Reading the last book of the year on a beach in Maui.
Let’s all have a quick laugh that it’s taken me well into July of 2020 to post my book list from 2019.
This 52 book challenge was inspired by the film Captain Fantastic. It’s about a family of well-read “philosopher kings” who are forced back into society after living a reclusive lifestyle. I saw them. I saw their book list. And I said: “I want to be like that” (minus the reclusive part… most days).
What did I learn from this year of reading? I learned that I missed reading, a lot. As Carl Sagan put it, “what an astonishing thing, a book is.” You can travel through time and jump inside the mind of an author who might’ve been dead for hundreds of years.
Not only that, reading is a compounding habit. Setting aside thirty minutes a day—even if it was fragmented into five minutes at a time—impacted every other area of my life.
So with that, the list! The books I really liked have one heart. The books I loved have two.
Kettlebell Simple & Sinister by Pavel Tsatsouline
Relationships by The School of Life
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport ❤️
Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan
Call Me By Your Name by Andrè Aciman ❤️
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
The Decision Checklist by Sam Kyle
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman ❤️
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
The Dip by Seth Godin
The Bullet Journal Method by Carroll Ryder
The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou
The Lessons of History by Will Durant ❤️
Wabi-Sabi by Leonard Koren
Ultralight by Leo Babauta
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
Drive by James Sallis
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Models by Mark Manson
Eight Dates by John Gottman
Sprint by Jake Knapp
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Atomic Habits by James Clear ❤️❤️
Bodyweight Strength Training Anatomy by Bret Contreras
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi ❤️❤️
The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Baron in the Tress by Italo Calvino ❤️
Shape Up by Ryan Singer
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
An Edited Life by Anna Newton
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Waking Up by Sam Harris ❤️❤️
Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell
Haunted Alberta by Barbara Smith
Getting Things Done by David Allen
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin ❤️❤️
Inspired by Marty Cagan ❤️
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
Revising Prose by Richard A. Lanham
Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Control Alcohol by Allen Carr
Kindness and Wonder by Gavin Edwards ❤️
Maui Revealed by Doughty Andrew
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
You can also find this list on Goodreads.