After weak 2022 in terms of reading I wanted to push myself to read a bit more in 2023. I usually use goodreads to keep a track of books that I've read and this year I've used their challenge to set a goal of 24 books. This number is pretty ideal for me - high enough so I won't feel like I am avoiding it, low enough so I don't push myself to read more just to "score" more points.

I have read exactly 24 books in 2023 - actually I finished the challenge in mid November and decided to not pick any more books until new year. The idea was to spend the rest of the year on reading programming tutorials, also some papers on distributed systems (I accumulated quite a big backlog of those) and to spend some time playing with local LLMs.

I want to write a short summary of every book I've read but I just noticed that I have almost no memories about some of them except general idea what they were about. This is a lesson for me to write summary/reviews after reading a book (or even while doing it).

Books in 2023

January - March #

  1. Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†

    I had it in my backlog for so long! Overall it was just okay, I wish it had been much better than it was - not really engaging, quite long, left me with ambivalent feelings about it. Initially I was surprised by the ideas presented by Graeber and I have seen claims on HN that Debt consists some misinformations so I wanted to discover what's wrong but somewhere in the middle of the book I lost the interest in the topic.

  2. Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    I liked it - I love the Leviathan Wakes and I hoped that all books from the series will keep the same quality. Abaddon's Gate and Caliban's War are both a bit worse than the 1st book but good enough to keep me interested. I am going to read the next one, but first I will watch TV Series to keep myself immersed in the series (and also to recall the details, I don't remember what it is about at all).

  3. Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    This kind of book is very time-consuming for me (especially considering it's not so long) because I tend to think a lot about similarities I have experienced (and sometimes wasn't aware of them). What I want to say is I love reading books like this but it isn't always so fun - it can be sometimes depressing, sometimes it is eye-opening, but mostly I just nod my head agreeing with the author. Here it was no different, definitely recommend.

  4. Ray Tracing in One Weekend by Peter Shirley β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    Never ever I have written anything related to graphic programming topic. Nor I have read about it. This was short and fun, I was doing exercises in Golang and everything worked though it was kinda slow, maybe I should revisit it and optimize. I'm tempted to read it again and code it in rust but this time try not to stop on this one, but dive into sequels as well.

  5. Recursion by Blake Crouch β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    Crouch has crazy narrative skills, every his book is a page turner and I always read it in two evenings. His ideas are "just" good though, Recursion was crazy fun to read but this isn't world-changing novel.

  6. ZajeΕΊdzimy kobyΕ‚Δ™ historii. Wyznania poobijanego jeΕΊdΕΊca by Karol Modzelewski β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†

  7. Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†β˜†

  8. Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

April - June #

  1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    So so good, even better than Martian. One of the best books this year.

  2. Building Microservices by Sam Newman β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†

    Maybe it was ground-breaking when the idea was first introduced but after I read 100s medium articles about microservices I didn't find a lot of new things there. It was okay, good to organize your thoughts.

July - September #

  1. Diaspora by Greg Egan β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†

    Not going to lie, it was hard to follow and understand. Egan packed millions different ideas into it with solid world-building. The story/narrative was lacking but even considering low rating from me I think it was worth reading.

  2. Neural Networks from Scratch in Python by Harrison Kinsley β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†β˜†

    Picked it after doing some tutorials from Karpathy and actually I am not a fan of code structure there. It helped me to understand few concepts (mainly optimizers) but overall I don't rate it very high.

  3. Exhalation by Ted Chiang β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†

    Nothing to add, just okay, I can't recall single story from the book.

  4. Writing an Interpreter in Go by Thorsten Ball β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    First time reading anything related to interpreter/compilers and it was very easy to follow. I might revisit it next year if I learn rust. It has a sequel book about compilers, right now not a priority for me but definitely on the radar.

  5. Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    Great books about history of semiconductors industry and geopolitic impact behind them. Fascinating that probably the most important technology on earth is both so decentralized across the globe and centralized by few key players.

  6. There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†β˜†

    Found recommendation on twitter, disturbing and interesting ideas packed in chaotic/not-so-good way. It was a bit hard to follow chronology of events.

  7. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    I have a sweet spot for Ishiguro books, they have all this nostalgic and lightly disturbing feeling for me. Klara was no different and as other his books it was also lacking something deeper.

  8. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    I loved it! I read it in like two days and I am planning to read more from Heinlein (especially Luna is a harsh mistress which is planned to have renewed polish edition next year).

  9. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    Not as good as previous one, but still worth-reading. The beginning was rough, but the later the better.

October - December #

  1. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    Overall good, somewhere in the mid I actually started to have problems to understand some concepts. Probably won't look for another physics book.

  2. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†β˜†

    Stories about game-development from backstage perspective. I played few of games described so it was nice to see how some crucial decisions were made. My favourite piece was about Stardew Valley, absolutely crazy what one man can do!

  3. Understanding Distributed Systems: What Every Developer Should Know About Large Distributed Applications by Robert Vitillo β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    I was struggling with another book called Designing Data-Intensive Applications and found some review to give this one a try instead. Definitely more welcoming and shorter introduction to ideas behind distributed systems.

  4. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    I started reading it in may and then parked it for half a year. I couldn't get into it, but on second try in November something clicked. Interesting story told from many perspectives - I wish it wasn't written yet, I believe there will be more facts to come about IRA crimes and a bit disappointed it won't cover them.

  5. I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜†

    I would definitely say that this book isn't something for me before reading it but I am so glad I did. Engaging from the first page, fascinating story of movie child star and her mother.

Next year #

I am not going to set a challenge goal for the next year, but I wish I will read more science-fiction books. I spent my education budget on O'reilly subscription so I will probably also dive into distributed-systems content.