#op: axel levine

[hclseyrps]

so i heard you found somebody else and at first i thought it was a lie

[illustir]

Reading 2018

I grabbed the code I had lying around for last year and without too much trouble ran the same analysis for the books. The graph is not that dramatic this time though for some reason I did not read much during summer.

Pages read per month in 2018

Page-wise this year with 13398 pages was a bit weaker than last year (15049 pages).

By some miracle, I managed to post my top ten recommendations to twitter on the 31st.

I've read some 71 books in 2018 and here are ten that I would like to recommend. Goodreads has a lot more on my year: https://t.co/WaVBlGDiPJ Format inspired by @dvdwinden's end of year list.

— Alper Çuğun

(@alper) December 31, 2018

Now as to the categories in which I read books and what I thought stood out.

Leadership

Not as many books as last year, but some very good ones and an area where I will read more. Rumelt has written one of the best books on strategy I’ve seen. Marquet’s highly recommended book I think will bear fruit on future re-reading. Scott’s book contains a fairly complete operating system for a modern tech company.

The cracking books are ok and did helped me crack a PM interview but still had nothing to do with the job I started working at last month.

Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt

Turn the Ship Around, David Marquet

Radical Candor, Kim Malone Scott

Cracking the Tech Career

The First 90 Days

Cracking the PM Interview

Diversity (non-white/non-male): 3/6

I don’t have an Engineering category this year (I abandoned The Rust Book and consulted but did not finish the App Architecture book). I am reading topical things for my new job so this year will be better.

Non-Fiction

I’m pleasantly surprised how much I’ve managed to read. Mishra’s book is one of the few really mainstream non-white perspectives on a very important part of our history and I keep enjoying seeing him take names in the LRB and the Guardian. Bluets is a beautiful introspective trip just like The Argonauts was. Sandifer is a critical tour de force of with ideology and temperament I don’t see anywhere else. I’ve always been fond of Machiavelli but with Erica Benner’s rehabilitation of him I don’t have to be embarrassed about that anymore. Runciman’s book about the alternatives to democracy is like a protracted and focused episode of the podcast.

I don’t have a Fiction category or Sapiens would be there instead of here.

From the Ruins of Empire, Pankaj Mishra

Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton

A Contest of Ideas, Nelson Lichtenstein

Bluets, Maggie Nelson

Neoreaction a Basilisk, Elizabeth Sandifer

No Name in the Street, James Baldwin

Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker

Be Like the Fox, Erica Benner

The Chapo Guide to Revolution

The Hall of Uselessness, Simon Leys

Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine

How Democracy Ends, David Runciman

Diversity (non-white/non-male): 5/13

Genre Fiction

I have been very light on genre fiction and I’m not sure whether SF will continue to be a thing I read much of in the future. The genre is bigger than ever but there is so little serious stuff coming out.

I am glad to have re-read Le Guin this year. Majestic.

Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor

Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan

The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin

The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin

Broken Angels, Richard Morgan

Woken Furies, Richard Morgan

The Planet on the Table, Kim Stanley Robinson

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

Diversity (non-white/non-male): 5/9

Literature

I find it easier to read non-fiction because I can’t parallelize literature very well and whenever I read a dud (here’s looking at you Elif) they block the queue for everything else. Makumbi’s Ugandan family saga has opened up my perspective on the country like a good local novel can do. Hamid’s rumination on refugees is short and sharp like a blade. Shanbhag’s book is a quick family tale of rags to riches where everything becomes entangled.

Terug naar Oegstgeest, Jan Wolkers

Kintu, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Dorsvloer vol confetti, Franca Treur

Voyage to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

Ghachar Ghochar, Vivek Shanbhag

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Diversity (non-white/non-male): 5/7

Kids

I read so many (34!) kids books this year and this number will probably only increase since we have only just started visiting the library. We live close to the Amerika Gedenkbibilothek which has a fairly sized kids department.

Franchises that did well with us this year were Kikker and the newly discovered Pip & Posy. We finished the seasonal Wimmelbücher (of which Fall was the highlight and Winter a disappointment). Let’s see whether these see renewed play next year.

The kids books do inflate my reading number a lot but that is not taking into account that I have had to read most of these books dozens of times. So there’s that.

So Müde und Hellwach

Welcher Po passt auf dieses Klo?

Mama kwijt

De dieren van Fiep

Kikker en Eend

Kikker is jarig, Max Velthuijs

Was willst du Baby?

Piep piep met Fiep

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

So leicht so schwer

Der kleine Hase

Das kleine Lamm

Badetag für Hasekind

Sommer-Wimmelbuch

Frühlings-Wimmelbuch

Kaatje zegt nee

Pip en Posy en het nieuwe vriendje, Axel Scheffler

Das kleine Schwein

The Pony Twins

Sommer

Het vrolijke voorleesboek van Kikker

Winter-Wimmelbuch

Beestje, kom je op mijn feestje?

Hörst du die klassische Musik?

Het carnaval der dieren

Ssst! De tijger slaapt

Ik zou wel een kindje lusten

No Bad Kids

Oh Crap! Potty Training

Ein kleines Krokodil mit ziemlich viel Gefühl

Pip en Posy en de kerstboom

Herbst-Wimmelbuch, Rotraut Susanne Berner

Aki und Kon, der Fuchs

Die Wildnis ist unser Zuhause

Spirituality

Two solid books on this slow but steady path.

The Parent’s Tao te Ching

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

Previously in 2017 & 2016

via English – alper.nl http://bit.ly/2LPEdbN