Reading List

When I was in grade school, I loathed reading for two reasons: it was required; and it was boring. Towards the end of my college education, I began to understand the importance of reading in learning. After entering the workforce, I discovered that reading was also an effective remedy for the stress of constant stimulation in the Information Age. Now, I try to read as often as I can and I keep a list of the books I’ve read to completion (though I will skip the occasional chapter or two if it’s a dense, technical book). The best books I read don’t deserve to sit on a shelf, and so I give them away.

If there’s a free, as in ethically free, copy of the book on the internet, I’ll include a link to it, too.

2024

  • Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
    • The character Vorbis inspired the name of the popular open source audio codec Ogg Vorbis
  • Hondo by Louis L’Amour
  • Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Napalm & Silly Putty by George Carlin
  • A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
  • One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B. J. Novak
  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  • Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham
  • Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

2023

  • A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  • My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
  • A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning by James V. Schall
  • Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse
  • Sun Dogs by Robert Olen Butler
  • Game Engine Black Book: Doom by Fabien Sanglard
  • Masters of Doom by David Kushner
  • Stardust by Neil Gaiman
  • The Pragmatic Programmer by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas
  • On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  • The Book of Mistakes by Skip Prichard

2022

  • Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory

2020

  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
  • The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

2019 & Before

  • The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
  • Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
  • Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
  • A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
  • The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan by Drew Karpyshyn

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