2022 Reading list

All the books I read in 2022. More than 80% of the books were consumed in audio format. All the books are listed in the order read. My favorite titles are bolded and there are short reviews/impressions/excerpts under some of the titles. My lists for 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Some stats at the end of the post.

1. Druids: A Very Short Introduction – Barry Cunliffe
2. The Roman Republic: A Very Short Introduction – David M. Gwynn
3. Norse Mythology – Jackson Crawford (course)
4. The Roman History – Cassius Dio (Herbert Baldwin Foster tr.)
5. Бесы – Федор Достоевский [Demons – Fyodor Dostoevsky]
6. Selected Poems – Emily Dickinson
7. Understanding Russia – Lynne Ann Hartnett (course)
8. Three Stones Make a Wall – Eric H. Cline
9. Идиот – Федор Достоевский [Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky]
10. Fifth Sun – Camilla Townsend
11. 1493 – Charles C. Mann
12. Mortal Republic – Edward J. Watts
13. Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
14. Medieval Maritime Warfare – Charles D. Stanton
15. Bismarck – A.J.P. Taylor
16. The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane – Robert E. Howard
17. Restoration London – Liza Picard
18. The First Fossil Hunters – Adrienne Mayor
19. Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman
20. Outrageous Fortune – William Ian Miller
21. England – Jennifer Paxton
22. Eye of the Beholder – Laura Snyder
23. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies – Bartolome de las Casas
24. Jason and the Argonauts – Apollonius of Rhodes (R.C. Seaton tr.)
25. The Armada – Garrett Mattingly
26. The Last Great War of Antiquity – James Howard-Johnston
27. Catherine the Great – Robert K. Massie
28. Charlemagne – Philip Daileader (course)
29. The Song of Roland
30. The Genius of Alexander the Great – N.G.L. Hammond
31. The Eagle of the Ninth – Rosemary Sutcliff
32. The Darwin Economy – Robert H. Frank
33. Never Greater Slaughter – Michael Livingston (2nd read)
    
34. The Last Kingdom – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
35. The Pale Horseman  – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
36. Lords of the North – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
37. Sword Song – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
38. The Burning Land – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
39. Death of Kings – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
40. The Pagan Lord – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
41. The Empty Throne – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
42. Warriors of the Storm – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
43. The Flame Bearer – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
44. War of the Wolf – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
45. Sword of Kings – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
46. War Lord – Bernard Cornwell (3rd read)
47. Strategy – Lawrence Freedman
48. Hackers and Painters – Paul Graham
49. Strategy – B.H. Liddell Hart
50. Vindolanda – Adrian Goldsworthy (3rd read)
51. Dictators Without Borders – Alexander Cooley
52. Power and Politics in Today’s World – Ian Shapiro (course YOC)
53. The Encircling Sea – Adrian Goldsworthy (3rd read)
54. The Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction – Julia Annas
55. Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction – Quentin Skinner
56. Brigantia – Adrian Goldsworthy (3rd read)
57. Introduction to Psychology – Paul Bloom (course YOC)
58. Islamic History: A Very Short Introduction – Adam J. Silverstein
59. The Old Testament: A Very Short Introduction – Michael D. Coogan
60. The Verge – Patrick Wyman
61. Introduction to the Bible – Christine Hayes (course YOC)
62. Freud – Frederick C. Crews
63. The Dunwich Horror – H.P. Lovecraft
64. Путешествие из Петербурга в Москву – Александр Радищев [Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow – Alexander Radischev]
65. The Invention of Russia – Arkady Ostrovsky
66. Creation – Steve Grand
67. Hannibal – Ernle Bradford
68. The Plague of War – Jennifer T. Roberts
69. The Horde – Marie Favereau
70. Maimonides – Joel Kraemer
71. A Short History of the Islamic Thought – Fitzroy Morrissey
72. Stumbling on Happiness – Daniel Gilbert
73. The Quest: The Historian’s Search for Jesus and Mohammad – F.E. Peters (course)
74. Thinking Like an Economist – Randall Bartlett (course)
75. The Magic of Reality – Richard Dawkins (2nd read)
76. The Pursuit of Power – Richard J. Evans
77. In Search of Thomas Browne – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
78. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco (tr. William Weaver)
79. A Modest Proposal and Other Writings – Jonathan Swift
80. The History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction – Richard Whatmore
81. The Napoleonic Wars – Alexander Mikaberidze
82. Three Men in the Boat – Jerome K. Jerome
83. The Hundred Years War – Anne Curry
    This is not a military history. It’s analysis of causes, rationales, political decisions and negotiations during the hundred years war.  
84. History of Science – Lawrence Principe (course)
85. Napoleon – Andrew Roberts
86. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier – Jakob Walter
87. A Journal of the Plague Year – Daniel Dafoe
88. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: A Very Short Introduction – Freda McManus
89. Steppenwolf – Hermann Hesse
90. Isaac Newton – James Gleick
91. European Civilization – John M. Merriman (course)
92. Micromegas – Voltaire
93. Zadig – Voltaire
94. Reflections on the Revolution in France – Edmund Burke
95. Conquistadors – Fernando Cervantes
96. Why Not Socialism – G.A. Cohen
97. Twelve Who Ruled – R.R. Palmer
98. Liftoff – Eric Berger
99. Empires of the Normans – Levi Roach
100. The Map of Knowledge – Violet Moller
101. An Essay on the Principle of Population – Thomas Robert Malthus
102. The Romanovs – Robert K. Massie
103. The Ottoman Age of Exploration – Giancarlo Casale
104. Conquistador – Buddy Levy
105. Dominion – Peter Ackroyd
106. Elon Musk – Ashlee Vance
107. The Hundred Years War – David Green
108. Providence Lost – Paul Lay
109. Tevye the Milkman – Sholom Aleichem
110. River Kings – Cat Jarman
111. How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life – Russ Roberts
112. The Call of Cthulhu – H.P. Lovecraft (2nd read)
113. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
114. Descartes: A Very Short Introduction – Tom Sorell
115. ZOV – Павел Филатьев [ZOV – Pavel Filyatev]
116. Wild Problems – Russell Roberts
117. Frederick the Great – Dennis Showalter
118. Persians – Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
119. The Habsburg Empire – Pieter Judson
     This book would have benefited from a solid structure in basic chronological, political/military history, because it’s all over the place. It has a lot of interesting stuff, but not analyzed in any systematic way. Basically you get spotlights on particular cultural/political/societal events, but without any structure and systematic analysis, so you don’t know what to make of it. No treatment of the economy, industrialization and geopolitics/IR which heavily influenced this region. But still found it interesting.
120. The Secular Enlightenment – Margaret Jacob
121. How Jesus Became God – Bart D. Ehrman (2nd read)
122. The Neanderthals Rediscovered – Dimitra Papagianni
123. The History of Magic – Chris Gosden
124. Бедные Люди – Федор Достоевский [Poor Folks – Fyodor Dostoevsky]
125. The Moors in Spain – Stanley Lane-Poole
126. Animal Behavior – Mark Ridley
     Very well organized book with huge amount of information for such length. Healthy mix of theory and empirical works. Each chapter is about a specific topic (e.g. signals, conflict, cooperation, foraging, etc.) and starts with presenting the problems, then introduces theories/explanations and empirical works. Each chapter ends with concise summary and list of citations. If they updated (more recent empirical works) and expanded making it more technical, this would make a fantastic textbook.
127. Двойник – Федор Достоевский (2nd read) [Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky]
128. The Enigma of Reason – Hugo Mercier
129. The Social Instinct – Nichola Raihani
130. The Plague Cycle – Charles Kenny
131. Not Born Yesterday – Hugo Mercier
132. Smell: A Very Short Introduction – Matthew Cobb
133. The History of Physics: A Very Short Introduction – J.L. Heilbron
134. Why Don’t We Learn From History? – B.H. Liddell Hart
135. The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution – Timothy Tackett
136. Religion’s Sudden Decline – Ronald Inglehart
137. Hero of Two Worlds – Mike Duncan
138. Metternich – Wolfram Siemann
139. Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America – Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
140. Преступление и Наказание – Федор Достоевский [Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky]
141. American Colonies – Alan Taylor
142. The Making of the Fittest – Sean B. Carroll
143. Napoleon at Peace – William Doyle
144. Living the French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon – Suzanne M. Desan
145. The Age of Revolution – Eric J. Hobsbawm
146. Fifty Orwell Essays – George Orwell
147. Formative Early Writings – Karl Marx
148. Experience and Education – John Dewey
149. Crecy – Michael Livingston
150. 1177 B.C. – Eric H. Cline (2nd read)
151. Digging Up Armageddon – Eric H. Cline
152. The Problems of Philosophy – Bertrand Russell
153. Religion and Science – Bertrand Russell
154. Lost Enlightenment – Frederick Starr
155. War Before Civilization – Lawrence H. Keeley
     This is in the category of books that are pretty short (under 200 pages), but cover huge topics and don’t pull any punches. These are classics that have very strong and clear thesis and strongly and in detail argue for it. Other books in this category are Bryan Ward-Perkins’ The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization and R.I. Moore’s The Formation of Persecuting Society (both of which I highly recommend).
156. The Teutonic Knights – William L. Urban
157. Ibn Khaldun – Robert Irwin
158. The Ruin of Britain and Other Documents – Gildas, Michael Winterbottom (ed.)
159. Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction – Jonathan Barnes
160. Lutzen – Peter H. Wilson
161. Medieval Christianity – Kevin Madigan
162. The Iliad – Homer, Robert Fitzgerald (tr.)
163. By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean – Barry Cunliffe
     History of Eurasia from the start of agriculture to the Mongols. The scope of the book is impressive, but scope affects the depth. Still it gives you a structure on which to further build your knowledge.
     
164. The Ancient Near East – Amanda Podany (2nd read)
165. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge – George Berkeley
166. Unfabling the East – Jurgen Osterhammel
167. The Making of Oliver Cromwell – Ronald Hutton
168. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds – Charles Mackay
169. The Trojan War – Barry Strauss (2nd read)
170. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) – Carol Tavrisa

# of books read: 170
# of pages read: 53,764

• average book length: 316p (though this is affected by the inclusion of courses which have 0 page count)
• 21 out 170 books are by female authors