I’ve always enjoyed reading, but sometime in 2022 I noticed I was getting into a rut. Every book I picked up was a 20th century historical Non-fiction title, usually about some engineering feat. And I was getting bored.

At the very end of 2022, I asked a number of my friends for books that they enjoyed reading. I figured I’d get a handful of recommendations, some new things to try, and books to mix in to the rest of my regular titles.

The Rules were simple:

• 3 to 5 Books
• Can be from any* category
• Pick your favorite titles, or books that were significant to you, or ones that stuck with you, whether you read it yesterday or years ago.

* Please no “leadership” books….just, no.

I got over 70 recommendations. I anonomyzed the contributions, and published the list here for everyone to see. In 2023, I made the rule that I was going to buy and read only the books from that list. I also made the decision to purchase only from used bookstores locally, adding a bit of serendipity to the books I ended reading.

And in 2023, I read more books than I ever have. I loved every minute of it. I read stories I would not have naturally chosen, from topics and genre’s that I would never have thought I would enjoyed. There were quick and fun stories, powerful ones that impacted me deeply, historical tales and futuristic ones.

Since then, Every December I repeat the exercise. Some books have sat in my TBR pile for over a year, and I go back to the older lists to grab titles as I find them.

And I’ve continued to add friends to the adventure as we talk about it. If you’re interested, reach out to me if you want to join officially. If not, you can always find the updated lists here each year.

The rules for joining Scott’s Book Club are unchanged from where we started: Give me 3-5 recommendations, then go read whatever the hell you want. There are no meetings, no required titles. Just find good stories, read them, and talk about them.