Since 2010 I’ve taken part in a yearly challenge to read 100 books, and I met my goal for 2015 with 141 books. I almost broke my all time record of 146 books from 2012. So what did I read? 2015 was not as stressful as 2014, but I still had a lot to shake loose in the first half of the year so I read a lot of “fun” books.

I do a big book summary each year too, if you want to take a look at past years for some reading ideas check them out here: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. So what are my top books of the year?

If you only read 3 books this year I recommend the following:

1. The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. This is written by Ramez Naam who is a great scifi author and someone who makes a lot of interesting blog posts. This book gives an overview of where the world is, threats to it, and the progress so far on solving some of those problems (heavily focused on the environment). I highly recommend reading it.

2. The Three-Body Problem – This book is by Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu. It is EXCELLENT, not only for the change in perspective, but the story is fantastic! Highly recommended!

3. Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins – My brother gave me this book for Christmas and I was pretty skeptical, but I am a convert :) . The majority of the advice in this book is spot on and helpful for living your life and planning your retirement. He does a great job of explaining the value of money and I highly recommend reading it.

Best Business Books Of The Year:

1. Peter Thiel’s Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. Great read, especially about the loss of optimism and the USA and our inability to plan or attempt BIG things.

2. Clay Water Break: Finding Inspiration from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least – A fantastic book from the co-founder of Kiva.org about her journey.

Top 3 Scifi / Fantasy

1. The Monster Hunter’s International series. Monsters are real and when they get out of control someone has to step in. I also recommend Grimnoir Chronicles by the same author.

2. The Night’s Dawn trilogy by Peter Hamilton. These are massive tomes, super detailed, and weird, but some of the best space opera I’ve ever read. Hamilton is amazing.

3. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. One of the most original science fiction books I’ve read in awhile. It is about a group of people across time who just relive their lives again and again.

Top 3 *Real* Books

1. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. An amazing book that illustrates that class difference money now makes and how American is becoming two Americas.

2. The Happiness Project. I LOVED this book! She has a great sense of humor, well written, and good mix of personal narrative and scientific facts.

3. Alif the Unseen. A cool techno thriller with some mysticism thrown in. It takes place in the middle east with hackers, a dictatorship, and Jinn.

Top 2 Travel Books

1. On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads. This was an amazing book about a dude traveling on horseback from Mongolia to Hungary just like the mongols. This was the BEST travel book I’ve read in years. Highly recommended, just beautiful, and so well written.

2. The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. The author and his brother go by covered wagon along the Oregon trail.

Read this article entitled: “FUCK YOU AMAZON! FUCK YOU FOR BEING RIGHT! AGAIN!”.

Hilarious read and spot on from what I’ve seen :)

Yeah Amazon, fuck you! Fuck you for being right! Again! What have Amazon ever done for books eh? Pioneered a postal delivery market publishers ignored? Yes ok, but what else? Invested millions in an ebook infrastructure publishers deliberately ignored? Fine, but what else? Opened up publishing to thousands of independent authors of all kinds, many of whom are making entire careers in digital sales with 70% royalties? Well, damn yes that’s pretty good I guess, but what else? …. read more …

What is awesome too is that a lot of the existing publishers involved in all this with Amazon are the same group that disrupted the previous setup. And, in some cases as illegal as they are still doing with price fixing.

This could save me so much money!!!!!!

OMG if this is so true it would be amazing!!! Here is the leaked copy of the page!

The only thing I kept in storage while I traveled was my books. But I finally decided it was time to say goodbye :(. I donated them all to a Denver goodwill, hopefully someone else enjoys them and gives them a new home.

Goodbye 658 books!

I love my kindle, I can carry every book in the world with me it feels like :)

My brother got me on a bit of a Hemmingway kick, loving him :)

“They say the seeds of what we do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who makes jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure.”

With all my traveling 2013 was a fantastic year for reading :), I read 137 books this year which is 9 books shy of my 2012 record of 146. For a list of all of them plus mini reviews go here. Now onto the best of the year…

If you only read 3 books this year I recommend the following:

1. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism – An utterly amazing book written by a young autistic boy about his autism. Please please please read this!

2. Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture – As a kid who grew up playing wolf 3d and doom this is a must read for anyone who did. A very well written story about the johns and the industry at the time.

3. Vince Flynn’s CIA/Military theory series that stars Mitch Rapp (around 12 books). Such a great series of books and I can’t recommend it enough. Almost as good as Clancy and it dominated my January last year. I’m so sad that he passed away this year.

Best Business Books

1. Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works – An amazing book and one I hope to read every few years to refresh. The best book I’ve read on business strategy. Both practical examples and big picture approaches.

2. Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches – A great podcast too and just full of nuggets for small business owners.

Best SciFi / Fantasy

1. Brandon Sanderson is a god, he is so good! This year I read Steelheart which is this kinda post apocalyptic future with super villians; and Rithmatist which is just so awesome I can’t explain it. Both are must reads!!

2. Joel recommended The Mote in God’s Eye and I loved it. Crazy sci fi with a twist.

3. Pandora’s Star and the Commonwealth Saga. A huge space epic that is weird but if you stick with it you will love it :). Think wormholes and crazyness.

Real Life Shit

1. Dark Pools: The Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market – Super well written and a must read for anyone who wants to know why wall street and bankers are destroying your savings/future. We need more regulations on this area of finance!!

2. The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune – Amazing story about billionaire Chuck Feeney and how he grew the business, and then how he gave all the money away secretly :). Great read!

Special Topic Of The Year: Sailing Solo Around The World

I got really into sailing books, especially those around the world as it sounds really fun. So I have 3 books I’d recommend as being the best in this genre so far.

1. A Voyage For Madmen – “In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.”

2. Maiden Voyage – “Tania Aebi was an unambitious eighteen-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere—until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a twenty-six-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she’d have to sail around the world—alone.”

3. Across Islands and Oceans – “Across Islands and Oceans is the memoir of twenty-five year-old James Baldwin and his epic two-year, solo circumnavigation in Atom, his trusty but aging twenty-eight foot sailboat.”

There is a great online challenge called the 100 book challenge with the goal being to read 100 or more books in a year. In 2011 I beat 2010’s record of 111 books with 131 books read. I think I read a lot more fun ones this year as when I got a pretty bad case of burn out I just read and ran a lot. Here is the big list of all the books I read and short little mini reviews!

And now for my big roundup, I try to feature the top 2 books in each category plus a runner up….

Best Business Books

1. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently – This was the most valuable book I read this year and I hope to read this every year. It basically explains what great managers do to keep their team happy and backs it up with as much data and examples as possible. And above all it makes the point I’ve come to believe that people don’t change. At best they can pivot 10% to 20% from where they are now, and it is more valuable to focus on their talents, and find ways to neutralize their weaknesses.

2. Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap… and others don’t. – Fantastic book by Jim Collins, this is a followup to his previous. This covers a lot of companies and what enabled them to become great companies.

Honorable mentions to The Six-Month Fix: Adventures in Rescuing Failing Companies, Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, and Business Model Generation.

Best True Books

1. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie Chang -This book is a must read for those interested in China and how rapid industrialization is creating huge social changes for women. The story of the girls working in these factories is just amazing, an entire generation of hustlers who could become entrepreneurs is emerging. I can’t wait to see what they do next as more opportunities become available to them and what values they instill in their children.

2. The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean. This was an awesome awesome book and one of the best so far this year. This is about how waves are generated, the guys that ride them, and even some quantum mechanics.

3. Born To Run – The book that started the barefoot running movement, and just makes me want to run more and more! Even for non runners its a great book about what humans are capable of and how we might have run down our game by outrunning them. All in a well written book about a hidden tribe of super runners and a race against them by some American ultra runners (very short summary).

Honorable mentions to Brazil on the Rise and Out of Mao’s Shadow.

Best Travel Books

French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew – An awesome book about traveling around and living in France and going to all these different food festivals! I highly recommend it, covered things like eating truffles, cheeses, snails, a wine marathon, etc!

I read a lot of nice normal travel books too, but nothing that stood out as just amazing besides this one.

Best Thrillers

This was an easy choice this year, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the two sequels were mind glowingly awesome! It was if someone combined the best of Law and Order SVU with hacking and a great mystery. Just fantastic writing, great plot lines, and the best thrillers I’ve read in a really long time. Go buy them!

Best Science Fiction / Fantasy Books

1. Hounded, Hexed, and Hammered. Fun books I highly recommend! Basically imagine all the religions and gods of the world do exist, on multiple planes, with earth being a place they can all jump into. This follow a very cool 1000+ year old Druid character living in Arizona and having gods mess with him.

Just an ok year for finding new scifi/fantasy.

Best Books About History…

1. At Home: A Short History Of Private Life by Bill Bryson. This was an interesting funny book about how the modern house and all it’s parts came to be. Plus all the segways and humor that only Bryson can bring to the table.

2. The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope – What an amazing man with the luck of timing, this book was fantastic and I hope we get another FDR soon so we can rewrite the social contract a bit more.

Honorable mention to The Wall: Rome’s Greatest Frontier about Hadrian’s Wall which is a trip I want to do at some point.

Best Bibliographies

1. The Faraway Horses – The story of Buck Brannaman who is the “horse whisperer”, really amazing guy and great story about his life. Check out this documentary on him too, just an amazing person.

I had a great vacation on St. Maartin, it was the first time in maybe 6 or 7 years I’ve gone a long period with no internet (10 days). It wasn’t hard at all which was surprising too.

I went snorkeling every day, swam for hours, and just read under a nice awning right on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen (mostly because I think the water is an amazing color). Plus enjoyed some rum, got a zillion new freckles, rented a jeep for a few days and drove all around the island to try other beaches, sampled a lot of french bakeries, ate a lot of fish, etc. And I read 21 books while on break, so I’ve hit my goal for this year with having read 124 books so far!

I still love love love my Kindle and I think it is the best product of this decade. In the past three years I’ve read barely any books on paper. Yesterday I started reading a paperback for the first time in 14 months and realized I was getting annoyed because I couldn’t read while eating since it required two hands part of the time in order to hold both flaps open (which is not a problem with the Kindle).

Base on my rough calculations from Amazon’s page I have bought 362 Kindle books or newspapers since I’ve had one. Plus you save money as most books are slightly cheaper!

I strongly recommend you go buy one! Here is my original Kindle review too! Batter life on the new ones is just amazing.

I finished reading The Way Of Kings a few days ago and it is hands down one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read! It was written by Brandon Sanderson and is the first book in a 10 part series which will slowly be written over the next ten years. Brandon is also the writer who is finishing the Wheel Of Time series.

The book is 1,300 pages and a little slow to start, but only because it has to build stories around the main characters who are in different locations, by mid way you are sucked in and feel like you know the characters incredibly well and are just hoping the next chapter keeps going with their story. Brandon is a genius at developing systems of “magic” or power in all his books and this one is no different. I won’t ruin it but it works well and I like it even more then the one he created in the Mistborn series. In addition the political intrigue is fantastic.

I can’t recommend this book enough!

“Life before Death. Strength before Weakness. Journey before Destination. – The Way of Kings

I finished the challenge to read 100 books in 2010 and figured I would do a list of recommended books out of all of them. I’m going to do the challenge again this year, it was nice to write little mini reviews and have something remind me to read.

5 Best Fantasy Books + Historical Fiction
*I’m combining these as there are a few that blur the lines.

1. The Warded Man series by Peter Brett. The third book is due to be released soon and the story places you in a world much like our own (perhaps ours many years from now) where demons rise out of the ground and towns have to be protected by complex wards. This story follows a very driven individual who wants to discover how to use the wards to go on the offensive and reclaim the world from the demons that emerge at night. Well written and fascinating world.

2. The Blade Itself series by Joe Abercrombie (3 books). One of the most unique fantasy novels I’ve ever read, it starts off normal but very quickly you realize that this is a dark series with a very unique outlook and sense of humor. I highly recommend it!

3. The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. The books place you in a world of revolution where some individuals can burn metals they ingest to give themselves super powers. Highly recommend, fantastic writer, and a very balanced system of powers.

4. The Long Man and The Point Man by Steven Englehart. I can’t wait for more of these, imagine that James Bond loves rock music, was in Vietnam, and also that alchemy and magic are real (and well explained) and he can live forever and so on. The universe is amazing, and the writing is fantastic.

5. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. I love historical fiction and this is one of the best novels I have read in that genre. Everything takes place in the 9th dynasty of China and reading it is like picking up pure crack, very hard to stop.

Runner UP: The Deed Of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon. A old school three book fantasy series which is a little slow to get started but sucks you into a fantastic story and world. Reminds me a lot of wheel of time. And also a mention to The Hunger Games series which is also fantastic.

3 Best Sci Fi Books

1. The Truth Machine. Imagine that there is a machine that can tell if anyone is lying, what affect would that have civilization. Great book!

2. Freedom by Daniel Suarez. This is the sequel to one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read Daemon. If you want to glimpse the future pick up these books.

3. The Lost Fleet series of 6 books by Jack Campbell. A classic old school space adventure, a quick fun read!

3 Best Business Books

1. Build To Last by Jim Collins. A lot of people have mentioned this book and I am happy to say it was a fantastic book. I have already digested through third parties and my own goals a lot of what he talks about, but this book is a must read for anyone trying to build a company or business. My copy has bookmarks every other page and I had to pause to write notes on my iPhone every few pages.

2. Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization by two authors. Since I manage a customer service company this was a great read and it really generated a lot of ideas. Plus I think over the coming years with FaceBook and twitter customer service is going to become more and more important to any organization.

3. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh. A great book that gave me a lot of ideas on how to improve our customer service. Tony did a nice job on this book and it spawned pages of ideas.

3 Best Non Fiction Books

1. War by Sebastian Junger – This is a must read for everyone, Sebastian lived with a platoon of soldiers in one of the most violent areas of Afghanistan. If you want to know what soldiers go through in combat read this. I haven’t seen the documentary Restrepo which is based on this but I would imagine that would also be good to watch.

2. The Coming Population Crash by Fred Pearce. A fantastic book that examines the growth of the world’s population and what we have done in the past and the impact of future growth. Great book and it will be an interesting 20 years with some of the demographics changes. I agree with him that we are going to reach a max population point in the next 50 years and then things will stabilize.

3. My Father, the Captain: My Life With Jacques Cousteau. I love Jacques Cousteau and found this a fascinating read about a really impressive character.

3 Best Travel / Learn About Other Countries Books

1. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not The French. One of the most fascinating books I’ve read in the last few years. France has an amazing social and political system and this book explains it from a micro and macro level with writing that is easy to digest. Read my full review of this book here. I learned so much.

2. Peter Hessler clinches second this year with Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time In China and Country Driving: A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory

3. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. Bill is one of the funniest amazing writers I’ve ever come across. I’ve read a few of his books and plan to read them all but this one clinches the bronce this year. The book is hilarious while showing you Australia. Like did you know that Australia has 12 foot long earth worms? Probably not, Bill Bryson fixes that lack of knowledge. Also check out A Short History Of Nearly Everything, I wish I had that in college.

Runner Up: Julia Child’s My Life In France. Not only is she a fascinating person who I admire, but she also shows you what France was like after WW2 as well as American politics. What I saw was not something history has shown from such a personal level (especially some of the anti communist McCarthy era politics they went through).

I’m now up to 26 books on my 100 books in 2010 challenge! Short reviews next to them, not sure how helpful but it should be pretty easy to see which are good and which are bad. I hope more books by Bill Bryson make it to the kindle, that guy is hilarious. I also think the book “a short history of everything” should be required reading in school, I would have had a much deeper appreciation of science class I think. I wish I had read it a few years ago when Tony told me about it. I also strongly recommend Stones To Schools the sequel to 3 Cups Of Tea and it is a very moving book about Greg and his charity’s work to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So up to 27 books, so just need to read about 8 books per month including March and I’ll be over!

I’ve decided to stay in Denver for another year, so I’ll be here through June 2011 it sounds like. We are going to find a new place to live in April/May, hopefully closer to a neighborhood we like a little better. Next week I’m heading to Vegas for a big ultimate frisbee tournament plus it is going to be Dmarsh, BBustin, and my brother’s birthday. Should be fun. And then when I get back from that Rose and Steve will be here and going to spend a lot of that week skiing with them! And hopefully I’ll be going skiing during the week a few times after that, and working on cross country skiing as I would like to be good at that.

Work is going well, and just got really busy as we took on some additional business which is quite fun!

Travel wise the year is looking awesome. In a few months I’m taking a few weeks vacation to explore Japan! Then in April I’m going to Italy for a short weekend trip as Iris got a bid to Paganello (massive ultimate beach tournament), and I’m going to play with her mixed team. Extra fun as it should be a lot of Arkansas people and hopefully Daniel and Joel go. And then me and a friend scored tickets to the World Cup in South Africa which I will be going too in early July. South Africa is being nuts on airfare pricing but its a once in a life time opportunity, so worth it.

Oh, and I’m trying to complete the 100 Book Challenge for 2010, which means I’m trying to read 100 books in 2010. So roughly 9 books a month, so far I’m almost done with my 4th and almost on track. I’m posting mini reviews as I go too.

Also, here is an interview we did a few months ago for Work, I’m pretty proud of it as we don’t sound like idiots. Although I did repeat a lot of words over and over and over, oh well, she was really nice and it was fun!

You have to read this book, brings in a lot of technology we are going to start seeing over the next twenty years and a very different view of where the world and nation state is going. Very accurate picture of technology, writing is good, solid story.

I think everyone should read this one! Here is a link to Amazon.

I realized today as I tried to sort out my Kindle books that there is no software application to do this with. Amazon or someone needs to make this as it would be nice to have something that can sort and show me my digital books (as well as load them on my Kindle) and allow me to load my actual books so I can see my library.

It can’t be too hard to make something that does this for the Kindle, I know there is stuff out there to scan in my books and handle all that.