I read a lot and my tastes are rather varied. Below I’ve included a few favorites. Further down is a list of books I’ve read for pleasure starting in 2017, with the most recent at the top. I exceeded 130 books read in 2023 - you can check out the details on Goodreads here .
Some of My Favorites Fiction The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Waves by Virginia Woolf The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Butcher's Crossing by John Williams Non-fiction The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro What If? by Randall Munroe Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson Usual Cruelty by Alec Karakatanis Achilles in Vietnam by Jonathan Shay "A Problem From Hell" by Samantha Power Poetry Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda The Iliad by Homer Gilgamesh by Sophus Helle 100 Selected Poems by ee cummings The Best of It by Kay Ryan Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson Long-term Projects Constitutional Law by Erwin Chemerinsky (casebook) The New Oxford Annotated Bible Ο Μεγάλος Γκάτσμπυ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, trans. Άρις Μπερλής (Greek translation of The Great Gatsby) Recently Read 629 books read about 189,000 pages
78 read in 2026 about 23,000 pages
427 distinct authors
23% in translation
Page totals cover 629 of 629 books with a known length.
Pull one off the shelf
629 books since 2017
2026
Books 78 Most-read author Umberto Eco (6) Translations 32 Pages 22,755 across 78 of 78 books Average length 292 pages #1 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco · trans. William Weaver #2 Postscript to the Name of the Rose Umberto Eco · trans. William Weaver #3 I Have More Souls Than One Fernando Pessoa · trans. Jonathan Griffin #4 Hares #5 Serendipities: Language and Lunacy Umberto Eco · trans. William Weaver #6 Five Moral Pieces Umberto Eco · trans. Alastair McEwan #7 The Complete Poems of Alberto Caeiro Fernando Pessoa · trans. Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari #8 Always Astonished: Selected Prose Fernando Pessoa · trans. & ed. Edwin Honig #9 Great Tales and Poems Edgar Allan Poe #10 The Lusíad Luis Vaz de Camões · trans. Landeg White #11 Lisbon: What the Tourist Should See Fernando Pessoa #12 Pessoa Richard Zenith #13 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago · trans. Giovanni Pontiero #14 The Tragedy of Pedro and Inês Maria Zulmira Albuquerque Furtado Marques · trans. Emília Maria Marques Barroso #15 The Tobacco Shop Fernando Pessoa as Álvaro de Campos · trans. Richard Zenith #16 The Lost Colony: The Snodgrass Conspiracy Grady Klein #17 The Lost Colony: The Red Menace Grady Klein #18 The Lost Colony: Last Rights Grady Klein #19 The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Sleep No More #20 Ulysses James Joyce, along with some of Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman #21 The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses Patrick Hastings #22 The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce Umberto Eco · trans. Ellen Esrock #23 Sleep No More and the Discourses of Shakespeare Performance D. J. Hopkins #24 Common Sense Thomas Paine #25 All the Names José Saramago · trans. Margaret Jull Costa #26 Ulysses in Hand: The Rosenbach Manuscript Michael J. Barsanti #27 Asterix the Gaul René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo #28 The Chronicle of the Last Pagans Pierre Chuvin · trans. B. A. Archer #29 Message Fernando Pessoa · trans. Ana-Maria Chaves #30 The History of the Siege of Lisbon José Saramago · trans. Giovanni Pontiero #31 The Footnote* *A Curious History Anthony Grafton #32 Beowulf: Translation and Commentary, Revised and Expanded · trans. Tom Shippey #33 The Táin · trans. Thomas Kinsella #34 Early Irish Myths and Sagas · trans. Jeffrey Gantz #35 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon #36 Turtle Diary Russell Hoban #37 The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire Bart Van Loo · trans. Nancy Forest-Flier #38 Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Henry Adams #39 An Officer and a Spy Robert Harris #40 Birds of America Lorrie Moore #41 Hadrian's Wall Adrian Goldsworthy #42 The Face of Battle John Keegan #43 Les Misérables Victor Hugo · trans. Christine Donougher #44 Still Life with Bottle Ralph Steadman #45 The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris David McCullough #46 Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties & Thirties Noel Riley Fitch #47 Sublimation Isabel J. Kim #48 Lives of the Saints Nancy Lemann #49 Macbeth William Shakespeare #50 Perspectives Laurent Binet · trans. Sam Taylor #51 1066 and All That W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman #52 Mont Saint Michel Gérard Dalmaz · trans. Chrisoula Petridis #53 Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journies Through Ancient Literature Emily Wilson #54 Theogony and Works and Days Hesiod · trans. M.L. West #55 The Odyssey Homer · trans. Daniel Mendelsohn #56 Iphigeneia at Aulis Euripides · trans. W.S. Merwin and George E. Dimock, Jr. #57 Ajax Sophocles · trans. John Moore #58 Philoctetes Sophocles · trans. David Grene #59 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed Eric H. Cline #60 The Penelopiad Margaret Atwood #61 The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer's Odyssey #62 The Juniper Tree Barbara Comyns #63 Omeros Derek Walcott #64 The Ulysses Theme W.B. Stanford #65 The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana Umberto Eco · trans. Geoffrey Brock #66 The Waves Virginia Woolf #67 Son of a Smaller Hero Mordecai Richler #68 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon #69 Operation Heartbreak Duff Cooper #70 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier #71 Mestra Madeline Miller #72 The Story of Hong Gildong · trans. Minsoo Kang #73 Small Gods Terry Pratchett #74 A Concise History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present Michael J. Seth #75 Human Acts Han Kang · trans. Deborah Smith #76 The Korean Myths Heinz Insu Fenkl and Bella M Dalton-Fenkl #77 The Nine Cloud Dream Kim Man-jung · trans. Heinz Insu Fenkl #78 Taipei Story R.F. Kuang Most-read authors F. Scott Fitzgerald 16
Virginia Woolf 10
William Shakespeare 9
Umberto Eco 7
Bryan Lee O'Malley 6
Fernando Pessoa 6
Robert A. Caro 6
Anne Carson 5
David Foster Wallace 5
Homer 5
Most-read translators William Weaver 6
Robert Fagles 5
Michael Henry Heim 3
Sam Taylor 3
Sophus Helle 3
Barbara Bray 2
Deborah Smith 2
Emily Wilson 2
Read in translation from German 20
Ancient Greek 16
French 16
Portuguese 14
Italian 12
Spanish 9
Latin 7
Old Norse 7
Japanese 6
Korean 5
142 of 142 translated books.
Longest reads Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1,456
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York Robert A. Caro 1,336
The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer from The Riverside Chaucer 1,327
The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien 1,248
The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1,216
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. III Robert A. Caro 1,200
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1,104
Pessoa Richard Zenith 1,055
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 992
Selections from The David Foster Wallace Reader David Foster Wallace 976
Covers from LibraryThing and Open Library ; descriptions from Open Library
