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In 2012 I planned to read 40 books. I read 39, but not all were those I had aspired to complete.
Three of the my unplanned reads were textbooks for classes I was asked to lead this summer. There was also more science fiction and horror than I'd planned. I'm coming to remember that some bracing fiction is a fine way to cleanse the palate between the heavy stuff. Otherwise, I mostly skipped some history, psychology, and religion books in order to read different volumes on religion and more science.
Time to plan for 2013. If I skip television and cut back on my Netflix perhaps I can read 52...
The books I meant to read in 2012, but didn’t:
- A History of Managing for Quality, by Joseph M. Juran
- An Introduction to Western Philosophy, by Anthony Flew
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present, by Jaques Martin Barzun
- The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, by Karen Armstrong
- How Intelligence Happens, by John Duncan
- Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive, by Bruce Schneier
- The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, by Iain McGilchrist
- The Qur'an: Arabic Text and English Translation, by M.H. Shakir (translator)
- The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker
- The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James
- The War of the World, by Niall Ferguson
- Under the Dome, by Stephen King
- Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future, by Ian Morris
- Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness, by James H. Austin
The books I meant to read in 2012, and did:
- Answer to Job, by Carl Jung
- Buddha, by Karen Armstrong
- Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, by Bart D. Ehrman
- How Designers Think, by Bryan Lawson
- Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends About the Infamous Apostle of Jesus, by Marvin Meyer
- The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, by Kao Kalia Yang
- Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
- The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris
- Night, by Elie Wiesel
- The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes
- Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, by Robert N. Bellah
- The Sacred and the Profane, by Mircea Eliade
- Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus, by Donald Harman Akenson
- Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, by Mircea Eliade
- SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable, by Bruce M. Hood
Books I did not plan to read in 2012, but did:
- Anthropomorphisms, by Bruce Boston (a Goodreads Giveaway)
- The Art of Investigative Interviewing, Second Edition, by Charles L. Yeschke
- Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
- Cairns: Messengers in Stone, by David B. Williams (a Goodreads Giveaway)
- Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion, by David Lewis-Williams
- The Crucible of Time, by John Brunner
- Destination Mars: New Explorations of the Red Planet, by Rod Pyle (a Goodreads Giveaway)
- Embassytown, by China Mieville
- Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
- Feast, by R. Scott McCoy
- Freedom Club, by Saul Garnell (a Goodreads Giveaway)
- God Against The Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism, by Jonathan Kirsch
- Humans, Volume Two of the Neanderthal Parallax, by Robert J. Sawyer
- Introduction to Investigations, by John S. Dempsey
- Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?, by Maurice Goguel
- The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, by Richard Rudgley
- Mass Murder in the United States: A History, by Grant Duwe
- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
- The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, by Robert Wright
- Potential: Workplace Violence Prevention and Your Organizational Success, by Bill Whitmore
- Principles of Neurotheology, by Andrew Newberg
- Rats, Lice, and History, by Hans Zinsser
- Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite, by L. Michael White
- Strategic Security Management: A Risk Assessment Guide for Decision Makers, by Karim Vellani
That's a lot of unplanned deviations! That's the best kind, though.
ReplyDeleteFor 2013 I'll take one of my bookshelves in the family room and start from the top left and work my way across and read whatever comes next. Most are fiction and unread. I sorted the shelves and most of the books I have read are in shelves in the basement. I'm tired of looking at all these unread books. Other books will catch my interest during the year but I've got to make headway on the old stock.
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