I've been posting a bunch of books on my blog today -- I think I've finally cleared out the queue -- and want to start writing a bit of personal reflection about my life in 2005 -- but first I want to revisit my reading list for the year and make some recommendations. I don't really want to do a top 10 list, so instead what I'll do is go through the 80-ish books that I read in 2005 and put down the ones that I think are really, really worth picking up and reading.

- "Kafka on the Shore" (Haruki Murakami) -- one of my 3 favorite authors
- "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)" (J.K. Rowling) -- these books are just consistently amazing & fun to me
- "No Country for Old Men" (Cormac Mccarthy) -- fantastic novel about running for (away from) your life
- "John Adams" (David McCullough) -- everything that history should be
- "Regional Advantage : Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128" (AnnaLee Saxenian) -- great book about the difference between Silicon Valley & Route 128
- "Things Fall Apart: A Novel" (Chinua Achebe) -- takes me back to Civ from freshman year
- "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda" (Philip Gourevitch) -- everyone should read this.
- "Cat's Cradle" (Kurt Vonnegut) -- one of my all time favorites. Won't be the last time I re-read it.
- "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (Jonathan Safran Foer) -- sort of about 9/11. Foer is an amazing talent.
- "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture" (John Battelle) -- not fabulously written, but important background for what's happening in tech today

There were a bunch of others that were great, but these are the ones that stand out for me. Next up, I think I'm going to read a short history of California, by Kevin Starr, and "The Brief History of the Dead : A novel" (Kevin Brockmeier)", a novel that Mom sent.

Other tidbits: my very favorite album of the year is "Amos Lee" (Amos Lee). Runners-up are "American Idiot" (Green Day) and "In Between Dreams" (Jack Johnson).

And television is just too giant to get into in a posting like this, but to name just a few fantastic shows: Arrested Development, Entourage, Deadwood, The Wire, Rome, Lost, Extras.

Best podcast, far & away: the Ricky Gervais show. Man, that guy is awesome.

Anyway, out with the old, in with the new. Happy 2006 in books, music & television to everyone.