Book list

When I graduated college in May 1998, I decided to read at least twelve books every year. In this list I've counted only novels or non-fiction read first page to last- but those are the only rules. The list is sortable by column. Recently, I analyzed this booklist, and produced some fascinating statistics. [PDF]

 # Title Author Length Year Written Year Read
 1 Love in the Time of Cholera (F)  Marquez (M)  348 1988 1
 2 The Stranger (F)  Camus (M)  144 1946 1
 3 Mao II (F)  Delillo (M)  256 1992 1
 4 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (F)  Kundera (M)  320 1978 1
 5 Empire of Signs (NF)  Barthes (M)  109 1970 1
 6 The Ice Storm (F)  Moody (M)  288 1995 1
 7 The Name of the Rose (F)  Eco (M)  552 1983 1
 8 Seven Nights (NF)  Borges (M)  121 1984 1
 9 The Man Who Was Thursday (F)  Chesterton (M)  192 1908 1
 10 The Calcutta Chromosome (F)  Ghosh (M)  320 1995 1
 11 Laughable Loves (F)  Kundera (M)  304 1969 1
 12 Galatea 2.2 (F)  Powers (M)  336 1995 1
 13 The Names (F)  Delillo (M)  352 1989 1
 14 The Intuitionist (F)  Whitehead (M)  272 1999 1
 15 Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (F)  Powers (M)  352 1985 2
 16 The Sun Also Rises (F)  Hemingway (M)  256 1926 2
 17 Siddhartha (F)  Hesse (M)  160 1922 2
 18 White Noise (F)  Delillo (M)  336 1985 2
 19 The Razor's Edge (F)  Maugham (M)  336 1944 2
 20 Lord Jim (F)  Conrad (M)  384 1900 2
 21 The Talented Mr. Ripley (F)  Highsmith (F)  304 1955 2
 22 The Good Soldier (F)  Ford (M)  304 1915 2
 23 Brighton Rock (F)  Greene (M)  256 1938 2
 24 Tough Jews (NF)  Cohen (M)  304 1998 2
 25 The Professor and the Madman (NF)  Winchester (M)  272 1998 2
 26 In Cold Blood (NF)  Capote (M)  368 1966 3
 27 Exodus (F)  Uris (M)  608 1958 3
 28 Visual Explanations (NF)  Tufte (M)  156 1997 3
 29 A Farewell to Arms (F)  Hemingway (M)  336 1929 3
 30 Envisioning Information (NF)  Tufte (M)  126 1990 3
 31 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (NF)  Tufte (M)  197 1983 3
 32 A Moveable Feast (F)  Hemingway (M)  240 1964 3
 33 The Waterworks (F)  Doctorow (M)  352 1994 3
 34 Invisible Cities (F)  Calvino (M)  165 1972 4
 35 Our Man in Havana (F)  Greene (M)  224 1958 4
 36 The Secret Agent (F)  Conrad (M)  368 1907 4
 37 The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory (F)  Borges (M)  176 1975 4
 38 The Heart of the Matter (F)  Greene (M)  256 1948 4
 39 Liar's Poker (NF)  Lewis (M)  256 1989 4
 40 The Great Crash 1929 (NF)  Galbraith (M)  224 1954 4
 41 The Money Culture (NF)  Lewis (M)  304 1991 4
 42 The End of the Affair (F)  Greene (M)  192 1937 4
 43 The Gangs of New York (NF)  Asbury (M)  420 1927 4
 44 The Big Con (NF)  Maurer (M)  336 1940 4
 45 The Long Goodbye (F)  Chandler (M)  384 1953 4
 46 The Avengers (NF)  Cohen (M)  272 2000 4
 47 The Rachel Papers (F)  Amis (M)  240 1973 4
 48 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (F)  Rowling (F)  190 1997 5
 49 The Quiet American (F)  Greene (M)  192 1955 5
 50 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (F)  Rowling (F)  352 1998 5
 51 Introducing Time (NF)  Callender (M)  176 2001 5
 52 The Lady in the Lake (F)  Chandler (M)  272 1943 5
 53 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (F)  Rowling (F)  448 1999 5
 54 The Club Dumas (F)  Perez-Reverte (M)  384 1996 5
 55 A Cook's Tour (NF)  Bourdain (M)  288 2001 5
 56 Kitchen Confidential (NF)  Bourdain (M)  320 2000 5
 57 Stamboul Train (F)  Greene (M)  224 1932 5
 58 Me Talk Pretty One Day (NF)  Sedaris (M)  288 2000 5
 59 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (F)  Rowling (F)  734 2000 5
 60 The High Window (F)  Chandler (M)  272 1942 5
 61 The Book of Illusions (F)  Auster (M)  336 2002 5
 62 Notes from the Underground (F)  Dostoevsky (M)  160 1864 5
 63 Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories (F)  Capote (M)  176 1958 5
 64 The Magician (F)  Maugham (M)  172 1908 5
 65 Ripley Underground (F)  Highsmith (F)  320 1970 5
 66 Double Indemnity (F)  Cain (M)  128 1936 5
 67 Farewell, My Lovely (F)  Chandler (M)  304 1940 5
 68 The Thin Man (F)  Hammett (M)  208 1933 5
 69 The Moon and Sixpence (F)  Maugham (M)  224 1919 5
 70 The Postman Always Rings Twice (F)  Cain (M)  128 1934 5
 71 Ripley's Game (F)  Highsmith (M)  288 1974 5
 72 The Little Sister (F)  Chandler (M)  256 1949 5
 73 The Power and the Glory (F)  Greene (M)  240 1940 5
 74 The Old Man and the Sea (F)  Hemingway (M)  128 1952 5
 75 Cakes and Ale (F)  Maugham (M)  320 1930 5
 76 Playback (F)  Chandler (M)  176 1958 5
 77 Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction (F)  Salinger (M)  224 1955 5
 78 Jacob's Room (F)  Woolf (F)  192 1922 5
 79 The Boy Who Followed Ripley (F)  Highsmith (F)  304 1980 5
 80 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (F)  Twain (M)  368 1885 5
 81 The Fall (F)  Camus (M)  160 1956 6
 82 The Maltese Falcon (F)  Hammett (M)  224 1929 6
 83 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (F)  Rowling (F)  870 2003 6
 84 Ripley Under Water (F)  Highsmith (F)  320 1991 6
 85 The Goal (NF)  Goldratt (M)  384 1984 6
 86 Oracle Night (F)  Auster (M)  256 2003 7
 87 Motherless Brooklyn (F)  Lethem (M)  336 1999 7
 88 The Da Vinci Code (F)  Brown (M)  454 2003 7
 89 The Flanders Panel (F)  Perez-Reverte (M)  304 1990 7
 90 A Gun for Sale (F)  Greene (M)  208 1936 7
 91 Red Harvest (F)  Hammett (M)  224 1929 7
 92 Mind Wide Open (NF)  Johnson (M)  288 2004 7
 93 Emergence (NF)  Johnson (M)  288 2002 7
 94 Rendezvous in Black (F)  Woolrich (M)  240 1948 7
 95 The Bridge of San Luis Rey (F)  Wilder (M)  144 1927 7
 96 The Continental Op (F)  Hammett (M)  352 1923 7
 97 Snow Crash (F)  Stephenson (M)  480 1992 7
 98 The Dain Curse (F)  Hammett (M)  240 1928 7
 99 Trouble Is My Business (F)  Chandler (M)  224 1934 7
 100 Inventing Japan (NF)  Baruma (M)  208 2003 8
 101 Rashomon (F)  Akutagawa (M)  110 1952 8
 102 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (F)  Murakami (M)  416 1991 8
 103 The Simple Art of Murder (F)  Chandler (M)  384 1950 8
 104 Freakonomics (NF)  Levitt and Dubner (M)  242 2005 8
 105 Blink (NF)  Gladwell (M)  288 2005 8
 106 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (F)  Rowling (F)  652 2005 8
 107 Paris, France (NF)  Stein (F)  120 1940 8
 108 Maigret and the Wine Merchant (F)  Simeon (M)  166 1970 8
 109 A Wild Sheep Chase (F)  Murakami (M)  368 1982 8
 110 The Tipping Point (NF)  Gladwell (M)  304 2000 8
 111 The Wisdom of Crowds (NF)  Surowiecki (M)  320 2004 8
 112 Exile and the Kingdom (F)  Camus (M)  213 1957 8
 113 L.A. Confidential (F)  Ellroy (M)  512 1990 8
 114 Darkness Visible (NF)  Styron (M)  96 1990 8
 115 Maigret at the Gai-Moulin (F)  Simenon (M)  176 1940 8
 116 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (F)  Nabokov (M)  224 1941 8
 117 The Ox-Bow Incident (F)  Clark (M)  256 1940 8
 118 Brown's Requiem (F)  Ellroy (M)  256 1981 8
 119 Norwegian Wood (F)  Murakami (M)  304 1987 8
 120 Zuleika Dobson (F)  Beerbohm (M)  236 1911 8
 121 The Black Dahlia (F)  Ellroy (M)  336 1987 8
 122 Ragtime (F)  Doctorow (M)  288 1974 8
 123 The Grifters (F)  Thompson (M)  208 1963 8
 124 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (F)  Murakami (M)  624 1994 8
 125 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (NF)  Sacks (M)  256 1985 8
 126 Zero (NF)  Seife (M)  256 2000 8
 127 Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (F)  Clarke (F)  800 2004 8
 128 A Briefer History of Time (NF)  Hawking (M)  176 2005 8
 129 The Golden Ratio (NF)  Livio (M)  320 2002 8
 130 The Code Book (NF)  Singh (M)  342 1999 8
 131 Clandestine (F)  Ellroy (M)  336 1982 8
 132 The Paradox of Choice (NF)  Schwartz (M)  288 2004 9
 133 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (F)  Le Carre (M)  224 1963 9
 134 The Pattern on the Stone (NF)  Hillis (M)  165 1998 9
 135 Neverwhere (F)  Gaiman (M)  400 1996 9
 136 On Photography (NF)  Sontag (F)  224 1976 9
 137 Into Thin Air (NF)  Krakauer (M)  333 1997 9
 138 Happiness (NF)  Layard (M)  320 2005 9
 139 Chaos (NF)  Gleick (M)  368 1987 9
 140 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (F)  Le Carre (M)  379 1974 9
 141 Regarding the Pain of Others (NF)  Sontag (F)  131 2003 9
 142 Classic Essays on Photography (NF)  Trachtenberg (M)  300 1980 9
 143 The Day of the Jackal (F)  Forsyth (M)  384 1971 9
 144 The Evolution of Cooperation (NF)  Axelrod (M)  241 1984 9
 145 The Big Nowhere (F)  Ellroy (M)  406 1988 9
 146 Decoding the Universe (NF)  Seife (M)  296 2006 9
 147 Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (NF)  Suzuki (M)  138 1970 9
 148 The Music of the Primes (NF)  Sautoy (M)  335 2003 9
 149 The Death and Life of Great American Cities (NF)  Jacobs (F)  458 1961 9
 150 Embers (F)  Marai (M)  213 1942 9
 151 The Way of Zen (NF)  Watts (M)  236 1957 9
 152 Camera Lucida (NF)  Barthes (M)  119 1980 9
 153 White Jazz (F)  Elroy (M)  352 1992 9
 154 The Wisdom of No Escape (NF)  Chodron (M)  110 1991 9
 155 Incompleteness (NF)  Goldstein (F)  296 2005 9
 156 When Things Fall Apart (NF)  Chodron (F)  146 1997 9
 157 Smiley's People (F)  Le Carre (M)  397 1979 9
 158 Faster (NF)  Gleick (M)  330 1999 9
 159 Practicing Peace in a Time of War (NF)  Chodron (F)  128 2006 9
 160 Happiness (NF)  Ricard (M)  304 2003 10
 161 Why People Photograph (NF)  Adams (M)  186 1988 10
 162 Less Than Zero (F)  Easton Ellis (M)  208 1985 10
 163 The Selfish Gene (NF)  Dawkins (M)  376 1976 10
 164 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (F)  Rowling (F)  759 2007 10
 165 Start Where You Are (NF)  Chodron (F)  156 1994 10
 166 Beauty in Photography (NF)  Adams (M)  108 1981 10
 167 Devil in the White City (NF)  Larson (M)  447 2003 10
 168 The Day of the Owl (F)  Sciascia (M)  122 1961 10
 169 The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (F)  Simenon (M)  203 1938 10
 170 The Places That Scare You (NF)  Chodron (F)  140 2001 10
 171 Thunderstruck (NF)  Larson (M)  463 2006 10
 172 The Faith of Graffiti (NF)  Mailer (M)  100 1974 10
 173 Darkness at Noon (NF)  Koestler (M)  216 1941 10
 174 Man's Search for Meaning (NF)