What I Read in 2017

I managed a book a week in 2017.  This year there was a lot of fiction; most of the technical reading I did was blog articles, working through tutorials, or just plain coding. Still, there were a lot of good books this year. I highly recommend the Timbuktu Librarians book, Machina, the Nexus series, Thrawn, and Protestants, all of which are linked below! Feel free to add any good books you read in the comments!

January

1.) Pythagoras’ Revenge: A Mathematical Mystery – Arturo Sangalli

2.) Sass for Web Designers – Dan Cederholm

3.) ArcGIS Web Development – Rene Rubalcava

February

4.) The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts – Joshua Hammer

5.) The Story of the Nations: The Byzantine Empire – C.W.C. Oman

6.) Gallipoli – John Masefield

7.) Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs

8.) The Return of Tarzan – Edgar Rice Burroughs

March

9.) War Stories from the Future – August Cole et al.

10.) Aftermath (Star Wars: Aftermath #1) – Chuck Wendig

11.) The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals – Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling

12.) The Rift: A New Africa Emerges – Alex Perry

13.) Machina – Sebastian Marshall

14.) The Horse and His Boy (Book 3 Chronicles of Narnia) – C. S. Lewis

15.) Bloodline (Star Wars) – Claudia Gray

April

16.) The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Doto Get More of It – Kelly McGonigal

17.) The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results – Gary Keller, Jay Papasan

18.) The Bobby Gold Stories – Anthony Bourdain

19.) Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers – Simon Winchester

May

20.) Nexus (Nexus #1) – Ramez Naam

21.) The Judas Gate (Sean Dillon Book 18) – Jack Higgins

22.) Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction 1st Edition – Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck

23.) The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials) – Peter Drucker

24.) Crux: Nexus Arc Book 2 – Ramez Naam

25.) Kierkegaard for Beginners (Writers & Readers Documentary Comic Book) – Donald D. Palmer

June

26.) Agile for Dummies: IBM Limited Edition – Scott W. Ambler

27.) A Devil is Waiting (Sean Dillon #19) – Jack Higgins

July

28.) The Once and Future King – T. H. Whyte

29.) Thrawn (Star Wars) – Timothy Zahn

30.) When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order – Martin Jacques

31.) Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom: Book 1 – David Wingrove

32.) The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books #5) – Pico Iyer

August

33.) Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World – Alec Ryrie

34.) Celtic Design: The Dragon and the Griffin: The Viking Impact – Aidan Meehan

35.) Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1) – Gail Carriger

36.) The Sunrise Lands (Emberverse #4) – S. M. Stirling

September

37.) The Scourge of God (Emberverse #5) – S. M. Stirling

38.) The Sword of the Lady (Emberverse #6) – S. M. Stirling

39.) Aftermath: Life Debt (Star Wars: Aftermath #2) – Chuck Wendig

40.) The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months – Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington

October

41.) The Gnostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels

42.) The High King of Montival (Emberverse #7) – S. M. Stirling

43.) Feminist Theology – Natalie K. Watson

44.) Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction – Edward Craig

November

45.) Answering the Contemplative Call: First Steps on the Mystical Path – Carl McColman

46.) A Beginner’s Guide to Philosophy – Dominique Janicaud, Simon Critchley (Foreword)

47.) Armageddon’s Children (The Genesis of Shannara, Book 1) – Terry Brooks

48.) Socrates: The Great Philosophers (The Great Philosophers Series) – Anthony Gottlieb

49.) Sisterhood of Dune: Book One of the Schools of Dune Trilogy – Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

December

50.) The Elves of Cintra (The Genesis of Shannara, Book 2) – Terry Brooks

51.) Speculator (High Ground Series Book 1) – Doug Casey

52.) Pomodoro Technique Illustrated: The Easy Way to Do More in Less Time (Pragmatic Life) – Staffan Noteberg

Update and Coming Events

I haven’t written her for awhile and the reason is quite simple: I started a new job. In addition to that I kept the part-time minimum wage job that I was also working. Throw in the fact that part of the time I am a single dad, have a house to keep up, and am still learning programming, and you end up with a lot of stuff to do. That said, my time management skills have slipped, and now I am working on getting back on board the train. I wasted time on Instagram, ridiculous political arguments on Facebook, and getting lost in the endless articles on Medium – not to mention Bullet Journal blogs and Instagrams.

Yes, I’ve fallen into the Bullet Journal craze, but to be honest, mine is as utilitarian and minimalist as it can be. No drawings, no fancy fonts, I don’t even use a ruler. But it has helped quite a bit anyway. Things that were slipping through the cracks are now getting caught. I haven’t gotten back into the full “Getting Things Done” mode that I was a few years ago, but now I find that I actually have time, for example, to…write a blog post! So at some point I’ll do a post on how my BuJo works, and how I organize and all that stuff, but for today, let’s hit some highlights.

As noted, I landed a job, in the IT field (at last). It doesn’t have as much development or writing code as I’d like, but I’m learning a lot about networks, how systems of different software work, and what it’s like to be on call pretty much all the time(!) I’ll do a post soon on how I got the job, how Free Code Camp helped, etc.

In addition, I’ve decided to build a Fintech app. Really, it’s a toy app, something for me to play around with and learn to use some new languages and technologies, as well as mock up something that could actually be used. It will involve me learning SASS, React, ArcGIS web development and Bitcoin.JS, as well as using the knowledge I have of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript (I may even need to learn ES6), MongoDB, Node, and Express. It’s pretty ambitious, I guess, but I can do it in pieces and slowly get up to a full scale app.

Anyway, I’ll be blogging my adventures, hopefully weekly or more, and I hope you’ll jump in for the ride!