Jesse Koepke

For the past 10 years (well, 11 now that 2020 is almost done), I have kept track of what I’ve read. It’s become a favorite yearly past time, to look back over the books I was able to read, what I learned, and which ones stood out.

Now that the 2010s are wrapped up, I wanted to look back over what I’ve read in the whole decade and see which books still resonate and are memorable. Even years later, there are some books that made such an impression, I can still very much remember them.

Altogether, I listed 247 books as finished between 2010-2019. Half of those years I read over 30 books, while the other half were under 20.

So, without further ado, here are the memorable books I read from 2010-2019:

Books

Fiction

• The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley (2010)
• The Chosen, by Chaim Potok (2010)
• The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum (2011)
• When My Name Was Keoko, by Linda Sue Park (2011)
• The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness (2011)
• Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins (2011)
• The Floating Islands, by Rachel Neumeier (2011)
• Airborn trilogy, by Kenneth Oppel (2012)
• Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini (2012)
• Ten Cents a Dance, by Christine Fletcher (2012. I also learned swing dance this year)
• Divergent, by Veronica Roth (2012) 
• The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss (2012)
• Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi (2012)
• Theft of Swords trilogy, by Michael J. Sullivan (2012)
• Eternity Road, by Jack McDevitt (2013)
• Mistborn trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson (2013. First audiobook I listened to)
• A Talent For War, by Jack McDevitt (2013)
• The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson (2014)
• Leviathan Wakes trilogy, by James S.A. Corey (2014)
• Illusion, by Frank Peretti (2014)
• Ancient Shores, by Jack McDevitt (2015)
• Harry Potter books 1-6, by JK Rowling (2015-2019)
• Spartan Gold, by Clive Cussler & Grant Blackwood (2018)
• In the Region of the Summer Stars, by Stephen Lawhead (2018)

History

• How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill (2010)
• The First World War, by John Keegan (2010)
• O Jerusalem!, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (2010)
• The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston (2019)

Personal Development

• 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, by John C. Maxwell (2013)
• Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (2019)
• Deep Work, by Cal Newport (2019, started here and finished in February 2020)
• The Common Rule, by Justin Earley (2019)

Jesus

• Look What God Is Doing!, by Dick Eastman (2010)
• The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey (2011)
• Surprised by Oxford, by Carolyn Weber (2011)
• A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23, by Phillip Keller (2015)
• The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri Nouwen (2016)
• The Way of the Wild Heart, by John Eldredge (2018)

Family & Marriage

• Love & War, by John & Stasi Eldredge (2016)
• Date Your Wife, by Justin Buzzard (2017)
• Cherish, by Gary Thomas (2017)
•  Four Seasons of Marriage, by Gary Chapman (2017)
• When Work & Family Collide, by Andy Stanley (2017)
• Hedges, by Jerry B. Jenkins (2018)
• Grace-Based Parenting, by Tim Kimmel (2018)
• Positive Discipline: Parenting Tools, by Jane Nelsen (2018)
• Boundaries, by Henry Cloud & John Townsend (2018)
• I Promise, by Gary Smalley and Nathan Larkin (2019)
• If Only He Knew, by Gary Smalley (2019)

Writing

• On Fairy-Stories, by J.R.R. Tolkien (2010)
• The Road to Middle-Earth, by Tom Shippey (2010)
• J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter (2013)
• How To Make a Living As a Writer, by James Scott Bell (2016)
• A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War, by Jospeh Loconte (2018)
• The Art of Adaptation, by Linda Seger (2018)

Trends

• 2010: A good spread of fiction, history, and the theology
• 2011: A lot of fiction as I started reading Young Adult and Middle Grade
• 2012: The year I read YA. So much YA….
• 2013: I slowed down after all the YA and read more thoughtful adult fantasy/sci-fi, and a Tolkien biography
• 2014: All fiction again except for one Tolkien/Lewis book. 
• 2015: The year I started reading Harry Potter again
• 2016: I married the most amazing woman! I read my first marriage books, and also the first of many great recommendations from my wife.
• 2017: Family/children books joined the list as we had our first baby! I also read only 1 print book, and the rest were ebook/audio.
• 2018: This was a year of adrenaline reading, always looking for another book to read, until my wife pointed it out. A lot of parenting books are on the list, as well as my first foray into adventure fiction.
• 2019: I only read 3 fiction books, and I read a couple economics books which was really fascinating. 

Overall, I can tell my reading is guided by the season I’m in. Writing a YA novel led to reading that category. Marriage and family dominated once those wonderful people entered my life. The same went for management books once I started leading a team.

Digital books also really took over in 2017. I’ve had a Kindle for a long time, but once family life took off I found myself reading in small spurts, often at work during breaks. It’s a luxury of time to be able to sit down with a printed book, and while I fondly remember that experience from years past, it’s not really practical for me anymore.

One trend I do see over and over again, especially in recent years, is the adrenaline rush of trying to finish as many books as I can. The excitement of finding a new book and checking it off the list almost overshadows the book itself, and if I’m not careful I can be reading several books at a time and not have any room left in my brain for life. I’m trying to be more aware when that feeling is creeping in.

The Next Decade

Looking ahead to another decade of reading, I’d like to adjust a few things:

• Pay attention to how I’m feeling while reading. I want to focus on the content, and not the adrenaline of checking off another book.
• Explore more genres. I’m pretty much only focused on fantasy, but would like to explore other genres of fiction, as well as other topics, such as economics.
• Be intentional about what I’m learning. While seasons of life will always influence my reading, I also want to intentionally learn about new things, such as economics. (Have I mentioned I really liked the economics books?)
• Look for application. After reading all these non-fiction books, I’m unsure how much has changed my life. I’d like to find ways to process in a deeper way, apply things more directly to my life, and perhaps share what I’m learning in a broader way.

I’ll talk about this more in my reading list for 2020, but I can feel a shift in my reading as I get older (also approaching a new decade) and responsibilities such as family, leadership, and business grow. So I think the categories are going to change over the next 10 years.

All in all, I can’t believe I have a decade of reading to look back on! When I first started these posts, it was simply to remember what I read. Now it has become a history record that I look on fondly and proudly and love visited every year, and I’m excited to see what books I discover from 2020-2029!