Welcome to the recap of my Goodreads reading challenge results for 2019. That’s right, winter has arrived, so it’s time to curl up and enjoy a good book while staying nice and warm. Hopefully this long read will provide new books to seek out for yourself, or inspire you to spend more time reading. Perhaps you might even stop watching movies just long enough to write your own book…
I joined Goodreads in 2012 to track my reading and to interact with other bibliophiles. While the interaction has certainly been hit or miss, the tracking is still top notch. Since 2013, I’ve participated in the site’s annual reading challenge. In case you’re not familiar, early each year, Goodreads asks you how many books you want to read during that year. As the year progresses, and you enter books you’ve read on the site, your progress bar increases – or even indicates if your pace is lagging or if you’re jumping ahead to reach your goal. At the end of the year you get to gloat over attaining your arbitrary number of books or wallow in social media shame at being a lazy illiterate.
In 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, I picked a random number of books and then aimlessy read whatever I wanted throughout the year. For 2016 I decided to add my own wrinkle by pre-selecting the books I would read that year. You can go back and read how I fared. For 2017 I vowed to plow through as many of my 137 unread books in my personal library as I could. You can read how well that particular venture went. I skipped writing up the results for 2018, which is especially sad since I ready some truly life changing books that year (such as Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin and several books by by Thich Nhat Hahn).
One reason I skipped writing a recap for 2018 is that I didn’t start with an explicit goal like I did in 2016 and 2017. I didn’t have a goal for 2019, either. That obviously doesn’t stop me from reading, though, so it shouldn’t stop me from writing. Especially since I always deviated from my plan anyway, and there’s still definite themes that develop over the course of a year.
By the Numbers
I wanted to start with some numbers that might provide some insight into my reading habits in 2019.
- I read 86 books.
- I read 24 non-fiction books.
- I read 62 fiction books.
- I read 46 graphic novels.
- I read 14 prose novels.
My initial goal was to read 60 books, for an average of 5 books per month. That might seem absurdly high, especially with how slow I can read. But those graphic novels really pad the total, and I can read one of those in a day or two. No, I don’t read graphic novels just to increase my total books read. I truly believe graphic novels (and comic books) are a unique medium, able to do things you can’t with just prose or even movies.
As much as I love graphic novels, I was still astounded to discover more than half the books I read in 2019 were in that category. Partially that is due to my monthly library book club and the ancillary books I get out of that group. Another reason is those 24 non-fiction books. While I don’t read super heavy non-fiction, it’s still nice to break up that reading with something different. And many of the prose fiction books I read were familiar authors, providing novels that were simply fun to read.
There’s also some unaccounted crossover between the graphic novel number and non-fiction number. Several of the graphic novels I read were non-fiction. This is one reason I detest people treating “graphic novel” as a genre, which my own library did in a book club survey. For some reason, people think adding the word “graphic” to the word “novel” shoehorns them all together. But graphic novels can be as varied, if not moreso, than regular prose novels. Graphic novels and comic books seem uniquely positioned to play with genre, combining elements in ways not found in many other mediums.
Warning Graphic Content
I attend a monthly library book club, called appropriately “Warning Graphic Content”, that reads exclusively graphic novel. It’s not a hugely attended club, at times having only two members who up to a meeting. That speaks to the niche appeal reading graphic novels still has, which is amazing when you consider how popular movies like the Marvel Cinematic Universe have become. But there’s far more to graphic novels than superheroes, as evidenced by some of the weird books the club read in 2019.
- Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four Volume 1 by Stan Lee
- My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1 by Emil Ferris
- A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
- Heathen, Vol. 1 by Natasha Alterici
- House of M by Brian Michael Bendis
- Hellboy Omnibus Volume 1 by Mike Mignola
- Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
- Monk! by Youssef Daoudi
- Deadpool Classic Vol. 15 by Duane Swierczynski
- Nameless by Grant Morrison
- Pyongyang by Guy Delisle
- Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol. 2 by Alan Moore
Needless to say, that’s an eclectic set of books.
There are three superhero books, with Fantastic Four, House of M, and Deadpool. All are coincidentally from Marvel, but each was distinctly its own book. The Fantastic Four collection was part of the Marvel Masterworks series, which collects older comics, usually the original issues containing the characters. Reading Marvel comics from the 1960s is much different than reading a modern comic book. Stan Lee’s story telling was bombastic yet personal, which set him apart from his contemporaries. It’s old hat nowadays for superheroes to deal with more issues than just the supervillain of the month, but when these stories originally came out such a concept was groundbreaking. Jack Kirby’s art laid the foundation for so many distinctive Marvel characters; it will be interesting to see how the Fantastic Four gets translated to the MCU.
House of M was a big event book from Marvel, a gimmick the company has worked innumerable times. The “M” in the title is for Magneto, but could easily stand for “mutant”. The premise of this story is suitably grand and there are some truly great moments when characters meet. Scarlet Witch’s reality altering powers are on full display. But the cast is too big for all but the most devout Marvel fan, leaving a regular reader in the dark for some of the drama.
Deadpool needs little introduction after two successful movies. His ultra-violent, wisecracking, fourth-wall-breaking antics are still unique among comic books.
Hellboy has also had movies made, to much less fanfare than Deadpool. Mike Mignola’s signature character and artwork are good pulpy fun, including elements of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
Another common genre in the book selection is non-fiction. This year saw three books based on true events. A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge pulled together several people’s stories of surviving Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Monk! is a jazz-inspired biography of Thelonius Monk. Pyongyang is a travelogue by a French animator working on a contract in North Korea. Be especially mindful which translation you read of this one, as earlier versions had many racist and sexist remarks from the narrator. One interesting element common to all three of these book was the unique use of color in each. Pyongyang was simply black and white, but A.D. used a different color for each character’s pages while Monk! was predominantly black and white with muted shades and the occasional pop of color for artistic effect. Monk! caused me to investigate a musical genre, bebop jazz, that I had not delved into before.
Many of the books selected are more esoteric than your normal mainstream comic book. Heathen is the story of a lesbian Viking cast out of her tribe and forced on a quest with gods. Pretty Deadly has been pegged outright “pretentious” by some but it’s mythological use of the American West was astounding with breathtaking artwork. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a doorstop of a book, with artwork reminiscent of R. Crumb and a rambling metaphorical story. Nameless is Grant Morrison being weird for no good reason but it did spark an excellent debate about how many of the events in the story actually took place versus just existing in the character’s head.
And then there’s Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing. This was written before his most famous work, Watchmen. You can see elements of that opus here. You can also see the beginnings of DC’s Vertigo imprint, which included titles such as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Garth Ennis’ Preacher. Gaiman in particular took inspiration from Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. The book includes plenty of wild elements, including a walk through the afterlife, cute aliens, and vegetable sex. Yup. It’s Alan Moore.
In addition to the books selected for discussion by the group, the librarians also provide related books. Most often it’s books by the same writer or in the same series. Frequently it’s books with a similar genre or style. Other times I go out on my own to continue reading a series started in the group.
- Snotgirl, Vol. 2 : California Screaming by Bryan Lee O’Malley
- Baltimore, Vol. 1 by Mike Mignola
- Hellboy, Vol. 4 by Mike Mignola
- Heathen, Vol. 2 by Natasha Alterici
- Pretty Deadly, Vol. 2 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
- Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol. 1 by Alan Moore
Most of these books were not as strong as their predecessors selected for the group. Call it a sophomore slump. The biggest exception was the first volume of Saga of the Swamp Thing, which was just as good as the second volume; the monkey demon just might give you nightmares.
Also of note was the second volume of Heathen. By that point, I had learned the series was from a little comic book company called Vault Comics.
Out of the Vault
I discovered three new comic book companies in 2019: Vault Comics, Aftershock Comics, and AHOY! Comics. The only book I still get from DC or Marvel is Batman, mostly out of momentum for an unbroken monthly collection of my favorite superhero. But I was so excited to discover the books put out by these publishers, it energized me to start collecting monthly comics to a point I haven’t done for a decade. I didn’t want to “wait for the trade”, since I wasn’t even sure there would be trade paperback collections from indie publishers. Plus the stories span genres already in my wheelhouse: science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
Oh, and Warren Ellis wrote a series for Aftershock and recommended several Vault comics. When Warren recommends somethings, I’ll inevitably take a look.
Early in 2019 I read Shipwreck by Warren Ellis and published by Aftershock. The limited series bears all the hallmarks of classic Ellis comics. This was a far more interesting and nuanced book than the other Ellis book I read this year. Image’s Cemetery Beach was a fun non-stop action but its total lack of plot outside extended action sequences meant my interest waned.
I also read the first two volumes of Aftershock’s Dark Ark. The premise is so fantastic, it’s almost surprising no one came up with it before. Just like Noah had two of every animal, there was a second ark entirely. This second ark was tasked with saving all the monsters. You can imagine the kinds of trouble that erupt on a boat packed with all manner of demons and mythological beasts. This series also introduced me to the writer Cullen Bunn, which led me to read his series from Image, Shanghai Red. While not the greatest story ever told, it’s a well done and bloody revenge tale that had some level of social commentary to make about gender roles.
I didn’t read any trade paperback collections from AHOY! Comics so they don’t show up on my Goodreads list. But I discovered their mash-up of superhero and Christianity, Second Coming. Dragging Jesus into a modern society would more than enough material, but pairing him with a Superman stand-in adds another layer to the commentary. It’s definitely a book to check out, whether or not you’re Christian. There’s plenty in it to make you think.
Vault Comics suckered me into collecting monthly issues with their “Vault Vintage” covers. Each #1 issue published in 2019 had an alternative cover that recreated a classic comic book cover. The original cover that drew me in was Test #1, which mimicked Transmetropolitan‘s iconic cover. It didn’t hurt that Warren Ellis, the writer of Transmet, also recommended the series. Then I saw the cover for She Said Destroy #1 that paid homage to Saga and Resonant #1 that remade Y: The Last Man. That’s paying tribute to three of my favorite comic book series of all time. I knew someone at Vault had good tastes, so I’ve become a devout fan and buy every single monthly issue they publish. My wallet hates me but my inner fanboy loves it.
I finished off 2019 with two Vault collections. These Savage Shores was a Warren Ellis recommendation, and lives up to the hype with its combination of East India Company historical fiction with Indian mythology and European mythology. The twists and turns are well thought out. The violence might be a bit much for some people, but it’s fitting considering the monsters involved. Vagrant Queen is good pulpy sci-fi of the kind that inspired Star Wars, with echoes of the French Revolution tossed in for good measure.
Heathen was my unwitting introduction to Vault. To say its tale of a lesbian Viking is unique would be understatement, but it still has elements of classic Norse mythology akin to Neil Gaiman. It also kicked off a slew of graphic novels representing queer lifestyles.
Hurray for LGBTQIA
It turns out I read a surprising number of books involving LGBTQIA characters. This isn’t surprising for a couple reasons. First, I’ve never shied away from such material, and This Is How It Always Is was one of my favorite books in 2018. Second, the comics medium has fully embraced this side of society, probably more than any other creative outlet.
Heathen features a lesbian Viking and a bisexual goddess. Kim & Kim, Vol. 1: This Glamorous, High-Flying Rock Star Life features a queer woman and a trans woman as the day-glo main characters. Shanghai Red includes gender switching as a key component. Saga continues to include several queer cast members (even if some don’t meet happy endings). My Favorite Thing Is Monsters has some questioning of sexuality. Even Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine includes some lesbianism through the post-exploitation lens of a women’s prison in a toxic patriarchy.
Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles recasts several classic Hanna Barbara cartoon characters, including Snagglepuss and Huckleberry Hound, as gay men. I was actually surprised to see little if any blowback to this change of character. If anything, the majority of readers proclaim its brilliance. The story also manages to pull in many real world historical events, such as the Stonewall Riots and Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee continuation of the Lavender Scare. This was an unexpectedly powerful story.
Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass includes a group of drag queens fighting to save their neighborhood. This setting makes total sense considering Harley’s past sexuality, finally confirmed as being bisexual. It’s encouraging for such a popular, high profile character to be open about her sexuality and to be comfortable and uncompromising with it. Harley straddles a variety of unrepresented groups in the story, giving voice to those minorities without losing her own unique identity. Some people will label Harley and Ivy as social justice warriors, with all the negative connotations that term now carries. That would be a shame, as it unfairly labels people fighting for their beliefs and livelihood. While Joker is often used to represent chaos is pure opposition to order, Harley Quinn symbolizes a chaotic disruption of the status quo with the intent of replacing it with something better.
Pumpkinheads was an unexpectedly sweet and touching graphic novel. It even won the Best Graphic Novel in the Goodreads Best Books of 2019. One of the main characters, Deja, is a boisterous woman with several ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. These relationships are handled matter-of-factually, treating them as completely normal. The plot centers around Deja helping her male coworker track down his long-time crush on the final night of work. The twist when Josie finally meets the girl of his fantasies is a refreshing change of pace. The transformational theme of this story fit perfectly with the fall season and the transition from high school to adulthood. Centering it specifically around Halloween with its references to masks and costumes drives home the concepts. I read this entire book in a single sitting of less than an hour. Do yourself a favor and do the same, especially during the fall.
These LGBTQIA graphic novels make you think about real world issues, in both playful and serious settings. But they weren’t the only books to make me ponder life and reality.
Science Fiction That Makes You Go Hmm…
Good science fiction has something to say or makes you think of something in a new way. I read some pretty good science fiction in 2019.
Exhalation is a collection chock full of of thoughtful short stories. Ted Chiang wrote the short story that the movie Arrival was based on, and that gives you an idea of the level of high concepts Chiang deals with. I loved his unique takes different aspects of actual real world science. The mix of topics really spans modern science, and the various narrators and story techniques makes each story distinct and fresh, from time travel cast into an Arabian Nights mold to quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics play a key role in Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. I had heard the hype of this novel but didn’t give it a go until this year. This is the epitome of a science fiction thriller. It perfectly blends thrilling action with just enough real world science to make it seem plausible. I devoured Crouch’s latest novel, Recursion, as soon as I could get my hands on it from the library. The science was more fantastical, as any form of time travel will be, but it was just as thrilling with just as much heart as Dark Matter. Both novels also surprised me with well done relationships between the main characters so that I actually cared how it all ended.
Dark Matter was actually a selection for the “Out of This World” science fiction book group at my library. Sadly, I have yet to make it to a meeting of this group. But I also enjoyed another of the group’s selections, Ancillary Justice. Like the space opera A Fire Upon the Deep, Ancillary Justice took a while get into thanks to its unique point of view. I almost gave up early on but I’m glad I stuck with it. There’s plenty of fodder for discussion in this book’s society and characters.
A book I should suggest for a book group is Tom King’s Mister Miracle. This book won a ridiculous number of awards, and rightly so. Like Alan Moore did with Swamp Thing, Tom King takes a lesser known DC character and puts his unique stamp on him with a huge dose of contemporary issues tossed in. Sure, Mister Miracle is a superhero escape artist. Sure, Mister Miracle battles with and alongside New Gods. But Mister Miracle has massive identity issues stemming from his relationship with his real family and adoptive family. He also has to deal with starting his own family and all the mundane domestic drama. Oh, and Darkseid is.
Another Warren Ellis suggestion was Infinite Detail. While I didn’t wind up loving it as much as I wanted, I saw the same seeds in it as I get out of a good William Gibson cyberpunk novel. The near future setting is close enough to touch, and the ideologies examined and tested are worth pondering.
All this thoughtful science fiction was balanced by some powerful philosophical nonfiction.
Other Things That Make You Go Hmm…
I started off 2019 with Between the with World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I finally got around to picking up Coates’ book after reading his initial story arc of the Marvel comic Black Panther, “A Nation Under Our Feet.” I felt like there was far more subtext to his comic book story than I absorbed, so I figured going straight to the source, so to speak, would help my understanding and appreciation of what Coates was doing with the orphan king of Wakanda. In the wake of so much racial unrest in America, Coates sheds light on (for those of us “who believe that they are white”) and confirms (for black people) the mental and physical states forced upon black people by institutional racism. I won’t bother you with all the notable quotes that can be pulled from this well written treatise. I won’t try to restate anything that Coates already so eloquently said in his book. Coates doesn’t offer any solutions and seems to imply there really isn’t a solution in America. Let’s hope he’s incorrect on that point.
Every Thing is F*cked is a title Ta-Nehisi Coates might appreciate but Mark Manson’s book is actually about hope. I enjoyed Manson’s previous book, Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, well enough since it was basically Buddhism wrapped in a more vulgar than average package. After listening to Manson on the Tom Bilyeu podcast, I was impressed by his grasp of the material, including his depth of philosophical knowledge and ability to talk about it. So I went ahead and read Everything is F*cked, and am glad I did. Much like the art of not giving a fuck wasn’t about being flippant or belligerent, calling everything fucked and not focusing on hope doesn’t mean becoming hopeless and nihilistic. It’s more in line with LEGO Movie 2‘s “Everything’s Not Awesome” sentiment about appreciating what you have in the moment rather than focusing on unrealistic ideal. Which, again, is a very Buddhist way of thinking. I now better appreciate Manson’s stealth way of teaching a mainstream audience about Buddhism and other related philosophies.
I’m no stranger to spotting Buddhism in other books because I study Buddhism so much and 2019 was no different. I really enjoyed The Universe in a Single Atom by Dalai Lama XIV. The subtitle “convergence of science and spirituality” instantly drew me in, especially since the “spirituality” is specifically Buddhism. In it, the Dalai Lama examines some intersections of how science and Buddhism attempt to answer similar questions. He is most interested in tackling the question of whether science can ever examine consciousness, a core aspect of Buddhism and all other spiritual and philosophical traditions. The Dalai Lama is an important leader of Buddhism, so his insights into Buddhism and connecting it to science carry more weight than most others. This is a nice compact comparison of the two disciplines and provides just enough details on both to satisfy all readers.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha! by Bodhipaksa sets out to debunk 50 popular sayings misattributed to the Buddha. I had never heard the majority of the sayings, and many of the explanations were (understandably) not related to Buddhism, but I still had fun reading this short book. It could certainly serve as a very rough primer to the uninitiated.
My favorite sect of Buddhism is Zen. I enjoyed Zen Speaks by Tsai Chih Chung. And since Zen Buddhism was hugely influenced by Taoism, and my love of the Tao Te Ching is well documented, it should be no surprise I sought out Tsai Chih Chung’s The Tao Speaks. This translation sticks more to a literal version, which is good for strictness but doesn’t offer as much personal insight as a version like Stephen Mitchell’s. The Tao Te Ching is so short, I would suggest you simply start with any version then read multiple to broaden your range of interpretations. You can also read books like Tales from the Tao by Solala Towler, a collection of short Taoist stories that covers the majority of core Taoist concepts in a nicely written, beautifully illustrated style. The black and white photography fits the Taoism theme perfectly.
In 2019 I was introduced to a new source of thought-provoking books in Tom Bilyeu.
Tom Bilyeu’s Reading List
I first heard of Tom Bilyeu from the podcast Choose FI (more on financial independence in a bit). One of the podcast’s hosts kept bringing up Tom’s name and how influential he was, on par with Tim Ferriss. Since I’m a fan of Tim, I decided to check out Tom. They definitely have different presentation styles but both are laser focused on self-improvement. And not any sort of “woo woo” or “law of attraction” BS. The books Tom Bilyeu recommends on his web site really hit hard.
Tom recommends you read the books in order. So far I’ve read the first six books.
- Mindset by Carol S. Dweck
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Principles by Ray Dalio
I only read one of the three parts of Principles. Can’t Hurt Me was kind of a slog to get through its message of (slightly insane) perseverance over any odds. Grit felt like just a lot of common sense written up academically.
Mindset is a pretty foundational text for self-improvement. It makes a lot of sense that it would be first on a reading list. Once I read it, I started picking up how often fixed and growth mindsets are referenced in other places. From other books in this list to posters in my children’s elementary school, you can see how much society has absorbed the concept.
Man’s Search for Meaning is the most oft cited book on other lists. Like Everything is F*cked, it deals a lot with existentialism and meaning. Frankl uses logotherapy as his lenses to view the world. He says being human points to something or someone outside of oneself. Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain (like Tony Robbins would have us believe) but rather to see meaning in his life. This does feel a bit circular upon some inspection, but that fits well with Frankl’s final analogy that life is like a film. Each individual cell is important in the moment but one can only view the meaning of it all at the end of the movie. In this way, the cells are transitory since they pass from the future (potentialities) to the past (actualized). We are responsible for making the decision and taking the actions to transform a potentiality into a permanent actualized past.
This sounds an awful lot like the concepts of Buddhism and mindfulness. One must live in the moment because that is all that exists. The main difference, though, is that logotherapy places a lot of emphasis on the future and the past, since that is where one finds meaning. A young person will find meaning in the future potentialities, while an older person will find meaning in the actualized past. A person suffering can look to the other side of suffering to find meaning in reaching that potential future.
One of the most poignant points in Man’s Search for Meaning is related to hyper-intention and hyper-reflection. If one is too focused on a goal then it becomes paradoxically difficult to achieve. Happiness, then, is not something one can actively pursue. Rather, one must find a reason to be happy and let happiness ensue. Similarly, self-actualization is only possible as a side-effect of self-transcendence; if you focus on actualization then you’ll never achieve it, thus you must transcend your own self. Again, this reminds me a lot of Buddhist teachings, or the Taoist philosophy of Bruce Lee.
The book that had the most impact on me, by far, was Extreme Ownership. This book was written by ex-Navy SEAL Jocko Willink with Leif Babin. I almost skipped over it, figuring it would not be applicable to my non-leadership, non-military position. Boy, am I glad I read this one. Maybe the concept of Extreme Ownership just hit me at the right time as I deal with real life issues, but I found the twelve concepts of this book to be very applicable to anyone, not just leaders and not just Navy SEALs. Shouldering blame for mistakes and errors is a big step for most people. We’re indoctrinated into a culture of finger pointing and deflection. People want all the credit for any success but won’t admit any fault in failures. But as the old adage goes, you learn by failing, and being able to cop to your failures and know how to use them to improve will rise you above everyone else. It also forces you to take corrective action yourself, rather than expect everyone else to fix the problems for you. I would put Extreme Ownership almost at the same level as the Tao Te Ching in changing how I think about how to live my life, and that’s pretty much the highest praise I can give.
Both Jocko and Tom Bilyeu have been on podcasts with Tim Ferriss, another self-improvement maven. Tim is responsible for introducing me to loads of people, books, and ideas that have improved my life. That includes the Tao Te Ching and Mr. Money Mustache. MMM actually wrote about Tim five years prior to being on Tim’s podcast. In that article MMM wrote about The 4-Hour Workweek, which I finally got around to reading in 2019. Some people swear by his methods whole others disdain him. I take the middle road and pick up actionable tips while dropping the rest. For instance, I’m all for productive remote working but I don’t plan to use it to work a handful of hours in some foreign country, I want to spend more time with my family. The book works well as a potential way to realistically implement working like Peter Gibbons.
Interestingly, one of the best parts is when Tim starts working out the question of what to do with your free time. It’s the same question that the FIRE community wrestles with. “What’s FIRE?” I’m glad you asked…
How To Get Rich
You’ve heard me mention “Mr. Money Mustache” several times (and a fellow Discourser is a devout follower). MMM is one of the founding fathers of the early retirement movement that has built into the FIRE community. For the uninitiated, FIRE stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early”. There truly is an entire community built around this movement, from documentaries to podcasts to a plethora of web sites (more than I could possibly list here).
I was initially skeptical of MMM. A 2016 New Yorker profile only fed my skepticism. But for some reason now lost to the fog of my memory, I kept returning to MMM’s blog and digging into more of his classic articles. Then I heard his interview on The Tim Ferriss Podcast; in fact, it was this interview that led me to discovering Tim Ferriss, which is just as big a contribution to my life as “Mustachianism”. In 2018 I read one of the foundational texts of financial independence, Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin, complete with an updated section on FIRE and introduction by MMM. That book solidified my belief that financial independence is possible. Eventually lead Discourser Paul sent me a link for the Choose FI podcast. That really rocketed my interest in the FIRE movement.
If Your Money Or Your Life is the original foundation for FIRE, then The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins is the updated blueprint. The advice in this book basically boils down to: invest all your money in stock index funds until you retire. Oh, and hopefully you started as early as possible to take advantage of compounding. That last bit is the biggest rub to most of the advice dispensed by the FIRE community. There are, of course, examples of people aggressively saving later in life and still retiring early, but most people will not be willing to take the extreme measures required to attain that. That includes me.
After aggressively pushing FIRE on practically everyone I know in 2018, over the course of 2019 I fell out of love with the “retire early” part and even the “financial independence” portion. Proponents of FIRE abhor the term “deprivation.” They view their methods not as depriving their current selves but setting the stage for their future selves to enjoy a blissful life free from the shackles of a 9-to-5 job. I fought with my wife about moving to a new house with a bigger mortgage; in my FIRE obsessed mind, this was sacrilegious. Just look at the spreadsheet! Eventually I realized the new house would serve my family much better than the extra money in our bank account each month. I’m still saving the same amount for retirement as I was before, but I’m paying the opportunity cost of not investing the money that is now going toward the higher mortgage. However, moving to our current house was one of the best lifestyle decisions we made. That put the final nail the coffin of my devotion to FIRE.
When my wife left her full-time job to take care of our children, I jumped headfirst into my own financial spreadsheet. The first thing I did was draw up a budget to make sure we could afford living on a single income. That was a necessary step for us since we had to know for sure one income covered all our expenses. It was my first real experience working with a budget, but now it’s second nature (even if we don’t usually meet our budget). The book that crystallized a lot of my attitude toward budgeting was You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham. I already gave every incoming dollar a job, assigning everything to monthly expenses. I have multiple saving accounts to accumulate funds for known (e.g. Christmas, Amazon Prime) and unknown expenses (house repairs, car repairs), along with long term goals (e.g. family trips).
Probably the best chapter in YNAB was “Teaching Your Kids to Budget.” The author and I share the exact same thoughts on kids, money, and allowance. Specifically, allowance provides money for kids to practice, just like a musical instrument or sports. It is not something tied to chores or exchanged as a wage for completed tasks. If you want to raise a child that will become a financially intelligent adult, then you have to let them screw up and learn when their money mistakes have the lowest stakes. That’s why I follow the advice from one of the other personal finance books that dealt with kids and give my children a weekly allowance of $1 per age year; for example, my seven year old gets $7 per week. When we related a story about my son buying a 1500 piece LEGO set at Costco for $40, a mother declared we must be giving him too much allowance. But $40 is 6 weeks of allowance, and that’s if he didn’t spend any of it along the way (and of course he spends some). He always eagerly asks me how much he has in his savings account after he adds his chosen weekly amount. I view that as a lesson being well learned, and hopefully putting him on a path to his own financial independence.
To get even further away from the advice of FIRE, I read I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. One of the initial items most FIRE advocates will tell you is to eliminate your daily latte. I first hear of I Will Teach You to Be Rich due to Mr. Money Mustache railing against it for precisely that reason. This initially turned me off from reading the book. Then my attitude toward MMM and FIRE in general started to turn less zealous, as I already went over. So when I heard Ramit on the Tim Ferriss Show (there’s Tim again!), I liked what I heard and decided to pick up the new edition of his book.
What MMM originally got wrong (although they appear to have made amends) was the focus on “things”. While Ramit might use things like lattes or even cars as examples, his real focus is on living your life by your priorities and your design. True, complete financial independence as espoused by MMM and FIRE means you can spend all the time you want with your family and friends, but they make it seem like you can’t do that while holding down a job and paying a mortgage. Ramit thinks it’s possible as well, so long as you actually plan how to spend your money and hold to that plan. He pleads over and over for the reader to “live outside the spreadsheet”, fully acknowledging that money should fuel your life and not consume it or simply be a means to buying things.
I’ve made my peace with FIRE. I still have an eye on the future and vow to reach a day when I don’t have to worry about money, but I’m doing my best to “live outside the spreadsheet” and appreciate my life here and now. I do still track all my expenses against a budget. At this point it’s become a game, as I mentioned on our Personal Finance podcast. And in 2019, another game came back into my life.
The Immortal Game
Chess was a game I learned as a child. I remember playing with a computerized board my non-chess playing parents owned for whatever reason. I enjoyed the literal battle scenes depicting pieces capturing each other in my Nintendo copy of Battle Chess. But I never pursued chess past the rudiments of openings like Ruy Lopez. Of course, prior to 2019, I had no idea that was even the name of the opening, or that “opening” was a chess term.
Then one fateful summer day my oldest friend (oldest in terms of being friends with each other) taught my six year old son how to play chess. My son instantly picked up the rules and the piece movements, a fact that still shocks me considering how many adults can’t remember either. He dove headfirst into the game, asking me to play and begging to use the chess app on my phone. I jumped at the opportunity to bond over the board, so when I checked out books like How to Beat Your Dad at Chess for my son, I checked out stacks of books for myself.
I started with Chess for Dummies. The easy to follow layout really served as an excellent primer to the game. It introduces and details the basic rules, beginning tactics, some strategies, and most importantly principles of play. Chess is nearly an infinite game (even if game theory has worked that number down). So learning anything by rote is almost meaningless, at least outside of tournament play. You don’t learn the exact moves to make in a queen-king endgame, but you can learn the patterns that will guarantee success. Higher level players will still memorize long lines of moves, if only to be able to disrupt them and avoid falling into the opponent’s well-trod trap.
Learning principles of play was confirmed by Yasser Seirawan with Jeremy Silman in Play Winning Chess and Winning Chess Tactics. These books are excellent resources for learning the four elements of chess: force (material), time (development), space, and pawn structure. The writing in this series of books is very witty, if you like a dry sense of humor. The biggest detriment is the lack of board diagrams, but once I bought a checkbook magnetic travel chess set to follow along with the algebraic notation I learned a lot more.
I still lose at least half the games I play against friends. I can mostly win against my now seven year old son. But winning in either case isn’t the point of the game. Chess is often compared to art. Players will admire historic games like a framed work in a museum. The joy is being able to participate in creating your own works of art by playing each new game.
One of the best life lessons I ever learned was losing in chess to my Scoutmaster on a Boy Scout camping trip. He imparted the advice that I would never learn if he let me win. That wisdom has served me well, helping me treat failure as a learning opportunity. And nowadays, I won’t let my son win, but I do help him out and learn from his mistakes. Chess is a fantastic learning tool for life. You can fail and quickly reset, taking the lessons of patience, foresight, and strategy into the world off the board.
While I was learning more about the game itself, I got curious about the origins of chess. The Immortal Game was a quick yet thorough history of the evolution of the rules and strategy of chess. While there’s doubtless more in depth books about the history of one of the world’s oldest board games, I feel totally satisfied with this one. I enjoyed learning the development of the pieces as they passed through different cultures. I also learned how chess strategy grew from the free wheeling Romantics to the positional Hypermodernists to the amalgam of synthesis that reminded me of the “style as no style” Jeet Kune Do. There’s enough analysis of how the game affected the real world and vice versa without getting bogged down in political or religious tangents.
Old Friends
Every year I manage to read a few books by familiar authors or in familiar series. Some of these act as comfort food to break up the more demanding books. Others are continuations of a style or story that still excite me.
The epitome of my comfort food analogy is the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. In 2019 I read the latest two books, Look Alive Twenty-Five and Twisted Twenty-Six. Both books broke the mold in very welcome ways. After twenty-four books the series had grown rote and stale. Stephanie’s ineptitude as a bounty hunter was becoming infuriating. These latest books manage to make Stephanie somewhat competent at her job. She’s no Ranger, sure, but she also realizes when she needs his help to capture a stubborn bounty. Many of the stock elements were reduced or even excised, offering a breath of fresh air into the series. I’m sure some fans were disappointed not to follow the same familiar plot points. But all the characters actually showed some growth. Stephanie and Grandma Mazur ponder some pretty poignant points and act more like real people than cartoon characters.
Speaking of cartoon characters, I finally got to see the live action version of one of my favorite anime/manga characters when Alita: Battle Angel finally saw the light of day. In preparation for the movie, I reread the first volume of the original manga by Yukito Kishiro. Unfortunately, my nostalgia for Alita might outweigh its actual merits, at least in the manga’s first volume. The story is focused on Alita’s first mission as a Hunter Killer. There’s some inkling of the struggle for identity as a resurrected cyborg, but the majority of the plot centers around a couple gory fights. I also read the movie’s prequel novel by Pat Cadigan, with the unwieldy title Alita: Battle Angel – Iron City. The prequel novel was truly a prequel in that it’s mean to be read prior to the movie. Most prequels are done after the fact and thus have the advantage of the audience already being familiar with the characters and setting. This novel was purely introducing the characters and setting so you are familiar with them prior to seeing the movie. Without Alita in the book, it was hard to form a real emotional attachment to any character.
Another blast from the past was reading Maynard James Keenan’s (auto)biography A Perfect Union of Contrary Things. Keenan’s band Tool released a new album, Fear Inoculum, 13 years after their previous one. That caused quite the kerfuffle when it unseated Taylor Swift’s album at the top of the Billboard chart. Tool, and particularly Maynard, had always been purposefully mysterious. The band members don’t appear in their music videos. They claimed allegiance to the pseudophilosophy “lachrymology”. Now they’ve transitioned from aggressive nihilism to introspective meditation. That works well with my own personal growth and it’s entirely possible songs like “Parabola” served as my subconscious primer to a contemplative nature. Reading Maynard’s biography was insightful since it humanized a deified figure. It also showed how well rounded he is, with a multitude of projects and interests. The book does a good job weaving together the threads as the story progresses, so that it makes total sense he would start his own vineyard in the desert.
Wine is known to get better with age, and Stephen King has been around longer than any other author I read in 2019. King remains one of the most prolific authors around, publishing at least one novel per year and now adding a series of short stories and co-author credits. I read his novella Elevation early in the year, partially by accident since I forgot I pre-ordered the Kindle edition so it was a surprise when it landed on my eReader. Elevation is a short and nice addition to the Castle Rock lore. It touches on some timely topics about our current state of community and prejudices while providing some hopeful thoughts about death and dying.
While Elevation added a tiny bit to the Castle Rock canon, King’s new novel for 2019, The Institute, brought together a lot of elements from all his previous works. There’s the youth bonding like The Body or It. There’s the youths with supernatural powers like Carrie and Firestarter. There’s a very strong Dark Tower vibe, particularly its Algul Siento setting. All of that is why I love King and initially got into his work. But for some reason it just didn’t land with me this time out. I didn’t bond with any of the characters like I usually do in a King story. I still enjoyed reading the book since King’s prose is still top notch, but I found myself counting the remaining page count every time I stopped reading. I hesitate to call The Institute a disappointment even if it let me down. Meanwhile, two other authors’ books did disappoint me.
Christina Henry quickly became a favorite author of mine with her dark Alice in Wonderland novels and especially her 2017 novel Lost Boy. So I was excited for her take on Little Red Riding Hood. Sadly, The Girl in Red follows a mostly familiar dystopian fiction template. There’s a nice meta-twist at the end that does redeem the novel a bit, but after such thought provoking works as Lost Boy and The Mermaid I expect more from Christina Henry.
Andy Weir impressed me (and a lot of readers) with his debut novel, The Martian. His second novel, Artemis, wasn’t as revolutionary but was still entertaining. When I discovered Weir previously wrote a graphic novel bringing together Alice (of Wonderland), Dorothy (of Oz), and Wendy (of Peter Pan), my fanboy heart went aflutter. Too bad Cheshire Crossing can’t rise above simple fan service to tell an interesting story. It’s not fair to judge this against The Martian considering Cheshire Crossing was written before that debut prose novel; that would be like judging a band based on their demo tapes prior to their initial album.
New Favorites
In addition to reading old standbys each year, I also tend to discover one or two new astonishing new authors. This year was no different.
I already mentioned Blake Crouch and his novels Dark Matter and Recursion. I won’t repeat myself here, just scroll back up to “Science Fiction That Makes You Go Hmm…” I’ll only reiterate how fantastic these books are, and how thrilling it is to read such, uh, thrilling science fiction tethered to “real” science.
The second author that really struck me in 2019 was Jeff Lemire. Technically his Vertigo comic book series Sweet Tooth was my introduction to Lemire back in 2010, but it wasn’t until I read the first two volumes of Gideon Falls that I started to appreciate his writing. The slow reveals and dark parallels of Gideon Falls are pitch perfect and I anticipate reading the rest of the series.
As much as I enjoy Gideon Falls, it was two other Lemire graphic novels that really floored me: Frogcatchers and The Underwater Welder. Ironically, I almost passed on reading each book, which would have been a terrible shame to miss either one. Both books were written and illustrated by Lemire. His rough, sketchy drawings really add a layer to the stories. The raw black and white serves the tone way more than any color could. Each book had sequences that got to me like no other book this year. I almost couldn’t turn to the final page of The Underwater Welder, I was so worried how it would end after I grew to care about Jack so much. That speaks volumes for any book to create that much empathy in its characters. And a sequence of photographs and drawings in Frogcatchers gave me pause to ponder the symbolism as I looked up to watch my own son drawing his own pictures in the chair across from me.
To say much more about the plot of either novel would destroy a lot of the pleasure a new reader would get out of these exquisite graphic novels. Both books made me ponder my mortality and how that will affect my son, along with my father’s mortality and how my relationship with him has changed over the course of my life. Perhaps being a father myself made this book more affecting to me. Maybe it was the time of year when I read The Underwater Welder, with Christmas and my birthday and the end of the year. Or maybe Lemire is just that damn insightful and skilled at crafting a story with weight that also entertains.
Dark Matter, Recursion, Frogcatchers, and The Underwater Welder are all brisk reads. Do yourself a favor in 2020 and read all four of these wonderful novels.
In Conclusion
When I eventually look back at 2019 in the future, what I will remember most are the books that hit me emotionally and the books that made me rethink some aspect of my life. That should probably be obvious, but it’s nice to actually read those types of books.
In 2017, Lost Boy had me pondering the juxtapostion of heroes and villains. In 2018, This Is How It Always Is hit home with some my personal gender bending habits. In 2019, Frogcatchers and The Underwater Welder brought out my sentimental side regarding father/son relationships.
In 2017, the Tao Te Ching crystallized my life philosophy. In 2018, Your Money or Your Life shifted my relationship with money and my work. In 2019, Extreme Ownership forced me to take a hard look in the mirror and accept the responsibility for everything in my life.
I grew to again appreciate the graphic novel medium. I always read a steady stream of graphic novels and comic books, but this year I felt like I dedicated myself to stretching out and trying books I wouldn’t normally gravitate toward. It helps that I can read a graphic novel way faster than a prose one, so it’s not as much of a time sink to risk reading something unknown. The new release section of my library’s web site certainly helped find graphic novels I would not have discovered otherwise, many of which I didn’t even cover in this already long article.
While I renewed my interest in graphic novels, I feel my interest in personal finance is reaching an end. A book like I Will Teach You To Be Rich is entertaining to read since it reminded me so much of Hasan Minhaj but I didn’t glean any new information. I’m by no means done learning how to improve my family’s finances but I don’t need to go seeking new books at this point.
I do still love learning new things, so I will continue to read books from Tom Bilyeu’s reading list and listening to suggestions from Tim Ferriss’ guests.
One realization that really hit me in 2019 was the fact I will never be able to read every book I want to read. As we reduced our possessions prior to moving in the summer, one of the major items we got rid of was books. We went from at least six overflowing bookcases to two nicely filled bookcases. It dawned on me that one reason it’s hard for readers to let go of books, especially unread books, is that it acknowledges our mortality. By shedding books, we are accepting that our time is finite. That makes it paramount to fully embrace the books you do choose to read and not waste your precious time on books that don’t bring you joy or enlightenment.
As Bruce Lee said, “Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless.“
So that was 2019. Here’s to a new set of books and literary adventures in 2020.
And Now the Reading Challenge Lists!
And here’s my complete list of books I read in 2019, in the order I read them. I think listing them in reading order lets you see the ebb and flow of my reading interests as the year progressed. You can see an infographic for my reading challenge results on Goodreads.
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Look Alive Twenty-Five by Janet Evanovich
- Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four Volume 1 by Stan Lee
- Snotgirl, Vol. 2: California Screaming by Bryan Lee O’Malley
- Shipwreck Volume 1 by Warren Ellis
- Isola, Vol. 1 by Brenden Fletcher
- Zenobia by Morten Dürr
- Alita: Battle Angel – Iron City by Pat Cadigan
- The Universe in a Single Atom by Dalai Lama XIV
- Form of a Question by Andrew J. Rostan
- Battle Angel Alita, Vol. 1 by Yukito Kishiro
- Motor Girl Omnibus by Terry Moore
- The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker
- The Complete Peanuts, Vol 21 by Charles M. Schulz
- My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1 by Emil Ferris
- I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha! by Bodhipaksa
- The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins
- You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham
- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
- Elevation by Stephen King
- Tales from the Tao by Solala Towler
- A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
- Mister Miracle by Tom King
- The 5-6-7 Dad by Paul Reddick
- Heathen, Vol. 1 by Natasha Alterici
- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
- Cannabis by Box Brown
- Snagglepuss: Exit Stage Left by Mark Russell
- Meditation Is Not What You Think by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
- House of M by Brian Michael Bendis
- Gideon Falls, Vol. 2 by Jeff Lemire
- Mindset by Carol S. Dweck
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
- Hellboy Omnibus Volume 1 by Mike Mignola
- Farmhand, Vol. 1 by Rob Guillory
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
- Saga, Vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan
- Baltimore, Vol. 1 by Mike Mignola
- Hellboy, Vol. 4 by Mike Mignola
- Every Thing is F*cked by Mark Manson
- Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
- The Girl in Red by Christina Henry
- Bitch Planet, Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
- Cemetery Beach by Warren Ellis
- Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
- Chess for Dummies by James Eade
- Monk! by Youssef Daoudi
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- Grit by Angela Duckworth
- The Immortal Game by David Shenk
- Cheshire Crossing by Andy Weir
- The Tao Speaks by Tsai Chih Chung
- Deadpool Classic Vol. 15 by Duane Swierczynski
- Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia
- Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell
- Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan
- Recursion by Blake Crouch
- Shanghai Red by Christopher Sebela
- A Perfect Union of Contrary Things by Maynard James Keenan
- Dark Ark, Vol. 1 by Cullen Bunn
- Words of Power by Norbert S. Hill Jr.
- Heathen, Vol. 2 by Natasha Alterici
- Nameless by Grant Morrison
- Winning Chess Tactics, revised by Yasser Seirawan
- Principles by Ray Dalio
- The Fisherman by John Langan
- Kim & Kim, Vol. 1 by Magdalene Visaggio
- Harley Quinn by Mariko Tamaki
- I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- The Institute by Stephen King
- Dark Ark, Vol. 2 by Cullen Bunn
- Frogcatchers by Jeff Lemire
- Pyongyang by Guy Delisle
- Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain – Real Pro Wrestling Stories by Jim Cornette
- Pretty Deadly, Vol. 2 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
- Exhalation by Ted Chiang
- Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol. 1 by Alan Moore
- Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol. 2 by Alan Moore
- Embrace Your Weird by Felicia Day
- Twisted Twenty-Six by Janet Evanovich
- Bronze Age Boogie, Volume One by Stuart Moore
- The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
- These Savage Shores by Ram V
- Vagrant Queen Vol. 1 by Magdalene Visaggio
Previous reading challenges:
