My 2022 Reading List
Since Lex Fridman released his reading list for 2023, almost every one on social media has been talking about the quality of books on his list — one even mentioned that it’s a list for a 17 year old. I thought there were some decent books in there but I probably did expect a few books with more depth. To be fair to Lex he did say he’s read some of them and will be re-reading them. And personally I read a lot of books when I was young and eventually went back to them later on and realized there’s was a lot of nuance that I missed. Anyways, for what it’s worth, this was my reading list from 2022. Overall, I read fewer books in 2022 compared to previous years but some of it is due to the nature of the books I read in 2022. I found a few tough to read (at least for me). Some of these were assigned as part of a couple of book clubs, some were re-reads and some had been one on my to-read list for quite some time.
Some background on why I chose these books. One major theme for me last year was studying modernity, its origins, discontents, how do we reconcile living in a liberal society when one has a distintly different world view.
I also enjoy fiction — My aim is to read at least one Hugo Award Winner, one Pulitzer winner and one Booker prize winner every year. I did the first two and missed out on the Booker award (I was supposed to read Blind Assassin or Amsterdam). I also try and read a classic each year, I ended up rereading Sense & Sensibility and read Brothers Karamazov for the first time.
In popular fiction you’ll find a lot of John Sandford. Prey series is a guilty pleasure, when I read a lot of dense books, sometimes I have the urge to go through an easy to read fiction within a couple of days to help myself unwind. I missed out on Archer this year, so I’m hoping to catch up on William Warrick novels in 2023.
I do plan on writing a short blurb for all these books some time in the future as well as books I plan to read in 2023. But for now here’s the complete list.
- The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri de Lubac
- Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam by Syed Muhammad Naqib Al-Attas
- The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Allen Gillespie
- Al-Shama’il Al-Muhammadiyya by Imam Tirmizi
- Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nick Kristoff
- The Investigator by John Sandford
- Righteous Prey by John Sandford
- The Ranks of Saints in Islam by Imam Suyuti
- Ocean Prey by John Sandford
- Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple
- Sustenance of the Soul by Abu Zayd Al-Balkhi
- A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman McLean
- Neuromancer by William Gibson
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Masked Prey by John Sandford
- Fifteen Letters: Khamsata ‘Ashara Maktuban by Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani
- Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity by Talal Asad
- Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan
- Politics by Aristotle
- Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories by Herman Melville
- Notes from Underground & The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Khun
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- The Two Faces of Liberalism by John Gray
- Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
- Neon Prey by John Sandford
- Silverview by John le Carre
- The Early Hours by Marmaduke Pickthall
- Desert Encounter by Knud Holmboe
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
- With the Heart in Mind: The Moral & Emotional Intelligence of the Prophet by Mikaeel Ahmed Smith
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- The Coddling of the American Mind by Johanthan Haidt
- My Father Left Me Ireland by Michael Brendan Dougherty
- Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
- Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsey
- Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe by Abdal Hakim Murad
- The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman
- How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
- In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio by Stephen Frost and Andrew Lo
- On Writing Well by William Zinsser
Books I read in 2022 but wouldn’t recommend
- The Kingdom by Jo Nesbo
- The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
- The Sixth Man by Andre Iguodala
