Books I've read

Here are the books I’ve read in the past few years (I can’t remember anything before 2016 or so), listed in the order I read them.

Math textbooks are only listed if I read them cover to cover. This doesn’t necessarily mean I understood them fully, but it is useful to retain pointers (in the computer-science sense) for later.

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2017

  1. Lingo (2014), Gaston Dorren
  2. The Girl on the Train (2015), Paula Hawkins
  3. The Power of Babel (2001), John McWhorter
  4. American Gods (2001), Neil Gaiman
  5. Stardust (1999), Neil Gaiman
  6. Neverwhere (1996), Neil Gaiman
  7. Good Omens (1990), Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  8. Never Let Me Go (2005), Kazuo Ishiguro

2018

  1. On the Road (1957), Jack Kerouac
  2. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Douglas Hofstadter
  3. Flowers for Algernon (1966), Daniel Keyes
  4. The Language Instinct (1994), Steven Pinker
  5. Concepts of Modern Mathematics (1975), Ian Stewart
  6. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), Edwin A. Abbott
  7. Geometry, Relativity, and the Fourth Dimension (1977), Rudolf v. B. Rucker
  8. Introduction to Analysis (1968), Maxwell Rosenlicht

2019

  1. Introduction to Graph Theory (1993), Richard J. Trudeau
  2. The Metamorphosis (1915), Franz Kafka
  3. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), Richard Feynman
  4. Introduction to the Theory of Computation (1997), Michael Sipser
  5. The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013), Neil Gaiman
  6. Fermat’s Last Theorem (1997), Simon Singh
  7. The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1: Fundamental Algorithms (1968), Donald Knuth
  8. The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 2: Seminumerical Algorithms (1969), Donald Knuth
  9. An Abundance of Katherines (2006), John Green
  10. The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 3: Sorting and Searching (1973), Donald Knuth

2020

  1. The Old Man and the Sea (1952), Ernest Hemingway
  2. Anansi Boys (2005), Neil Gaiman
  3. Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), Jared Diamond
  4. Surreal Numbers (1974), Donald Knuth
  5. The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 4A: Combinatorial Algorithms (2011), Donald Knuth
  6. Additive Combinatorics (2006), Terence Tao and Van H. Vu

2021

  1. Number Theory (1971), George E. Andrews
  2. Catch-22 (1961), Joseph Heller
  3. Siddhartha (1922), Hermann Hesse
  4. Enumerative Combinatorics, Vol. 1 (1986), Richard P. Stanley
  5. In Our Time (1925) and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936), Ernest Hemingway
  6. Breakfast of Champions (1973), Kurt Vonnegut
  7. Dancing Girls and Other Stories (1977), 1982 revision, Margaret Atwood
  8. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Ernest Hemingway
  9. Educated (2018), Tara Westover
  10. One Job Town (2018), Steven High
  11. Cannery Row (1945), John Steinbeck
  12. The Moon is Down (1942), John Steinbeck
  13. Of Mice and Men (1937), John Steinbeck
  14. A Course in Arithmetic (1973), Jean-Pierre Serre

2022

  1. The Nick Adams Stories (1972), Ernest Hemingway
  2. A History of Modern Singapore, 1819–2005 (2009), Constance Mary Turnbull
  3. The Prodigy (1906), Hermann Hesse
  4. The Mathematical Magpie (1962), Clifton Fadiman
  5. Arabian Nights (1885), 1938 abridged version, translated by Richard Burton
  6. Mother Night (1962), Kurt Vonnegut
  7. The Sirens of Titan (1959), Kurt Vonnegut
  8. Heart of Darkness and Other Tales (1899), Joseph Conrad
  9. Nanjing 1937 (1996), Ye Zhaoyan
  10. Shovelling Trouble (1973), Mordecai Richler
  11. Six Tales of the Jazz Age and Other Stories (1966), Francis Scott Fitzgerald
  12. Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), Alice Munro
  13. The Dance is One (1973), Francis Reginald Scott
  14. Wilderness Tips (1991), Margaret Atwood
  15. Dear Life (2012), Alice Munro
  16. Vi (2016), Kim Thúy [French]
  17. How to Pronounce Knife (2020), Souvankham Thammavongsa
  18. Glorious Frazzled Beings (2021), Angélique Lalonde
  19. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Kurt Vonnegut
  20. Narziss and Goldmund (1930), Hermann Hesse
  21. Runaway (2004), Alice Munro
  22. Beast at Every Threshold (2022), Natalie Wee
  23. Crush (2005), Richard Siken
  24. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), Stephen Leacock
  25. Lives of Girls and Women (1971), Alice Munro
  26. The Whitsun Weddings (1964), Philip Larkin
  27. The Street (1969), Mordecai Richler
  28. Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories (1988), Raymond Carver
  29. Alexandre Chenevert (1954), Gabrielle Roy [French]
  30. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (1865, 1871), Lewis Carroll
  31. The Love of a Good Woman (1998), Alice Munro
  32. Simple Recipes (2001), Madeleine Thien
  33. Funicular Volume 2, Issue 2 (2020), eds. Jeremy Bibaud and Jason Lee Norman
  34. A Farewell to Arms (1929), Ernest Hemingway
  35. Favole al telefono (1962), Gianni Rodari [Italian]
  36. The Picture of Dorian Gray and other Writings (collected 1982), Oscar Wilde
  37. The Golden Apples (1949), Eudora Welty
  38. Funicular Volume 3, Issue 1 (2021), eds. Jeremy Bibaud and Jason Lee Norman
  39. Demian (1919), Hermann Hesse
  40. The Heart of a Dog (1925), Mikhail Bulgakov
  41. Mrs Dalloway (1925), Virginia Woolf
  42. The Short Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction, 4th ed. (1994), Ann Charters
  43. Piranesi (2020), Susanna Clarke
  44. Fathers and Sons (1862), Ivan Turgenev
  45. Beowulf (8th century), unknown, translation by Seamus Heaney (2000)
  46. My Financial Career and Other Follies (collected 1993), Stephen Leacock
  47. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Harper Lee
  48. Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontë
  49. Our Spoons Came From Woolworths (1950), Barbara Comyns
  50. Marcus Aurelius and His Times (collected 1945), Marcus Aurelius et al.
  51. Here the Dark (2020), David Bergen
  52. Men Without Women (1927), Ernest Hemingway
  53. The Prophet (1923), Kahlil Gibran
  54. The Invention of Yesterday (2019), Tamim Ansary
  55. Beautiful World, Where Are You? (2021), Sally Rooney
  56. Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Thomas Hardy
  57. The Sun Also Rises (1926), Ernest Hemingway
  58. We Were Dreamers (2022), Simu Liu
  59. The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories (1938), Sinclair Ross
  60. Burning Questions (2022), Margaret Atwood
  61. Shape (2021), Jordan Ellenberg
  62. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Maya Angelou
  63. L’Étranger (1942), Albert Camus [French]
  64. Little Women (1868), Louisa May Alcott
  65. Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1974), Alice Munro
  66. Dubliners (1914), James Joyce
  67. Ethan Frome (1911), Edith Wharton
  68. Bluebeard’s Egg (1983), Margaret Atwood
  69. The Journey to the East (1932), Hermann Hesse
  70. Cat’s Cradle (1963), Kurt Vonnegut
  71. Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore (1978), Catherine Lim
  72. Bonheur d’occasion (1945), Gabrielle Roy [French]

2023

  1. Bunny (2019), Mona Awad
  2. Malay Sketches (2012), Alfian Sa’at
  3. St. Urbain’s Horseman (1971), Mordecai Richler
  4. The Pearl (1947), John Steinbeck
  5. Complex Variables (1972), Francis Flanigan
  6. Jacob’s Room (1922), Virginia Woolf
  7. As I Lay Dying (1930), William Faulkner
  8. A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man (1916), James Joyce
  9. To Have and Have Not (1937), Ernest Hemingway
  10. Frankenstein (1818), Mary Shelley
  11. The Queen of Spades and Other Stories (1834), Alexander Pushkin
  12. The Juniper Tree (1985), Barbara Comyns
  13. Crime and Punishment (1866), Fyodor Dostoevsky
  14. The Burnout Society (2010), Byung-Chul Han
  15. Ces enfants de ma vie (1977), Gabrielle Roy [French]
  16. The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
  17. White Nights and Bobok (1848, 1873), Fyodor Dostoevsky
  18. The Epic of Gilgamesh, translation by Nancy Sandars (1972)
  19. The Housing Monster (2011), prole.info
  20. Solaris (1961), Stanisław Lem
  21. Ghost Forest (2021), Pik-Shuen Fung
  22. First Person Singular (2020), Haruki Murakami
  23. The Moons of Jupiter (1982), Alice Munro
  24. Stone Mattress (2014), Margaret Atwood
  25. May (1836), Karel Hynek Mácha
  26. Du côté de chez Swann (1913), Marcel Proust [French]
  27. Strange News from Another Star (1919), Hermann Hesse
  28. The Master and Margarita (1966), Mikhail Bulgakov
  29. My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), Ottessa Moshfegh
  30. To the Lighthouse (1927), Virginia Woolf
  31. El camino familiar del pez combativo (1992), Pierre Alferi [Spanish, French]
  32. Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century (2022), Kim Fu
  33. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), John Steinbeck
  34. Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), Hubert Selby Jr.
  35. The Waves (1931), Virginia Woolf
  36. Unsaid: An Asian Anthology (2022), ed. Anitha Devi Pillai
  37. The Torrents of Spring (1926), Ernest Hemingway
  38. Oryx and Crake (2003), Margaret Atwood
  39. The Art of Love (2), Ovid
  40. Magister Ludi (1943), Hermann Hesse
  41. Bad Cree (2023), Jessica Johns
  42. Lieutenant Kurosawa’s Errand Boy (2017), Warran Kalasegaran
  43. Letters to a Young Poet (1902–1908), Rainer Maria Rilke
  44. Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? (2023), Chris Oliveros
  45. Our Lady of Mile End (2023), Sarah Gilbert
  46. Capitalist Realism (2009), Mark Fisher
  47. All About Love (2000), bell hooks
  48. Interpreter of Maladies (1999), Jhumpa Lahiri
  49. The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (collected 1948), Rainer Maria Rilke
  50. The Agony of Eros (2012), Byung-Chul Han
  51. Warlight (2018), Michael Ondaatje
  52. The Vet’s Daughter (1959), Barbara Comyns
  53. Sweet Thursday (1954), John Steinbeck

2024

  1. Beautiful Losers (1966), Leonard Cohen
  2. Steppenwolf (1927), Hermann Hesse
  3. Silas Marner (1861), George Eliot
  4. Ice (1967), Anna Kavan
  5. The Compleat Angler (1653, 5th ed. 1676), Izaak Walton
  6. La chute (1956), Albert Camus [French]
  7. Worn: A People’s History of Clothing (2022), Sofi Thanhauser
  8. Silver Repetition (2024), Lily Wang
  9. Psychopolitics (2014), Byung-Chul Han
  10. Middlemarch (1872), George Eliot
  11. Open Secrets (1994), Alice Munro
  12. Moral Disorder (2006), Margaret Atwood
  13. Everything that Rises Must Converge (1965), Flannery O’Connor
  14. The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War (1969), Ernest Hemingway
  15. The Paris Review, Issue 247 (2024), ed. Emily Stokes
  16. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001), Alice Munro
  17. The Namesake (2003), Jhumpa Lahiri
  18. Negotiating with the Dead (2002), Margaret Atwood
  19. The Art of Repair (2021), Molly Martin
  20. La belle bête (1959), Marie-Claire Blais [French]
  21. Rosshalde (1914), Hermann Hesse
  22. The Long Valley (1938), John Steinbeck
  23. The Whole Animal (2023), Corinna Chong
  24. Surfacing (1972), Margaret Atwood
  25. Jude the Obscure (1895), Thomas Hardy
  26. Friend of My Youth (1990), Alice Munro
  27. The Conquest of Happiness (1930), Bertrand Russell
  28. Old Babes in the Wood (2023), Margaret Atwood
  29. Down Below (1944), Leonora Carrington
  30. The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Fyodor Dostoevsky
  31. The Summer Book (1972), Tove Jansson
  32. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (2010), Satoshi Yagisawa
  33. Anne of Green Gables (1908), Lucy Maud Montgomery
  34. Tortilla Flat (1935), John Steinbeck
  35. Best Canadian Stories 2025 (2024), ed. Stephen Beattie
  36. The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), Joan Didion
  37. Unaccustomed Earth (2008), Jhumpa Lahiri
  38. I Ate Tiong Bahru (2013), Stephen Black
  39. The Cyberiad (1965), Stanisław Lem
  40. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Thomas Hardy
  41. Normal People (2018), Sally Rooney
  42. The Disappearance of Rituals (2019), Byung-Chul Han
  43. Rue Deschambault (1955), Gabrielle Roy [French]
  44. Running in the Family (1982), Michael Ondaatje