AI asked, you answered. Here’s an ambitious collection of books, including recommendations from friends, ones that I’ve looked up on my own and other works that I’ve read over the past year. I won’t get to them all in one summer, but I hope to knock a few off this list.
*means I’ve read it
Related to my 2019 travel itinerary
Southeast Asia:
The Singapore Grip, J.G. Farrell
Disneyland with the Death Penalty, William Gibson (Singapore)
The Singapore Story, Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore)
The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma, Thant Myint-U
The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnam)*
The Quiet American, Graham Greene (Vietnam)
Other Asia:
This Divided Island: Life, Death and the Sri Lankan War, Samanth Subramanian
The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka’s Civil War, Rohini Mohan
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse (Nepal)
Western Africa:
So Long a Letter, Mariana Ba (Senegal)
The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene (Sierra Leone)
Journey Without Maps, Graham Greene (Liberia)
Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Nigeria)
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
Homegoing: A Novel, Yaa Gyasi (Ghana)
South Africa:
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
Too Late the Phalarope, Alan Paton
Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful, Alan Paton
Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Born a Crime, Trevor Noah*
Other Africa:
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, MG Vassaji (Kenya)
Beyond the Rice Fields, Naivo (Madagascar)
The Stories of the Sahara, San Mao
Other Europe:
The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us, Francis Tapon
The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue Des Martyrs, Elaine Sciolino (France)*
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney (Ireland)
Normal People, Sally Rooney (Ireland)
United Kingdom:
Feel Free, Zadie Smith
White Teeth, Zadie Smith*
Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell
United States:
Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
Hawaii, James Michener
Tales of the South Pacific, James Michener
The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter Thompson
Other books:
The Push, Tommy Caldwell
Alone on the Wall, Alex Honnold
The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson (North Korea)
Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante (Italy)
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
Drink Play Fuck, Andrew Gottlieb
Junkie, William Burroughs
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
The Trial, Kafka
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
Books I’m in the middle of reading
My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk
The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Democracy in America Vols. 1 and 2, Alexis de Tocqueville
All Art is Propaganda / Fifty Essays, George Orwell
Books I’ve read so far in 2019
Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari
Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari
The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
Becoming, Michelle Obama
Originals, Adam Grant
Chaos Monkeys, Antonio Garcia Martinez
Books I read in 2018
11/22/63, Stephen King
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman
Predator Cities series, Philip Reeve
Billion Dollar Whale, Tom Wright and Bradley Hope
Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Severance, Ling Ma
The Gone World, Tom Sweterlitsch
The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner
Churchill and Orwell, Thomas Ricks
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
Bad Blood, John Carreyou
China’s Great Wall of Debt, Dinny McMahon
China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, Arthur Kroeber
To Live, Yu Hua
Brothers, Yu Hua
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
The Good Immigrant, various authors