My goal this year was to read 10 books and I managed 16! Neal read 23 books this year, including 4 presidential biographies. Here’s a list of the 34 total books we read this year organized according to must-reads regardless of personal genre preferences, and then other great books we read that you may like if you like specific genres.
Books to Add to Your Must-Read List
- Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyami
- Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
- Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
- Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames
- World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
- Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
- They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
- The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- The Fisherman by John Langan
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy by David O. Stewart
- Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
- Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
Other Great Books We Read This Year
If you like: Horror
- The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay – decent action horror story
- The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
- NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
If you like: SciFi/Fantasy
- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
- Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Ruthfuss
- The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Ruthfuss
- Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
If you like: Anthropological/Cultural Non-Fiction
- From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
- Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
If you like: Short stories
- Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
- The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Mallory Ortberg
If you like: History/Biographies
- Franklin Pierce by Michael Holt
- President James Buchanan a Biography by Philip Shriver Klein
If you like: Music inspired
- Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. by Jeff Tweedy (musical memoirs/Wilco fans)
- Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
Think someone might like a book off this list? Pin it!
Trail Advocacy 