Beginning in January 2018, with inspiration from Sam Allard’s #bookstack, I started recording every book I read. Before long, I realized that this is critical for anyone with a serious reading habit. Books are such an integral part of life that you must develop some sort of anchor for what you’ve read, some sort of foothold in the past that may inform your present. By finally tracking where I’d been, I think I have a better sense of how I went about building the last few chapters of my life. I can see, very clearly, how American Pastoral shaped the way I understand myself in part. (N.B.: I was in a hotel room at the Palmer House in Chicago when I finished American Pastoral, and I was so caught up in Roth’s work that I ran out into the Loop and found a bookstore and bought The Human Stain. This was a pivotal moment.)
Alongside time spent with my family, time spent playing guitar and listening to music and going to shows, time spent writing, time spent playing golf, all of this time spent reading ranks among the most important and meaningful activities in my life. Not only does all this reading inform my own writing, but it tends to shape my own capacities for empathy, patience and generosity. Imagine the level of dedication you need to project a world within a book! It’s a profound source of joy to inhabit an author’s mind while I’m reading a book, and I think there’s a lot to be said about the learned skill of stepping into someone else’s shoes for a while.
It’s also just a great, simple way to unwind. Life is plenty full of distractions and hazards. Sitting down to read at your own pace is something you can control and relish. This is a major lesson I’m hoping to teach our daughter as she grows up. I think the 21st century is already turning out to be relatively more totalitarian in nature, thanks to rising nationalism and the development of artificial intelligence / mass surveillance / digital biometric data tracking / centralized financial instruments / factory farming / CIA psy ops posing as friendly social media / you name it. They can try to burn books (and they are! look around!), but they cannot steal your mind if you don’t let them in.
Anyway, it’s been fun jotting all this stuff down over the years. If you’re not already charting your own reading habit, I highly recommend it.
Looking back, you can see I went pretty heavy on Roth/DeLillo/Pynchon early on. This set a particular tone for me, and I had a habit for a few years of reading a Pynchon novel every December; that fell off in 2021 when I got caught up with Karl Ove Knausgaard and then in 2022 with Denis Johnson. I feel confident that I’ll get around to Gravity’s Rainbow in 2023.
Read the full list after the jump. Asterisks denote personal favorites.
2018
Brave New Weed by Joe Dolce
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis*
Influence by Robert Cialdini
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
Kill All Your Darlings by Luc Sante
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving*
The Quiet American by Graham Greene*
The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
Leisure, The Basis Of Culture by Josef Pieper
Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders*
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon*
Dear God, What’s on the Second Floor? by Walter Holland
How Music Works by David Byrne
A Massacre in Mexico by Anabel Hernandez
American Pastoral by Philip Roth*
The Human Stain by Philip Roth*
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
White Noise by Don DeLillo*
Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Beatles vs. Stones by John McMillian
Demand the Impossible! by Bill Ayers
The Siege Of Harlem by Warren Miller
Rabbit, Run by John Updike*
The Crying Of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon*
2019
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon*
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Good Kids, Bad City by Kyle Swenson*
Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth*
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Janesville by Amy Goldstein
Draft No. 4 by John McPhee*
Furnishing Eternity by David Giffels*
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis*
The Overstory by Richard Powers*
Underworld by Don DeLillo*
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe*
Tenth of December by George Saunders*
The Angel Esmeralda by Don DeLillo
Americana by Don DeLillo
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Fox 8 by George Saunders
Libra by Don DeLillo*
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Hard Way on Purpose by David Giffels
Keep Going by Austin Kleon
Replay by Ken Grimwood*
Feel Free by Zadie Smith
Working by Robert Caro
Hunter S. Thomson: The Last Interview edited by David Streitfeld
Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole*
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson*
On Writing Well by William Zinsser*
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
Levels of the Game by John McPhee
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg
The Dog of the South by Charles Portis*
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver
Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
Go Ahead in the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick*
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) by Jeff Tweedy
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino*
Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
Being Here is Everything by Marie Darrieussecq
A Whale Hunt by Robert Sullivan*
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon*
2020
A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter*
About a Mountain by John D’Agata*
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth*
2019 Best American Magazine Writing ed. by Sid Holt
Draft No. 4 by John McPhee
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Zed by Joanna Kavena
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
True Grit by Charles Portis
Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta
Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario
Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee
The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal
Gringos by Charles Portis*
This is Chance! by Jon Mooallem*
Ornamental by Juan Cardenas
On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard*
The Names by Don DeLillo*
The Art and Craft of Feature Writing by William Blundell
Stoner by John Williams*
Make Noise by Eric Nuzum
Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel
Boom Town by Sam Anderson*
Little, Big by John Crowley
Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders*
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William Gass
River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit*
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen
Here We Are by Benjamin Taylor
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson*
The Years by Annie Ernaux
Native Son by Richard Wright
Norwood by Charles Portis
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas*
Black Boy by Richard Wright
The Glass Eye by Jeannie Vanasco
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Zero K by Don DeLillo
Litany for the Long Moment by Mary-Kim Arnold
The Silence by Don DeLillo
Barnstorming Ohio by David Giffels
Blackfishing the IUD by Caren Beilin
Gringos by Charles Portis
Uncle Tom’s Children by Richard Wright
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin*
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner*
Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones
The Meadow by James Galvin
V. by Thomas Pynchon
The Man Who Walked Backward by Ben Montgomery
Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner
2021
The Practice by Seth Goden
Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard*
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson*
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse
Rust by Eliese Goldbach
You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier
Intonations by Zadie Smith
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Cuyahoga by Pete Beatty*
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin*
This Isn’t Happening by Steven Hyden
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Yellow House by Sarah Broom
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopate*
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Fulfillment by Alex MacGillis
The Secret History by Donna Tartt*
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann*
Mao II by Don DeLillo*
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck*
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
Losing Earth by Nathaniel Rich
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster*
Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis*
Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler
American Rule by Jared Yates Sexton
Salvador by Joan Didion
Democracy by Joan Didion*
Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book by Harvey Penick
The Inner Game of Golf by Timothy Gallwey*
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Legs by William Kennedy*
Lights Out by Ted Koppel
Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game by William Kennedy
The Great Acceleration by J.R. McNeill and Peter Engelke
Being Ecological by Timothy Morton
Break Up the Anthropocene by Steve Mentz
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman*
Beyond Civilization by Daniel Quinn
As We Have Always Done by Leanne Simpson
Wind from an Enemy Sky by D’Arcy McNickle
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Thinking Animals by Kari Weil
Flush by Virginia Woolf
Against Football by Steve Almond
Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard
My Struggle: Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard*
2022
Out of Office by Charlie Warzel, Anne Helen Petersen
Second Nature by Michael Pollan
To the Linksland by Michael Bamberger*
Mutations by Sam McPheeters
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders*
The Best American Essays ed by Kathryn Schulz
The Vietri Project by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Bogey Man by George Plimpton*
This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
The World Played Chess by Robert Dugoni
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen*
Serious Face by Jon Mooallem*
The Green Road Home by Michael Bamberger
A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley*
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon*
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan*
Let Me Finish by Roger Angell
The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
Norwood by Charles Portis
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx*
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford*
On Writing by Stephen King
Independence Day by Richard Ford*
Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect by Bob Rotella
The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford*
Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
True Grit by Charles Portis
End Zone by Don DeLillo
A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt*
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson*
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson*
Already Dead by Denis Johnson*
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Sandy 