Read
Personal reading list. Organized first by genre (mainly fiction), second by area/people of origin, and third by authors who I choose to highlight. This isn’t to ascribe more weight to the author’s identity than the work itself. Especially in fiction, where imaginiation triumphs. But we notice mores emerge, where the author spends their time, or how much time they are willing to spend! This isn’t all the books I’ve read, but all the ones I recommend.
Fiction
Non-fiction’s already outside!
Italian Authors
Italo Calvino, 1923-1985
The Baron in the Trees, 1957
Cosmicomics, 1965
Under the Jaguar Sun, 1968
The Watcher and Other Stories, 1971
Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936. (Sicily).
Six Characters in Search of an Author, 1921
One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand, 1926
Tonight We Improvise, 1930
No One Knows How, 1949
To Read:
The Cloven Viscount, 1952. Calvino
Japanese Authors
The Master of Go, 1954. Yasunari Kawabata
I Am a Cat, 1905. Natsume Sōseki
Yukio Mishima, 1925-1970
Confessions of a Mask, 1949
Death in Midsummer and Other Stories, 1953
The Sound of Waves, 1954
Patriotism, 1961
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, 1963
Sun and Steel, 1968
To Read:
I Haven’t Dreamed of Flying for a While, 2008. Taichi Yamada
Snow Country, 1956. Yasunari Kawabata
Thousand Cranes, 1958. Yasunari Kawabata
N.P, 1990. Banana Yoshimoto
Sea of Fertility Tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel), 1965-1971 . Mishima
European Authors
Siddhartha, 1922. Herman Hesse, Germany, Switzerland
The Stranger, 1942. Albert Camus, France
Watership Down, 1972. Richard Adams, United Kingdom
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Mostly Harmless, Young Zaphod Plays It Safe), 2002. Douglas Adams, England.
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924. Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
In the Penal Colony, 1914
The Metamorphisis, 1915
The Trial, 1925
To Read:
The Chameleon, 1884, Kashtanka, 1887, The Student, 1894, Man in a Case, 1898, Gooseberries, 1898. Anton Chekhov, Russia
Heidi, 1880-1881. Johanna Spyri, Switzerland
Swiss Mirror, 1938. Meinrad Inglin, Switzerland
The Castle, 1926. Kafka
A Hunger Artist, 1922. Kafka
European-American Authors
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, 1969. Kurt Vonnegut, United States
To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960. Harper Lee, United States
The Grapes of Wrath, 1939. John Steinbeck, United States
The Old Man and the Sea, 1952. Ernest Hemingway, United States
Catch-22, 1961. Joseph Heller, United States
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962. Ken Kesey, United States
Parts of Ender’s Game Series, (Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender’s Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon), 1985-2001. Orson Scott Card, United States.
David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008
Infinite Jest, 1996
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, 1997
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, 2005
To Read:
The Bell Jar, 1963. Sylvia Plath
Bluets, 2006. Maggie Nelson
Tender Buttons, 1914. Gertrude Stein
Rabbit, Run, 1960. John Updike
American Authors of Color
The Kite Runner, 2003. Khaled Hosseini, Afhani-American
Pachinko, 2017. Min Jin Lee, Korean-American
Jhumpa Lahiri. 1967-present. English/Indian-American
Interpreter of Maladies, 1999
The Namesake, 2003
Unaccustomed Earth, 2008
Fae Myenne Ng, 1956-present. Chinese-American
Bone, 1998
Steer Toward Rock, 2008
Orphan Bachelors, 2023
* To Read:*
A Thousand Splendid Suns, 2007. Hosseini
Dictée, 1982. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Korean-American
Native American Authors
Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, 2019. Jake Skeets, Navajo Nation
The Round House, 2012. Louise Erdich, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Ojibwe people
Future Home of the Living God, 2017. Louise Erdich, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Ojibwe people
Stephen Graham Jones, 1972-present. Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana
Ledfeather, 2008
Mapping the Interior, 2017
To Read:
The Only Good Indians, 2020. Jones
Black-American Authors
Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937. Zora Neale Hurston, United States
The Underground Railroad, 2016. Colson Whitehead, United States
Americanah, 2013. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, United States
Invisible Man, 1952. Ralph Ellison, United States
The Bluest Eye, 1970. Toni Morisson, United States
To Read:
The Color Purple, 1982. Alice Walker, United States
Beloved, 1987. Toni Morisson, United States
Sula, 1973. Toni Morisson, United States
The Piano Lesson, 1987. August Wilson, United States
South American Authors
Gabriel García Márquez, 1927-2014. Colombia
One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967. Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia
To Read:
Conversation in the Cathedral, 1969. Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru
Love in the Time of Cholera, 1985. Márquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1981. Márquez
Mexican Authors
The House on Mango Street, 1983. Sandra Cisneros
City of Kings, 1960. Rosario Castellanos
Like Water for Chocolate: a novel in monthly installments, with recipes, romances, and home remedies, 1989. Laura Esquivel
Assorted Fiction
Dumb Luck, 1936. Vũ Trọng Phụng, Vietnam
Things Fall Apart, 1958. Chinua Achebe, Nigeria
To Read:
A Suitable Boy, 1994. Vikram Seth, India
Scientific Literature/Textbooks
Quantum Computing Since Democritus, 2013. Scott Aaronson
Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, 2000. Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang
A Book of Abstract Algebra, 1982. Charles C. Pinter
The Fabric of the Cosmos, 2013. Brian Greene
Quantum Electrodynamics, 1953. Richard Feynman
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, 2015. Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
Biographies/Histories
The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 1948. Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, India
Indira Gandhi, A Biography, 1995. Pupul Jayakar, India
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, 2020. Les Payne and Tamara Payne, United States
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, 2015. Jeff Hobbs, United States
The Doors of Perception, 1954. Aldous Huxley, United Kingdom
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969. Maya Angelou, United States
To Read:
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, 2020. Cathy Park Hong, United States
The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart, 2000. Alice Walker, United States
Music History
Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, 2022. Dan Charnas, United States
Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power, 2019. Aaron Cohen, United States
The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are, 2023. Tariq (Black Thought) Trotter, United States
To Read:
Decoded, 2011. Shawn (JAY-Z) Carter, United States.
The Rose That Grew From Concrete, 1999. Tupac Shakur, United States
Spiritual/Historical
Bhagavad Gita, 1st millenium BCE. Vyasa and Unknown Authors, India
The Prophet, 1923. Kahlil Gibran, Lebanon, United States
Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, 1996. Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam, France.
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, 2002. Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam, France.
Epic of Gilgamesh, 2nd and 3rd millenium BCE. Unknown Authors, Mesopotamia
Ramayana: Divine Loophole, 2010. Sanjay Patel, United States. (Based on Ramayana, 8th century BCE - 3rd century CE. Valmiki, India)
Image: Girl With Flowers, Henry Lebasque. Oil On Canvas, 1915.