56 Books, My Literary Journey in 2018
According to goodreads, I read 56 books in 2018. This was 4 over my goal of 52 books! I spent a lot of the year reading books from my never ending list of tralev books but I also took some time to appreciate the classics, award winners, and a random selection of history and business books from Prime reading.
I think my absolute favorite book of the year was The Dark Forest (#2 of the Remembrance of Earth's Past Book series). I read the entire series this year and gave each book 5 stars. Im a huge sci-fi fan and this is the best series I've ever read hands down.
I'm pretty conservative with my good reads ratings.
1 - why did I ever read this
2 - "ok", if you're a fan of this topic
3 - good book
4 - great book
5 - read this before you die
A couple other books that I really enjoyed last year were:
- Giant of Enterprise - a book about business tycoons that was recommended to me by Nathan.
- Kitchen Confidential - a book by the late Anthony Bourdain which gives us a peek into the real world of a career as a chef.
- Less - a pulitzer prize winning book about life, love, and loss.
- East of Eden - a masterpiece by one of Americas most legendary authors.
I hate being negative, but my least favorite book by far last year year was "That Dark and Bloody River" I wrote a scathing review of this one on my other blog. It was also the longest book I read last year. I have a terrible problem of not being able to stop reading a book halfway in between. I read this tome with anger over a series of several long haul flights.
I want to read 52 more books in 2019. Join me in the challenge. Happy reading!
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
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Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- The contagion of fear from The Observation Deck
- The revolt of the reader from The Observation Deck
- Deeper dive: Were Touch Bar’s problems software rather than hardware? from Unsung
- Joining Cursor from Fatih Arslan
- Pluralistic: Digital sewer socialism (08 Aug 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Pluralistic: Enshittification and Reverse Centaurs go global (29 Jul 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making from Ludicity
- The default person from https://popagandhi.com/
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Issue 111 – Back the winners
A Trump crypto adviser’s firm took millions from Tether while he shaped stablecoin rules in their favor, a Senate probe targets Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s not-so-former firm, and crypto’s biggest super PAC plays it safe
via Citation Needed October 16, 2026Pluralistic: Load-bearing (16 Oct 2026)
Today's links Load-bearing: Digital sovereignty vs AI. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Anthrax penmanship; Stolen WEBGEEK license plate; Arizona Republic endorses Clinton, gets death threats; Against the great forces of history....
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow October 16, 2026Abracadabra proposes winding down after string of hacks years ago left each $1 "stablecoin" token backed by $0.04 in reserves
Abracadabra, the defi project behind the Magic Internet Money (MIM) stablecoin, is shutting down. It blamed its string of hacks: $6.5 million theft in January 2024, $13 million in March 2025, and $1.8 million in October 2025, which altogether left about $2...
via Web3 is Going Just Great October 16, 2026Generated by openring