52 Books in 52 Weeks (What I Read in 2017)

Michael Fairley

01 Jan 2018

2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019

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Favorites are marked with a *.
You can use OverDrive to borrow many of these as ebooks from your local library.
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Sci-Fi/Fantasy

• * The Three-Body Problem – This series was an instant favorite for me. These books tell a fascinating story (in a somewhat unconventional style) and constantly keep you on your toes until the very end. A lot of really clever things happen, and they manage to evoke a wide variety of emotions throughout the story. Their author is Chinese (and originally wrote them in Chinese, for a Chinese audience), which I think makes them feel very different from things I typically read.
  • The Three-Body Problem
  • The Dark Forest
  • Death’s End
• * The Expanse – This series is a ton of fun. Space opera with interesting characters, intriguing politics, gripping action, thought-provoking conflict, clever innovation, and a believable vision for the future of humanity. It’s not the best at any of those, but the complete package adds up to something really solid. I also think that each novel is better than the previous, in contrast to lots of series that start off with a bang and then go downhill. By far, the worst thing about these books is that reading them will make you want to watch the TV show (which isn’t nearly as good.)
  • Leviathan Wakes
  • Caliban’s War
  • Abaddon’s Gate
  • Gods of Risk
  • The Churn
  • Cibola Burn
  • Nemesis Games
  • The Vital Abyss
  • Babylon’s Ashes
  • Strange Dogs
  • Persepolis Rising
• The Peripheral
• Apex
• The Obelisk Gate
• New York 2140
• Seven Surrenders
• Woken Furies
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
• The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
• 17776
• * Dark Matter – This is a fun thriller that I cranked through in a single day.
• A Dance with Dragons
• The Stone Sky

Fiction

• The Underground Railroad
• If on a winter’s night a traveler

Non-fiction

• Building Wealth And Being Happy
• Tools of Titans
• Between the World and Me
• The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing
• * Messy – This book is chock full of examples from dozens of different settings (among them military strategy, politics, music, neighborhood planning, workplace teams, and office layout) that demonstrate its central thesis: human attempts at organizing and controlling our world often backfire, while choatic, messy, and diverse systems are often more effective at solving our problems. Reading this has definitely changed how I look at the world.
• Einstein: His Life and Universe
• Mindset
• A Mind For Numbers
• October
• * Thinking in Systems: A Primer – Many problems in life (both big and small) don’t have simple causes – and consequently, don’t have simple solutions. This book shows how to view things as interconnected systems and how to analyze the components and relationships within a system in order to have a greater understanding of why things are the way they are and how to effectively cause lasting change. Everything is demonstrated with understandable and interesting examples throughout. I’ll definitely be re-reading this book regularly in the coming years.
• Experiencing Architecture
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Guyana
• Finding God in the Waves

Programming and Game Development

• The Graphics Codex
• * Foundations of Game Engine Development, Volume 1: Mathematics
• Game Project Completed
• Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming
• Real-Time Rendering
• GPU Zen
• Learn OpenGL
• Game Coding Complete
• Blender 3D: Noob to Pro
• Vulkan Programming Guide