I’ve almost always kept a running list of the books I read, but this year I decided to go Full Nerd.
I used Google Sheets to log each book I’ve read since October 2016—66 books in total, spread over 384 days.
I tracked titles, authors, author genders, copyright and publish dates, genres, page counts, format, dates started and ended, days between books. Starting at this new data year, I’ll also begin tracking author race, to hold myself accountable to hearing equal voice.
Accountability is one of the main reasons I began tracking this data. For example, based on the names on my bookshelf, it was clear I wasn’t reading enough books by women. And the data don’t lie. It was only through conscious intention this past year that I read the women I did; Rebecca Solnit, Jane Goodall, Janna Levin, Hannah Arendt, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In most cases, their work was also the most urgent and profound. My goal is to keep building up this percentage. Hearing, listening, and understanding more.
I also used a five-star ranking system for the books I read. I usually thinking rankings are bullshit, so I didn’t put much thought into the rationale. If the book affected me or prompted me to think differently, it got more stars. This helped me identify what were my “favorite” books from the past year, and which ones sucked.
Enough context. Let’s get down to the numbers:
Over the 384 days of this data set, I spent more than 80 percent reading:
Here’s where I get into the distribution of author gender. “Multiple” means books authored by various authors, with both men and women credited. Clearly some improvements I can make here:
Though I had some shortcomings for author diversity, the 66 books I read were spread across 18 subject areas. Communications was the largest focus area, with around 15 percent, followed by fiction at 12 percent and politics at 10 percent:
And now, the rankings. One star is bad, five stars is great. As you can see, most books are mediocre and not many are great.
My top-rated books were The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, for its originality and journalistic dedication; Achieving Our Country by Richard Rorty, for its profundity and prophecy; and What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Frank Thomas, for its relevance.
The full list of books follows below. Want to see the full spreadsheet? Have any recommendations for other data I should track? Books I should read? Let me know at b@benvanloon.com.
| HBR’s 10 Must-Reads: On Communication | Multiple |
| Oracle Bones | Hessler, Peter |
| Persuasion and Power | Farwell, James |
| Great Plains | Frazier, Ian |
| Hope in the Dark | Solnit, Rebecca |
| Strategic Communications for Nonprofits | Multiple |
| The Rings of Saturn | Sebald, W.G. |
| Age of Folly | Lapham, Lewis H. |
| The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Motorcycles | Multiple |
| Behind the Beautiful Forevers | Boo, Katherine |
| In the Shadow of Man | Goodall, Jane |
| Red Notice | Browder, Bill |
| Make No Law | Lewis, Anthony |
| The Road Back to You | Multiple |
| Spoiled Brats | Rich, Simon |
| What’s the Matter with Kansas? | Frank, Thomas |
| Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques | Multiple |
| The Best American Science and Nature Writing: 2016 | Multiple |
| The Year of Living Biblically | Jacobs, A.J. |
| Black Hole Blues | Levin, Janna |
| The Audacity of Hops | Acitelli, Tom |
| The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What? | Galtung, Johan |
| Why Nations Fail | Multiple |
| Trust Me, I’m Lying | Holiday, Ryan |
| When in Rome | Hutchinson, Robert |
| The Fourth Turning | Multiple |
| Brave New World | Huxley, Aldous |
| The Secret Life of Lobsters | Corson, Trevor |
| The Origins of Totalitarianism | Arendt, Hannah |
| Antifragile | Taleb, Nassim Nicholas |
| The Other Air Force | Sienkiewicz, Matt |
| Insane Clown President | Taibbi, Matt |
| My Journey at the Nuclear Brink | Perry, William J. |
| Something New | Wodehouse, P.G. |
| HBR’s 10 Must-Reads: For New Managers | Multiple |
| HBR’s 10 Must-Reads: On Managing People | Multiple |
| Outer Dark | McCarthy, Cormac |
| Economic Development: What Everyone Needs to Know | Guigale, Marcelo |
| The Unsettling of America | Berry, Wendell |
| Organizational Communication | Multiple |
| Brand Media Strategy | Young, Anthony |
| Many Lives, Many Masters | Weiss, Brian L. |
| Assessing Organizational Communication | Multiple |
| HBR’s 10 Must-Reads: On Change Management | Multiple |
| Galaxies | Malzberg, Barry |
| Elbow Room | McPherson, James Alan |
| The Fran Lebowitz Reader | Lebowitz, Fran |
| What Are Intellectuals Good For? | Scialabba, George |
| My Struggle | Knausgaard, Karl Ove |
| The Caged Virgin | Hirsi Ali, Ayaan |
| Writing with Intent | Atwood, Margaret |
| The Last Intellectuals | Jacoby, Russell |
| A Backpack, a Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka | Golinkin, Lev |
| It Can’t Happen Here | Lewis, Sinclair |
| Chicago: City on the Make | Algren, Nelson |
| The Handmaid’s Tale | Atwood, Margaret |
| The Confidence Game | Konnikova, Maria |
| Unlock Congress | Golden, Michael |
| The Wizard of the Nile | Green, Matthew |
| Moments of Impact | Multiple |
| Achieving Our Country | Rorty, Richard |
| HBR’s 10 Must Reads: On Strategy | Multiple |
| The Death of the Detective | Smith, Mark |
| American Pharaoh | Multiple |
| Bridges of Memory | Black, Timuel D. |
| Work Like a Spy | Carleson, J.C. |
