This year didn’t bring out any consistent themes in the books I read. I can be all over the place, from hedge fund intrigue (Black Edge) to womanist poetry (Milk and Honey) , but most of my consumption was non-fiction and I tended to use fiction as an escape between non-fiction books.
How do I make time to read? I just do it. I read before bed, in the bathroom, on the train, in the kitchen while I’m cooking. This year, I read a lot on planes and used the Kindle iPad app for most of it, but I still love public libraries and check out both physical and digital books from the San Francisco Public Library. Did you know that you can check out ebooks from most public libraries? So clutch.
As a result of a lot of long plane rides, I read a total of 21 books in 2017.
Nonfiction/Business/Biography
- Shoe Dog (Phil Knight)
- Black Edge (Sheelah Kolhatkar)
- The Friendly Orange Glow (Brian Dear)
- Hunger: A Memoir of My Body (Roxane Gay)
- Slouching Toward Bethlehem (Joan Didion)
- Hillbilly Elegy (J.D. Vance)
- Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in 15 Suggestions (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
- Tools of Titans (Tim Ferriss)
- Power House CAA (James Andrew Miller)
- eBoys (Randall E. Stross)
- Walking with the Muses (Pat Cleveland)
Poetry
- Love Poems (Nikki Giovanni)
- The Essential Rumi (Rumi)
- Milk and Honey (Rupi Kaur)
- Love Poems (Pablo Neruda)
Fiction
- Rich People Problems (Kevin Kwan)
- Audition (Ryu Murakami)
- The Girl With All the Gifts (M.R. Carey)
- Dawn: The Xenogenesis Trilogy Book 1 (Octavia Butler)
- The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote)
I’ve always been a voracious reader, so 21 or so books over 12 months is nothing.
But when it comes to writing, I do everything I tell other people not to do. I get caught up in whether what I’m writing is important enough, good enough, perfect enough.
Perfect is the enemy of published.
This year, I’m determined to get into a consistent writing practice. For me, consistent means at least bi-weekly. I don’t think I have the dedication to ever be a daily blogger like Fred Wilson, but something more than monthly feels about right. Some of it will be excellent, some of it will be good, and some of it will be a little meh. The point isn’t for it all to be great, but to get my thoughts and highly opinionated opinions out of the 1:1 coffee meeting and out into the world.
So if you have any tips on sticking to a writing schedule, send them my way. Encouragement in the form of comments is always welcome.
