My Year of Reading: A Journey of 52 Books

Published on Sun, 31 Dec 2023|9 minute read

A Small Literary Odyssey

As a software engineer, my work is often entwined with the technical and logical.

And it fits me. I've got that left-brained thing going on, pretty much all the time.

Take 2019, for example. I embarked on a year's worth of goal-based accomplishments. With a list of 6 or 7 goals: cook 30 new meals, meditate at least 20 minutes a day, take only cold showers, do one new social event per month... You get the picture! I even meticulously tracked my progress in a playfully named spreadsheet, "Riott OS 2019".

A bit over-the-top, admittedly.

Although I met my goals that year, I ended the year feeling way over-tracked. I could revisit and adjust the goals every quarter, but there still wasn't much room for play and adaptation. Today, I have learned to be more selective about what I take on as committed goals, thus avoiding a machine-like existence, living only by my assigned tasks.

However, there's an element embedded in that year that I know works well for me: the streak.

I'm convinced of its power!

Streaks, which I think of as consistent and consecutive mini-accomplishments, empower me to get things done. If you've ever done something for 79 days in a row, you feel good about striving for the 80th!

This year, I thought I could do a better job reading. Not exactly reading "more" - instead, I wanted to establish a daily practice and simply make room for reading in my life.

I set out in 2023 to read for an hour a day, without any secondary goals. But as I read and read, I realized, "Hey, I'm on pace for 52 books in the year!" And by February, I decided on a second goal, ambitious yet straightforward: to read at least 52 books in a year. At one point, I was even 3 books ahead of schedule, and so I made a secret goal of 55 books. I use secret goals like stretch goals, except that I keep them private, to ensure they're noncommittal and not achieving them isn't a letdown.

The Discipline of Daily Reading

So I'd committed to at least one hour of reading every day. My mornings often started with 20 to 40 minutes of reading, in the quiet time before the dog demands I get up. But not every morning is so peaceful, so I'd try to find other times to slot in a chunk of reading, like in the half hour before starting work.

I learned there are times during the day that I'm unlikely to read. Mornings were ideal, but mid-morning and mid-afternoon often found me too engrossed in work or daily chores to consider reading. I learned to identify and utilize the best times for immersing myself in a book, like a quiet post-lunch period. This hour-a-day goal wasn't just about quantity but about finding joy and engagement in what I read. And so I tried to make sure I had at least 20 minutes to get involved with the text.

If I hadn't reached my hour-a-day goal by bedtime, I would stay up to complete it. However, I soon learned to accomplish most of my reading before bedtime, thus avoiding late-night sessions and the stress that could accompany them. There's nothing harder than to crawl into bed after a long day and see that you have 43 minutes of reading remaining!

Selecting the Books

There are so many books in the world - how can one possibly choose? I often turn to Pulitzer Prize lists and other award compilations, not shying away from past decades' winners. Ask your friends too - people are not shy to share their recommendations. I've developed a long list of recommendations over the years, which I mostly add to, and sometimes pull from!

One key takeaway from this year is that book selections were often influenced by my immediate life – a GoLang book for a relevant project, a running book during my summer training, or a non-fiction book discussed in a podcast. Their relevance to my life meant that my reading goal wasn't something separate from the rest of my day. Instead, it helped me accomplish other initiatives I had.

Embracing Flexibility in Reading

Not every book I started ended with the last page. There were several I read only partway through, a testament to the importance of moving on when a book doesn't resonate. These unfinished stories didn't count towards my 52-book goal but were valuable in their own right. I often read multiple books at the same time (a bit like how one eats at Thanksgiving, sampling from this dish and that), and some simply fall to the wayside as I choose others over them. If you're curious, I've included the list of books that I started, read a significant percentage of, and left for another time.

This flexibility illustrates a key opinion of mine: when we become disinterested or stuck on a book, we should cast aside the remnants of schooling-induced guilt and move on. If there are 100 million books in the world, it makes no sense to force yourself to finish one, when you may only ever get to a thousand in your lifetime!

When this happens, ask yourself why you're looking for something different - and use that information to move in the next right direction. Too much of the same thing? Switch genres. Do you have an overworked and tired brain? Pick up something light and comforting. You can always come back later!

A Year in Books: The List

1. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Jan 1)
2. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Jan 3)
3. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Jan 11)
4. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Jan 19)
5. Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses (Jan 30)
6. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Feb 2)
7. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Feb 7)
8. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Feb 15)
9. Samuel R. Delany - Empire Star (Feb 20)
10. Vernor Vinge - True Names (Feb 23)
11. Matthew Perry - Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (Mar 7)
12. Cormac McCarthy - Stella Maris (Mar 9)
13. Becky Chambers - A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Mar 13)
14. Martin Kleppmann - Designing Data-Intensive Applications (Mar 30)
15. William Kennedy - Go in Action (Apr 3)
16. George Fairbanks - Just Enough Software Architecture: A Risk-Driven Approach (Apr 16)
17. Robert Vitillo - Understanding Distributed Systems (Apr 21)
18. Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven (Apr 27)
19. Will Larson - Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track (May 9)
20. Charles Bukowski - Factotum (May 19)
21. Neal Ford - Fundamentals of Software Architecture (May 23)
22. Matt Stauffer - Laravel Up & Running (May 29)
23. Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquility (Jun 4)
24. Gabrielle Zevin - Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Jun 4)
25. Vaclav Smil - Energy and Civilization (Jun 6)
26. Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary (Jun 12)
27. Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood (Jun 16)
28. Sam Newman - Monolith to Microservices (Jun 22)
29. Phil Stutz - The Tools (Jun 25)
30. Elizabeth Stout - Oh William! (Jul 2)
31. Alan Garner - Treacle Walker (Jul 3)
32. Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These (Jul 5)
33. Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness (Jul 17)
34. Vaclav Smil - How the World Really Works (Jul 22)
35. Elizabeth Stout - Olive Kitteridge (Jul 25)
36. Peter Attia - Outlive (Aug 16)
37. P.G. Wodehouse - Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (Aug 28)
38. Frank Herbert - Dune (Sep 6)
39. Marshall Goldsmith - Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be (Sep 7)
40. Gene Kim - The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win (Sep 13)
41. John Hersey - Hiroshima (Sep 17)
42. Bent Flyvbjerg - How Big Things Get Done (Sep 27)
43. Matthew Desmond - Poverty, By America (Oct 4)
44. Andrew S. Grove - High Output Management (Oct 14)
45. Colin Dexter - Last Bus To Woodstock (Oct 23)
46. Kasun Indrasiri - gRPC Up & Running (Oct 24)
47. Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself (Nov 1)
48. Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged (Nov 23)
49. Dave Logan - Tribal Leadership (Nov 30)
50. Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning (Dec 8)
51. Josiah L. Carlson - Redis In Action (Dec 12)
52. Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Dec 19)

The Ones That Got Away

• Philip Roth - Sabbath's Theater (35%)
• Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings (10%)
• Alex Xu - System Design Interview - An Insider's Guide (70%)
• Alex Xu, Sahn Lam - System Design Interview - An Insider's Guide, Volume 2 (44%)
• Stefan Baumgartner - TypeScript Cookbook (27%)
• Jason Fried - Remote (16%)
• Sir Walter Scott - Ivanhoe (7%)
• John Berryman - 77 Dream Songs (17%)
• Paul Bloom - Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion (16%)
• Vaughn Vernon - Implementing Domain-Driven Design (12%)
• Donella H. Meadows - Thinking in Systems: A Primer (29%)
• Neal Ford - Building Evolutionary Architectures (12%)
• Kevin Behan - Your Dog Is Your Mirror (12%)
• René Goscinny - Le Petit Nicolas (29%)
• Julia Armfield - Our Wives Under The Sea (13%)
• Esther Derby - Agile Retrospectives - Making Good Teams Great (17%)
• John McWhorter - Woke Racism (38%)
• Dr. Phillip Maffetone - The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing (42%)

Reflections and Looking Forward

This year's reading challenge was not just about numbers. While it's great to meet one's goals, there is something more important at play here - a value. I strongly believe in the concept of lifelong learning and education. It's not just a belief but a value that I hold dear. After finishing school, we often lose that structure, purpose, and guidance that we once had. However, acquiring a deeper understanding of the world and discovering new things brings a great sense of joy and fulfillment. It helps us grow and become better individuals. This is what living a gratified and self-actualized life is all about! To continue living, we must continue learning.

Although I didn't reach my secret goal of 55 books, the 52 books I completed have enriched me in unexpected ways. This journey wasn't just about the books; it was about encouraging curiosity, developing a reading habit, and the joy of discovering new worlds and ideas. As I look forward to the next year, I am excited to continue reading. The next book awaits!