It’s a sign of the pandemic nearing the end when I no longer have the luxury of time to read and run regularly. But that’s just life, a series of opportunity costs and compromises. At the start of the great lockdown 2020 I managed to read 62 books, in the depth of pandemic year 2021 I read 70 books, and this year? I mixed going out, playing football and watching live music with reading 56 books.
Now, the biggest thing for me this year was that I read 8 fiction books! Eight! And among the rest of the 47 non-fiction books there’s the usual names: Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday (3 books), Tim Ferriss, Steven Pressfield, Thich Nhat Hanh, Reza Aslan, the usual self-rule: 1 book about Indonesia, and a friendly old face in David Graeber in my re-reading portion for this year: his phenomenal book Debt: The First 5000 Years.
Furthermore, along with my core interests of history, business and self-help, in total I read 10 biographies this year, 7 books on religion, a little bit of science with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and since this is a World Cup year I naturally read more books on football (3 books). I also had the priviledge to be approached by the author of The Founders, Jimmy Soni, whom offerred me his book for free in exchange for an honest review (which turns out to be a great book about the history of PayPal). And of course, in an increasing obsession with Ernest Hemingway, this year I read 2 books by him and 1 about him.
But naturally, not all books are great and I also had my fare share of crappy books along the way, like The Power of the Subconscious Mind, seeing what the fuss is all about on the controversial The Satanic Verses, and mercifully finishing my 3rd Steven Pinker book (out of 5 that I have – talking about tsundoku, eh?)
But all in all, it has been quite an interesting journey this year, where my reading list was more determined by the situation or theme of the moment. Like reading a book about football in the Balkans and the kleptocracy of the ex Soviet oligarchs during early days of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, or reading about the Freemasons before I took a tour of Freemason’s sites in my city, or sadistically reading When Breathe Becomes Air (about the journey of a dying doctor who’s also a cancer patient) when I finally caught Covid.
Anyway, here are the complete list for this year’s reading:
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- A Brief History of the Freemasons by Jasper Ridley
- Aesop’s Fables by Aesop
- Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr. By Ron Chernow
- Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday
- A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontline of Humanity by Jan Egeland
- The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
- Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World by Tom Burgis
- Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe by Jonathan Wilson
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
- The ABCc of Success by Bob Proctor
- Amazing Muslims Who Changed the World by Burhana Islam
- The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
- Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires by Juan Cole
- Beyond Fundamentalism by Reza Aslan
- The Islam Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained by DK
- The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink
- The Book of General Ignorance by John Mitchinson and John Lloyd
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
- Zonal Marking by Michael Cox
- Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Rimbaud in Java by Jamie James
- Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
- Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh
- Effortless by Greg McKeown
- The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
- The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D.
- The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann
- The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad You Did) by Philippa Perry
- Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
- The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor
- Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! By Richard P. Feynman
- Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by Steven Pressfield
- The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
- Hemingway’s France: Images of the Lost Generation by Winston Conrad
- Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin
- Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- The Theory of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber
- 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna Wiest
- Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina by Jonathan Wilson
- The Truth About Wuhan: How I Uncovered the Biggest Lie in History by Andrew G. Huff
EDWIN SETIADI 