exploring & escapades

bits & pieces of my travels, thoughts, work, and life.

TLDR: In 2015, I realized I was only reading academic papers all day, so my 2016 resolution was to read 1 fiction book a month, which worked out so well that now it’s 1 fiction, 1 nonfiction, & 1 poetry/essay per month. #1 friend&family request I get is for past lists, so now I am publishing all here (including updating throughout the current year). Favorites bolded. Enjoy.

2022 Reading

Updating throughout the year. Favorites & notes at the end. 

Fiction

  1. Snowcrash – Neal Stephenson
  2. Preparation for the Next Life – Atticus Lish
  3.  Cold Enough for Snow – Jessica Au
  4. Scattered All Over the Earth – Yoko Tawada
  5.  They Both Die at The End – Adam Silvera
  6.  Girl One – Sara Flannery Murphy
  7. The Perfume Thief – Timothy Schaffert* (*reading)
  8.  Pure Colour – Sheila Heti
  9. Dogs of Summer – Andrea Abreu* (reading)
  10. (October)
  11. (November)
  12. (December)

Nonfiction

  1. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness: The Stairway to Enlightenment – David R. Hawkin, M.D., Ph.D.
  2. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype – Clarissa Pinkola Estés* (*reading)
  3. Hell and Other Destinations – Madeline Albright
  4. Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History – Lea Ypi
  5. In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing – Elena Ferrante
  6. You Had Me at Pét-Nat: A Natural Wine Soaked Memoir – Rachel Signer
  7.  Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency – Olivia Laing
  8. France: An Adventure History – Graham Robb* (*reading)
  9.  Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste – Bianca Bosker
  10. Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent – Dipo Faloyin* (reading)
  11. (October)
  12. (November)
  13. (December)

Poetry/Essay Collections

  1.  A Symmetry – Ari Banias
  2. Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow: Poems by Natalka Bilotserkivets, translated by Ali Kinsella & Dzvinia Orlowsky
  3. Duino Elegies: A New and Complete Translation by Alfred Corn – Rainer Maria Rilke
  4. Canopy – Linda Gregerson
  5. On The Line: Notes From a Factory – Joseph Ponthus
  6.  Venice – Ange Mlinko
  7. Enough Rope: A Book of Light Verse – Dorothy Parker
  8.  Red Kite, Blue Sky – Madeleine May Kunin
  9.  (September)
  10. (October)
  11. (November)
  12. (December)

2022 Favorites & Notes

  • Pure Colour (Fiction, Sheila Heti) is one of the most superb, important books I’ve ever read — the writing! The philosophy!
  • Preparation for the Next Life (Fiction, Atticus Lish) is a masterpiece in empathy; character-driven and a powerful story packed in simple narrative.
  • Transcending the Levels of Consciousness: The Stairway to Enlightenment (Nonfiction, David R. Hawkin, M.D., Ph.D.) is now a forever-nightstand book.
  • Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History (Nonfiction, Lea Ypi) is incredible nonfiction that flows like fiction.
  • You Had Me at Pét-Nat: A Natural Wine Soaked Memoir (Nonfiction, Rachel Signer) — Came for the wine, stayed for the timeless memoir and beautiful writing; I couldn’t put it down.
  •  Cork Dork (Nonfiction, Bianca Bosker) changed how I will forever think about food and service. Again, came for the wine, stayed for the fascinating could-not-put-down journey.
  • On The Line: Notes From a Factory (Verse, Joseph Ponthus) is just stunning. Heartbreaking and raw; I’m convinced it’s a book people will read in 50 years to learn about this time.

2021 Reading

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

2020 Reading

Fiction

  1. Companions – Christina Hesselholdt
  2. The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
  3. A Woman Is No Man – Etaf Rum
  4. Apeirogon – Colum McCann
  5. Rules of Civility – Amor Towles
  6. We Are Made of Diamond Stuff – Isabel Waidner
  7. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  8. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
  9. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi 
  10. Galápagos – Kurt Vonnegut
  11. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
  12. The Kites – Romain Gary
  13. Street of Thieves – Mathias Enard
  14. The Mermaid of Black Conch – Monique Roffey
  15. Nocilla Experience – Agustín Fernández Mallo
  16. Serpentine – Phillip Pullman 

Nonfiction

  1. Garments Against Women – Anne Boyer
  2. Where Have All The Mangoes Gone? Reactivating the Tropicana Field Site: On the Threshold of St Petersburg’s History, Culture, and History – Sarah-Jane L Vatelot 
  3. People Like Us: What It Takes to Make it in Modern Britain – Hashi Mohamed
  4. What You Have Heard is True – Carolyn Forche 
  5. Axiomatic – Maria Tumarkin
  6. Can Capitalism Survive?: Creative Destruction and the Future of the Global Economy – Joseph Schumpeter
  7. Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life – Queen Noor
  8. The Education of an Idealist – Samantha Power
  9. The Moon and The Ghetto: An Essay on Public Policy Analysis – Richard R. Nelson
  10. The Source – Dr Tara Swart
  11. An Elemental Thing – Eliot Weinberger
  12. Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements – Julietta Singh
  13. The Lightless Sky: A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee’s Extraordinary Journey Across Half the World – Gulwali Passarlay with Nadene Ghouri
  14. Arts & Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation – Anton Howes 
  15. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity – and Why That Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay
  16. Jesus and the Disinherited – Howard Thurman 
  17. The Book of Joy – His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams 
  18. Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life – Bill Burnett and  Dave Evans 
  19. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom – John O’Donohue
  20. Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need – Sasha Costanza-Chock
  21. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name – Brian C. Muraresku
  22. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations – Michael Walzer 

Poetry/Essay Collections

  1. Looking for the Gulf Motel – Richard Blanco
  2. One House Down – Gianna Russo
  3. Pink Streets – Helen Pruitt Wallace 
  4. C. P. Cavafy Poems – Selected with translations and notes by Daniel Mendelsons
  5. Love Poems – Pablo Neruda
  6. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude – Ross Gay
  7. Night Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong
  8. The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master – Translations by Daniel Ladinsky
  9. Exploring My Options – Maureen McDole
  10. The Conference of the Birds – Farid Ud-Din Attar
  11. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry- Edited by Joy Harjo
  12. Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass – Lana Del Ray
  13. The Wild Iris – Louise Glück
  14. Pharaoh’s Daughter (Selected Poems in Irish with Translations) – Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill 

2019 Reading

Fiction

  1. Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne
  2. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
  3. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Márquez
  4. Go Tell It On The Mountain – James Baldwin
  5. Disappearing Earth – Julia Phillips 
  6. Tell Them Of Battles, Kings, and Elephants – Mathias Enard
  7. Nocilla Dream – Agustín Fernández Mallo
  8. Florida – Lauren Groff
  9. Insurrecto – Gina Apostol
  10. The Fallen – Carlos Manuel Álvarez
  11. The Secret Commonwealth – Philip Pullman
  12. Circe – Madeline Miller
  13. My Name is Leon – Kit de Waal

Nonfiction

  1. The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World – Peter Frankopan 
  2. How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor – Erik Reinert 
  3. The French Riviera: A Literary Guide for Travellers – Ted Jones
  4. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy – Joseph Schumpeter 
  5. Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs – Edited by Samuel Zipp & Nathan Storring 
  6. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions – Gloria Steinem
  7. GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History- Diane Coyle 
  8. The Souls of Black Folks – W. E. B. Du Bois
  9. Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age – Matthew J. Salganik
  10. Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
  11. Second Hand Time – Svetlana Alexievich 
  12. Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood – Gwen Raverat
  13. Man Alone With Himself – Friedrich Nietzsche
  14. Arena of Ambition: A History of the Cambridge Union – Stephen Parkinson 
  15. Late Fragments: Everything I Want to Tell You About This Magnificent Life – Kate Gross 
  16. Pretentiousness: Why it Matters – Dan Fox
  17. The Myth of Sisyphus – Albert Camus
  18. New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dixie, and K-Pop – Fatima Bhutto 
  19. Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting From the Arab World – Zahra Hankir 
  20. Sunshine State (Essays) – Sarah Gerard 
  21. The Fated Sky: Astrology in History – Benson Bobrick

Poetry/Essay Collections

  1. Who is Mary Sue? – Sophie Collins
  2. A Thousand Mornings – Mary Oliver
  3. My Poems Won’t Change the World – Patrizia Cavalli
  4. And Still I Rise – Maya Angelou
  5. Selected Poems – Rainer Maria Rilke
  6. Please – Jericho Brown
  7. Whereas – Layli Long Soldier
  8. Selected Poems – Rumi
  9. Lord Byron – selected by Paul Muldoon
  10. She is Fierce: Brave, bold, and beautiful poems by women – Ana Sampson
  11. Measure of Expatriation – Vahni Capildeo
  12. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám – Edward FitzGerald

2018 Reading

Fiction

  1. The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride
  2. The Spy – Paul Coelho
  3. Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie
  4. The Master and the Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
  5. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
  6. The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin
  7. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
  8. Flights – Olga Tokarczuk
  9. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Wolf
  10. A Stricken Field – Martha Gellhorn
  11. We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
  12. Three Daughters of Eve – Elif Shafak
  13. A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
  14. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return – Marianne Satrapi 
  15. The Mandarins – Simone de Beauvoir
  16. Outline – Rachel Cusk
  17. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Nonfiction

  1. A House in Fez – Suzanna Clarke
  2. Footsteps: Literary Pilgrimages Around the World – The New York Times
  3. Why Women Will Save the Planet – Friends of the Earth
  4. The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 40 Years – Yvon Chouinard & Vincent Stanley
  5. Nature as an Event – Didier Debaise 
  6. Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds – María Puig de la Bellacasa
  7. Measuring and Improving Social Impacts: A Guide for Nonprofits, Companies, and Impact Investors – Marc J. Epstein & Kristi Yuthas
  8. A History of the World in 7 Cheap Things – Jason W. Moore & Raj Patel
  9. Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet – Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan, Nils Bubandt
  10. The Value of Everything: Making & Taking in the Global Economy – Mariana Mazzucato
  11. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – Carlo Rovelli
  12. The Tide – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
  13. The Years – Annie Ernaux
  14. The Human Condition – Hannah Arendt 
  15. The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab – Carl Miller
  16. The Art Of Travel – Alain de Botton
  17. The Need for Roots – Simone Weil
  18. Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life – Gisele Bündchen
  19. The Captive Mind – Czeslaw Milosz 
  20. Becoming – Michele Obama
  21. The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe – Arthus Koestler
  22. Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl

2017 Reading

Fiction

  1. The Three Body Problem – Liu Cixin
  2. The Course of Love – Alain de Botton
  3. My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
  4. Exit West – Mohasin Homid
  5. All Our Wrong Todays – Elon Mestai
  6. The Story of a New Name – Elena Ferrante
  7. Crazy Rich Asians-  Kevin Kwan
  8. The Right of Way – LB Lewis
  9. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay – Elena Ferrante
  10. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
  11. Hello Sunshine – Laura Davis
  12. Fierce Kingdom, A Novel -Gin Phillips
  13. A Darker Shade of Magic – V.E. Schwab
  14. The Book of Dust – Philip Pullman
  15. Affections, A Novel – Rodrigo Hasbún
  16. Zorba the Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis

Nonfiction

  1. Profiles of Courage – JFK
  2. Thank You for Being Late – Thomas Friedman
  3. Dark Age Ahead – Jane Jacobs
  4. The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation – Antoine van Agtmael & Fred Bakker
  5. The Fight for Beauty: Our Path to a Better Future – Fiona Reynolds
  6. If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities – Benjamin R. Barber
  7. Wild – Cheryl Strayed
  8. Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World – Don Tapscott & Alex Tapscott
  9. Wild Europe: The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travelers – Božidar Jezernik
  10. Utopia for Realists-Rutger Bregman
  11. On Photography – Susan Sontay
  12. The Misfit Economy: Lessons in Creativity from Pirates, Hackers, Gangsters, and Other Informal Entrepreneurs
  13. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger – Marc Levinson
  14. Daring Greatly – Brené Brown
  15. The Culture Map – Erin Meyer
  16. The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton
  17. Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives – Sarah Williams Goldhagen
  18. The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness -Sy Montgomery
  19. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World – Peter Frankopan

2016 Reading

Fiction

  1. Euphoria – Lily King
  2. The Rocks – Peter Nichols
  3. The Expatriates – Janice Y. K. Lee
  4. The Signature of All Things – Elizabeth Gilbert
  5. Beautiful Ruins – Jess Walter
  6. The Yoga of Max’s Discontent – Karan Bajaj
  7. Girl at War – Sara Novic
  8. The Summer Before the War – Helen Simonson
  9. Enchanted Islands – Allison Amend 
  10. Invincible Summer – Alice Adams
  11. Why We Came to the City – Kristopher Jansma
  12. The Handmaid’s Tail – Margaret Atwood
  13. My Brilliant Career – Miles Franklin
  14. Faithful – Alice Hoffman