Another year, another list of books.
These are the books that I completed over 2011. As usual, unfinished/abandoned books aren't here. (Seemed to have a lot of those this year.) Books that left a significant impact on me – a quality that is both arbitrary and really hard to articulate – are in bold.
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil
- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
- The Boat by Nam Le
- Misery by Stephen King
- Poetics by Aristotle
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
- Mencius by Mencius
- The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 edited by Dave Eggers
- "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman
- Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
- Contact by Carl Sagan
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
- Directing Actors by Judith Weston
- Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
- Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson
- Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@#! by Art Spiegelman
- Half Empty by David Rakoff
- Bossypants by Tina Fey
- The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks
- Writing Past Dark by Bonnie Friedman
- The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011 edited by Dave Eggers
- How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
- Pastoralia by George Saunders
- What the Dormouse Said by John Markoff
- Room by Emma Donoghue
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- This Must Be The Place: Adventures of Talking Heads in the 20th Century by David Bowman
- The Symposium by Plato
- The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Rabbit, Run by John Updike
- Rabbit Redux by John Updike
- Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
- Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
- Muji by Peng Yangjun and Chen Jiaojiao
- Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
- Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology are Revolutionizing an Art Form by Scott McCloud
- Witsec: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program by Pete Earley
- Turn and Jump: How Time and Place Fell Apart by Howard Mansfield
- Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland
- The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need by Daniel H. Pink and Rob Ten Pas
- Time and Again by Jack Finney
- Life with Mr. Dangerous by Paul Hornschemeier
- Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
- Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
- The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century by Alex Ross
- Listen To This by Alex Ross
- The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 edited by Dave Eggers
- Nature and Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- What The Dog Saw by Malcom Gladwell
- The Way of Zen by Alan Watts
- I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson
- The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and The Birth of America by Steven Johnson
- Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
- Our Town by Thornton Wilder
- The Crucible by Arthur Miller
- The House on Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
- A Confederate General From Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
- Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short Stories edited by James Thomas and Robert Shapard
- Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey
- Dreaming of Babylon by Richard Brautigan
- The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan
- Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel
- Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
- The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- Radio: An Illustrated Guide by Jessica Abel and Ira Glass
- A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam
- The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
- In The Blink of An Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing by Walter Murch
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (re-read)
- Nature Stories by Jules Renard
- Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future by Cory Doctorow
- Wanting Enlightenment Is a Big Mistake: Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn by Seung Sahn
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- The 100 Thing Challenge: How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life, and Regained My Soul by Dave Bruno
- The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
- Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too! by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon
- Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
- A Whole New Mind: Moving From the Information Age to the Conceptual Age by Daniel H. Pink
- The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Maidson Avenue, and The Way We Tell Stories by Frank Rose
- This Is NPR: The First Forty Years by Various Authors
- I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards
- Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher
- All Your Base Are Belong To Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture by Harold Goldberg
- How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie