Every Year I publish a list of the books that I read throughout the year. Last year I was disheartened by the state of the digital reading industry (is that even something?), and I think it had a real effect on how and what I read this year. I split the year reading technical books, books on dharma, and fiction, but didn’t necessarily find standout works to excite me as I have in past years. I reintroduced the Kindle hardware to my reading practice, having spent the previous year reading exclusively on my phone, which enhanced the emotional aspect of reading, but actually caused me to read less. As it turns out, the best book is the one you have with you. Nonetheless I plan to keep reading on the Kindle. My enthusiasm for eInk as a technology keeps me believing in the product, despite the fact that the digital reading landscape is less competitive now than it was five years ago. I’m still looking for the type of product or service to take the place of Readmill, or to even convince me in any way that there are people outside Amazon and Kobo that still believe that reading technology has a place in the world. I’ve highlighted the books that struck a chord with me, and already have a stack of (ePub) books waiting for me in 2017.
- City: Rediscovering the Centre by William H. Whyte (1988)
- Overqualifieder by Joey Comeau (2015)
- HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith (2012)
- Get Ready for CSS Grid Layout by Rachel Andrew (2015)
- CSS3 for Web Designers by Dan Cederholm (2012)
- Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte (2012)
- Responsible Responsive Design by Scott Jehl (2013)
- Sass for Web Designers by Dan Cederholm (2013)
- Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (1999)
- The Home Barista by Simone Egger and Ruby Ashby Orr (2015)
- Pricing Design by Dan Mall (2016)
- The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane (2013)
- Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski (2011)
- Designing for Emotion by Aaron Walter (2013)
- Just Enough Research by Erika Hall (2014)
- Git for Humans by David Demaree (2016)
- Bed by Tao Lin (2009)
- Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino (1985)
- The Shape of Design by Frank Chimero (2011)
- Congratulations, By The Way by George Saunders (2013)
- Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt (1963)
- The Manual — Volume 01 (2011)
- The Manual — Volume 02 (2012)
- The Manual — Volume 03 (2012)
- Responsive Branding: Why Agility Beats Structure in a Multichannel World by Lynda Decker (2016)
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (2006)
- Emperor of the Eight Islands — the Tale of Shikanoko Book 1 by Lian Hearn (2016)
- Normal: Book 1 by Warren Ellis (2016)
- Normal: Book 2 by Warren Ellis (2016)
- Normal: Book 3 by Warren Ellis (2016)
- Normal: Book 4 by Warren Ellis (2016)
- Autumn Princess, Dragon Child – The Tale of Shikanoko Book 2 by Lian Hearn (2016)
- Hagakure: Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1906)
- The Book of Five Rings by Shinmen Musashi (1645)
- Anti-Object by Kengo Kuma (2014)
- An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki (1934)
- Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray (2016)
- The Four Dimensional Human by Laurence Scott (2015)
- Manual of Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki (1934)