1. I normally like having this article out in the 1st Quarter of the year, but here I am at the end of September, staring at a partially written blog post, so here goes...

Coronavirus (COVID-19) still. Mask Mandates still. Stock Market Bubble, seems so; and those were only in the first few months of 2021.

Starting in 2021 I'm not going to carry books forward. I'll take credit for the book completion in the year that I completed it and I won't be talking about books until I actually finish them (regardless of when I started them). I've always been a "completionist" about most things, I hate not finishing a book, project, task. That said, there's something incredibly healthy with looking at a book, project, or task and evaluating its ability to give you pleasure or satisfaction, and realizing that the reward is not worth the effort. For these, you very much should abandon them and use your energy on something more worthwhile.

A huge motivator for reading books and completing them is the program that my wife and I have accomplished twice in 2020 and started again on January 4th, 2021: 75hard. The task of reading "10 pages" a day will make short work of any book (a 300 page book a month for example). I augment this physical reading with my Audible subscription and at 90-minutes a day of working out, I'm averaging a book every two weeks while on the program.

In my 2020 What I've Read article, I set a goal of 25 books for 2021. So, for 2022 I'm going to set a goal of 30; that's going to be a big push to get almost 3 per month.

What was my breakdown of genres for the year?

In reviewing the books I read this year I found I read 34 titles; however, many of these were novellas/short stories, so removing all of those it would be 26 titles, so I just squeeked past my goal of 25. That's up 18% over 2020 and they were broken down in the following broad genres:

Entertainment - 46% (and that's without counting all the short stories!)
Non-fiction - 27%
Computing - 0%
Biographies - 3%
Self-improvement - 24%

Books I've completed in 2021:

January

  • Chasing Midnight (Doc Ford: Book 19) (Kindle) -- On one of Florida’s private islands, a notorious Russian black marketer is hosting a reception. Doc Ford only wanted to get an underwater look at the billionaire’s yacht. But when he surfaces, he gets a look at something he’d rather not see.
  • The Fear Index (Audible) -- Dr. Alex Hoffmann’s name is carefully guarded from the general public, but within the secretive inner circles of the ultrarich, he is a legend. He has developed a revolutionary form of artificial intelligence that predicts movements in the financial markets with uncanny accuracy. His hedge fund, based in Geneva, makes billions. But one morning before dawn, a sinister intruder breaches the elaborate security of his lakeside mansion, and so begins a waking nightmare of paranoia and violence as Hoffmann attempts, with increasing desperation, to discover who is trying to destroy him.
  • The Checklist Manifesto (Kindle) -- We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies‚Äîneither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.
  • 80/20 Principle - Richard Koch (Audible) -- *Find your "critical 20%" and transform your time - and life - forever! The 80/20 principle - also known as the Pareto principle - is the well-verified observation that in business, economics, and life generally, about 80 percent of all results flow from a mere 20 percent of our efforts. In this thought-provoking and highly informative program, Richard Koch unveils the secrets to how this mysterious but practical principle actually works... how it is affecting your life right now... and how you can start using it to your advantage. *
  • The Four Tendencies (Audible) -- During her multi-book investigation into understanding human nature, Gretchen Rubin realized that by asking the seemingly dry question “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain explosive self-knowledge. She discovered that based on their answer, people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so using this framework allows us to make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress, and engage more effectively.
  • Night Moves (Doc Ford: Book 20) (Kindle) -- While trying to solve one of Florida’s most profound mysteries, Doc Ford is the target of a murder attempt by someone who wants to make it look like an accident. Or is the target actually his friend Tomlinson? Whatever the answer, the liveaboards and fishing guides at Dinkin’s Bay on Sanibel Island are becoming increasingly nervous—and wary—after a plane crash and other near-death incidents make it apparent that Ford and Tomlinson are dangerous companions.

February

I was about to start the most recent novel in The Expanse saga (Tiamat's Wrath), but I realized that I had never read any of the short stories. I found a resource online that explained the order in which all of the Expanse novels and short stories should all be read (published order), but I've changed it instead to chronological (with the exception that anything before Leviathan Wakes will come after, so you have context. I left the publishing date in case you want to re-arrange them back). I read all of the stories in bold (ones not in bold I've either previously read or will be) during February:

  • Leviathan Wakes (2011, Book 1)
  • Drive (2012) (PDF) -- This was James S.A. Corey's short story about Solomon Epstein's creation of the drive that opened the Solar System. It's rather hard to find online, but I found a copy and linked it.
  • The Butcher of Anderson Station (2011) (Kindle) -- One day, Colonel Fred Johnson will be hailed as a hero to the system. One day, he will meet a desperate man in possession of a stolen spaceship and a deadly secret and extend a hand of friendship. But long before he became the leader of the Outer Planets Alliance, Fred Johnson had a very different name. The Butcher of Anderson Station.
  • The Churn (2014) (Kindle) -- Before his trip to the stars, before the Rocinante, Timmy was confined to a Baltimore where crime paid you or killed you. Unless the authorities got to you first.
  • The Last Flight of the Cassandra (2019) (Kindle) -- Following the destruction of the Canterbury, Darius and his crew of Sundivers on the Cassandra realize the cost of prospecting will outweigh their ability to keep up with demands of shipboard life and have to make a tough decision about their future. While prospecting in the Aten Asteroids, the crew come across a mystery on Xi-Mallow 434 that forces a tough decision. -- Note: this no longer appears to be in print or on Kindle
  • Caliban's War (2012, Book 2)
  • Gods of Risk (2012) (Kindle) -- As tension between Mars and Earth mounts, and terrorism plagues the Martian city of Londres Nova, 16-year-old David Draper is fighting his own lonely war. A gifted chemist vying for a place at the university, David leads a secret life as a manufacturer for a ruthless drug dealer. When his friend Leelee goes missing, leaving signs of the dealer's involvement, David takes it upon himself to save her. But first he must shake his aunt Bobbie Draper, an ex-Marine who has been set adrift in her own life after a mysterious series of events nobody is talking about.
  • Abaddon's Gate (2013, Book 3)
  • The Vital Abyss (2015) (Kindle) -- Somewhere in the vast expanse of space, a group of prisoners lives in permanent captivity. The only company they have is each other and the Belters who guard them. The only stories they know are the triumphs and crimes that brought them there. The only future they see is an empty life in an enormous room.
  • Cibola Burn (2014, Book 4)
  • Nemesis Games (2015, Book 5)
  • Babylon's Ashes (2016, Book 6)
  • Strange Dogs (2017) (Kindle) -- Like many before them, Cara and her family ventured through the gates as scientists and researchers, driven to carve out a new life and uncover the endless possibilities of the unexplored alien worlds now within reach. But soon the soldiers followed and under this new order Cara makes a discovery that will change everything.
  • Persepolis Rising (2017, Book 7)
  • Auberon (2019)
  • Tiamat's Wrath (2020, Book 8)
  • Leviathan Falls (2021, Book 9)

Note: If you watch The Expanse on Amazon Prime Video, you'll be pleasantly surprised that the events of Strange Dogs happen in the first episode of Season 6. Also, you can get all of the Short Stories in a single volume called Memory's Legion, this is much cheaper than buying individually.

March

  • Facebook:The Inside Story (Audible) -- As a college sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from its first, modest iteration. In light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing "fake news" accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO - who has enormous power over what the world sees and says - never has a company been more central to the national conversation.
  • Auberon (The Expanse, Short Story) (Kindle) -- Auberon is one of the first and most important colony worlds in humanity's reach, and the new conquering faction has come to claim it. Governor Rittenaur has come to bring civilization and order to the far outpost and guarantee the wealth and power of the Empire. But Auberon already has its own history, a complex culture, and a criminal kingpin named Erich with very different plans. In a world of deceit, violence, and corruption, the greatest danger Rittenaur faces is love.
  • Think Again (Audible) -- Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process.
  • The Premonition:A Pandemic Story (Audible) -- For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War (Kindle) -- Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

April

  • The Codebreaker (Audible) -- When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.
  • What Every BODY is Saying (Kindle) -- Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer and a recognized expert on nonverbal behavior, explains how to "speed-read" people: decode sentiments and behaviors, avoid hidden pitfalls, and look for deceptive behaviors. You'll also learn how your body language can influence what your boss, family, friends, and strangers think of you.

May

  • Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, Book 8) (Kindle) -- Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.
  • Brain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain (Audible) -- Debilitating brain disorders are on the rise - from children diagnosed with autism and ADHD to adults developing dementia at younger ages than ever before. But a medical revolution is underway that can solve this problem: Astonishing new research is revealing that the health of your brain is, to an extraordinary degree, dictated by the state of your microbiome - the vast population of organisms that live in your body and outnumber your own cells 10 to one. What's taking place in your intestines today is determining your risk for any number of brain-related conditions.
  • Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Audible) -- With his characteristic eyebrow-raising behavior, Richard P. Feynman once provoked the wife of a Princeton dean to remark, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" But the many scientific and personal achievements of this Nobel Prize-winning physicist are no laughing matter. In addition to solving the mystery of liquid helium, Feynman has been commissioned to paint a naked female toreador and asked to crack the uncrackable safes guarding the atomic bomb's most critical secrets. He has traded ideas with Einstein and Bohr, discussed gambling odds with Nick the Greek, and accompanied a ballet on the bongo drums. Here, woven with his scintillating views on modern science, Feynman relates the defining moments of his accomplished life.

June

  • A Promised Land (Audible) -- In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
  • Sanibel Flats (Doc Ford Book 1) (Kindle) -- Its cool gulf breezes lured him from a life of danger. Its dark undercurrents threatened to destroy him. After ten years of living life on the edge, it was hard for Doc Ford to get that addiction to danger out of his system. But spending each day watching the sun melt into Dinkins Bay and the moon rise over the mangrove trees, cooking dinner for his beautiful neighbor, and dispensing advice to the locals over a cold beer lulled him into letting his guard down. Then Rafe Hollins appeared. How could he refuse his old friend's request-even if it would put him back on the firing line? Even if it would change forever the life he'd built here on Sanibel Island?

July

  • Bone Deep (Doc Ford Book 21) (Kindle) -- When a Crow Indian acquaintance of Tomlinson’s asks him to help recover a relic stolen from his tribe, Doc Ford is happy to tag along—but neither Doc nor Tomlinson realize what they’ve let themselves in for. Their search takes them to the part of Central Florida known as Bone Valley, famous primarily for two things: a ruthless subculture of black-marketers who trade in illegal artifacts and fossils, and a multibillion-dollar phosphate industry whose strip mines compromise the very ground they walk on.

August

  • Cuba Straits (Doc Ford Book 22) (Kindle) -- Doc Ford’s old friend, General Juan Garcia, has gone into the lucrative business of smuggling Cuban baseball players into the U.S. He is also feasting on profits made by buying historical treasures for pennies on the dollar. He prefers what dealers call HPC items—high-profile collectibles—but when he manages to obtain a collection of letters written by Fidel Castro between 1960–62 to a secret girlfriend, it’s not a matter of money anymore. Garcia has stumbled way out of his depth.

September / October

I said at the beginning of 2021 that I would finish several books I had started, I got these few behind me:

  • Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War (Kindle) -- In June 1983, President Reagan watched the movie War Games, in which a teenager unwittingly hacks the Pentagon, and asked his top general if the scenario was plausible. The general said it was. This set in motion the first presidential directive on computer security.
  • The Host (Audible) -- Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. Earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
  • Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World (Kindle) -- Data is everywhere. We create it every time we go online, turn our phones on (or off), and pay with credit cards. The data is stored, studied, and bought and sold by corporations and governments for surveillance and for control. "Foremost security expert" (Wired) and best-selling author Bruce Schneier shows how this data has led to a double-edged Internet - a Web that gives power to the people but is abused by the institutions on which those people depend.

November

  • The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency Book 1) (Kindle) -- Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible—until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars. Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war—and, for the empire’s rulers, a system of control.
  • Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You (Audible) -- Leadership isn't easy. It takes grit, courage, and vision, among other things, that can be hard to come by on your toughest days. When leaders and aspiring leaders seek out advice, they're often told to try harder. Dig deeper. Look in the mirror and own your natural-born strengths and fix any real or perceived career-limiting deficiencies. Frances Frei and Anne Morriss offer a different worldview. They argue that this popular leadership advice glosses over the most important thing you do as a leader: build others up. Leadership isn't about you. It's about how effective you are at empowering other people - and making sure this impact endures even in your absence.

December

  • Project Hail Mary (Kindle) -- Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
  • The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency Book 2) (Kindle) -- The Interdependency—humanity’s interstellar empire—is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible is disappearing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded. Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth—or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power.

Reflection: 2021 was another incredibly difficult year for everyone on the planet and it has even continued into a third year in 2022. My wife and I have now completed 75hard a total of five times. It has become something that when we're feeling sluggish, low energy, or have gained some weight, we look at each other, nod, and do it again.

I hope everyone is doing well, vaccinated, masking in public, and keeping your spirits up to know that "this too shall pass".