Bookshelf

One of the items on my bucket list is to read 500 books between my 40th and 50th birthdays.  Below is a running list of what I’ve read so far.  Each book is linked to Amazon in case you want to add it to your own reading list.  Also, I’d encourage you to check out the Overdrive library app.  You can use it to check out both digital and audio books from your local library.  I started using it a few years ago and use it primarily for audiobooks.  Overdrive makes my commute more enjoyable and helps me make it through about 20 additional books per year. 

 

2013

  1. Wool, Hugh Howey
  2. Do The Work, Steven Pressfield
  3. The Art of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau
  4. Boomerang, Michael Lewis
  5. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
  6. Getting Things Done, David Allen
  7. Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, Tony Horwitz
  8. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
  9. The Big Short, Michael Lewis
  10. The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
  11. My Life in France, Julia Child
  12. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
  13. The Four Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss
  14. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne
  15. On Writing, Stephen King
  16. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, David Sedaris
  17. The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern, Victor David Hansen
  18. World War Z, Max Brooks
  19. Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, Piers Paul Read
  20. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, Michael Pollan
  21. Grand Ambition, G. Bruce Knecht
  22. Child of God, Cormack McCarthy
  23. Everyman, Phillip Roth
  24. Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bordain
  25. Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom
  26. No Easy Day, Mark Owen

 

2014

  1. Jack London: An American Life, Earle Labor
  2. The Graveyard Book, Niel Gaiman
  3. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-term World Travel, Rolf Potts
  4. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
  5. Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson
  6. Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick
  7. The Sea Wolf, Jack London
  8. Robinson Curusoe, Daniel Defoe
  9. Open, Andre Agassi
  10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  11. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
  12. My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir
  13. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
  14. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
  15. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
  16. Start Something that Matters, Blake Mycoskie
  17. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
  18. Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson
  19. Roughing It, Mark Twain
  20. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, James Thurber
  21. The Martian, Andy Weir
  22. Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
  23. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
  24. Escape From Davao, John D. Lukacs
  25. White Fang, Jack London
  26. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
  27. Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson
  28. John Barleycorn, Jack London
  29. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
  30. Travels With Charley in Search of America, John Steinbeck
  31. The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World, Stephen Mansfield
  32. The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer
  33. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
  34. Moneyball, Michael Lewis
  35. A Clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin
  36. Wooden on Leadership, John Wooden
  37. The Happiness of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau
  38. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, Joël Dicker
  39. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax, Rebecca Skloot
  40. The Icarus Deception, Seth Godin
  41. 61 Hours, Lee Child
  42. 12 Years A Slave, Solomon Northup
  43. Worth Dying For, Lee Child
  44. A Wanted Man, Lee Child
  45. Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
  46. Never Go Back, Lee Child
  47. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  48. The River of Doubt, Candice Millard
  49. We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance, David Howarth
  50. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
  51. The Shawshank Redemption, Stephen King
  52. Lawerence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Scott Anderson
  53. Sailing Alone Around the World, Joshua Slocum
  54. One Man’s Wilderness, Sam Keith and Richard Proenneke

 

2015

  1. Escape From Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, Blaine Harden
  2. An Inland Voyage, Robert Louis Stevenson
  3. The Stand, Stephen King
  4. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Amity Shlaes
  5. Personal, Lee Child
  6. Charles Dickens: A Life, Claire Tomalin
  7. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed
  8. The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg
  9. C. S. Lewis: A Life, Alister McGrath
  10. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World, Steven Johnson
  11. The Crack Up, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  12. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles Mann
  13. Dad is Fat, Jim Gaffigan
  14. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
  15. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
  16. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Jon Meacham
  17. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, Lawrence Wright
  18. Mud, Sweat and Tears, Bear Grylls
  19. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely
  20. Zero to One, Peter Thiel
  21. Paul Newman: A Life, Shawn Levy
  22. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg, McKeown
  23. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Michael Pollan
  24. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
  25. The People of the Abyss, Jack London
  26. The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman
  27. I am Pilgrim, Terry Hayes
  28. Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
  29. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
  30. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
  31. The Wright Brothers, David McCullough
  32. Citizen Soldiers, Stephen Ambrose
  33. Lost in Shangri La, Mitchell Zuckoff
  34. The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber
  35. Devil May Care, Sebastian Faulks
  36. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
  37. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Richard Feynman
  38. A Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, David McCullough
  39. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, Erik Larson
  40. A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley
  41. Make Me, Lee Child
  42. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, Bob Spitz
  43. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams

 

2016

  1. H is for Hawk, Helen McDonald
  2. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
  3. The Natural, Bernard Malamud
  4. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
  5. Flags of our Fathers, James Bradley
  6. Alone on the Ice, David Roberts
  7. Brave Companion: Portraits in History, David McCullough
  8. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, Sarah Vowell
  9. D-Day, Stephen Ambrose
  10. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham
  11. Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon, Ghiglieri and Myers
  12. The Shining, Stephen King
  13. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
  14. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
  15. All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
  16. Solo: A James Bond Novel, William Boyd
  17. Colonel Roosevelt, Edmund Morris
  18. The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy
  19. Three Cups of Deceit, Jon Krakauer
  20. Cities of the Plain, Cormac McCarthy
  21. Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
  22. The Road to Little Dribbling, Bill Bryson
  23. Truman, David McCullough
  24. Timeline, Michael Crichton
  25. Beloved, Toni Morrison
  26. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
  27. The Blind Side, Michael Lewis
  28. The Monkey’s Raincoat, Robert Crais
  29. Brain on Fire, Susan Cahalan
  30. Stalking the Angel, Robert Crais
  31. The Girl in the Spider’s Web, David Lagerkrantz
  32. Who Moved my Cheese, Spencer Johnson
  33. Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath
  34. Gratitude, Oliver Sacks
  35. When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
  36. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Márquez
  37. 1776, David McCullough
  38. Turn Right at Machu Picchu, Mark Adams
  39. Hero Tales, Theodore Roosevelt
  40. Hallucinations, Oliver Sacks
  41. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
  42. The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday
  43. Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday
  44. The More of Less, Joshua Becker
  45. Remote: Office Not Required, Jason Fried
  46. Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain
  47. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nahesi Coates
  48. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo
  49. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Candice Millard
  50. Free Fall, Robert Crais
  51. On Writing, Stephen King
  52. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, Thomas Sowell
  53. Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Thomas Sowell
  54. Tribe, Sebastian Junger
  55. 13 Hours in Benghazi, Mitchell Zukoff
  56. A Death in Belmont, Sebastian Junger
  57. Mindset, Carol Dweck
  58. One More Thing, BJ Novak
  59. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
  60. Deep Down, Lee Child (short story)
  61. The Affair, Lee Child
  62. Bad Luck and Trouble, Lee Child
  63. The Long Walk, Stephen King
  64. The Outsider: A Memoir, Jimmy Connors
  65. A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at 100, George Will
  66. It’s a Long Story, Willie Nelson

 

2017

  1. Why We Get Fat, Gary Taubes
  2. The 22 Immutable Laws of Market, Al Ries and Jack Trout
  3. Diamonds Are Forever, Ian Fleming
  4. Night School, Lee Child
  5. Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, Wayne Dyer
  6. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  7. Paul McCartney: A Life, Peter Ames Carlin
  8. The Torrents of Spring, Ernest Hemingway
  9. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, Phil Knight
  10. A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic’s Wild Ride to the Edge and Back, Kevin Hazzard
  11. Tell My Sons: A Father’s Last Letters, Mark Weber
  12. The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown
  13. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
  14. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
  15. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
  16. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
  17. Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway
  18. Before the Fall, Noah Hawley
  19. The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill
  20. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
  21. A Farewall to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
  22. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder
  23. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
  24. Frozen in Time, Mitchell Zukoff
  25. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
  26. A Life in Parts, Brian Cranston
  27. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann
  28. The Snowman, Jo Nesbo
  29. Smarter, Faster, Better, Charles Duhigg
  30. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
  31. The Green Mile, Stephen King
  32. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
  33. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
  34. Acros Islands and Oceans: A Journey Alone Around the World, James Baldwin
  35. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
  36. The Dinner, Herman Koch
  37. Echo Burning, Lee Child
  38. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway
  39. In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway (contained in Complete Stories)
  40. Men Without Women, Ernest Hemingway (contained in Complete Stories)
  41. The Nick Adams Stories, Ernest Hemingway (contained in Complete Stories)
  42. The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War, Ernest Hemingway
  43. Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance
  44. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane
  45. Night, Elie Wiesel
  46. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxas
  47. The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Green
  48. Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway
  49. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
  50. Testimony: A Memoir, Robbie Robertson
  51. Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
  52. American Assassin, Vince Flynn
  53. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Charles Mann
  54. To Have and Have Not, Ernest Hemingway
  55. The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World, Andrea Wulf
  56. Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee
  57. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
  58. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
  59. Argo, Antonio Mendez
  60. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
  61. Across the River and into the Trees, Ernest Hemingway
  62. A Storm of Swords, George RR Martin
  63. Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemingway
  64. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, Mark Manson
  65. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
  66. The Dangerous Summer, Ernest Hemingway
  67. The Garden of Eden, Ernest Hemingway
  68. Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose
  69. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, JK Rowling
  70. Complete Poems, Ernest Hemingway
  71. Deep Work, Cal Newport
  72. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
  73. Mocking Jay, Suzanne Collins
  74. True at First Light, Ernest Hemingway

Note:  Since I have my own books for sale on Amazon, I am a part of their Amazon Affiliate program. The links above are affiliate links, which simply means that if you buy a book after clicking one of the links, Amazon (at no additional cost to you) will pay me a small commission that I use to help cover the costs of this site.  That’s not why I recommend the books, of course, but I wanted to be sure to make you aware of it.