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If an entire book on how to prioritize your time sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy this one. How do you prioritize what's important vs what's urgent vs what you can effectively do? This one dives into that problem with some good takeaways on how to help make those decisions.

What can I say about this book that hasn't already been covered the media? Between opening the doors to a journalist (Wolff) and then treating him like a confident, it's no surprise what happened: the truth got out.

There have been a number of stories that haven't been shared as widely as others from this book that still stuck with me:

• When alone with a colleagues wife that Trump wanted to sleep with, he called her husband on speakerphone and got him to admit to compromising things so he could pursue her (this happened with multiple women).
• Jared Kushner is painted as the most knowledgeable person in the entire white house - or at least the one that listens to other people before making his own opinion.
• Just how much no one in the campaign wanted to win the election, and that everything they did was to make it seem like less of a blowout so they could all move on to better jobs after the loss.

Very much a young adult book, but still a lot of fun. This one reminded me of a cross between Elantris and Steelheart in a Harry Potter setting. The magic mechanic for this one focuses around a world where “Rithmatists” (think wizards) fight the worlds battles against a vague evil. Rithmatists fight by drawing figures in chalk that are effectively wards against evil, or offensive. The somewhat short story was entertaining all the way through, with great characters, a good magic system and just overall fun. Not the amazing, tell everyone you know fun, but an entertaining story. I'll surely read the next one in the series when it comes out.

Yet another cyberpunk book that I didn't love. It's funny how much I love this genre in movie form, but can't stand it in book form. It's easy to appreciate this one though. Seeing how much this one parallels The Matrix was crazy.

These uncluttering books are great motivation to get things done. I especially appreciate this one, because it's targeting Japanese households which lack the space we tend to have here in the US. This helps with focus more on what you should keep and get rid of it. The main concept of this book is “Do you love it?”. If yet, keep it, if not, then don't buy it or get rid of it.

If you saw the movie Fallen, the premise of touch may be familiar – a special being that can transfer to another body and effectively “take control” of it. Where this story differs from the thriller, is that it focuses on many people with this ability and how they cope and adapt. I loved how this story went into the real world implications of this concept. How could you grow old in someone elses body, denying them life? If you have no conscience that's one thing, but for good people this ability sounds more like a curse.

Where it fell short for me was a connection with the characters. With Claire Norths other book,The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, I was constantly worrying about what would happen, and feeling for the characters. In this one I didn't have the same connection. An interesting topic, and well explored but the connection with the characters left me feeling like something was missing.

One of the first computer games I ever played was Wolfenstein 3D on my moms Packard Bell 386 computer. Eventually I also played Doom on it as well. At the time I didn't realize what was behind those games. Masters is more a biography of John Carmack and John Romero - the technical and design talent behind these games and id software.

It's crazy to me how this company got started – “borrowing” computers from their day job to program on them at night and eventually release Wolfenstein. The small group of guys working in their house part time ended up impacting the world of video games as much as anyone else has, and this is the rise and fall of that empire.

After seeing Circe as the Goodread readers choice for best fantasy book of 2018, I knew I would need to check it out. The story itself follows Circe, a Greek goddess, nymph, and daughter of Helios. The prose is also striking. Each scene feels epic in nature somehow – partially from prose, but also because they're populated with familiar characters - Charybdis, Odysseus, Daedalus and too many others to name.

If you have an interest in Greek Mythology you will enjoy Circe immensely. Madeline Miller knows here classics and weaves a tale of many different gods and men together into something completely new and original while staying true to the characters. It's a retelling of the same history, but from a new point of view – shedding light on areas often passed over. If you're interested in Greek Mythology, you will likely love this one as much as I did.

“Unlocked” is the backstory of the world created in Scalzi's Lock In. Rather than starting the story off with hundreds of pages of background, he jumps directly into the narrative, hooking you into. If the book had started with Unlocked, it would've been more difficult to hold my attention. Reading it after the fact as background on the world was just right though.

I've been reading Caits blog for longer than I can remember. Before the finance community was something I knew about, Cait's approach to heartfelt stories about minimalism and consumption was what drew me to read more. This book dives deeper with a narrative that winds through a difficult year.

Going much deeper into personal stories than I expected, the common thread is a story of growth – both towards having less stuff, but also for better understanding what leads to happiness. Editing down a life to focus on what matters is no small undertaking, and many of these stories have inspired me to look at areas of my life that could use a little editing.

The Renegades series sounded somewhat shallow at first – from a storyline perspective. A world where various people have superpowers that form up into good and evil groups? I enjoyed how much this one expanded on the first, while starting to advance into how the groups in charge shaped society (or tried to). If I had the third book today I'd start on it immediately.

I'm a sucker for a good story with a clear villain that keeps the hero in the dark. Add to that a mix of science fiction meets Avatar and you have this series. While it's not the most original series I've ever read, it's just plain fun to listen to.

A 30-year decides to take a bike trip from Oregon to Patagonia with only what he can carry and a friend. This may sound like a sequel to Motorcycle Diaries, but it's actually a modern-day adventure with millennials spending time on Intagram.

The drive for travel and adventure gets people moving in different ways. For this author it meant announcing to his friends and coworkers he was going to undertake this adventure - and following trough on it.

While many books of this genre are journeys to “find myself” it felt more as though this were a journey to just do something cool and instagram worthy. To enjoy doing it for sure, but that was more the drive. I felt I could very well empathize with the narrators sometimes controlling behavior and over planning, which can be a hinderance to just enjoying the moment.

When I was in high school, they released a TV miniseries if The Stand that I watched. I always thought it was the best end of the world/virus take I'd seen. Not because it's realistic or gritty, but because it frames the story with great characters battling good and evil.

When I read the book, I wondered how closely it would follow the miniseries. Turns out the show was a near scene for scene recording of the book (one of the bonuses of making it 6 hours).

What's amazing to me about The Stand is that it follows so many characters storylines so well. It would be easy to get lost with that many characters, but somehow they fit together in a way that I didn't feel overwhelmed. Add to that a story that had me on the edge of my seat and I see why this is considered one of the best sci fi books of all time.

I enjoy reading takes on minimalism from different countries. This Swedish take is one of the closest to my own personal style than any that I've seen (even more than Konmari). It's not as catchy, but the concept is clear: life a life with an amount of stuff that you won't burden those who come after you with the weight of your stuff.

Having gone through my moms things when she passed (and she went through her moms things when she passed), this concept is quite prominent for me. For those who have never had the misfortunate of sorting through a loved ones life, it's a heavy burden to bear. Finding time to slim down pays dividends now for the living, and later for those still alive.

Orbital elevators have always been an interesting topic to me. It's something about having a train, but one that takes you to the stars. This Hugo and Nebula award winning story has been theorized about for many years. The story itself is more a book about an engineering project than science fiction, which drifted to religion at times. I appreciated the concept more than the presentation.

As last books in a series go, this was the most rewarding ending I've ever read. Topics introduced at the beginning of book 4 are handled. Topics that other authors might spend entire chapters on are only touched on briefly, and left for the reader to expand on.

When I first heard about “Lock In”, I thought it was just another pandemic book based on the descriptions. I was completely wrong! This book is much more of a combination of “Surrogates”, “I, Robot” and “Caves of Steel” – a detective novel with a sci-fi touch in a world facing a pandemic. The pandemic is different than the usual ones though. Instead of killing those affected, it locks them in, making them unable to communicate or move their bodies. This is where the ‘Surrogates” comparison comes in. The government develops a way for those affected to control robots which act as proxies for these people in the real world.

I enjoyed the world building in this one, as well as the main characters. The dynamic reminded me a lot of Caves of Steel, but without quite as much “Ohhh, of course that's it!” to the story.

XKCD in book form! Hilarious all the way through. Monroe takes questions that anyone could have asked and goes into them in extreme detail. If getting to the answer to a question doesn't prove to have a funny conclusion, Monroe continues upping the ante until things get interesting. I'd say it's a combination of Mythbusters and a comic – which is basically XKCD anyways. So what kind of questions? What would happen if the moon went away? If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce?

Compendium 2 covers issues 49-96 of the comic. This is almost all Alexandia time. Issue #100 of the comic is where Season 6 of the comic ends, leaving this as the events leading up Neegan. Of the story arcs and compendiums, I think the TV show did this era a bit more justice with a number of side stories that weren't in the comics but were even more interesting. Still a page turner that kept me up at night saying “just one more issue”.

The Poppy war combines a bunch of different popular sci fi/fantasy tropes in one story. There's an orphan plucked from obscurity, a school for special people, political battles, a complicated war in the past and a difficult one in the present. I like how fast paced the story was - setting the stage then advancing forward to keep the story going. I'll definitely pick up the 2nd book when it's released later this year.

This short story by Sanderson describes a night in the life of an unexpected bounty hunter. As you would expect given the author, the unusual parts of the world are given the attention you would expect in a full novel. Ghosts that attack at the sight of blood could have been a cliche topic, but in this case it was flushed out enough with the economy, protection and past events to keep things interesting.

“Head on” is the 2nd book in Scalzi's Lock In series. The series features a world where about 1% of the population have Hadens syndrome, a disease which “locks people in” to their body, although their minds still work. People with Haydens have a oasis/mmorpg-style world to interest with others virtually, or can take control of a robot, called threeps, where they can interact in the real world.

This second book in the series builds on the world in a fun way. Similar to the first book, it plays more like a detective novel in a science fiction world. I mentioned it reminds me of Asimov's “Caves of Steel”, which is true for this one as well.

The story follows the investigation into a death during a football-like game played by threeps (the robots). I'd put Head on fully in the “fun” category of books. It was immensely entertaining, great at world building and overall just a great ride. As a bonus, the audiobook is read by Wil Wheaton!

Having loved Starship Troopers (the movie), this one was always only my list to read. The story, thought of by Heinleins Wife, is simple – take The Jungle Book, but make the man from Mars. The story went in unexpected places – to politics, metaphysics, sex and commune lifestyles. I see why this one was such a big hit in the 60s.

After hearing Tiffany on Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, I knew I had to check out her book. That same matter-of-fact honest comedy comes through in her writing and her story. I laughed out loud more than once while listening to her sometimes awkward (and sometimes downright sad) stories told to humor.