PERSONAL READING LISTS
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January
Art Work: On the Creative Life- Sally Mann
The Power- Naomi Alderman
A Truce That is Not Peace- Miriam Toews
Heartwood- Amity Gauge
What Strange Paradise- Omar El Akkad
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee (Esme mams book club)
The Correspondent- Virginia Evans
Pretend I’m Dead- Jen Beagin
Shattered: a Memoir- Hanif Kureishi
Rosarita- Anita Desai
Late in The Day- Tessa Hadley
February
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny- Kiran Desai
Theo of Golden- Allen Levi
Undiscovered- Gabriela Wiener
A Different Kind of Power- Jacinda Ardern
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier- Ishmael Beah
Clear- Carys Davies
Hello Beautiful- Ann Napolitano
March
Someone Like Us- Dinaw Mengestu
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter- Kim Edwards
A Long Walk to Water- Linda Sue Park
Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling- Jason De Leon
All my Rage- Sabaa Tahir
Mother Mary Comes to Me- Arundhati Roy
The Rest of Our Lives- Ben Markovits
A Walk in the Park: the true story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon- Kevin Fedarko
Daybook- Anne Truitt
AprilThe Harder I Fight the More I Love You- Neko Case
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage- Alfred Lansing
A Suit or A Suitcase: Poems- Maggie Smith
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
The Distance of a Shout: Selected Poems- Michael Ondaatje
Rebecca- Daphne du Maurier
Big Swiss- Jen Beagin
Punished- Ann-Helén Laestadius
Death Comes for the Archbishop- Willa Cather
The School of Night- Karl Ove Knausgaard
May
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Awful Rowing Toward God- Anne Sexton
Ordinary Grace- William Kent Krueger
The Uncool: A Memoir- Cameron Crowe
Brawler: Stories- Lauren Groff
Heavy: An American Memoir- Kiese Laymon 44
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
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January
The God of the Woods- Liz Moore
The Winter Vault- Anne Michaels
Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis- Ada Calhoun
Woman at Point Zero- Nawal El Saadawi
I Have Some Questions For You- Rebecca Makkai
The Highly Sensitive Parent- Elaine N. Aron
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell- Robert Dugoni
Rental House- Weike Wang
A Pearl in the Storm- Tori Murden McClure
Cleopatra- Stacy Schiff
February
Desert, Marsh & Mountain- Wilfred Thesiger
Dinner with Edward- Isabel Vincent
Exterminate All The Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide- Sven Lindqvist
The Candy House- Jennifer Eagan
Sorrow and Bliss- Meg Mason
March
The Message- Ta-Nehisi Coates
Dirtbag, Massachusetts- Isaac Fitzgerald
Crush- Ada Calhoun
New People- Danzy Senna
Spirit Run: A 6,000 Mile Marathon through North America’s Stolen Land- Noe Alvarez
Brother of the More Famous Jack- Barbara Trapido
Day- Michael Cunningham
Catching the Light: poems- Joy Harjo
Traveller: Observations from an American in Exile- Michael Katakis
After Annie- Anna Quindlen
The Adventurer’s Son: A Memoir- Roman Dial
April
Welcome to The Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North- Blair Braverman
Small Game- Blair Braverman
Liliana’s Invincible Summer- Christina Rivera Garza
Go Tell It on the Mountain- James Baldwin
Giovanni’s Room- James Baldwin *
A Separation- Katie Kitamura
The Body is a Doorway- Sophie Strand
Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World- Suzy Hansen *
May
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow- Gabrielle Zevin
Creation Lake- Rachel Kushner
The Safekeep- Yael Van Der Wouden *
Dare I Say It- Naomi Watts
City of Night Birds- Juhea Kim
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic- Alison Bechdel *
June
Twist- Colum McCann *
Dear Dickhead- Virginie Despentes *
Blood in the Machine-: The Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech- Brian Merchant *
Blow Your House Down- Gina Frangello
I Remember- Joe Brainard
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A story of loss, love, and the hidden order of life- Lulu Miller
Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir- Craig Mod *
The Heart is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in Mumbai- Elizabeth Flock
The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America- Tracie McMillan
Memorial Days- Geraldine Brooks
July
Celine- Peter Heller
The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology- Mark Boyle
The Painter of Battles- Arturo Perez- Reverte
Tilt- Emma Pattee
There are Rivers in the Sky- Elif Shafak *
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry- Gabrielle Zevin
Apeirogon- Colum McCann *
One Day, Everyone will have always been against this- Omar El Akkad
Wild Dark Shore- Charlotte McConaghy *
August
The River is Waiting- Wally Lamb
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck- Sophie Elmhirst
Spent- Alison Bechdel
The Island of Missing Trees- Elif Shafak *
The Emperor of Gladness- Ocean Vuong
So Far Gone- Jess Walter
Why We Sleep- Matthew Walker
September
Run for the Hills- Kevin Wilson
The Tell- Amy Griffin
Man’s Search for Meaning- Viktor E. Frankl
Chasing Hope: A Reporters Life- Nicholas D. Kristof
Dream State- Eric Puchner
Notes to John- Joan Didion
All the Way to The River- Elizabeth Gilbert
Intimacies- Katie Kitamura
What Kind of Paradise- Janelle Brown
October
Beautiful World, Where Are You? - Sally Rooney
A Very Easy Death- Simone de Beauvoir
The Boy in the Field- Margot Livesey
The Position of Spoons- Deborah Levy
Inseparable- Simone de Beauvoir
Notes on Infinity- Austin Taylor
What We Can Know- Ian McEwan
Days and Nights of Love and War- Eduardo Galeano
The Hate U Give- Angie Thomas
November
Stolen- Ann-Helen Laestadius *
Walking on the Ceiling- Aysegul Savas
Everyone Who is Gone is Here- Jonathan Blitzer *
Whale Fall- Elizabeth O’Connor *
Red at The Bone- Jacqueline Woodson
Stone Yard Devotional- Charlotte Wood *
How About Now: Poems- Kate Baer
The Last White Man- Mohsin Hamid
The Perfect Nanny- Leila Slimani
Convenience Store Woman- Sayaka Murata
Kairos- Jenny Erpenbeck *
Rememberings- Sinéad O’Connor
December
The White Darkness- David Grann
Three Days in June- Anne Tyler
The Girl From the Metropol Hotel- Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
The Awakening- Kate Chopin *
Little Dorrit- Charles Dickens
Weaving Sundown in Scarlet Light: Poems- Joy Harjo *
Aflame- Pico Iyer *
To The River- Olivia Laing
Heart the Lover- Lily King *
105 books
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January
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store- James MacBride
So Late in the Day- Claire Keegan
The Great Fire- Shirley Hazzard
The Wolves of Eternity- Karl Ove Knausgaard
August Blue- Deborah Levy
North Woods- Daniel Mason
Novelist as Vocation- Haruki Murakami
February
The Dog Stars- Peter Heller
The Vaster Wilds- Lauren Groff
The River- Peter Heller
Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three Years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot- Sarah Marquis
Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls through the seven transitions into adulthood- Lisa Damour
Books: A Memoir- Larry McMurtry
Ruthless River: Love & Survival by Raft on the Amazon’s Relentless Madre de Dios- Holly Fitzgerald
Citizen: An American Lyric- Claudia Rankine
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma- Claire Dederer
Silence : The power of quiet in a world full of noise- Thich Nhat Hanh
March
Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life- Caroline Moorehead
Saving Time- Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock- Jenny Odell
Biography of X- Catherine Lacey
Flight-Lynn Steger Strong
Want- Lynn Steger Strong
The Forgotten Girls: a Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America- Monica Potts
Plain and Simple; A Woman’s Journey to the Amish- Sue Bender
The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly- Margareta Magnusson
Tinkers- Paul Harding
Unfinished Woman- Robyn Davidson
While I was Gone- Sue Miller
A Passage to India- EM Forster
April
My Side of the River: a memoir- Elizabeth Camarillo Guitierrez
Fi- a memoir- Alexandra Fuller
The White Tiger- Aravind Adiga
Midwives- Chris Bohjalian
The Red Lotus- Chris Bohjalian
The Sleepwalker- Chris Bohjalian
An Area of Darkness: a Discovery of India- VS Naipaul
Kim- Rudyard Kipling
Ghosts- Dolly Alderton
May
Splinters- Leslie Jamison
The Art Thief: a true story of love, crime, and a dangerous obsession- Michael Finkle
Away- Amy Bloom
Floaters: poems- Martin Espada
Love and Trouble: Midlife reckoning- Claire Dederer
The Bee Sting- Paul Murray
Essays After Eighty- Donald Hall
Why Religion? -Elaine Pagels
The Silent Patient- Alex Michaelides
I love Dick- Chris Kraus
June
The Covenant of Water- Abraham Verghese
The Road to Character- David Brooks
And Now We Have Everything- Meaghan O’Connell
The Second Mountain- David Brooks
I am homeless if this is not my home- Lorrie Moore (hated this)
Whereabouts- Jhumpa Lahiri
Running in the Family- Michael Ondaatje (loved)
Every Day is for the Thief- Teju Cole (loved)
One Hundred Names for Love- Diane Ackerman (loved)
Tremor- Teju Cole
July
Doppelganger: a trip into the mirror world- Naomi Klein (loved)
Wandering Stars- Tommy Orange (loved)
Cutting for Stone- Abraham Verghese
Kick the Latch- Kathryn Scanlan (loved)
Signs Preceding the End of the World- Yuri Herrera
Whiskey Tender- Deborah Jackson Taffa
In the Eye of the Wild- Nastassja Martin
Minarets in the Mountains; a journey into Muslim Europe- Tharik Hussain
The Book of My Lives- Aleksandar Hemon
August
They Called me a Lioness: A Palestine Girl’s Fight for Freedom- Ahed Tamimi & Dena Takruri
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging- Sebastian Junger
My War Gone By, I Miss it So- Anthony Loyd
The Cellist of Sarajevo- Steven Galloway
Otherwise: New & Selected Poems- Jane Kenyon
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy- Nathan Thrall
What are you going through- Sigrid Nunez
Burma Sahib- Paul Theroux
Roman Stories- Jhumpa Lahiri
September
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History- Lea Ypi
Men We Reap- Jesmyn Ward
All Fours- Miranda July
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland- Patrick Radden Keefe
The Tennis Partner- Abraham Verghese
The Places in Between- Rory Stewart
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder- Salman Rushdie
Long Island- Colm Toibin
The Marches: A borderland Journey between England and Scotland- Rory Stewart
October
How to Say Babylon- Safiya Sinclair
Mouth to Mouth- Antoine Wilson
Bewilderment- Richard Powers
Cannibal (poems)- Safiya Sinclair
This Strange Eventful History- Claire Messud
As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner
The Third Realm- Karl Ove Knausgaard
November
Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative- Isabella Hammad
All the Light We Cannot See- Anthony Doerr
The Mighty Red- Louise Erdrich
Tell Me Everything- Elizabeth Strout
Hunger- Knut Hamsun
December
Empress of the Nile- Lynn Olson
A Year of Last Things : poems- Michael Ondaatje
The Highly Sensitive Person- Elaine N. Aron
INFINITE JEST- David Foster Wallace
Orbital- Samantha Harvey
Colored Television- Danzy Senna
Brightly Shining- Ingvild Rishoi
Steppenwolf- Hermann Hesse
105 books
January
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store- James MacBride
So Late in the Day- Claire Keegan
The Great Fire- Shirley Hazzard
The Wolves of Eternity- Karl Ove Knausgaard
August Blue- Deborah Levy
North Woods- Daniel Mason
Novelist as Vocation- Haruki Murakami
February
The Dog Stars- Peter Heller
The Vaster Wilds- Lauren Groff
The River- Peter Heller
Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three Years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot- Sarah Marquis
Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls through the seven transitions into adulthood- Lisa Damour
Books: A Memoir- Larry McMurtry
Ruthless River: Love & Survival by Raft on the Amazon’s Relentless Madre de Dios- Holly Fitzgerald
Citizen: An American Lyric- Claudia Rankine
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma- Claire Dederer
Silence : The power of quiet in a world full of noise- Thich Nhat Hanh
March
Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life- Caroline Moorehead
Saving Time- Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock- Jenny Odell
Biography of X- Catherine Lacey
Flight-Lynn Steger Strong
Want- Lynn Steger Strong
The Forgotten Girls: a Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America- Monica Potts
Plain and Simple; A Woman’s Journey to the Amish- Sue Bender
The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly- Margareta Magnusson
Tinkers- Paul Harding
Unfinished Woman- Robyn Davidson
While I was Gone- Sue Miller
A Passage to India- EM Forster
April
My Side of the River: a memoir- Elizabeth Camarillo Guitierrez
Fi- a memoir- Alexandra Fuller
The White Tiger- Aravind Adiga
Midwives- Chris Bohjalian
The Red Lotus- Chris Bohjalian
The Sleepwalker- Chris Bohjalian
An Area of Darkness: a Discovery of India- VS Naipaul
Kim- Rudyard Kipling
Ghosts- Dolly Alderton
May
Splinters- Leslie Jamison
The Art Thief: a true story of love, crime, and a dangerous obsession- Michael Finkle
Away- Amy Bloom
Floaters: poems- Martin Espada
Love and Trouble: Midlife reckoning- Claire Dederer
The Bee Sting- Paul Murray
Essays After Eighty- Donald Hall
Why Religion? -Elaine Pagels
The Silent Patient- Alex Michaelides
I love Dick- Chris Kraus
June
The Covenant of Water- Abraham Verghese
The Road to Character- David Brooks
And Now We Have Everything- Meaghan O’Connell
The Second Mountain- David Brooks
I am homeless if this is not my home- Lorrie Moore (hated this)
Whereabouts- Jhumpa Lahiri
Running in the Family- Michael Ondaatje (loved)
Every Day is for the Thief- Teju Cole (loved)
One Hundred Names for Love- Diane Ackerman (loved)
Tremor- Teju Cole
July
Doppelganger: a trip into the mirror world- Naomi Klein (loved)
Wandering Stars- Tommy Orange (loved)
Cutting for Stone- Abraham Verghese
Kick the Latch- Kathryn Scanlan (loved)
Signs Preceding the End of the World- Yuri Herrera
Whiskey Tender- Deborah Jackson Taffa
In the Eye of the Wild- Nastassja Martin
Minarets in the Mountains; a journey into Muslim Europe- Tharik Hussain
The Book of My Lives- Aleksandar Hemon
August
They Called me a Lioness: A Palestine Girl’s Fight for Freedom- Ahed Tamimi & Dena Takruri
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging- Sebastian Junger
My War Gone By, I Miss it So- Anthony Loyd
The Cellist of Sarajevo- Steven Galloway
Otherwise: New & Selected Poems- Jane Kenyon
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy- Nathan Thrall
What are you going through- Sigrid Nunez
Burma Sahib- Paul Theroux
Roman Stories- Jhumpa Lahiri
September
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History- Lea Ypi
Men We Reap- Jesmyn Ward
All Fours- Miranda July
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland- Patrick Radden Keefe
The Tennis Partner- Abraham Verghese
The Places in Between- Rory Stewart
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder- Salman Rushdie
Long Island- Colm Toibin
The Marches: A borderland Journey between England and Scotland- Rory Stewart
October
How to Say Babylon- Safiya Sinclair
Mouth to Mouth- Antoine Wilson
Bewilderment- Richard Powers
Cannibal (poems)- Safiya Sinclair
This Strange Eventful History- Claire Messud
As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner
The Third Realm- Karl Ove Knausgaard
November
Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative- Isabella Hammad
All the Light We Cannot See- Anthony Doerr
The Mighty Red- Louise Erdrich
Tell Me Everything- Elizabeth Strout
Hunger- Knut Hamsun
December
Empress of the Nile- Lynn Olson
A Year of Last Things : poems- Michael Ondaatje
The Highly Sensitive Person- Elaine N. Aron
INFINITE JEST- David Foster Wallace
Orbital- Samantha Harvey
Colored Television- Danzy Senna
Brightly Shining- Ingvild Rishoi
Steppenwolf- Hermann Hesse
105 books
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January
My Dark Vanessa- Kate Elizabeth Russell
Vernon Subutex Vol. 1- Virginie Despentes
Life’s Work- David Milch
Vernon Subutex Vol. 2- Virginie Despentes
Tales of a Female Nomad- Rita Golden Gelman
Changes: A love Story: Ama Ata Aidoo
February
The Last Train to Zona Verde- Paul Theroux
All the Way to the Tigers- Mary Morris
Vernon Subutex Vol.3- Virginie Despentes
March
Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas- Harley Rustad
Air Mail: Letter of Politics, Pandemics, and Place- Pam Houston and Amy Irvine
Monogamy- Sue Miller
The Years- Annie Ernaux
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes- Maya Angelou
Desert Cabal: a New Season in the Wilderness- Amy Irvine
Elegy for Iris- John Bayley
The Arsonist- Sue Miller
Musical Tables- Billy Collins
A Three Dog Life- Abigail Thomas
The Senator’s Wife- Sue Miller
April
The Naked Don’t Fear the Water- Matthieu Aikins
What Comes Next and How to Like it: a memoir- Abigail Thomas
The Anomaly- Hervé Le Tellier
Signal Fires- Dani Shapiro
The Half Know Life: In Search of Paradise- Pico Iyer
How to Raise A Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of my Family- Sonora Jha
Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth- Sarah Smarsh
The Choreography of Everyday Life- Annie-B Parson
May
Something bright, then holes- Maggie Nelson
Stay True- Hua Hsu
The Marriage Portrait- Maggie O’Farrell
In Love: A Memoir of love and loss - Amy Bloom
Tattoos on the Heart- the Power of Boundless Compassion- Gregory Boyle
The Whole Language- the Power of Extravagant Tenderness- Gregory Boyle
Run Towards the Danger: Conversations with a Body of Memory- Sarah Polley
June
Priestdaddy- Patricia Lockwood
Demon Copperhead- Barbara Kingsolver
The Light We Carry- Michelle Obama
I Could Live Here Forever- Hanna Halperin
Crying in H Mart- Michelle Zauner
Properties of Thirst- Marianne Wiggins
Running with Sherman- Christopher McDougall
Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA- Amaryllis Fox
July
Poverty, By America- Matthew Desmond
More Than I Love My Life- David Grossman
About Grace- Anthony Doerr
The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure- Carl Hoffman
The Maytree’s- Annie Dillard
I think it, You Say it- Curtis Sittenfeld
The Soul of a Woman- Isabel Allende
Evening- Susan Minot
Stranger in the Forest- On Foot Across Borneo- Eric Hansen
Sisterland- Curtis Sittenfeld
August
Lessons in Chemistry- Bonnie Garmus
The Boy and The Dog- Seishu Hase
The Reluctant Fundamentalist- Mohsin Hamid
Assembly- Natasha Brown
Independent People- Halldór Laxness
Happy-Go-Lucky- David Sedaris
September
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine- Gail Honeyman
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age- Katherine May
Outliers: The Story of Success- Malcolm Gladwell
Light Years- James Salter
The Sentence- Louise Erdrich
The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty- Vendela Vida
My Year of Rest and Relaxation- Ottessa Moshfegh
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name- Vendela Vida
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead- Olga Tokarczuk
The Young Man- Annie Erneaux
October
On Beauty- Zadie Smith
Happening- Annie Erneaux
You Could Make This Place Beautiful- Maggie Smith
Keep Moving- Maggie Smith
300 Arguments- Sarah Manguso
The All of It- Jeanette Haien
This Must Be the Place- Maggie O’Farrell
Deacon King Kong- James McBride
November
Up Home- Ruth J Simmons
All of This: A Memoir of Death and Desire- Rebecca Woolf
Tom Lake- Ann Patchett
Inciting Joy- Ross Gay
Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World- Barry Lopez
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox- Maggie O’Farrell
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers- Lisa Damour
The Hand That First Held Mine- Maggie O’Farrell
Instructions for a Heatwave- Maggie O’Farrell
December
Hamnet- Maggie O’Farrell
Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of the Himalaya- Bruce Kirkby
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek- Kim Michele Richards
This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life- David Foster Wallace
West with the Night- Beryl Markham
Travel with Myself and Another: Five Journeys in Hell- Martha Gellhorn
Life After Life- Kate Atkinson
My Lover’s Lover- Maggie O’Farrell
94 Books
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January
Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women- Annabel Abbs
Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Loneliest Horse Race- Lara Prior-Palmer
On Immunity- Eula Biss
Letter to My Daughter- Maya Angelou
Such a Fun Age- Kiley Reid
Plainsong- Kent Haruf
Eventide- Kent Haruf
Our Souls at Night- Kent Haruf
February
The Morning Star- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life: Queen Noor al- Hussein
Married to a Bedouin- Marguerite van Geldermalsen
March
The Land Beyond: A Thousand Miles on Foot through the Heart of the Middle East- Leon McCarron
A Border Passage: From Cairo to America – A Woman’s Journey- Leila Ahmed
April
Migrations- Charlotte McConaghy
Devotions (Why I Write Series/Yale)-Patti Smith
Inadvertent (Why I Write Series/Yale)-Karl Ove Knausgaard
Of Solids and Surds (Why I Write Series/Yale)- Samuel R. Delany
A Strangeness in My Mind- Orhan Pamuk
One Long River of Song- Brian Doyle
Of Love & War- Lynsey Addario
May
Benediction- Kent Haruf
One Life- Megan Rapinoe
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter- Sue Monk Kidd
The Book of Longings- Sue Monk Kidd
Hot Milk- Deborah Levy
The Empathy Diaries- Sherry Turkle
June
The Signature of All Things- Elizabeth Gilbert
Augustus- John Williams
Four Seasons in Rome- Anthony Doerr
July
Light Perpetual- Francis Spufford
Somebody’s Daughter- Ashley C. Ford
Between Two Kingdoms- Suleika Jaouad
Matrix- Lauren Groff
The Book of Delights- Ross Gay
August
Olive, Again- Elizabeth Strout
Florida- Lauren Groff
The Delicacy and Strength of Lace-Letters : Leslie Marmon Silko & James Wright
Yoga- Emmanuel Carrere
The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a Wedding in St. Roch, the Big Box Store, the Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All- C. D. Wright
The Burgess Boys- Elizabeth Strout
September
The Crane Wife- CJ Hauser
Mercy Street- Jennifer Haigh
The Upgrade- Louann Brizendine, MD
Girlhood- Melissa Febos
Anything’s Possible- Elizabeth Strout
Weather- Jenny Offill
Body Work- Melissa Febos
The Autobiography of My Mother- Jamaica Kincaid
When Breathe Becomes Air- Paul Kalanithi
Oh, William- Elizabeth Strout
October
Calypso- David Sedaris
Dept. of Speculation- Jenny Offill
Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff- Rosemary Mahoney
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls- David Sedaris
The Heart’s Invisible Furies- John Boyne
Living with a Wild God- Barbara Ehrenreich
Edge of the Map: The Mountain Life of Christine Boskoff- Johanna Garton
Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life- Arlene Blum
Lucy by the Sea- Elizabeth Strout
Fight Night- Miriam Toews
Ejaculate Responsibly- Gabrielle Blair
November
The Final Case- David Guterson
Full Tilt: Dunkirk to Dehli by Bicycle- Dervla Murphy
Memoirs of a Woman Doctor- Nawal El Saadawi
French Braid- Anne Tyler
The Uncoupling- Meg Wolitzer
Wild Horses of the Summer Sun- Tory Bilski
December
The Ninties- Chuck Klosterman
Solito- Javier Zamora
Animal Bodies: on death, desire, and other difficulties- Suzanne Roberts
Trouble the Water- Rebecca Dwight Bruff
Sea State – Tabitha Lasley
You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker- John Keats
Foster- Claire Keegan
74 books
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January
My Life as a Russian Novel- Emmanuel Carrère
Book 1 My Struggle- a Death in the Family- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me- Bess Kalb
February
Book 2 My Struggle- - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Book 3 My Struggle- - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Book 4 My Struggle- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It- Geoff Dyer
March
Book 5 My Struggle- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Split Tooth- Tanya Tagaq
Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room – Geoff Dyer
April
Book 6 My Struggle- Karl Ove Knausgaard
I am, I am, I am – Maggie O’Farrell
Night Boat to Tangier – Kevin Barry
Lives Other than My Own- Emmanuel Carrère
The Writer’s Desk- Jill Krementz
Writers & Lovers- Lily King
May
The Pleasing Hour- Lily King
Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood, Youth, Dependency- Tove Ditlevsen
What I talk about when I talk about Running- Haruki Murakami
The Argonauts- Maggie Nelson
What Kind of Woman poems- Kate Baer
The Vegetarian- Han Kang
June
The Songlines- Bruce Chatwin
The Highly Sensitive Person- Elaine Aron
The Vanishing Half- Brit Bennett
My Accidental Jihad- Krista Bremer
July
The Future of the Living God- Louise Erdrich
Letters to a Young Poet- Rainer Maria Rilke
The Old Ways- Robert Macfarlane
Bluets- Maggie Nelson
Crazy Brave: a memoir- Joy Harjo
Ishmael- Daniel Quinn
Owning Your Own Shadow- Robert A Johnson
Broken Horses: a memoir- Brandi Carlile
August
The Oblivion Seekers- Isabelle Eberhardt
White Sands- Geoff Dyer
All the Little Live Things- Wallace Stegner
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage- Ann Patchett
September
Real Estate- Deborah Levy
Once There Were Wolves- Charlotte McConaghy
The Dry Heart- Natalia Ginzburg
Small Victories- Anne Lamott
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers- Jenn Shapland
October
Bless Me Ultima- Rudolfo Anaya
A Short History of Women- Kate Walbert
Under the Wave at Waimea- Paul Theroux
The Art of Travel- Alain de Bottom
The Color of Water- James McBride (in a yurt, Taos)
November
The Course of Love- Alain de Botton
Bear- Marian Engel (nyc plane)
The Nightwatchman- Louise Erdrich (NSB, Fla)
December
Having and Being Had- Eula Bliss
The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin
For Now (Why I Write Series/Yale)- Eileen Myles
Things I Don’t Want to Know- Deborah Levy
Gilead- Marilynne Robinson
Home- Marilynne Robinson
Lila- Marilynne Robinson
Jack- Marilynne Robinson
Small Things Like These- Claire Keegan
63 Books total
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January
Committed –Elizabeth Gilbert
The Blue Hour- Poems - Carolyn Forche
Refusing Heaven- Poems- Jack Gilbert
The Leavers- Lisa Ko
Taking the Arrow out of the Heart-Poems- Alice Walker
The Education of An Idealist- Samantha Power
February
The Body Keeps the Score- Bessel Van der Kolk
The Best Day the Worst Day- Life with Jane Kenyon- Donald Hall
Tin Man- Sarah Winman
Strength in What Remains- Tracy Kidder
March PANDEMIC BEGINS
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft- Stephen King
Travel Light, Move Fast- Alexandra Fuller
The Red Notebook- Antoine Laurain
The Spectator Bird- Wallace Stegner
Girl in Translation- Jean Kwok
April
The Living Mountain- Nan Shepherd
Country Girl: a memoir- Edna O’Brien
The Plain of Snakes- Paul Theroux
The Things They Carried- Tim O’Brien
Bridge of Clay- Markus Zusak
May
A Time To Keep Silence- Patrick Leigh Fermor
Maid: Hard work, low pay, and a mother’s will to survive- Stephanie Land
A New Path to the Waterfall- Raymond Carver
Fleishman is in Trouble- Taffy Brodesser-Akner (complete garbage)
Landmarks- Robert Macfarlane (brilliant)
The Shared Wisdom of Mothers and Daughters- Alexandra Stoddard
June
The Dutch House- Ann Patchett
Motherhood- Sheila Heti
The Island of the Sea Women- Lisa See
An American Sunrise- poems- Joy Harjo
July
How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy- Jenny Odell
Normal People- Sally Rooney (very unpleasant)
Scribbling the Cat- Alexandra Fuller
Recollection of My Nonexistence- Rebecca Solnit
The Monk of Mokha- Dave Eggers
Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis- Greta Thunberg, Svante Thunberg, Malena Ernman, Beata Ernman
August
The House of Broken Angels- Luis Alberto Urrea
Land of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road- Kate Harris
The Opposite of Fate: memories of a writing life- Amy Tan
March (Trilogy)- John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (brilliant)
The Overstory- Richard Powers
September
American Dirt- Jeanine Cummins
Untamed- Glennon Doyle
The Salt Path- Raynor Winn
October
Autumn- Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Midwife: A memoir of birth, joy and hard times- Jennifer Worth
A Midwife’s Story- Penny Armstrong & Sheryl Feldman
Winter- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Know My Name- Chanel Miller
November
The Lying Life of Adults- Elena Ferrante
Birth: The Surprising History of How We are Born- Tina Cassidy
Disappearing Earth- Julia Phillips
December
Spring- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Sisters on a Journey: Portraits of American Midwives- Penfield Chester
Summer- Karl Ove Knausgaard
Books Read: 55,
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January
Exit West-Mohsin Hamid
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis- Timothy Egan
February
Clock Dance- Anne Tyler
Maya’s Notebook- Isabelle Allende
Becoming- Michelle Obama
March
In the Midst of Winter- Isabel Allende
The perfect couple- Elin Hilderbrand
Unsheltered- Barbara Kingsolver
April
Between the World and Me- Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Other Einstein- Marie Benedict
Drowning Ruth- Christina Schwartz
Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen- Jose Antonio Vargas
May
Warlight- Michael Ondaatje
The Only Woman in the Room- Marie Benedict
Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country- Pam Houston
No Walls and the Recurring Dream- Ani DiFranco
The Past-Tessa Hadley
June
Good and Mad- Rebecca Traister
The Library Book- Susan Orlean
An American Marriage-Tayari Jones
July
The Great Alone- Kristin Hannah
Milkman-Anna Burns
Inheritance- Dani Shapiro
The Orchid Thief- Susan Orlean
August
Small Fry- Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Where the Crawdads Sing- Delia Owens
The Still Point of the Turning World- Emily Rapp
Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations – Georgina Howell
September
The Husband’s Secret- Liane Moriarty
Barking to the Choir: the Power of Radical Kinship- Gregory Boyle
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.- Adelle Waldman
Divisadero-Michael Ondatje
October
Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury
Heartberries: A Memoir- Terese Marie Mailhot
My Friend Anna: the true story of a fake heiress- Rachel DeLoache Williams
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey- Kamala Harris
November
The Great Failure: a bartender, a monk, and my unlikely path to truth- Natalie Goldberg
City of Girls-Elizabeth Gilbert
Three Women- Lisa Taddeo
December
Snow Falling on Cedars-David Guterson
What They Told You is True- Carolyn Forche
Total Books Read: 41
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January
LaRose- Louise Erdrich
The Rules Do Not Apply- Ariel Levy
What Happened- Hillary Rodham Clinton
Open Heart- Elie Wiesel
When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice- Terry Tempest Williams
The Secret History- Donna Tartt
February
Swing Time- Zadie Smith
Meditations- Marcus Aurelius
Hillary’s Choice- Gail Sheehy
New Passages: Mapping your Life Across Time- Gail Sheehy
The Beekeeper’s Lament- Hannah Nordhaus
The Painted Drum- Louise Erdrich
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland- Jim Defede
Cuba on the Verge: 12 writers on continuity and change in Havana and across the Country- Leila Guerriero
March
You Don’t have to Say You Love Me- Sherman Alexie
A House in the Sky- Amanda Lindhout & Sara Corbett
(Tried but did NOT finish: The Buried Giant- kazuo ishiguro or Killers of the Flower Moon -David Grann)
April
Some Luck- Jane Smiley
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden stories- Denis Johnson
I Feel Bad about my Neck- Nora Ephron
The Dark Flood Rises- Dame Margaret Drabble
That Which doesn’t Kill us- Charlie & Linda Bloom
May
The Laughing Monsters- Denis Johnson
A Street in Marrakesh: a personal encounter with the lives of Moroccan women- Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
What Would Virginia Woolf Do? – Nina Lorez Collins
M Train- Patti Smith
Stay with Me- Ayobami Adebayo
Hillbilly Elegy- J.D Vance
Sing, Unburied, Sing- Jesmyn Ward
How Eskimos keep their babies warm and other adventures in parenting- Mei-Ling Hopgood
I Remember Nothing and other Reflections- Nora Ephron
June
How to Raise an Adult- Julie Lythcott-Haims
The Mars Room- Rachel Kushner
July
The Summer Book- Tove Jansson
Less- Andrew Sean Greer
The Female Persuasion- Meg Wolitzer
August
The Light We Lost- Jill Santopolo
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy- Sheryl Sandburg & Adam Grant
Find a Way- Diana Nyad
Behold the Dreamers- Imbolo Mbue
September
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear- Elizabeth Gilbert
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap- Wendy Welch
Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story- Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor
October
The Interestings- Meg Wolitzer
The Position- Meg Wolitzer
Right of Thirst- Frank Huyler
November
Tangerine- Christine Mangan
A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety- Donald Hall
The Round House- Louise Erdrich
Educated- Tara Westover
December
From a Low and Quiet Sea- Donal Ryan
The Zookeepers Wife- Diane Ackerman
There, There-Tommy Orange
The Little Book of Hygge- Meik Wiking
53 books total
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January
The Dinner- Hermann Koch
Remainder – Tom McCarthy
My Name is Lucy Barton- Elizabeth Strout
Evicted- Mathew Desmond
A Man Called Ove- Fredrik Backman
The Other Wes Moore- Wes Moore
February
Upsteam Selected Essays – Mary Oliver
The Namesake- Jhumpa Lahiri
March
Girls and Sex- Peggy Orenstein
The Cat’s Table – Michael Ondaatje
Outline- Rachel Cusk
The Obstacle is the Way- Ryan Holiday
A Gentleman in Moscow- Amor Towles
Men Explain Things to Me- Rebecca Solnit
Homegoing- Yaa Gyasi
Behind the Beautiful Forevers- Katherine Boo
Transit- Rachel Cusk
Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions: Valeria Luiselli
April
The Goldfinch- Donna Tartt
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town- Paul Theroux
Everything I Never Told You- Celeste Ng
May
Transatlantic- Colum McCann
July’s People- Nadine Gordimer
Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage- Dani Shapiro
A Home in the World- Tsh Oxenreider
June
Fates and Furies- Lauren Groff
Navigating the Terrain of Childhood- Jack Petrash
September
Being Mortal- Atul Gawande
Living Forward- Michael Hyatt & Daniel Harkavy (only got through 2/3s)
The Woman Lit by Fireflies-Jim Harrison
October
The Book of Emma Reyes- translated by Daniel Alarcon
Mating in Captivity- Esther Perel
A Circle of Quiet- Madeline L’Engle
The Bright Hour- Nina Riggs
Leaving Before the Rain Comes- Alexandra Fuller
The Girls- Emma Cline
The Year of Magical Thinking-Joan Didion
Daring Greatly- Brene Brown
November
On gratitude- Oliver Sacks
On the Move- Oliver Sacks
Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight- Alexandra Fuller
Station Eleven- Emily St. John Mandel
Where’d You Go, Bernadette- Maria Semple
Commonwealth- Ann Patchett
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness- Alexandra Fuller
Blue Nights- Joan Didion
A Book of Common Prayer- Joan Didion
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- Rebecca Skloot
December
Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies- Mikey Walsh
Runaway: Stories- Alice Munro
Today Will be Different- Maria Semple
A Fierce Heart- Spring Washam
Lit- Mary Karr
Heroes of the Frontier- Dave Eggers
54 books