The books I read in 2016
Below is a list of the books I managed to power through in 2016, and below that is a list of the books I’ve either just bought or am currently reading. Yes, it’s all a little out of control, but hey, that’s me.
The big theme/obsession this time around (in addition to the usual science-heavy stuff) was serial killers (😳), or rather the “why” behind what compels them. Like modern-day religious belief, psychopathy fascinates the hell out of me, and once you start down that true-crime rabbit hole, it’s near impossible to climb out.
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- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Wristwatch Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Mechanical Wristwatches by Ryan Schmidt
- Dennis Nilsen by Russ Coffey
- Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer — America’s Deadliest Serial Murderer by Ann Rule
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- Before the Big Bang by John Gribbin
- Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will by Geoff Colvin
- The Industries of the Future by Alec Ross
- Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
- The Quantum Mystery by John Gribbin
- Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Martinez
- MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson by Steve Knopper
- Lust Murder: A look at sexually-driven slayings by Chelsea Hoffman
- The I-5 Killer (Randall Woodfield) by Ann Rule
- Fiend: The Shocking True Story Of Americas Youngest Serial Killer by Harold Schechter
- Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door by Roy Wenzl
- A Taste For Murder by Burl Barer
- The Killing Season by Alex French
- The Bundy Murders: A Comprehensive History by Kevin Sullivan
- Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer by Katherine Ramsland
- Murder In The Family by Burl Barer
- The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese
- Ted Bundy: The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
- Jerry Brudos: Lust Killer by Ann Rule
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- Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier
- God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction by Dan Barker
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Christopher Wilder: The True Story of The Beauty Queen Killer by Jack Rosewood
- Blind Rage: A True Story of Sin, Sex, and Murder in a Small Arkansas Town by Anita Paddock
- Fred & Rose West: Britain’s Most Infamous Couple Killers by Ryan Green
- John Christie: The True Story of The Rillington Place Strangler by Jack Rosewood
In the queue
- Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos by Priyamvada Natarajan
- Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
- Millennium: From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed Over a Thousand Years by Ian Mortimer
- The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson
- The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson
- What to Think About Machines That Think: Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence by John Brockman
- Time Travel: A History by James Gleick
- The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane
- The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly
- The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
- The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll
- Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind by George Makari
- Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side by Emilio D’Alessandro
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
- 1924: The Year That Made Hitler by Peter Range
- A Proper Drink: The Untold Story of How a Band of Bartenders Saved the Civilized Drinking World by Robert Simonson
- Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland by Jason Morrow
- Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve by Tom Bissell
- Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
- Amazon.com: Death on the Devil’s Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey by Jesse Pollack
- How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens by Benedict Carey