52 Books a Year



I've always been a pretty voracious reader, even though law school put a damper on it. When you're already a few hundred pages of reading behind, you are in no mood to crack open some fiction usually. Never mind the fact that learning to parse legal writing means that your reading speed slows to an opium crawl.

So on a cold day on the High Line in New York City in 2012, I decided I'd get back on the literary wagon and read a book a week. I definitely frontloaded this quest, since I was doing so much flying for work that at the high point, I read five books in two days. I ended up wrapping up Book #52 at the end of October and it felt good to knock off a small personal goal. I certainly have book recommendations for people who are interested (I highlighted particular books I would send your way, Gentle Reader).

It's been three years now, and I'll be aiming for another fifty-two books for 2015.

If you have book recommendations, please do pass them along!

2016
1)    1/23/2016 - Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
2)    1/25/2016 - Jerusalem:  Chronicles from the Holy City - Guy Delisle
3)

2015
1)    1/17/2015 - Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
2)    1/17/2015 - Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers - Mark Bailey
3)    1/23/2015 - This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper
4)    1/25/2015 - The Humans - Matt Haig
5)    1/31/2015 - Pirate Cinema - Cory Doctorow
6)    1/31/2015 - Massive - 田亀源五郎 (Gengoroh Tagame) et al.
7)    1/31/2015 - Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea - Guy Delisle
8)    2/6/2015 - Cooking - Michael Pollan
9)    2/8/2015 - Ice Harvest - Scott Phillips
10)  2/9/2015 - Eiger Dreams - Jon Krakauer
11)  2/11/2015 - All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
12)  2/11/2015 - Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk - David Sedaris
13)  2/13/2015 - 10% Happier - Dan Harris
14)  2/14/2015 -  Blindness - José Saramago 
15)  2/15/2015 - Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Adichie
16)  2/16/2015 - The Storyteller - Jodi Picoult
17)  2/19/2015 - Death - Neil Gaiman
18)  2/20/2015 - Fray - Joss Whedon et al.
19)  2/23/2015 - Not that Kind of Girl - Lena Dunham
20)  2/26/2015 - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
21)  2/27/2015 - The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers
22)  2/27/2015 - X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga - Chris Claremont et al.
23)  2/28/2015 - Oleanna - David Mamet
24)  3/9/2015 - Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
25)  3/10/2015 - A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
26)  3/11/2015 - How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you - The Oatmeal
27)  3/15/2015 - Blue is the Warmest Color - Julie Maroh 
28)  4/11/2015 - Journalism - Joe Sacco
29)  4/12/2015 - Lulu Street - Ann Henry
30)  4/14/2015 - V for Vendetta - Alan Moore & David Lloyd
31)  5/2/2015 - Bargaining for Advantage - G. Richard Shell 
33)  5/4/2015 - At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson 
34)  5/4/2015 - Jew-Jitsu: The Hebrew Hands of Fury - Daniel Eliezer
35)  5/5/2015 - Adam - Ariel Schrag
36)  5/6/2015 - Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng
37)  5/13/2015 - Bossypants - Tina Fey
38)  5/13/2015 - In a row of sunlight - András Petőcz
39)  5/15/2015 - The Examined Life - Stephen Grosz
40)  5/16/2015 - The Triple Package - Amy Chua & Jed Rubenfeld
41)  5/28/2015 - Un brillant avenir - Catherine Cusset
42)  5/29/2015 - Logicomix - Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou
43)  7/1/2015 - L'enfant de sable - Tahar Ben Jelloun
44)  8/16/2015 - Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
45)  8/29/2015 - Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

46)  10/31/2015 - Seconds - Bryan Lee O'Malley
47)  11/1/2015 - RASL - Jeff Smith
48)  11/1/2015 - The Wicked + The Divine - Gillen McKelvie & Wilson Cowles
49)  11/1/2015 - Sex Criminals: Volume One - Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky
50)  11/27/2015 - A View from the Bottom - Nguyen Tan Hoang 
51)  12/2/2015 - House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III
52)  12/7/2015 - We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2014
1)    1/3/2014 - Seven Years in Tibet - Heinrich Harrer
2)    1/11/2014 - La Porte étroite - André Gide
3)    2/3/2014 - Dirty Wars - Jeremy Scahill
4)    2/20/2014 - Chang-Rae Lee - On Such a Full Sea
5)    3/15/2014 - In Doggerland - Tom Morton-Smith
6)    3/24/2014 - Stardust - Neil Gaiman
7)    4/18/2014 - Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
8)    4/25/2014 - Watching the English - Kate Fox
9)    4/26/2014 - Lexicon - Max Barry
10)  5/5/2014 - Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11)  5/19/2014 - Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise - Dai Sijie
12)  5/24/2014 - No Place to Hide - Glenn Greenwald
13)  5/27/2014 - Le Complexe de Di - Dai Sijie
14)  6/19/2014 - Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came In From the Desert - David Rosenberg
15)  6/25/2014 - The Beach - Alex Garland
16)  7/6/2014 - The Acid House - Irvine Welsh
17)  7/12/2014 - Dry by Augusten Burroughs

18)  7/15/2014 - The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
19)  7/22/2014 - Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr.
20)  7/27/2014 - Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
21)  8/23/2014 - La Boîte noire - Tonino Benacquista
22)  8/25/2014 - Etranges étrangers - Jacques Prévert
23)  11/16/2014 - This is Your Brain on Music - Daniel Levitin
24)  12/2/2014 - Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez
25)  12/3/2014 - The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
26)  12/12/2014 - Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
27)  12/12/2014 - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
28)  12/18/2014 - Wild: From Lost to Found on the PCT - Cheryl Strayed
29)  12/18/2014 - Difficult Conversations - Douglas Stone et al


2013
1)    1/5/2013 - Life of Pi - Yann Martel
2)    1/23/2013 - Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
3)    1/25/2013 - Neuromancer - William Gibson
4)    1/26/2013 - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
5)    2/18/2013 - The Night Circus - Irin Morgenstern
6)    2/22/2013 - Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor
7)    2/24/2013 - Days of Blood and Starlight - Laini Taylor
8)    2/27/2013 - Dancer From the Dance: A Novel - Andrew Holleran
9)    4/2/2013 - The Magicians - Lev Grossman
10)   4/9/2013 - Faggots - Larry Kramer
11)   4/10/2013 - A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham
12)   4/15/2013 - La chute - Albert Camus
13)   4/22/2013 - Embassytown - China Miéville
14)   5/30/2013 - L'armée du salut - Abdellah Taïa
15)   6/3/2013 - The Magician King - Lev Grossman
16)   6/12/2013 - Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army - Jeremy Scahill
17)   6/15/2013 - The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
18)   6/17/2013 - Hero - Perry Moore
19)   6/18/2013 - The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
20)   6/29/2013 - The Rook - Daniel O'Malley
21)   8/4/2013 - City of Night - John Rechy
21)   8/18/2013 - The Son - Philipp Meyer
22)   9/2/2013 - The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears  - Dinaw Mengestu
23)   9/25/2013 - Histoires (presque) vraies - Françoise Giroud
24)   9/25/2013 - Suddenly Last Summer - Tennessee Williams
25)   9/27/2013 - Mindset - The New Psychology of Success - Carol Dweck
26)   10/1/2013 - Chatterton - Alfred de Vigny
27)   10/2/2013 - The Yage Letters Redux - William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg
28)   10/2/2013 - Language Myths - Edited by Laurie Bauer & Peter Trudgill
29)   10/6/2013 - Fresh Off the Boat - Eddie Huang
30)   10/7/2013 - Looking for Alaska - John Green
31)   10/8/2013 - Sula - Toni Morrison
32)   10/11/2013 - The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
33)   10/15/2013 - The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
34)   10/18/2013 - Mao Zedong: A Life - Jonathan Spence
35)   10/18/2013 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee
36)   10/24/2013 - Le Chat du Rabbin - Joann Sfar
37)   10/26/2013 - Riding the Iron Rooster - Paul Theroux
38)   10/26/2013 - Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
39)   10/31/2013 - A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozaki
40)   11/2/2013 - Saul - André Gide
41)   11/8/2013 - Le Treizième Arbre - André Gide
42)   11/9/2013 - The Help - Kathryn Stockett
43)   11/10/2013 - Manuscript Found at Accra - Paulo Coelho
44)   11/10/2013 - Perséphone - André Gide
45)   11/17/2013 - Learning to Climb Indoors - Eric J. Hörst
46)   11/23/2013 - Damned - Chuck Palahniuk
47)   11/26/2013 - The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia - Peter Hopkirk
48)   11/28/2013 - Le jour du Roi - Abdellah Taïa
49)   11/29/2013 - L'occupation - Annie Ernaux
50)   11/30/2013 - The Startup of You - Reid Hoffman
51)   12/1/2013 - The Way to Rainy Mountain - N. Scott Momaday
52)   12/3/2013 - La mauvaise graine - Jean-Bernard Pouy
53)   12/8/2013 - L'inceste - Christine Angot

54)   12/11/2013 - La symphonie pastorale - André Gide
55)   12/13/2013 - A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore
56)   12/28/2013 - Les belles images - Simone de Beauvoir

2012
2)    1/2/2012 – More Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin
3)    1/5/2012 – Salmonella Men on Planet Porno – Yasutaka Tsutsui
4)    1/9/2012 – Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut
5)    1/16/2012 – Alice in Wonderland -  Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
6)    1/19/2012 – The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
7)    1/22/2012 – Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
8)    1/27/2012 – Makers – Cory Doctorow
9)     2/5/2012 – Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
10)   2/6/2012 – Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
11)   2/6/2012 – The Story of the Night – Colm Tóibín
12)   2/6/2012 – Incognito – Ed Brubaker
13)   2/7/2012 – The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton
14)   2/11/2012 - Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
15)   2/18/2012 - A Clash of Kings – George R. R. Martin
16)   2/27/2012 – Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
17)   2/29/2012 – The Alchemist - Paolo Bacigalupi
18)   2/29/2012 – A Storm of Swords – George R. R. Martin
19)   3/27/2012 - A Feast of Crows - George R. R. Martin
20)   4/22/2012 - Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan
21)   5/1/2012 - A Dance of Dragons - George R. R. Martin
23)   5/7/2012 - Night - Elie Wiesel
24)   5/9/2012 - The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson
25)   5/9/2012 - Eastern Standard Tribe - Cory Doctorow
26)   5/20/2012 - The Velvet Rage - Alan Downs (Gay boys, you need to read this)
27)   5/30/2012 - 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
28)   5/30/2012 - The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
29)   6/5/2012 - Popco - Scarlett Thomas
30)   6/17/2012 - How to Disappear Completely - David Bowick
31)   6/22/2012 - All Over Coffee - Paul Madonna
32)   6/25/2012 - The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster
33)   7/14/2012 - Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do - Tom Vanderbilt
34)   7/15/2012 - La Jalousie du barbouillé - Molière
35)   7/16/2012 - Le Médecin volant – Molière
36)   7/24/2012 – The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
37)   8/6/2012 – The 500: A Novel – Matthew Quirk
38)   8/7/2012 – Push - Sapphire
39)   8/18/2012 - Dancing Barefoot - Wil Wheaton
40)   8/22/2012 – The Colour of Magic – Terry Prachett
42)   8/28/2012 – Please Look After Mom – Kyung-Sook Shin
43)   9/2/2012 – Good Omens – Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett
44)   9/6/2012 – My Korean Deli – Ben Ryder Howe
45)   9/9/2012 – Refugee Protection in International Law – Misc. Authors
46)   9/12/2012 - The Dinner - Herman Koch
47)   9/15/2012 - Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
48)   9/16/2012 – Coraline – Neil Gaiman
49)   10/7/2012 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
50)   10/7/2012 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
51)   10/21/2012 - The Girl who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson
52)   10/26/2012 - The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
55)   12/7/2012 – The Silver Linings Playbook – Matthew Quick
56)   12/16/2012 – The Alloy of Law – Brandon Sanderson
57)   12/30/2012 - The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi

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