Tag Archives: Haruki Murakami

Best Fiction Books I Read in 2024

They Had No Deepness of Earth (2021) by Zero HP Lovecraft

Zero HP Lovecraft (@0x49fa98) is an anonymous internet poster I originally discovered around 2016 when I was looking at the accounts Naval Ravikant (@naval) followed on Twitter. His name and bio (horrorist) intrigued me, so I read his short story, “The Gig Economy,” which was like a modern cyberpunk take on “The Call of Cthulhu.”

I instantly became a fan and read all of Zero’s stories as they originally came out on his WordPress site (now on Substack), and later assembled in this collection. I had been meaning to re-visit the stories because they deserve (and often require) re-reading. His fiction is like a combination of the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft with the dense philosophical speculation of Jorge Luis Borges and the mind-bending science fiction of Ted Chiang.

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Best Fiction Books I Read in 2018

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2018-fiction

The big theme of this year’s list is short stories and short story collections. I’ve recently been drawn to shorter fiction, both as a reader and a writer. I love being able to finish a story in one sitting. The best part of any story is the ending—it makes or breaks the story—which is why I’m not so much a fan of long-running multi-book series (or television shows). There’s only so much time in the day, and while some series are worth the length (like Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle), I can’t afford to read too many series. I prefer standalone novels or something even shorter, like novellas, novelettes, and short stories. By reading short fiction, I’m able to get a complete story with a (hopefully) satisfying ending, plus read a wider selection of different authors and genres. Continue reading →

Best Fiction Books I Read in 2017

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novels2017

I often feel overwhelmed by the number of great books I want to read and my lack of time to do so. Even if all I did was read for the rest of my life and I lived to 100, I wouldn’t have enough time to read every book I’d like to. But as I wrote about here, we often fail to realize how much we actually get done. I catalog every book I read on Goodreads, so at the end of the year, I can look back and be surprised at just how many books I read. The total was 115 this year, including novels, non-fiction, comics, and audiobooks. I already went through my favorite comic books. Next up are my favorite fiction books I read in 2017. Continue reading →

Best Books I Read in 2016

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As 2016 is winding down, I thought I’d do a best-of list, but it won’t be a “best books released in 2016,” since there are too many I have yet to read. Instead, I’ll do a list of the best books I read in 2016, regardless of when it was originally published.

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