2016

January 2016

• The Man In the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
• 14 (audio), by Peter Clines
• American Sniper (audio), by Chris Kyle

February 2016

• Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie - read on a trip to Newburyport
• Out of Sight, by Elmore Leonard - read on the way back
• Because I Said So! (audio), by Ken Jennings

March 2016

• The Three-Body Problem (audio), by Cixin Liu
• Tuva or Bust!, by Ralph Leighton

April 2016

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (audio), by J. K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (audio), by J. K. Rowling
• We Are Anonymous, by Parmy Olson

May 2016

• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami
• The Radioactive Boy Scout, by Ken Silverstein
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (audio), by J. K. Rowling

June 2016

• Almost Human: Making Robots Think, by Lee Gutkind - several friends from CMU are in this book, including Aaron Morris
• Norwood, by Charles Portis - really funny, by the same author as True Grit

July 2016

• The Girl on the Train (audio), by Paula Hawkins

August 2016

• White Noise, by Don DeLillo
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by Jack Thorne
• Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
• The Stench of Honolulu, by Jack Handey
• Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius

October 2016

• Technopoly, by Neal Postman

November 2016

• The Great Good Thing, by Andrew Klavan

December 2016

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (audio and print), by William Shirer
• The Chronicles of Mistmantle, Book 1: Urchin of the Riding Stars (family read), by M. I. McAllister
• Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children, by John Rosemond

Summary:

27 total books: 9 audio, 18 print; 15 fiction, 12 non-fiction.

Finishing The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was a New Years resolution for 2016. I finished it on December 17. I read some from the print book, but I mostly listened to the audio book. It went best when I listened to the audio but followed along in print, to help me pay attention and hear all the names pronounced, etc.

Books that I only read part of, I may not finish soon, but I think are worth mentioning:

• You Could Look It Up, by Jack Lynch
• Tales of the Unexpected, by Roald Dahl

Kelly from Bookish.com asked what was the best book I had read this year (she asked everyone at Firebrand). Here’s what I wrote:

I can recommend Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, by Rebecca Goldstein. About half of the book imagines Plato transported into the present, going on a book tour, and engaging in philosophical dialogues with all kinds of people -- Google engineers, a "tiger mom," a neuroscientist, and others. The alternating chapters cover things like ancient Greek history and the life of Socrates, which provide background material that comes into play in the next chapter's dialog.

At some point during the book, the author explains that no matter how much you study Plato, you can never be sure what he really thinks about an issue, since he puts thoughts into the mouths of others in his dialogues. As I neared the end of this book, I realized that the author had played the same trick on me -- I ultimately don't know what she thinks about these deeper issues of life and reality, but she certainly gave me plenty to think about.