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.

1. The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri de Lubac
2. Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam by Syed Muhammad Naqib Al-Attas
3. The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Allen Gillespie
4. Al-Shama’il Al-Muhammadiyya by Imam Tirmizi
5. Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nick Kristoff
6. The Investigator by John Sandford
7. Righteous Prey by John Sandford
8. The Ranks of Saints in Islam by Imam Suyuti
9. Ocean Prey by John Sandford
10. Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple
11. Sustenance of the Soul by Abu Zayd Al-Balkhi
12. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman McLean
13. Neuromancer by William Gibson
14. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
15. Masked Prey by John Sandford
16. Fifteen Letters: Khamsata ‘Ashara Maktuban by Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani
17. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity by Talal Asad
18. Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan
19. Politics by Aristotle
20. Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories by Herman Melville
21. Notes from Underground & The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky
22. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Khun
23. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
24. The Two Faces of Liberalism by John Gray
25. Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
26. Neon Prey by John Sandford
27. Silverview by John le Carre
28. The Early Hours by Marmaduke Pickthall
29. Desert Encounter by Knud Holmboe
30. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
31. With the Heart in Mind: The Moral & Emotional Intelligence of the Prophet by Mikaeel Ahmed Smith
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Coddling of the American Mind by Johanthan Haidt
34. My Father Left Me Ireland by Michael Brendan Dougherty
35. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
36. Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsey
37. Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe by Abdal Hakim Murad
38. The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman
39. How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
40. In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio by Stephen Frost and Andrew Lo
41. On Writing Well by William Zinsser

Books I read in 2022 but wouldn’t recommend

1. The Kingdom by Jo Nesbo
2. The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
3. The Sixth Man by Andre Iguodala