Below is a semi-complete, semi-chronological list of books I’ve read in the last 35 years or so. I threw in a few others that I remember reading here and there. They are here for no other reason give me a bit of motivation to keep track of what I read.
This is not a suggested reading list or a bibliography for my personal philosophy or my new home-brewed kooky religion where I am allowed 8 wives, cookies & cold milk are the sacrament, and bicycles are the only allowed form of mechanized transport… It is just a list of books.
Let me ascend my soapbox for a moment:
Ahem… GO TO THE LIBRARY! Read a book! If you just NEED a specific title: shop for used books at a local bookshop. There are some great deals on hardcovers and lightly used paperbacks and it supports a local business. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, et al… have great selections, prices, and all the new books, but they are driving the small bookstore owners out of business. So, if you can, shop at the little stores first or see if they can maybe order a used copy of what you’re looking for. Also, check out Project Gutenberg for interesting and free reading – 90,000+ English titles to download and read on your e-reader at no charge.
Dismounts Soapbox…
The Books:
Children of Ruin – Tchaikovsky
Casca: the Damned – Sadler
The Egg – Weir
An Unwelcomed Quest – Meyer
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) – Taylor
For We Are Many – Taylor
All These Worlds – Taylor
Your Mind on Plants – Pollan
Heaven’s River – Taylor
Dies The Fire – Stirling
The Protectors War – Stirling
A Meeting in Corvallis – Stirling
Bomber Mafia – Gladwell
The Sentinel – Child & Child
The Lost Gutenberg – Davis
The Last Duel – Jager
Persuader – Child
James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal – Weir
Aloha Cowboys – Wolman & Smith
The Moʻolelo Hawaiʻi – Malo
Kamehameha the Great- Williams
Casca: God of Death – Sadler
The Secret Lives of Lobsters – Corson
Casca: The Warlord – Sadler
Off to be the Wizard – Meyer
Spell or High Water – Meyer
Project Hail Mary – Weir
Casca the Eternal Mercenary- Sadler
Seven Ages of Paris – Horne
The Evening and the Morning – Follett
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Tarantino
Midnight Line – Child
Notre Dame – Follett
Blue Moon – Child
The Poisoned Pilgrim – Potzsh
Caffeine – Pollan
Past Tense- Child
Washington: A Life – Chernow
The Deaths of Tao – Chu
The Artemis – Weir
Island of the Blue Dolphins – O’Dell
Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff – Penn
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter – Goss
A Column of Fire – Follett
A Gentleman In Moscow – Towles
The Lives of Tao- Chu
Grant – Chernow
The Midnight Line – Child
Pimp – Slim
Spoonbenders – Gregory
Why We Make Things and Why It Matters – Korn
The Parisian Prodigal – Gordon
The Play of Death – Potzsch
Crow Planet – Haupt
The Little Paris Bookshop – George
A Sport and a Pastime – Salter
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Hosseini
Making Things Work – Hiller
Etiquette & Espionage – Carriger
Good Omens’ – Pratchett/Gaiman
Night School – Child
South Pole Station – Shelby
Packing for Mars – Roach
Good Clean Fun – Offerman
Shakespeare – Bryson
Flirting with Mermaids – Kretschmer
Florida Roadkill – Dorsey
Without Fail – Child
Tinkerbelle – Manry
Leap of faith – Robinson
The Gentle Art of Pottering
Poop, Booze, and Bikinis – Robinson
The Werewolf of Bamburg – Potzsch
H is for Hawk- MacDonald
Make Me – Child
Botany of Desire – Pollan
The Private Wife of Sherlock Holmes – Douglas
Personal – Child
Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France
Robbing the Bees – Bishop
Seven Things
Life in a Medieval Village
Dark Monk – Potzsch
Goodnight Mr. Holmes – Douglas
Clan of the Cave Bear
Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel – Giles
The Humbling – Roth
The Bookshop – Fitzgerald
The Hangman’s Daughter
The 1st 15 Lives of Henry August
A Not Really Erotic Memoir
The Hard Way – Child
The Martian
Notes From a Small Island
1000 years of Annoying the French
A Much Married Man – Coleridge
Out of Sight – Leonard
Station Eleven – Mandel
Beyond Black – Mantel
The Book on the Shelf
The Book Thief
Wild Swans
Catfish and Mandala
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Lark’s Lament
Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure
A Wanted Man – Child
The Second Book of General Ignorance
The Affair – Child
Sweet tooth
Never Go Back – Child
Garrett Investigates
Ad Eternum
The Curious Case of the Werewolf that Wasn’t… – Carriger
The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic
My Mother’s Lover
Beekeeping for Beginners.
Requiem for an Assassin
Inferno – Brown
The Book of Life
Best American Travel Writing 2009
The Perfect Vehicle: What is it About Motorcycles
The Bones of Paris
The Night Circus
Diary of a Public Radio Slave
Confessions of a Bad Beekeeper
Growing up Amish
The Dark Side of Disney
Tripwire
Pot Farm
Getting Stoned with Savages
Paris is a Bitch
Deep Down (short) – Child
Second Son (short) – Child
Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun
The War Prayer (short)
Forever
Hit Me – Block
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
American Sniper
The Dirty Parts of the Bible
Venice for Lovers
Born Fighting – Webb
Stoner
The Sweet Life in Paris
The Money Lender of Toulouse
The Passage
The Twelve
Born to Run
A Discovery of Witches
Shadow of the Night: A Novel
Beekeeping for Beginners
I am Not a Serial Killer
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
The Hunger Games
Executive Orders
Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament
The Strangely Beautiful tale of Miss Percy Parker
Passions – The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson
The Complete Engraver
Serial Killers Inc. (Novel)
Timeless
The Book on the Bookshelf
The Client – Grisham
A Time to Kill – Grisham
The Rainmaker – Grisham
The Firm – Grisham
A Painted House – Grisham
The Pelican – Grisham
Kiss the Girls
Prince of Tides
A Doll’s House
Cold Fire
One Shot – Child
Rain Fall
Debt of Honor – Clancy
A Pint of Plain
Heartless
World War Z
The Sinner’s Grand Tour
It’s All About The Bike
Goat Song – Kessler
Superfreakonomics
Candy Girl
The Butcher’s Boy
Goat Song – Basquin
The Bathtub Spy
Washington Gvn Rights – Workman
Water for Elephants
The Book of General Ignorance
Lady Matador’s Hotel
Simply Sailing
Carnet De Voyage
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Three Ways to Capsize a Boat
Cruise Confidential
Life – Richards
New Amsterdam
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
The Name of the Rose
The Key to The Name of the Rose
The $64 Tomato
Shop Class as Soulcraft
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
Bonk
The Lost Symbol
Soulless
The Wordy Shipmates
Changeless
In Morocco
Debt of Honor
House of Tears
Smile When You are Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer
Jefferson at Monticello: A Biography of a Builder
The Grave Diggers Daughter
The Bee Keeper’s Apprentice
I, Sniper
Night of Thunder
The 47th Samurai
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Burglars Can’t be Choosers
Blameless
The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest …
84 Charing Cross Road
Bone Shaker
Without Remorse – Clancy
Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge
Dork Whore
Keller in Dallas
Thomas Riley
A very Private Gentleman
The Imperfectionists
A Year in the Scheisse: Getting to Know the Germans
Flood
The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
Gecko Trails: A Journey Through Cambodia
A Vineyard in Tuscany
Finding Orwell in Burma
The Sum of All Fears – Clancy
Pillars of the Earth – Follett
We Will Always Have Paris
World Without End – Follett
Confederates in the Attic
The Hive
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
The Confusion (Vol. II of the Baroque Cycle)
Mountain Men
Killing Dragons
Mountain Men
The Wildest Dream
Ghosts of Everest
Into the Unknown
The Villain
Climbing in North America
Norman Clyde of the Sierra Nevada
The White Spider
Camp 4
Downward Bound
K2
The Climbers
The Hard Years
The High Lonesome: Epic Solo Climbing Stories
Ordeal by Piton: Writings from the Golden Age of Yosemite Climbing
Postcards From the Ledge
Ridge Between Life and Death
Rock Jocks, Hangdogs and Wallrats – Long
Climbing Free – Hill
The Boardman-Tasker Omnibus
Seven Summits
Into Thin Air
The Climb
Touch the Top of the World
Touching My Father’s Soul
Touching the Void
True Summit
Twenty Years in the Himalaya
Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey
Vertical Pleasures
This Game of Ghosts
Three Cups of Tea
The Villain: A Portrait of Don Whillans
The Shadow of Kilimanjaro
The Other Side of Everest
The Savage Arena
The Last Step – Ridgeway.
The Lost Explorer
The Mountain of My Fear
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Free Spirit: A Climber’s Life
A Fine Kind of Madness
A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond
A Night On the Ground A Day in the Open
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Seven Years in Tibet
The Burgess Book of Lies
THE BECKONING SILENCE
Camp 4: Recollections of a Yosemite Rockclimber
Camp Six
Norman Clyde of the High Sierra: 29 Essays
Climbing High
Feeding the Rat
Forever on the Mountain
Fragile Edge
From the Ocean to The Sky
Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine – Hemmleb
Glen Denny: Yosemite in the Sixties
High and Wild
High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places
Kiss or Kill
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Left for Dead
Life and Death on Mt. Everest
Lou Whittaker: Memoirs of a Mountain Guide
Men Against The Clouds
Minus 148 Degrees
No Shortcuts to the Top
True Blood
A Book of Bees
Calcutta (Lonely Planet Books)
In Arabian Nights
Toujours Provence
Hit and Run
Freakonomics:
Eragon
Eldest -Book 2 in the Inheritance Series
A Good Year
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
Possible Side Effects
Miles From Nowhere
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Samurai William
The Shipping News
Shogun – Clavell
Slightly Chipped
Until I find You: A Novel
Mornings on Horseback (A Teddy Roosevelt biography of his early life)
Let My People Go Surfing
Deception Point
A Life on the Edge: Everest and Beyond
Sea Kayaker’s Deep Trouble: True Stories and Their Lessons
The Undercover Economist
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
Rock Jocks Wall Rats and Hang Dogs
The Madonna’s of Leningrad
Blue Latitudes
The Wal-Mart Effect:
A Farewell to Arms
A Year in Van Nuys
Ishmael
Inferno : The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg 1943
Holy Cow
Blink
Life of Pi
The Golden Compass
Below Another Sky
Eiger Dreams
Clear and Present Danger
It Happened in Texas
A House in Fez
Among the Gently Mad
The System of the World (Vol. III of the Baroque Cycle)
The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon
Best American Travel Writing 2005
In Defense of Food
On Celtic Tides: Kayaking Around Ireland
In the Know in Germany : The Indispensable Guide to Working and Living In Germany
Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
Kilimanjaro & Mount Kenya: A Climbing and Trekking Guide
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
The Best American Travel Writing 2001
The Plot Against America
A Night on the Ground and a Day in the Open
On the Road
The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Pollen
Climb to Glory: Mountaineer, Adventurer, Explorer, the Bill Hackett Story
The Historian
Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love. Loss and Survival at Sea
The Gunslinger
Patriot Games – Clancy
Over the Top: Humorous Mountaineering Tales (Mountaineers Anthology)
His Excellency: George Washington
A Year in the Merde
Postcards From the Ledge
Eaters of the Dead
Red Storm Rising – Clancy
Hit Man
Fast Food Nation
Adventure Capitalist
Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World
A Year in Provence
Metal Cowboy
The Hunt for Red October – Clancy
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Pack Goat
The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet’s Chang Tang
Riding Outside the Lines
Kilimanjaro: A Guide to Climbing Africa’s Highest Mountain
Crimson Petal and the White
The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest
Memoirs of a Geisha
Tom Robbins
Shopping for Buddha’s
We Survived Yesterday
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Gilead
French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France
Walking Up and Down in This World
Atonement
Kaffir Boy
Under the Skin
A Walk across America
Blood Canticle – Rice
Surly You’re Joking Mr. Feynman
The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific
The Notebook
Baidarka
Vagabonding
The Size of the World
Angels and Demons
Hitchhiking Vietnam
No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too late
The DaVinci Code
Up Shit Creek: A Collection of Horrifyingly True Wilderness Toilet Misadventures
The Shadow of Kilimanjaro
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Alchemist
Homelands. Kayaking The Inside Passage
The Best American Travel Writing – 2000
The Borne Identity
The Sea Hunters
Band of Brothers
Southern Vietnam on Two Wheels
The Borne Supremacy
Investment Biker
A harbor Town History: Catalina Island
Blackwood Farm
Vagabonding
Castle – Macaulay
Epic: Stories of Survival from the World’s Highest Peaks
Airframe
Life in a Medieval City
Outside 25: Classic Tales and New Voices From the Frontiers of Adventure
Timeline
In A Sunburned Country
Hot Springs
Blackhawk Down
The Things That They Carried
Merrick – Rice
A Painted House
Baghdad Without a Map
Road Fever
Pale Horse Coming
Running Away To Sea
Faith of My Fathers
A Wolverine is Eating My Leg
Climb Free
Hiking in the Wind River Range
The Bear and the Dragon – Clancy
The Mummy – Rice
The Witching Hour – Rice
Lasher – Rice
Full Circle: A S. American Journey
Taltos – Rice
Henry V
Othello
Interview with the Vampire – Rice
The Vampire Lestat – Rice
The Queen of the Damned – Rice
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Beyond Good and Evil
The Count of Monte Christo – Dumas
Slaughterhouse Five
Don Quixote
The Chronicles of Narnia
Huckleberry Finn – Twain
The Things They Carried
Great Expectations
Histories-Tacitus
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby
The Tale of the Body Thief – Rice
The Vampire Armand – Rice
Pandora – Rice
Vittorio the Vampire – Rice
Finnegan’s Wake
David Copperfield
Tramp Abroad
Tom Sawyer – Twain
The Year 1000
Cathedral – Macaulay
Animal Farm
Republic-Plato
Catch 22
Pyramid – Macaulay
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Alaska
The Fountainhead
The catcher in the Rye
The Prince
Voyage of the Beagle
The Art of War
HMS Beagle