2022 Reading List for the Most Part

2022 started well, reading-wise until I was notified mid-March that I would need to move because the landlord’s children were selling the house after their parents passed away. So with the need to quickly move after 19.5 years in my place, I had to stop reading for a month and a half or two.

That’s a whole other story for a different blog post about the need to move.

My book list is missing a few books I read before the move since I hadn’t written them down. I had placed the books in a separate pile but have yet to find them since they are likely still in a box I have not unpacked.

Total Books Read

I finished the year strong in December and managed to read 21 books.

The list includes a few digital JavaScript books I read with my remote JavaScript book club.

My Yearly Plan

Each year I typically hope to read a book a week and tend to get close by finishing the year strong, starting around Thanksgiving. So again, this year, the plan is to read a book every week as in previous years, but it will likely be a book every two weeks on average.

NOTE – I’m typically reading a half dozen or more books at any one time. Sometimes I get what I need out of a book after only reading the first part, or I realize the book’s not for me, so I stop, or there is another book I’m more interested to read/finishing at the time.

Reading more than a book at a time allows me to switch around depending on my mood, if I need some light reading, or if I have time to read through something a bit denser that needs more of my attention.

My List of Books for 2022

  • Stay Curious – How We Created a World Class Event in a Cowshed – The Do Lectures the First 10 Years – Do Lectures
  • Playing with FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early): How Far Would You Go for Financial Freedom? – Scott Rieckens
  • The Side Project Report – Observation and Enquiry – Do Lectures
  • The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do (A No F*cks Given Guide) – Sarah Knight
  • This Book Will Teach You How to Write Better – This Book is: Short, Effective, and Sort of Offensive. but You Will Write Better after Reading It. – Neville Medhora
  • Omnivore’s Dilemma – A Natural History of Four Meals – Michael Pollan
  • A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – How I Learned to Live a Better Story – Donald Miller
  • Let’s Make Ramen! – A Comic Book Cookbook – Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan
  • Let’s Make Dumplings! – A Comic Book Cookbook – Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan
  • Cook Korean – A Comic Book with Recipes – Robin Ha
  • The Creative Habit – Learn It and Use It for Life – Twyla Tharp
  • A Year in Tokyo – an Illustrated Guide and Memoir of 13 Magical Months Spent Exploring the City of Ginkgo Leaves – Christy Anne Jones
  • In Defense of Food – An Eater’s Manifesto – Michael Pollan
  • What Did You Get Me? Puzzling out a Present on a Walk through the Park – Matthew Oliphant
  • The Independent Farmstead – Growing Soil, Biodiversity, and Nutrient-Dense Food with Grassfed Animals and Intensive Pasture Management – Shawn and Beth Dougherty
  • The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason
  • Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill

Homesteading/Farming Book Club

  • The Rooted Life: Cultivating Health and Wholeness Through Growing Your Own Food – Justin Rhodes
  •  Polyface Micro: Success with Livestock on a Homestead Scale – Joel Salatin

Remote JavaScript Book Club

  • Eloquent JavaScript, 3rd Edition: A Modern Introduction to Programming – Marijn Haverbeke
  • Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Guide

NOTE – I had planned to put them in the order I read them, but with the move, I’m still missing a few.

I’m Learning More Through YouTube

I continued watching more YouTube to learn about cooking, starting a small farm, shooting videos, storytelling, starting a YouTube channel, etc.

More Reading in 2023

Here to more reading in 2023 than in 2022.

Please comment if you read any of these books and what you thought of them, along with any suggestions.

Extra Learning

With having or, more importantly, making time during the pandemic, I decided to use my time to take some classes and learn more. It helped getting rid of my cable TV in the fall of 2019.

Many Different Classes

I attended a few Creative Mornings Field Trips. They were about drawing and art, along with two different ones on making tortillas (corn and wheat). Another one had to do with creative writing.

Other classes were Marcy’s Sutton’s “Front-End Accessibility Masterclass.” It was a great class on how to make accessible HTML and CSS along with improving it with JavaScript when building websites and applications.

Food Related Classes and Books

Another event about the food I enjoyed in 2020 was the 2020 Fall Southern Foodways Symposium: Future of the South. That ran on Saturdays in October (3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th) from 9:00 SM to noon central.

I have been learning about growing my own food, small scale farming, etc. I even purchased a fermenting class from a YouTube homesteaders channel I watch. It was a great class, and I’m looking forward to making more of my own ferments. I did a few ferments before I took the classes, but they didn’t turn out as well as I expected.

I’m looking forward to all the fresh veggies from the farmer’s market in the spring and during the summer too.

I read two books on fermenting too.

  • The Fermented Man – A year on the Front Lines of a Food Revolution by Derek Dellinger
  • The Noma Guide to Fermentation: Including Koji, Kombuchas, Shoyus, Misos, Vinegars, Garums, Lacto-ferments, and Black Fruits and Vegetables by Rene Redzepi and David Zilber
  • Do Preserve – Make Your own Jams, Chutneys, Pickles, and Cordials by Anja Dunk, Jen Goss, and Mimi Beaven

I even spent time learning about food, more specifically beans.

  • The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide by Steve Sando and Julia Newberry
  • Cool Beans – The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World’s Most Versatile Plant-based Protein with 125 Recipes by Joe Yonan

Reading Creative and Comic Related Books

I have been reading many creative books, with many of them being graphic novels on making comics. Here are a few of those books.

  • Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine? – The Art f Making Zines and Mini-comics by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson
  • Elements of Fire – A Comic Anthology of Color! edited by Taneka Stotts
  • Cartooning – Philosophy, and Practice by Ivan Brunetti
  • Glenn Ganges in The River at Night by Kevin Huizenga
  • Drawing Book of Faces by Ed Emberley

One Odd Book

I even read a book on bee-keeping, which will help me when I get my own plot of land to grow food.

  • Do Bee-keeping – The Secret to Happy Honeybees by Orren Fox

Here’s to More Diverse Learning

So as you can see, since the beginning of 2020 and into 2021, I have been all over the place attempting to learn new things.

Read More Books

The year started out well reading-wise. I was reading a book about every five days or so on average; then, when the pandemic hit, and it slowed up a lot.

Total Books Read

I finished the year strong in December and managed to read 23 books.

Oops, I forgot about a few digital JavaScript books I read with a remote JavaScript book club.

So I ended up with 26 books. There might be others I missed too.

My Plan

I had hoped to read a book a week as my plan, but other things happened, and I didn’t. No, worries since it’s the most books I read in a read ever besides comic books as a kid.

Book Length in Pages

Some books were longer than others and others not so much. A bunch were between 120 and 150 pages others were over 450+ pages.

More YouTube Learning

I started watching more YouTube to learn about different ways to cook, start a small farm, ideas for a tiny house, etc. More on that in another post.

Below is the list of books I read. I had planned to put them in the order I read them, but I managed to knock over the two piles. So they got all mixed up.

List of Books

  • The Tiny MBA – 100 Very Short Lessons about the Long Game of Business by Alex Hillman.
  • Do Agile – Future Proof Your Mindset. Stay Grounded by Tim Drake.
  • How to Listen to Jazz by Ted Gioia
  • Twenty Bits I Learned about Design, Business, and Community by Dan Cedarholm
  • Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine? – The Art f Making Zines and Mini-comics by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson
  • The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide by Steve Sando and Julia Newberry
  • Elements of Fire – A Comic Anthology of Color! edited by Taneka Stotts
  • Do Bee-keeping – The Secret to Happy Honeybees by Orren Fox
  • Do Disrupt – Change the Status Quo. Or Become it. by Mark Shayler
  • Cool Beans – The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World’s Most Versatile Plant-based Protein with 125 Recipes by Joe Yonan
  • Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Saly
  • Do Preserve  – Make Your own Jams, Chutneys, Pickles, and Cordials by Anja Dunk, Jen Goss, and Mimi Beaven
  • Cartooning – Philosophy, and Practice by Ivan Brunetti
  • Do Listen – Understand What’s Really Being said. Find a New Way Forward. by Bobette Buster
  • Oishinbo – A la Carte – Ramen and Gyoza story by Tetsu Kariya and Art by Akira Hanasaki
  • Do Story – How to Tell Your Story, so the World Listens. by Bobette Buster
  • Form Design Patterns – A Practical Guide to Designing and Coding simple and Inclusive Forms for the Web by Adam Silver
  • Inclusive Design Patterns – Coding Accessibility Into Web Design by Heydon Pickering
  • The Fermented Man – A year on the Front Lines of a Food Revolution by Derek Dellinger
  • The Noma Guide to Fermentation: Including Koji, Kombuchas, Shoyus, Misos, Vinegars, Garums, Lacto-ferments, and Black Fruits and Vegetables by Rene Redzepi and David Zilber
  • Glenn Ganges in The River at Night by Kevin Huizenga
  • The Public Library – A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson
  • Drawing Book of Faces by Ed Emberley
  • The “You Don’t Know JavaScript Yet” series books by Kyle Simpson
    • Get Started – 2nd Edition
    • Scope and Closures – 2nd Edition
    • this and Object Prototypes – 1st Edition

I will do a more in-depth write up of the ones I like the best in the future.

More Reading in 2021

Here to as much reading in 2021 as in 2020 and more if possible.

Please leave a comment if you read any of these books and what you thought of them.