Reading certain books runs the risk of raising questions that unsettle us and may cause
fundamental change (personal and then social).
The Iliad and The Odyssey Homer
Both available in audio form read by Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellan.
Innocents Abroad Mark Twain
A must for all summer travelers. Will improve your prose (See M. Turner’s Clear and Simple as
the Truth.)
James Percival Everett (first re-read Huckleberry Finn if it has been a while)
A masterful retelling of Huck Finn that will change how you read American literature.
The Bacchae Euripides and The Oedipus Cycle Sophocles
Reading these tragedies is a required part of being a mature adult.
A Burning Megha Majumdar or A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Depressing but very important novels about modern India.
10 Minutes 38 Second in This Strange World Elif Shafak
A compelling and vital novel, also depressing, this time about Turkey.
War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
You don’t just read this novel; you live it.
Harriet the Spy Louis Fitzhugh or the beloved The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
Your local library probably has E.B. White reading Charlotte’s Web if you need a good cry.
Bleak House Charles Dickens
What is hope?
Poetry The Wild Braid Stanley Kunitz, The Complete Poems of Theodore Roethke, Everyman’s
Library Pocket Poets has inexpensive volumes including Villanelles, Dickinson and Wordsworth.
Autobiographies
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong (a student favorite)
Autobiography of a Face Lucy Grealy (another student favorite)
The Confessions of Jean-Jaques Rousseau (priceless descriptions of childhood, mooching off
friends and wandering the countryside while doing maniacal reading and thinking)
Lost and Found Kathleen Schultz
For creative juices: Zadie Smith, Patti Smith, Maggie Nelson (Bluets), anything by Anne Carson,
Mendelssohn’s Octet in Eb Major, Tashi playing Quarter for the End of Time, Bob Dylan, Bach.
Are you retiring this year? It is time to start on Proust. See me for suggestions as to how to begin.
Turning to non-fiction
You CAN do it!
How to Break Up with Your Phone Catherine Price
For the environmentalists in your family:
Eradication: A Fable Jonathan Miles, The Weight of Nature by Clayton Page Aldern
For worried students
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Oliver Burkeman
My students call him The Big F and came to appreciate him via this book
Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
Follow up with any of the essay collections by Adam Phillips and some Donald Winnicott
Lessons in how to live in a time of collapse
Everything was Forever, Until it Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation Alexei Yurchak
Stimulating books on religion and ethics
The Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and his Indian Origins Meir Shahar
Moses and Civilization Robert Paul
Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories Webb Keane
The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Socrates to Foucault Alexander Nehamas
The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi
What We Owe the Future William MacAskill
Tired of meetings? Take this along
Rules: A short history of what we live by Lorraine Daston
Keeping up with science
The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness Mark Solms
Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst Robert Sapolsky
Popularizations of Michio Kaku
A counter trend view of trauma The empire of trauma: An inquiry into the condition of
victimhood D. Fassin and R. Rechtman
Tour guides for the dark times we are living in
Frantz Fanon, George Orwell, James Baldwin, Ecclesiastes, Bob Dylan, all Kafka, Lincoln’s
speeches, a dash of Rebecca Solnit, some Gandhi or Tolstoy on non-violence, listen to Martin
Luther King’s speeches or, better yet, read them out loud while on public transportation
Ask people at the party for reading suggestions and record them here:
Finally, this book raises major issues for readers of all the above books
How to Resist Amazon and Why Danny Caine
Naomi Janowitz 