oliver Sacks 🌶
“The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain…Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events, never these themselves.”
20. A Man Called Ove — Fredrik Backman
“We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.”
21. How to Win Friends & Influence People — Dale Carnegie
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
22. Yes Please — Amy Poehler
“I think we should stop asking people in their twenties what they “want to do” and start asking them what they don’t want to do.”
23. How to Ruin Everything — George Watsky
“Don’t fall asleep yet. Contrary to popular belief, that’s not where dreams get accomplished.”
24. Me Talk Pretty One Day — David Sedaris
“If cooking is an art, we’re in our Dada phase.”
25. On Tyranny — Timothy Snyder 🌶
“Post-truth is pre-fascism.”
26. Keep Moving — Dick Van Dyke
“You don’t have to act your age. You don’t even have to feel it. And if it does attempt to elbow its way into your life, you do not have to pay attention. If I am out shopping and hear music playing in a store, I start to dance. If I want to sing, I sing. When people ask my secret to staying youthful at an age when getting up and down from your chair on your own is considered an accomplishment, you know what I tell them? ‘Keep moving.’”
27. Unlimited Power — Tony Robbins
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children: to earn the appreciate of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
28. The View from the Cheap Seats — Neil Gaiman
“Go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.” (see full ‘Make Good Art’ commencement speech)
29. Unshakeable — Tony Robbins
“The best opportunities come in times of maximum pessimism.”
30. When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chödrön
“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.”
31. The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson
“Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contract, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable.”
32. The Graveyard Book — Neil Gaiman 🌶
“Kiss a lover, Dance a measure, Find your name and buried treasure…Face your life, Its pain, Its pleasure, Leave no path untaken.”
33. I Will Teach You to Be Rich — Ramit Sethi
“Getting started is more important than becoming an expert.”
34. Growth Hacker Marketing — Ryan Holiday
“A growth hacker is someone who has thrown out the playbook of traditional marketing and replaced it with only what is testable, trackable, and scalable. Their tools are e-mails, pay-per-click ads, blogs, and platform APIs instead of commercials, publicity, and money.”
35. The Nature of the Chinese Character — Barbara Aria
“The character for ‘lake,’ or “a sheet of water,” is something of a riddle. Comprising three elements, its meaning is determined by the radical, three interrelated strokes suggesting drops of liquid. Combined with this are the characters for ‘moon,’ and ‘old,’ or ‘long life.’ Only in lakes does water rest. Bounded by land on all sides, it lies perfectly still, reflective. Unlike flowing water, which is eternally young, the water of the lake does not flow infinitely through space. It is old water. And in the long-lived waters of the lake, shines the moon.”
36. I Am Malala — Malala Yousafzai
“Let us pick up our books and our pens…They are the most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”
37. The Book of Joy — The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, & Douglas Abrams 🌶
“There’s a Tibetan saying: ‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’”
38. Hillbilly Elegy — J.D. Vance
“Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it — not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.”
39. Trust Me, I’m Lying — Ryan Holiday
“You cannot have your news instantly and have it done well. You cannot have your news reduced to 140 characters or less without losing large parts of it. You cannot manipulate the news but not expect it to be manipulated against you. You cannot have you news for free; you can only obscure the costs. If as a culture we can learn this lesson, and if we can learn to love the hard work, we will save ourselves much trouble and collateral damage. We must remember: There is no easy way.”
40. 200 Great Destinations: Art, History, Nature — Marco Cattaneo
“Today we find ourselves onlookers — sometimes bewildered and often disinterested — of a world that is silencing cultural diversities through rapid globalization…This is precisely where UNESCO comes in, to protect and safeguard the equal dignity of all cultures and ‘their vocation to enrich themselves and permeate each other.’”
41. Mindless Eating — Brian Wansink
“The basic rule: distractions of all kinds make us eat, forget how much we eat, and extend how long we eat — even when we’re not hungry.”
“Twin Peaks was my religion. Well, Twin Peaks and Christianity. But at present, Twin Peaks was winning. I loved God, but at the moment I was more obsessed with Bob and Dale Cooper and Audrey Horne.”
43. Night Sky with Exit Wounds — Ocean Vuong
“& remember,/loneliness is still time spent/with the world.”
44. Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill
“The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”
45. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft — Stephen King
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
46. The Joyous Cosmology — Alan Watts 🌶
“We say, ‘I came into this world.’ But we did nothing of the kind. We came out of it in just the way that fruit comes out of trees.”
47. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King — Rich Cohen
“When Zemurray finished, Wing smiled and said, ‘ Unfortunately, Mr. Zemurray, I can’t understand a word of what you say.’ The men at the table started to laugh. Zemurray’s pupils narrowed to pinpricks, his hands turned into fists. He muttered, then stormed out. Perhaps the board members believed Zemurray had been chased away, was fleeing back to New Orleans. In truth, he had only gone to retrieve his bag of proxies. Returning to the boardroom, he slapped them on the table and said, ‘You’re fired! Can you understand that, Mr. Chairman?’”
48. The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge — Jeremy Narby
“How could nature not be conscious if our own consciousness is produced by nature?”
49. The Reluctant Fundamentalist — Mohsin Hamid
“As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away.”
50. Daily Rituals — Mason Currey
“A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.”
. . .
Starting today, I have five months to finish fifty books. That is ten books a month, or one every three days.
By sharing this list with you, I have put necessary external pressure on myself to get it done. As I read, I will share monthly updates on my progress through the end of the year.
If you are interested in reading these books, I have linked all titles to Amazon for your convenience. To support small businesses, I have linked all author names to your local bookstore.
I hope this list of books and quotations gives you something to add to your reading list, and please reach out if you have questions about these books, general reading habits, or recommendations of your own.
Just remember: If you read one book a month, you will learn at least twelve new ideas a year. If you finish a book a week, you can read over 50 books a year.
Setting small achievable goals gives you major long-term results. This experiment proves it.
