Some of my favorite books

in no particular order

 

FICTION

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

  • A collection of loosely related stories about the Vietnam War and the nature of truth

The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia

  • Modern magical realism, limes, Rita Hayworth, free will

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

  • Greek love, Detroit riots, the Nation of Islam—an intersex history

Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño

  • Short stories about socialism, exile, and writing in Latin America

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

  • A one-eyed abstract expressionist painter makes a frenemy

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

  • Buddhism makes a panic attack okay, even if your boyfriend is kind of dumb

 
 

DRAMA

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

  • Nothing happens, nothing lasts, nothing matters.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

  • Waiting for Godot but with characters from Hamlet

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

  • A pound of flesh and some antisemitism but maybe not really

 
 

ESSAYS

Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

  • Kurt Cobain, time travel, football, the Unabomber

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

  • Hair color & early feminism, panicking vs. choking, why there’s no gourmet ketchup

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

  • Kafka, updating the dictionary, John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

  • Stories and lessons about writing and life

 
 

Other

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

  • Meditations on creativity and why you’re procrastinating right now

How to Be Miserable by Randy J. Paterson

  • An anti-self-help book

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

  • The best book on marketing

How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

  • Personal life/career advice: build systems, not goals

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  • Thriving from (not just surviving) uncertainty