105 Books to Read in 2015

Happy Birthday to me! I’ve been reading away, but people have asked for a list of the books I plan to read, so heres the list of some of the 105 books I’m reading with a special request on how you can help me get to this AWESOME goal. (Also can you believe it, thats a LA City construction sign that got hacked)

First, I was thinking that its not possible to read 100 books in one year. There is no way a person could read that much, right? Then I read 54 books in one year, and it wasn’t all that bad. It required shifting around the things I’m willing to put time towards, in this instance it meant cutting out the TV time altogether.

I took the dive off that commitment cliff, and am now reading 105 books in 2015. Its insane to look back and consider how I went from never finishing 1 book in a year (but starting many), to doubling the number of books I finish year over year, for the past three years. You can read about this here, here, and here.

Another benefit of my reading has been that its sparked transformative behavior in other people around me. Friends and family members have joined the GoodReads 2015 reading challenge (you can too!). Many are committing to reading 12 books during the year, and I can’t be more excited about this, because according to a recent Pew study fewer and fewer Americans are reading books these days.

So here it is, the reading list, it hasn’t been completely filled out yet, but this is a pretty good build out for the goal (in no particular reading order):

1. Oblivion: Stories, by David Foster Wallace
2. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (JC and ML)
3. Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, by John M. Hobson
4. Theory of the Higher Objectives and Intents of Islamic Law, Imam Al-Shatibi, by Ahmed al-Raysuni
5. The World Until Yesterday: What We Can Learn From Traditional Societies, by Jared Diamond (Joint Chiefs- JC- and Munger- ML)
6. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukerjee
7. All Marketers are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works–and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All, by Seth Godin
8. Islam & the Arab Awakening, by Dr. Tariq Ramadan
9. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull
10. To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, by Daniel H. Pink
11. Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, by Jeremy Schahill
12. Life, Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back, by Douglas Rushkoff
13. The Accidental Millionaire: How to Succeed at Life Without Really Trying, by Gary Fong
14. Boomerang: Travels In a New Third World, by Micheal Lewis
15. My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk
16. Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust, by Richard C. Foltz
17. Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context, by Daniel Bell
18. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties In The Name Of National Security, by David Cole
19. Dying to Win: Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, by Robert Pape
20. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, by Maria Rosa Menocal
21. Something to Tell You: A Novel, by Hanif Quireshi
22. Social Ethics of Islam, by Abdul Malik A. Al-Sayed (out of print)
23. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
24. Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity, by John Gribbin (Munger)
25. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns (JC)
26. Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, by Michio Kaku (JC)
27. The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, by Bakallar Zoltan (JC)
28. Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It, by Richard Clarke (JC)
29. The Billionaire’s Apprentice: The Rise of The Indian-American Elite and The Fall of The Galleon Hedge Fund, by Anita Raghavan
30. Tell it to the Trees, by Anita Rau Badami
31. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, by Stephan Covey
32. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba
33. The Dharma Bums, by Jack Keroac
34. For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge Of Time – A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics, by Walter Lewin
35. American Dreams: Lost & Found, by Studs Terkel
36. The Belly of Paris, by Emile Zola
37. Cities of the Plain: The Border Trilogy, by Cormac McCarthy
38. Muhammad: Man and Prophet, by Adil Salahi
39. Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, by Anthony Townsend
40. The New Arabs, by Juan Cole
41. The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books, by Khalid Aboul Fadel
42. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, by Charles Montgomery
43. American Gods: A Novel, by Neil Giaman
44. American Progressivism: A Reader  by Ronald J. Pestritto
45. Stoicism: Ancient Philosophies, by John Sellars
46. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World, by Lincoln Paine
47. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, by Niall Ferguson
48. Benjamin Franklin: The First American, by Walter Issacson
49. Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Issacson
50. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel
51. The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi: Islamic Thought in Confucian Terms, by Sachiko Murata 
52. The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control, by Walter Mischel
53. Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions, by James Sandos
54. Contest for California: From Spanish Colonialism to American Conquest, by Stephen Hyslop
55. The Black Book: The True Political Philosophy of Malcom X, Edited by Y.N. Kly
56. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, by Mike Davis
57. Frantz Fanon: A Biography, by David Macey
58. Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture, by Justin Mcguirk
59. Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
60. Writings on Essentialism, by Jean-Paul Sartre
61. The Adventures of Amir Hamza, translated by Ghalib Lakhvani
62. Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Princples and Practices, by Peter Drucker
63. Junipero Serra: California’s Founding Father, by Steven Hackel
64. The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA is Remaking Our World from the Internet to Artificial Life, by Micheal Belfiore
65. The Making of Political Identities, edited by Ernesto Laclau
66. White Guys: Studies in Postmodern Domination and Difference, by
67. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, by Giovani Arrighi
68. The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussions, by Meghan Daum
69. Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modular Language, by Uwe Poerksen
70. Alpha Male Syndrome, by Kate Ludeman
71. The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be, by Moises Naim
72. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, by Micheal Kazin
73. Incoherence of the Philosophers, by Imam Abu Muhammad Hamid al Ghazali
74. The Critique of Everyday Life: Volume II, by Henri Lefebvre
75. Iron John: A Book About Men, by Robert Bly
76. The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror, by Arun Kundnani
77. Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis, by Benjamin Kunkel
78. The New Way Of The World: On Neoliberal Society, by Pierre Dardot
79. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, by Gabriella Coleman
80. The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, by
81. Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, by Edmund Fawcett

A Special Note for the rest of the List:

1. You can help me buy this book.
2. As you can imagine a lot of these
3. books aren’t available at the local library.
4. The costs are a bit staggering
5. when you add all of the books up.
6. To help me get to my goal,
7. I took up affiliation with Amazon.
8. For every link to Amazon that results in a purchase,
9. I get a small marketing commission,
10. which I am using to purchase books off of this list.
11. So in essence if you use my Amazon links,
12. and you don’t have to purchase the item linked
13. but do purchase something else,
14. I still get a commission,
15. which still goes toward buying these books.
16. Be a friend,
17. use MY Amazon link to make your purchases!
18. So then I can buy the remaining books for 2015**,
19. and TOGETHER we can accomplish this goal
20. to
21. read
22. One Hundred and Five books
23. in
24. 2015!

**I am preparing my 2016 list, whatever I make over the amount necessary for this year will go toward purchasing books for 2016!