Books Worth Reading (2005 Edition)

I’ve been posting a bunch of books on my blog today — I think I’ve finally cleared out the queue — and want to start writing a bit of personal reflection about my life in 2005 — but first I want to revisit my reading list for the year and make some recommendations. I don’t really want to do a top 10 list, so instead what I’ll do is go through the 80-ish books that I read in 2005 and put down the ones that I think are really, really worth picking up and reading.

“Kafka on the Shore” (Haruki Murakami) — one of my 3 favorite authors

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)” (J.K. Rowling) — these books are just consistently amazing & fun to me

“No Country for Old Men” (Cormac Mccarthy) — fantastic novel about running for (away from) your life

“John Adams” (David McCullough) — everything that history should be

“Regional Advantage : Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128” (AnnaLee Saxenian) — great book about the difference between Silicon Valley & Route 128

“Things Fall Apart: A Novel” (Chinua Achebe) — takes me back to Civ from freshman year

“We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda” (Philip Gourevitch) — everyone should read this.

“Cat’s Cradle” (Kurt Vonnegut) — one of my all time favorites. Won’t be the last time I re-read it.

“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (Jonathan Safran Foer) — sort of about 9/11. Foer is an amazing talent.

“The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture” (John Battelle) — not fabulously written, but important background for what’s happening in tech today

There were a bunch of others that were great, but these are the ones that stand out for me. Next up, I think I’m going to read a short history of California, by Kevin Starr, and “The Brief History of the Dead : A novel” (Kevin Brockmeier), a novel that Mom sent.

Other tidbits: my very favorite album of the year is “Amos Lee” (Amos Lee). Runners-up are “American Idiot” (Green Day) and “In Between Dreams” (Jack Johnson).

And television is just too giant to get into in a posting like this, but to name just a few fantastic shows: Arrested Development, Entourage, Deadwood, The Wire, Rome, Lost, Extras.

Best podcast, far & away: the Ricky Gervais show. Man, that guy is awesome.

Anyway, out with the old, in with the new. Happy 2006 in books, music & television to everyone.

2 comments

  1. Love Murakami as well. Have you read “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”? Given your proclivity for history, I’m betting this will rock your world. 🙂

  2. Love Murakami as well. Have you read “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”? Given your proclivity for history, I’m betting this will rock your world. 🙂