Bookshelf

Every year, I publish a post sharing the best books I read. Click or tap on the headers below to visit the notes for each year, which include more details and links for each of my favorite books.

Favorite Books of 2024

• Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton
• The Mysterion by Kabir Helminski
• Cathedral by Raymond Carver
• Wilderness by Rockwell Kent
• Short Shorts (Edited by Irving & Ilana Howe)
• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck
• Foster by Claire Keegan

Favorite Books of 2023

• Starting Point by Hayao Miyazaki (1979-1996)
• 50 Greatest Short Stories (compiled by Terry O’Brien)
• Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
• Fables and Fairy Tales by Leo Tolstoy
• The Black Sheep and Other Fables by Monterroso
• Tales of a Parrot by Muhammed Simsar

Favorite Books of 2022

• Talking Zen by Alan Watts
• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu (Translated by Joseph Lumpkin)
• Pathways to Bliss by Joseph Campbell
• Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers
• Zen Inklings by Donald Richie

Favorite Books of 2021

• Making of Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner
• Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman
• Your Body is Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Candace Pert
• Things That Are by Amy Leach
• Swimming in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

2021 was the year in which I dove into short story collections, fables and fairy tales. This was partly driven by my own creative endeavors in writing a book of fables and publishing flash fiction stories (Point Price, The Boat of Stillness.) If you’re looking for even more short stories, be sure to check out the post for an additional set of collections I enjoyed.

Favorite Books of 2020

• Big Magic by Liz Gilbert
• Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Awareness by Anthony De Mello and J. Francis Stroud
• Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön
• The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
• Rest by Alex Pang
• Candide by Voltaire
• Animal Farm by George Orwell

Favorite Books of 2019

• The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
• Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
• Siddartha by Hermann Hesse
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Favorite Books of 2018

• Circe by Madeline Miller
• Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
• So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• The Obesity Code by Jason Fung
• The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous

Favorite Books of 2017

• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
• 10% Happier by Dan Harris
• Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers
• Open by Andre Agassi