I live in Rhode Island, and have been commuting up to the Boston area for the past four and a half years. On good days this takes under an hour, on bad days, well, you don’t want to know. Anyway, I quickly realized that this was going to be years taken off of my life unless I found a way to use it effectively. I started with podcasts (This American Life, Planet Money, The Moth, 勝間和代), but ended up getting an Audible.com membership and not looking back. Anyway, I’ve “read” a lot of great books over the past couple of years, and thought it might be fun to do a little retrospective.

So without any further ado, here’s the list. I’d recommend most of these – I’ve left out the real stinkers (most of which I didn’t get far into, anyway). I’ve starred a couple, which I thought were particularly good (assuming you like the genre). There isn’t any deep technical or management meaning here, it’s just a personal, self-indulgent trip down memory lane.

Biographies / Memoirs

• * Alexander Hamilton
• His Excellency
• * Benjamin Franklin
• James Madison
• American Lion
• Augustus
• Blood, Bones & Butter
• Ahead of the Curve
• Two Years Before the Mast
• The Double Helix
• Brain on Fire

Business

• In the Plex
• The Facebook Effect
• The Pixar Effect
• Negotiation Genius
• Winning
• The Ultimate Sales Machine
• Guerilla Marketing
• * Your Brain at Work
• Sway
• * Top Dog
• * What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
• * Crucial Conversations
• * The Power of a Positive No (x2)

History

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 1
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 3 (about half)
• The Big Short
• The Cold War
• The Presidents Club
• Postwar (about half)

Other Non-Fiction

• In Defense of Food
• Guns, Germs, and Steel

Fiction

• An Object of Beauty
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• * The House of Mirth
• * The Master and Margarita
• Swann’s Way (about half)
• Our Mutual Friend
• The Old Curiosity Shop
• War and Peace (about half)
• Scaramouche
• こころ
• 走れメロス
• 夢十夜

Science Fiction / Fantasy

• * The Night Circus
• Revelation Space
• Redemption Ark
• Absolution Gap
• * Agent to the Stars (bad voice acting)
• * Redshirts (bad voice acting)
• The Mote in God’s Eye
• ** The Windup Girl (unrelentingly dark, astonishingly good)
• The Rook
• Embassytown
• John Dies at the End
• Every Day
• Among Others
• The Gripping Hand
• Consider Phlebas
• Old Man’s War
• * Armor
• The End of Eternity
• Great North Road
• The Magicians
• The Magician King
• Some Kind of Fairy Tale
• The Curse of Chalion
• Paladin of Souls

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