Here is the list of books I’ve read in 2019, or almost done reading. I’m 100% done with books 4 and on; except for The Guns of August which was too slow and try for me and probably won’t finish it. My “Rating” below is how much I enjoyed the book, most of which were listen do via Audible. I think this is all 21 books I read this year, I normally have many books going at once and have started a few others but not more than ¼ into them so didn’t list them here.

1. Factfulness – Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think – 60% done
   • By: Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling | Rating: 4.0
   • Goes into how much better off the world really is and how humans default to a negative view on things. This is on Bill Gates’ books he expects employees to read at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
2. The Red Web – The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries – 80% done
   • By Andrei Soldatov | Rating 4.0 | Book about how Russia has controlled the spread of information and monitored it since the very first telephones and even before then. Book covers up to around 2013.
3. Timeline – 75% done
   • By Michael Crichton | Rating 4.0 | Fun read, about basically time travel back to the middle ages
4. How to Change Your Mind – What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
   • By: Michael Pollan | Rating: 4.5
   • Great book for those interested in or experienced with psychedelics! I’ll leave it at that 😊
5. Buddhism Plain and Simple – The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day
   • By Steve Hagen | Rating: 4.5
   • Straight forward book on a bit of the history of Buddhism, but mainly on the basics of the practice. It really resonated for me, about being present and mindful and the eight-fold path: Right view, Right intention, Right speech, Right action, Right livelihood, Right effort, Right mindfulness, & Right meditation/concentration.
6. Permanent Record
   • By: Edward Snowden | Rating: 4.5
   • Must read for everyone! There was nothing shocking in this book for me, I knew the CIA was copying all data on the Internet back in the late 90s. I’ve been a building with a dark ops floor, where all the Internet connections from Europe came into.
7. The Righteous Mind – Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
   • By: Jonathan Haidt | Rating: 4.0 – Was a dry read\listen, but very meaningful topic
   • Eye opening book that goes into how us humans are born wired differently across the conservative to liberal spectrum. The last chapter goes into things we can do to bridge the gap. My key take-away we humans have six key moral found pillars: 1) Care/harm, 2) Fairness/cheating, 3) Loyalty/betrayal, 4) Authority/subversion, 5) Sanctity/degradation, and 6) Liberty/oppression. Good article on this here. Summary is that liberals have much stronger Care & Fairness values then conservatives. Conservatives then have much stronger Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity pillars. So this is what leads to our strong disconnect. Check out https://www.yourmorals.org/ for lots more info, studies, and surveys on this. I plan on re-reading the last chapter again soon!
8. Tiamat’s Wrath – The Expanse, Book 8
   • By James S. A. Corey | Rating: 4.0 – Very enjoyable sci-fi read, all eight of these books are a most for any sci-fi fan. Should read them before watching the Amazon Expanse series, which closely followed book 1 = season 1, etc.
9. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye – A Lisbeth Salander Novel, Continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, Book 5
   • By: David Lagercrantz | Rating: 3.5 – 1^st three, by Stieg Larsson are MUCH better. The way Larsson talked about hacking was much more realistic and enjoyed his books story flow much more, sadly he died after the 3^rd book came out.
10. Mustaine – A Heavy Metal Memoir
    • By: Dave Mustaine, Joe Layden | Rating: 4.0
    • Very enjoyable for metal head of the 80s who saw Megadeth four times and Metallica 15 so far!
11. Slaughterhouse-Five
    • By: Kurt Vonnegut | Rating: 3.0 – Classic I know, which I neve read before, but didn’t really enjoy it much
12. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
    • By: Benjamin Franklin | Rating: 3.5 | Interesting learning about this found father
13. Magnetic – Cultivate Confidence, Become Rejection-Proof and Naturally Attract the Women You Desire
    • By: Tripp Kramer | Rating: 4.0 – Has lots of tips to get over hang-ups that prevent you from connecting with women, like starting a conversation with a women you don’t know. Plan on reading this again and working on some of the items in
14. Persepolis Rising – The Expanse, Book 7
15. Babylon’s Ashes – The Expanse, Book 6
16. The Handmaid’s Tale: Special Edition
    • By: Margaret Atwood | Rating: 3.5 – Disturbing read about a dystopia future, after reading it I decided not to watch the TV series… But I do love Claire Danes, who reads this book, so that might change 😊
17. Nemesis Games – The Expanse, Book 5
18. The Girl in the Spider’s Web – A Lisbeth Salander Novel, Continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, Book 4
    • By: David Lagercrantz | Rating: 4.0 – 1^st three, by Stieg Larsson are MUCH better
19. The Guns of August – Book on WW1
    • By: Barbara W. Tuchman | Rating: 3.0 – It’s a slow moving and dry book, at 19 hours I got about 13 hours in but haven’t picked it back up since Jan 2019
20. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis – The Vampire Chronicles, book 12
    • By: Anne Rice | Rating: 4.0 – Another fun read, but pretty far out there and not dark, which I prefer
21. The Right Stuff
    • By: Tom Wolfe | Rating: 4.5 – Enjoyable and historical read, that focusing on the lives of the Mercury astronauts.