Feature Image Credit - Image by Sam Greenhalgh

SmartCuts was the book that got me interested in reading back in 2015. I never read a single self-development book. Then I came to read the Slight Edge not long after and decided to make a reading a habit to replace my existing habit (reading manga) to apply what I learned from Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit.

After a year of reading only 10 pages a day every day for a year, reading became sort of a new habit.

I read 90+ books last year alone (Click "Tracking" menu, which takes you to Google Sheet. Then click on "Books I read in 2016" worksheet.)

I decided to post a blog to set my goal in stone by making it public.

Here are the 40 books I will read this year.

Books are listed in no particular order. I usually read whatever I feel like reading at the moment.

Fiction

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1. Stories of Your LIfe by Ted Chang - The movie, Arrival, is based on one of the stories in this book. I haven't watched the movie but I'd like to read the book first.
2. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - Bill Gates wrote a review so I was interested.

Programming

There are only 4 books for programming because I started learning most of new materials from online contents (PluralSight, Udemy, blogs, magazines, or articles).

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1. Cracking the Coding Interview (6th Edition) by Gayle Laakmann McDowell - To polish algorithms and data structure skills
2. Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres
3. Kanban in Action by Marcus Hammarberg and Joakim Sunden - Interested after using Trello.
4. Head First Design Patterns by Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra, Elisabeth Robson - read the beginning a few times but couldn't finish it. This time, I am reading to the end.

Non-Fiction

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1. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson - This is the book where I got the blog name from. Reading for the second time.
2. The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon.
3. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday - I don't know who I heard about this book from...
4. Sorted by Gillian Perkins - Another book on productivity
5. Disrupt Yourself by Whitney L. Johnson - Planning for the future
6. The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen - To learn what I can do to improve the company I work for.
7. Energy - Myths and Realities by Vaclav Smil - Something I've never read about.
8. The Vital Question by Nick Lane - Evolution theory explained in simple terms.
9. The Ten Day MBA by Steven A. Silbiger - To reach a bigger goal in life.
10. Rework and Remote by DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails) - To improve working condition.
11. How Not To Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg - My math skill is subpar as a developer
12. How the World Sees You by Sally Hogshead - To improve my self worth.
13. Zero to One by Peter Thiel - I've seen many developers reading this book.
14. Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg (the author of the Power of Habit) - I liked his previous work, The Power of Habit.
15. Better and Faster by Jeremy Gutsche - I don't believe in taking a shortcut in life but still interesting to check it out.
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - Heard many good things about this book.
17. Bold by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler - Researched and found it after reading "10x Thinking" chapter in SmartCuts

Korean Books (Both fiction and non-fictions)

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1. 플루언트 (Fluent) by 조승연 (Seungyeon Cho) - Liberal Arts book on English.
2. 손자병법 (The Art of War) by 손자 (Sun Tzu) - Korean Translation. Wanted to read after watching a short video on BusinessInsider, 'The Art Of War' holds the keys to success on Wall Street.
3. 열한 계단 (11 Steps (or Stairs?)) by 채사장 - Another book on Liberal Arts.
4. My Romantic Comedy SNAFU (Japanese Light Novel) volume 1~5 - A comedy about a loner Japanese high school student having trouble with romantic relationship. There is an anime based on this novel.
5. 유녀전기 (Youjo Senki, Japanese Light Novel) volume 1~6 - A story about an elite salaryman reincarnated into a blonde girl fighting war in a world with magic. Found it after watching an anime this season.
6. 이 세계가 게임이란 사실은 나만이 알고 있다 (literal translation - Only I Know That This World Is a Game__, Japanese Light Novel) volume 6 - A comedy where a main character is stuck in a game and he is the only one who knows that others are just a part of an RPG game.
7. 전생했더니 슬라임이었던 건에 대하여 (Regarding Reincarnated to Slime, Japanese Light Novel) volume 8~8.5 - Another novel where a main character dies in real world and reincarnated in another world. Not as a human but as a slime!

Conclusion

I WILL read all 40 books by the end of 2017. It's much less than the number of books I read last year. The reason is because I randomly pick up books (either in English or in Korean) on a whim whenever I think a certain knowledge is required or just want to have fun reading. And also, I read many Korean books online on a site called Munpia where authors write a chapter or two every day.