Here is a list of books I first compiled on August 4th, 2024. These books span a diverse portfolio of topics and range from easy to incredibly difficult. I am organizing these by month for chronological convenience.

I am surmounting momentous and personally pertinent stories pertaining to the way of things. If you, the reader, have any suggestions for reading material, please let me know in the comments. This blog will be updated periodically throughout each month with the books I finished, but not the ones I haven’t entirely read – my active interests span far more than this list suggests. I hope you will join me!

Last Update: March 15, 2025

September 2024

1. An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison
   • A poignant memoir discussing the author’s challenges and bipolar disorder as they pertain to her life and the journeys of others in similar shoes mental health-wise. This book screams out as accurate and written by someone afflicted by bipolar disorder within the first few pages. However, I was disappointed with how the acceptance of needing medication felt glossed over and contrived.

October 2024

1. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 1, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 1-3. The opening panels say everything about where Guts is. There is much more to him than meets the eye.
2. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 2, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 4-6. Guts strikes me as me if I were to exist in the world of Berserk. His demeanor, physicality, ruthlessness, determination, compassion, intimacy with few people, lone wolf mentality, and desire to pursue his own dream even if he knows not its identity are characteristic of my upbringing and bildungsroman-esque ascension. Of all the stories I’ve read in over two decades, Guts feels more like me than anyone I’ve ever seen, and it’s not particularly close.
3. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 3, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 7-9. Griff plays an instrumental role.
4. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 4, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 10-12. Wyald got wilded not once, but twice.
5. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 5, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 13-15. Eclipsed the horror and depravity of other manga. Rage and desperation personified. Fighting to the point of absolute fatigue. A narrow avoidance of a dark descent. Bugs to humans to ashes – to satiate or propitiate?
6. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 6, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 16-18. Humans at their worst easily eclipse literal monsters in pure evil, and they don’t even need to invoke the name of God to feel justified. Invoking divine authority is just a tool to delude the masses into acquiescing to their totalitarianism, abuse, and depravity. Demons, often just the idea of them, are more or less an excuse to embrace madness, delusion, and insanity. The demons themselves take great pleasure in human suffering and carnage, but seldom must lift a finger to realize those aims.
7. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 7, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 19-21. Bayonetta and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time vibes at the Tower of Conviction. The angels fly in a black whirlwind at their own peril. Many among the masses embrace paganism to mold the fear instilled in them by those who claim to desire it annihilated. An eclipse to eclipse the eclipse. Revelation. Fighting the monsters not to annihilate, but to save. Struggling not to survive, but to live. Picking battles against monsters where possible, but not running from something, running to something on an everlasting journey.

November 2024

1. Fires in the Dark, Kay Redfield Jamison
   • Discusses some history of bipolar disorder, as well as the author’s experience with it. Her first book describes her experience in more detail.
2. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 8, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 22-24.
3. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 9, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 25-27.
4. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 10, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 28-30.

January 2025

1. How to ADHD, Jessica McCabe
   • Easily digestible ADHD-friendly guide on how to help yourself as someone with ADHD, from a popular YouTuber and now mom with ADHD. Jessica is excellent at synthesizing complex research papers into palatable verbiage. She also discusses other challenges that may be linked to ADHD. I was pleasantly surprised with how personal the book felt throughout, as much of the ADHD literature feels distant. Research, of course, is often perfunctory and narrow, so having a personal and comprehensive resource that summarizes the key points and encourages flipping through the book to chunk them for refreshers is welcome. I only have to read the research once (or not at all if I don’t feel the need to see the specifics for myself) in order to see the details because now this guide serves as the brain queuer for my knowledge base on ADHD.
2. Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
   • A way of life integrated with the source of all things, noted as the eternal Tao. This wisdom is existential and can be found in other spiritual texts such as the Bible. The more we learn, the more we “unlearn” what the world told us was so in an infinite convergence toward the Tao. This Tao is God, not the ‘God’ that people claim to know.

February 2025

1. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 11, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 31-33.
2. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 12, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 34-36.
3. ADHD 2.0, Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. and John J. Ratey, M.D.
   • An eminent expert on ADHD is Dr. “Ned” Hallowell. This is a book my older brother read, which inspired me to follow suit. It is useful for optimizing my ADHD lifestyle and micro-routines within mind-muscle physiology. That is, cardiovascular, vestibular, and proprioceptive exercises are critical in channeling ADHD energy. Stimulants significantly reduce addiction rates among ADHDers under appropriate medical regimentation/guidance – this should assuage anyone with concerns about their general efficacy. The basis for ADHD within the default mode network and task positive network create a dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious minds with subconscious mappings to and from both. The book was cut in half by its editor to roughly 50k words read within 120 pages (minus the citations, glossary, etc.), so it is short and concise. Overall, it is effective in giving adults and adolescents alike a simple but comprehensive understanding of ADHD, whether they themselves have it or they are attempting to comprehend the condition as observers.
4. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 13, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 37-39.
5. Berserk, Deluxe Edition, Volume 14, Kentaro Miura
   • Standard volumes 40-42. Being that this is the final deluxe edition volume, here is my brief impression/overview of Berserk:
     • Berserk is the quintessential dark fantasy manga. If you want to be jubilant, terrified, revolted, enraged, tearful, and psychologically tortured to unravel the meaning of your own life – especially if it’s as harrowing as Guts’ – then this is the collection for you. Berserk is so horrible yet edifying, poignant, and relatable. I would not take back any of the time I spent with Guts despite feeling all of his aforementioned emotional horrors. RIP Miura, whose passing means Berserk will never be finished the way it was intended, but whose work taught me that how to live even having been in the pits of despair, rage, and existential crises.
6. In the Buddha’s Words, Bhikkhu Bodhi
   • Buddhism contains several tenets, aphorisms, and allegories that will make one wiser, but if you have trouble distinguishing the forest from the trees and critically evaluating various belief systems, I would pass on this text or at least consider external criticisms of Buddhism while you read it. I strongly advise against embracing Buddhism as a religion despite it having over half a billion adherents as of 2/28/2025. Numerous logically fallacious, emotionally unintelligent, and sometimes unethical stances take precedence over and obfuscate the wisdom of the text: Hindu cosmology, excessive dilution through repetition and unnecessary details, circular reasoning and numerous other logical fallacies, unverifiable and unhelpful postulates such as past/future lives and nirvana, an imperfect Buddha who isn’t even unique due to the Buddhas being numerous, and the concept of karma to justify/explain why people are born into various classes/statuses/afflictions beneficial or detrimental to their wellbeing. The Buddha is not unique, has allegedly lived numerous past lives before becoming the Buddha, and made significant errors in judgment throughout much of his life, yet he can transcend karma by attaining nirvana and essentially become perfect in life before death in a way readily apparent to anyone “enlightened enough.” Polytheistic Hindu mythology is prioritized over the source of all existence, and emphasized with the already diluted wisdom with no rhyme or reason to it. It matters not how many tens of thousands of eons one prospers in a divine realm. An eon is also defined with the dimensions of a mountain/stone when space cannot be transmuted into time and vice versa, quantitatively and one-to-one. So much of this lore is completely arbitrary, pedantic, and absurd to highlight or even acknowledge in light of nirvana, even if the audience is intended as Hindus given Buddhism’s Indian origin. Enlightenment with nirvana is already vague enough, but transcendence as they describe it makes mentioning this cosmology downright harmful to those seeking wisdom from the Pali Canon. There are vague, imprecise, and fallacious explanations abound, and this anthology – one of roughly 14 books hundreds of pages long – still manages to be painful, laborious, and insufferable to read despite Bodhi condensing many of the suttas from the Pali Canon significantly so repetition is minimized. After reading Tao Te Ching and appreciating its concise but complex and multifaceted wisdom, I was thoroughly disappointed in Buddhism for not only garbling its wisdom, but implanting dangerous ideology and masquerading as being self-evident while being unverifiable and constructed in such an esoteric and fallacious manner that it becomes unfalsifiable and unquestionable. Of course Bodhi emphasizes that how we see the Buddha says much about the state of our souls to support Buddhism, but the same is true for anything else, so this does nothing to distinguish it from other belief systems. It remains unconvincing and solipsistic to claim Buddhism is self-evident when it fails to offer profound evidence of its core tenets, such as how karma can be overcome through nirvana, all while failing to acknowledging the foremost singular power undergirding existence (often referred to as its origin, or beginning and end in the context of dualistic monism/God).

March 2025

1. Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Dr. Travis Bradberry and Dr. Jean Greaves
   • Relating to people is important to career, familial, romantic, and all other types of interpersonal success. As the title suggests, this book is a business-oriented guide to emotional intelligence. However, Drs. Bradberry and Greaves succeed in offering an optimistic, actionable, and positively-reinforcing framework for improving one’s relationships. Its four tenets are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management; the self takes precedence in being a more effective communicator and mediator within relationships and more broadly within layered social contexts. For example, I have astute self-awareness, but because I often struggle with managing my emotions, recognizing them readily frustrates me to no end. This carries over to social environments, where I thrive less than I could not because I can’t understand them, but because I feel angry enough to no longer care about how my actions affect my relationships or status. I garner negative feedback, and, due to my keen self-awareness, am increasingly frustrated with myself and less amiable toward my neighbors. Thus, emotional intelligence is a well-oiled machine: if one part lags behind, then the others compensate, degrading the compromised part at the expense of the machine’s health and longevity.
2. Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
   • A personal growth title that advocates for the exact behavior encapsulated in its title, personally and professionally. Extreme ownership can, however, become too extreme if the proper balance between discipline and freedom is not cultivated. Decentralized command becomes centralized if you absorb blame for others’ failings in addition to your own. Yes, it is wise to improve your approach to mitigate the error down the line, but some errors are inevitable, whether in the vicissitudes of sin or learning, so lingering in regret for things outside your locus of control or anyone else’s is a misapplication of extreme ownership. The principle is about properly assigning and holding yourself and others to their stakes in ownership – you own up to your mistakes, and they own up to theirs; own up to mistakes pertaining to the group when you could have better mitigated or prevented them, not when someone is unethical. It is too extreme, and also dishonest, to own others’ mistakes when they committed to extreme ownership, because any and all missions require responsibility in both word and action. Willink and Babin encourage introspection when mistakes occur, because even if they’re not explicitly your fault, they are your responsibility to address as a leader. Taking accountability for your mistakes first and foremost, criticizing tactfully and sparingly if at all, and always ensuring the latter never takes precedence are integral to inspiring others to do the same. There is a follow-up book on the final chapter of this concise but moving vignette of war stories and leadership principles from Ramadi, Iraq; it addresses the dichotomy of leadership inherent in the accountability “question”problem” of extreme ownership. I intend to investigate this sequel, because Willink and Babin have cultivated an invaluable story-guide with which any warrior-philosopher, leader, or individual can ground themselves in our increasingly advanced civilization.
3. The Creating Brain, Nancy C. Andreasen M.D., Ph.D.
   • The neuroscience behind creativity. Fascinated by this as a prolific creative type.

Backlog

1. Driven to Distraction, Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. and John J. Ratey, M.D.
   • An older book and precursor to ADHD 2.0. May not be necessary to read, but I want to anyway for the most comprehensive outlook on ADHD from expert “Ned” Hallowell. I also would recommend Dr. Charles Barkley.
2. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
   • The quintessential work of Aldous Huxley, it comments on the novelty of life and how technology can either aid or encroach upon it.
3. God’s Revelation to the Human Heart, Fr. Seraphim Rose
   • A book I am reading as an Orthodox Christian alongside the Bible. This is commentary from a spiritual acolyte whose wisdom and knowledge regarding God transcend my own.
4. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
   • A classic crime thriller that introspects into the human heart and the psychological implications of sin.
5. Atomic Habits, James Clear
   • Provides strategies on how to implement micro-routines into your life without being overly controlling. That is critical for someone like me, who has ADHD and finds long, drawn out routines to be constrictive and oppressive.
6. 12 Rules for Life, Jordan B. Peterson
   • Jordan Peterson’s book originally based on a Quora post. I am reading it to discover how he transforms his psychological and philosophical advice into the written word.
7. My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, Nikola Tesla
   • I personally relate to being an intelligent, creative, hypersensitive individual like Tesla. I believe reading his autobiography should be elucidating not only to see how a well-reputed man who was underappreciated in his lifetime thought, but to draw parallels and distinctions that elevate my own life from his experience.
8. Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson
   • Biography of Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, Paypal, Neuralink, and several other prominent companies in multitudinous industries. Read for a comprehensive background into his atypical childhood given our shared intellectual, neurological, and imaginative characteristics.
9. Salem’s Lot, Stephen King
   • A gift from a woman I met at an inpatient facility. To discuss the premise would be to potentially spoil the novel, so I’ll just say it’s a classic Stephen King novel.
10. Dune, Frank Herbert
    • I started reading this in 5th grade, but never finished it. The day has come to finally accomplish this seemingly Herculean task.
11. Lethal White, Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
    • Book 4 of the Cormoran Strike series. A very captivating, erudite, and edifying series I want to read all of. I can especially relate to Strike’s experience with Charlotte throughout these novels.
12. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
    • I have read some of this collection of C.S. Lewis’ radio talks advocating for Christianity as the most viable religion, but aspire to finally finish this year.
13. The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis
    • The problem of pain is a universal of every species’ existence, but this refers to the spiritual suffering we experience as creatures modeled after God.
14. How to Handle Neurotypicals, Abel Abelson
    • Satire and advice for being neurodivergent (e.g., ADHD, autism, OCD).
15. Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Jordan B. Peterson
    • Round two of 12 rules for life is a must-read for me because of how much I listen to Jordan Peterson (despite our disagreements on subjects like ADHD).
16. Lifted by Angels, Joel J. Miller
    • About what it means to have a guardian angel in Orthodox Christianity.
17. Mastery, Robert Greene
    • Mastering things effectively. Includes historical anecdotes to reinforce its arguments. Read half of it a while back but still want to finish the text.
18. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
    • I read Tom Sawyer, and now I want to see what happened to his buddy Huckleberry Finn.
19. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
    • A must-read I’ve never read about forbidden love in the South in the early 20th century (if I recall correctly).
20. By Design or by Chance?, Denyse O’Leary
    • Was the origin of the universe catalyzed by God or was it just merely by chance? This book evaluates both sides of the argument scientifically.
21. Maps of Meaning, Jordan B. Peterson
    • A psychological and religious framework for meaning that results from the synthesis of maps across numerous cultural hegemonies and melting pots.
22. The Trial and Death of Socrates, Plato
    • Socrates was Plato’s mentor, and so seeing Socrates die for his beliefs (my speculation) must have had a resounding impact on Plato’s psyche.
23. Five Dialogues, Plato
    • Sounds like a play, but I don’t know for sure. I want to find out because Plato wrote this and philosophy is one of my niches.
24. Orthodox Christian Beliefs: Real Answers to Questions from Real People, Stanley Samuel Harakas
    • Addresses the everyday qualms, toils, tribulations, and dilemmas of ordinary Christians.
25. Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill
    • Overrated book that has some secret that you only know if certain unnamed or vague requirements are met. I want to see what Hill’s nonsense is all about.
26. Toolkit for Spiritual Growth, Fr. Evan Armatas
    • To draw closer to God more effectively through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
27. Godel Escher Bach, Douglas R. Hofstadter
    • Concepts related to math, symmetry, and music from the perspective of several greats. Recommended by a friend.
28. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
    • I need to witness what goes down with that whale and see for myself what the fuss for this book is about as a piece of classic literature. Also thinking of the The Mentalist episode where a murderous, vengeful genius references Moby-Dick upon dropping his act of being intellectually impaired.
29. Dracula, Bram Stoker
    • I want to know how the lord of the night was originally conceived as a Castlevania fan.
30. The Silmarillion, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
    • Offers more lore on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, with much said about the eons before the events of those books, and some about post-Sauron days.
31. Biographia Literaria, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    • I want to see how this renowned poet and intellectual thinks after having read about him on Encyclopedia Britannica.
32. Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
    • Said to be the best Dostoevsky novel and one of the best novels ever written in history by many eminent professionals.
33. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
    • Recommended by a psychologist. The title also caught my eye.
34. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
    • Classic literature said to be one of the greatest novels ever written. The Russians seem to have literary talents in spades…
35. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
    • K-12 often has people read this book, but I’ve never read it, so I want to make up for lost time.
36. Pierre, Herman Melville
    • A Quoran said they found this incomprehensible, and I want to see why.
37. Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
    • Attributed by many to have catalyzed the English Romantic movement in literature. May include the infamous Kubla Khan, which Coleridge wrote while under the influence of laudunum, a form of opium.
38. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
    • Explores addiction, entertainment, and the human condition, which are all especially pertinent in our modern value system.
39. Madame Bouvery, Gustave Flaubert
    • Said to be one of the great French works of literature.
40. Animal Farm, George Orwell
    • I saw the movie in childhood, but now want to read the book in full.
41. An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry, Bertrand Russell
    • Philosophical implications of math.
42. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
43. Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant
    • Limits and scope of metaphysics explored and perhaps transcended.
44. Paradise Lost, John Milton
    • A poetic take on Lucifer’s fall from heaven and the subsequent consequences inherent in his eternal war against God.
45. The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music, Friedrich Nietzsche
46. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
    • A very intelligent buddy of mine said this was incomprehensible gibberish with run-on sentences, so I want to read the novel in its entirety and see if there’s a point to it being that way.
47. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
    • Where all those Marcus Aurelius quotes on social media come from. Aurelius is one of the philosophers associated with stoicism.
48. The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche
49. Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes
50. Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
51. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
    • Interested in the motivations behind Thoreau’s literature because he spent much time by himself in the woods isolated from society.

Ancillary

1. Monster, Naoki Urasawa, Volumes 1-9
   • A psychological, mystery, and crime thriller involving a doctor whose dutifulness brings a catastrophe in Europe which he must fight against. An underrated, fantastic manga series that is well worth anyone’s time and will certainly captivate you if you like Serial Experiments: Lain or other psychological trips like that.
2. Basic Electronics, McWhorter and Evans
   • One of my maternal grandfather’s old electronics books. I will give this a read for a review of some device physics, electronics like BJTs, analog vs digital, etc. I also hope it will revive my interest in the subject.
3. Bogle on Mutual Funds, John C. Bogle
   • For financial management advice wrt my mutual fund and investing my income. It is prudent to utilize multiple sources of income, and my dad gave me this book, so I would highly recommend it for those who want to be financially savvy.