Another year, another 52 books! Overall, 2024 was a so-so year in reading for me—a couple good books and a bunch of bad ones (my average rating on Goodreads was a 3.3). The new Robin Sloan release was especially disappointing and has kinda put me off his entire back catalog. Here's what I might recommend reading instead:

Favourite Books of 2024

• The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi
• Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens by David Mitchell
• Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde
• Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
• You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen

Dog Books

My wife and I welcomed a new puppy into our lives earlier this year. To prepare, I read seven different "dog" books, and I think she read another five? There's a mountain of wildly conflicting advice out there, but Steve Mann's Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy and Easy Peasy Doggy Squeezy helped a lot.

52x10

This year marks the 10th time that I've hit 52 books (or more). I think it might be time to start rereading some? Starting with a few favourites from 2015:

• How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
• Waking Up by Sam Harris
• Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott
• The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen
• How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life by Russ Roberts

Really curious and excited to see how I'll feel about them a decade later...

How I Read So Much

People always ask how I read so much... honestly, it's not that hard: no phones in bed and about 45–60 minutes of reading each night. Sure, I "cheat" with some audio books on Libby (about 10-15 per year), but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that listening is just as good as reading.

Challenge Habits

Keeping up with the 52-challenge for a decade now has definitely forced some interesting habits. On the one hand, I'll ditch books earlier than most. On the other, I often force myself to slog through a garbage book because I'm too deep and need it for the count. Also, I tend to avoid books over 350 pages. And to maintain momentum, I usually juggle 2-3 books at a time (once I’m 90% done one, I’ll start the next).

Quote Ritual

Every year I collect about 1000 highlights from my Kindle. It's become something of a ritual to export these quotes, manually go through each in a system of multiple passes, curate the best, and paraphrase the remainder into ideas that I hope to remember into the next year. If you’re curious, here are my quotes for 2024.