In the past few years I’ve set some pretty high reading goals for myself (23 in 2023 and 24 in 2024) and came up short each time. Basically I’ve started out each year strong but then got sidetracked by work, learning other things, and pure laziness come late-summer. I still learned a lot and enjoyed the books I’ve read each year, but obviously want to push myself to read more. Without going to look up the stats, I think I heard that around 10,000 books come out each year and the average American reads less than 10. I am trying to change this for myself since I appreciate the longer form content and feel that I get a lot more out of it.

To be fair to myself I have still done mostly productive things with that time in both 2023 and 2024. But I have either made excuses to stop reading during the busier times or just hit the wall with whatever book I was currently on. This coming year I am aiming to change that by loosening the restrictions on type of books I consume. I have sporadically maintained a list of want-to-reads on Goodreads which informed my choices in the past. But in 2025 I am hoping to just pick up whatever looks interesting and that I will power through at the time. I still hope to do a decent split between fiction and non-fiction; but won’t be limiting myself to that.

I’m excited to get started on it and am also aiming to write my updates here (along with whether I am ahead or behind) to stay motivated throughout the year. The official goal will once again match up with the year; so 25 in ‘25!

Without further ado here are my lists for the past two years:

2023

  1. The Innovators - Walter Isaacson
  2. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
  3. Chip War - Chris Miller
  4. Red Rising - Pierce Brown
  5. The Rise of Athens - Anthony Everitt
  6. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
  7. Golden Son - Pierce Brown
  8. Morning Star - Pierce Brown
  9. Dune: Messiah - Frank Herbert
  10. Six Frigates - Ian Toll
  11. Sandworm - Andy Greenberg
  12. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
  13. Old Man’s War - John Scalzi
  14. Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros
  15. A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy - James R. Holmes

I think that the best books I read were either the first Red Rising trilogy or The Name of the Wind. Unfortunately with the latter there are only two books released and it has been a long time since Patrick Rothfuss released the second. So maybe hold out on this series for the time being if you need closure.

2024

This was the first year that I ever used audiobooks to consume content. It was nice to finish out some of them without needing to sit down and read the entire thing and I honestly don’t think I missed out too much on taking notes. I wouldn’t do it for a book that I absolutely wanted to get all the nuggets of wisdom from, but there are plenty on my want-to-read list that I will consider audio for.

  1. The Wise Man’s Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
  2. How Big Things Get Done - Bent Flyvbjerg
  3. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World - David Epstein
  4. The Slow Regard of Silent Things - Patrick Rothfuss
  5. The Exponential Age - Azeem Azhar
  6. War at the Speed of Light - Louis A. Del Monte
  7. Team of Teams - Stanley McChrystal
  8. The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
  9. Stolen Focus - Johann Hari
  10. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
  11. Trillions - Robin Wigglesworth
  12. Thinking In Systems - Donella Meadows
  13. Iron Gold - Pierce Brown
  14. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome - Mary Beard
  15. Software Engineering at Google
  16. Dark Age - Pierce Brown

My favorite book of 2024 was pretty easily How the Big Things Get Done. It was very informative, had lots of interesting anecdotes, and was made relatable to everyday life. There were a few other good ones in the mix, but that would be my big recommendation.