exploring & escapades

In 2021, I read 54 books – 1 fiction, 1 nonfiction, and 1 poetry/essay collection per month + some extras, continuing on a goal I set for myself in 2016 when I realized I was only reading things for school. That year, I decided to read 1 fiction book per month, and I’ve expanded on that idea since then. [A book counts for the month if I start it by the end of the month, not necessarily finish it by then. “Start books so you have to finish then” is the best how-to-read-more hack that I have].

Full list (favorites & notes at the bottom):

Fiction

1. Death on the Nile – Agatha Christie
2. Island – Aldous Huxley
3. Bringing Down the Duke – Evie Dunmore
4. Minor Detail – Arabia Shibli
5. To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway 
6. Bolt from the Blue – Jeremy Cooper
7. Salt Houses – Hala Alyan
8. Burnt Sugar – Avni Doshi
9. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafón 
10. Ali and Nino – Kurban Said
11. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena – Anthony Marra
12. The War for Gloria – Atticus Lish
13. The Captain’s Daughter: Essential Stories – Alexander Pushkin
14. The Country of Others- Leïla Slimani
15. Batlava Lake – Adam Mars-Jones
16.  Matrix – Lauren Groff
17. The Books of Jacob – Olga Tokarczuk 
18. The Anomaly – Hervé Le Tellier

Nonfiction

1. When God Was a Woman: The Landmark Exploration of the Ancient Worship of the Great Goddess and the Eventual Suppression of Women’s Rights – Merlin Stone
2.  Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism – Mariana Mazzucato 
3. A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide – Samantha Power
4.  The Soul of Money – Lynne Twist  
5. I Will Teach You To Be Rich – Ramit Sethi 
6. Stories I Stole – Wendell Steavenson
7. Georgia: In the Mountains of Poetry – Peter Nasmyth
8. The Women I Think About At Night: Traveling the Paths of My Heroes – Mia Kankimäki
9. Reflections of a Wine Merchant: On a Lifetime in the Vineyards and Cellars of France and Italy – Neal I. Rosenthal
10. Natural Wine for the People – Alice Feiring
11. Practical Economics: Economic Transformation and Government Reform in Georgia – Nika Gilauri
12. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life – Anne Lamott
13. Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follet 
14. Call Me American – Abdi Nor Iftin
15. Lee Miller: A Life – Carolyn Burke
16. Escape from Freedom – Erich Fromm
17. The Account: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación – Translation by Martin A Favata and José B Fernández

Poetry/Essay Collections

1. Field Notes – Anna Selby
2. Complete Poems – Ernest Hemingway, edited by Nicholas Gerogiannis
3. Life on Mars – Tracy K. Smith
4. Ideal Suggestions: Essays in Divinatory Poetics –  Selah Saterstrom 
5. The Tiny Journalist – Naomi Shihab Nye
6. Atlas: A Poetic Guide for the Fernweh Spirit – Kelli Marie Frances Harper
7. Anthology of Georgian Poetry – Translated by Veneta Urushadze
8. The Knight in the Panther Skin: Selected Aphorisms – Shota Rustaveli, Translation by Lyn Coffin 
9. Euphoria – F.S. Yousaf
10. The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
11. Letters to a Young Poet: A New Translation and Commentary – Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
12. Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God – Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
13. Mega-City Redux – Alyse Knor
14. The Wild Fox of Yemen – Threa Almontaser
15. Tao Te Ching- Lao Tzu, Translated by Jonathan Star
16. French Love Poems – Edited by Tynan Kogane
17. Knitting the Fog – Claudia Hernández 
18. Over the Moon – Imtiaz Dharker
19. Amnion – Stephanie Sy-Quia

Favorites & Notes

• Call Me American – Abdi Nor Iftin – [[I had listened to Abdi’s ‘This American Life’ episode before, and I expected this to just be a summary of that. It is SO much more. I couldn’t put it down, read like a novel, but tragically it’s real life. I wish everyone would read this.]]
• Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follet – [[Mary Parker Follet is the mother of modern management theory, she was born in Quincy, was one of the first women ever invited to speak at the LSE, and did all of this in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and she is brilliant.]]
• Lee Miller: A Life – Carolyn Burke
• Escape from Freedom – Erich Fromm
• The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
• Letters to a Young Poet: A New Translation and Commentary – Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
• The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafón – [[A bookstore recommendation that I could not put down. I’ve gifted it a few times this year.]]
• The War for Gloria – Atticus Lish – [[Read a pre-publication version and totally fell in love with the writing. It’s set in Quincy / South Shore near where I grew up, so I related to the people and the settings so much]]
• The Books of Jacob – Olga Tokarczuk -[[Tokarczuk’s 900 page novel masterpiece is not for everyone, but if you’re up for it, it’s incredible. I love her writing.]]
• The Country of Others- Leïla Slimani
• When God Was a Woman: The Landmark Exploration of the Ancient Worship of the Great Goddess and the Eventual Suppression of Women’s Rights – Merlin Stone
• Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism – [[Mariana Mazzucato
• Mariana Mazzucato is still my favorite economist]]
• The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life – Lynne Twist -[[This was recommended a lot – it sounded gimmicky to me at first, but it really changed my perspective.]]
• The Anomaly – Hervé Le Tellier