Tag: non-fiction books

I Read 111 Books in 2019

As I’ve done in previous years, I’m sharing my reading list from 2019.

So without further ado, the list from this year…

  1. The Millionaire Master Plan by Roger James Hamilton
  2. Meaningful Work by Shawn Askinosie
  3. The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  4. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
  5. The First Year IBS by Heather Van Vorous
  6. King Warrior Magician Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
  7. Becoming the Parent You Want To Be by Laura Davis & Janis Keyser
  8. Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  9. The Magician and the Analyst by Robert Moore
  10. He by Robert A. Johnson
  11. The Symbols by The Heavenly Hosts, the Servents of Creator
  12. Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  13. Viriconium by M. John Harrison
  14. Deep Work by Cal Newport
  15. Magic Power Language Symbol by Patrick Dunn
  16. The Mask of Masculinity by Lewis Howes
  17. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  18. The Chaos Protocols by Gordon White
  19. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  20. Sovereignty by Ryan Michler
  21. The Future of Man by Teilhard de Chardin
  22. Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
  23. The Awesome Science of Luck by Peter Ragnar
  24. Life After Google by George Gilder
  25. Living the 80/20 Way by Richard Koch
  26. Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine
  27. One to Many by Jason Fladlien
  28. Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  29. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
  30. The Music of Life by Denis Noble
  31. Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers by Cyndi Thomason
  32. The Master Works of Chaos Magick by Adam Blackthorne
  33. Holistic Dental Care by Nadine Artemis
  34. Deafness of the Mind by Kevin Fitzgerald
  35. Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity by Denis Noble
  36. Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton
  37. Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows
  38. The King Within by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
  39. Liber Null & Psychonaut by Peter J. Carroll
  40. The Direct Mail Revolution by Robert W. Bly
  41. Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
  42. How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger
  43. Shaman, Healer, Sage by Alberto Villoldo
  44. The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
  45. The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman
  46. Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold
  47. Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
  48. The Archetype of Initiation by Robert L. Moore
  49. Brutal Wisdom by Master “Dutch” Hinkle
  50. Overdeliver by Brian Kurtz
  51. Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
  52. Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damndest Thing by Jed McKenna
  53. The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge
  54. 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
  55. The Sayings of Vikings by Havamal
  56. A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilbur
  57. Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton
  58. How to End the Autism Epidemic by J.B. Handley
  59. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
  60. Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance deHaven-Smith
  61. American Cosmic by D.W. Pasulka
  62. The Integral Vision by Ken Wilbur
  63. Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning
  64. The Dark Path by Isaac Weishaupt
  65. Conspiracies Declassified by Brian Dunning
  66. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
  67. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
  68. Evolutionary Herbalism by Sajah Popham
  69. Atomic Habits by James Clear
  70. Triz for Dummies by Lily Haines-Gadd
  71. Supernormal Stimuli by Deirdre Barrett
  72. The Watchman’s Rattle by Rebecca D. Costa
  73. Population Control by Jim Marrs
  74. Limitless by Laura Gassner Otting
  75. Conscious Men by John Gray and Arjuna Ardagh
  76. Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham
  77. Murder by Injection by Eustace Mullins
  78. High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard
  79. Medical Medium by Anthony William
  80. The Franklin Scandal by Nick Bryant
  81. Native Son by Richard Wright
  82. The Master Keys to Strength and Fitness 2nd Edition by Logan Christopher
  83. The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin
  84. Everybody is Sick, and I Know Why by Peter J Glidden, MD
  85. Radical Brilliance by Arjuna Ardagh
  86. The Cancer Industry by Mark Sloan
  87. None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen with Larry Abraham
  88. Medical Intuition by C. Norman Shealy, MD, PhD
  89. Perfectibilists by Terry Melanson
  90. Programmed to Kill by David McGowan
  91. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
  92. Discovering Joy in Parenting: The First Seven Years by Cindy Brooks and Joya Birns
  93. The Candida Cure by Ann Boroch, CNC
  94. The Habit Forming Guide to Becoming a Systems Thinker by Tracy Benson & Sheri Marlin
  95. The Republic by Plato
  96. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
  97. The Bezos Letters by Steve Anderson with Karen Anderson
  98. Becoming Us by Beth McCord and Jeff McCord
  99. Virtual Summit Launch Formula by Eric Z. Yang
  100. Rewire by Richard O’Conner, PhD
  101. Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
  102. The Spiritual Journey of Joseph L. Greenstein by Ed Spielman
  103. The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
  104. Daemon by Daniel Suarez
  105. The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot
  106. Freedom TM by Daniel Suarez
  107. Cancer: The Metabolic Disease Unraveled by Mark Sloan
  108. Discovering Your Soul Signature by Panache Desai
  109. Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows
  110. Develop Your Medical Intuition by Sherrie Dillard
  111. The Healing Organization by Raj Sisodia and Michael J. Gelb
Just a handful of the books read this year…

What allowed me to read over 50% more than last year?

My intention this year was to engage in more speed reading depending on the book. Many of these I read every single word. Other ones I read through faster, with more skimming. It depends on a variety of factors. But my goal was to rule the book, more so than letting it rule me which has occurred in previous years. I would say mission accomplished!

In addition, I worked to moderate my habit of watching less TV and movies too. I enjoy these immensely, so don’t want to get rid of the TV entirely, not like I have in the past, just make sure it wasn’t on every day. I measured 173 days when it was not on, almost half the year. (Keeping in mind I’m not the only one wanting to turn it on in my household, I thought that was pretty good.)

These were the two biggest changes. Otherwise I am still following all the steps I outlined last year in this article, as for how I read.

I also want to mention that not only did I increase the number of books read, but also that the length of many of these books was overall larger than last year. Some large 500+ page tomes were counted here! Right now I’m reading two books that are over a thousand pages each.

Reading Plans for 2020

I am going to continue to expand on many of the threads started here. More diversity of reading I feel is paying off in greater fulfillment and depth of vision.

I will continue to speed read, possibly turning it up another notch of two.

My fiction percentage was a little under 10%. I think I want to get that up to at least 15% this coming year. (Those are the books in italics listed above.)

In my next post I’ll dive a bit deeper into the subjects I covered and my favorite and most impactful books from the year.

I Read 72 Books in 2017

I’ve always been a reader (at least since I learned how).

If you like learning things, I think there is hardly a better way then to get someone’s distilled wisdom in a book. Being an author, I’m biased. But I think it was my love for reading that turned me onto writing in the first place.

My books. Pain in the ass to move, but great for learning.

Based on hearing some people talk about how many books they read in a year, I decided to actually keep track over 2017.

In the end I read 72 books!

This is cover to cover and this is actual reading. (For audio I tend to do podcasts, rather than audio books. Just a personal preference.)

I did not count any books that I only read part of.

I also did not count my own book, Powered By Nature, that I read countless times as I was writing and editing it either.

If you look through the list, you’ll see a fairly wide variety of topics, but certain focal points as well. In this and the following posts, I’m going to dive into my own analysis of this list.

The 72 Books I Read in 2017

This list is in chronological order of when I finished the books.

01 The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
02 The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
03 Psychonavigation by John Perkins
04 The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope
05 The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
06 Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion by Napoleon Hill
07 Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner
08 Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
09 The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
10 The Great Disruption by Rick Smith with Mitch Free
11 The Book of Joy by Douglas Adams, Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
12 King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
13 The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
14 Illumination by Alberto Villoldo
15 Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree
16 The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
17 Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff and J.J. Sutherland
18 How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
19 Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
20 Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker
21 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
22 The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing
23 Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
24 Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
25 Ilium by Dan Simmons
26 The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
27 The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
28 Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
29 What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
30 Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
31 Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
32 Vitamin N by Richard Louv
33 The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
34 Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
35 Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
36 Head Strong by Dave Asprey
37 Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
38 Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
39 Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
40 Essentialism by Greg McKeown
41 The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
42 The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
43 Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
44 Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
45 Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
46 Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
47 The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
48 Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
49 In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
50 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
51 The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
52 Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
53 Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola
54 The Sale of a Lifetime by Harry S. Dent Jr.
55 The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
56 Olympos by Dan Simmons
57 Predictable Success by Les McKeown
58 No by Jim Camp
59 The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
60 The Last Safe Investment by Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg
61 The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
62 Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson
63 Running Man by Charlie Engle
64 The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri
65 The Synergist by Les McKeown
66 The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
67 Key Performance Metrics by Bernard Marr
68 Survival Handbook by Peter Darman
69 Buffettology by Mary Buffett and David Clark
70 Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
71 Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
72 Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

In breaking down these into categories I come up first with the following:

  • Fiction (5 books)
  • Non-Fiction (67 books)

The five fiction books are:

  1. The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
  2. The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
  3. The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
  4. Ilium by Dan Simmons
  5. Olympos by Dan Simmons

You’ll notice Dan Simmons features prominently on this list. These are 3 of his science fiction books (The Rise of Endymion being the final book of 4 in the Hyperion series). The Ilium and Olympos being a two part series. Amazing writer! I was recommended his work last year and glad I read it. Will probably read more from him in 2018.

I kept hearing about The Alchemist so I finally got it and read it. It’s a good parable. Didn’t do a whole lot for me.

The Man in High Castle was probably the only book I read on Kindle this year. I liked the movies based on Dick’s work, but this was my first time reading him.

Overall, I feel this is too little on the fiction side. In the coming year I’ll aim to increase the ratio somewhat.

In the next post, I’ll be going over the non-fiction breakdowns.

  • Nature (9 books)
  • Shamanism (2 books)
  • Science/History (10 books)
  • Self-Help (8 books)
  • Business (13 books)
  • Health (9 books)
  • Biography (4 books)
  • Ancient Wisdom (3 books)
  • Writing (4 books)
  • Finances (5 books)

How many books did you read this year? Answer in the comments below…