What I’m Reading

What I’m Reading Now | Next on My List | All-Time Favorite Books

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

William Faulkner

What I’m Reading (or listening to) Now

  1. Data Science for Business, Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett
  2. Once There Were Wolves, Charlotte McConaghy

The Stack on My Bedside Table Includes…

  1. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori Gottleib
  2. Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar

Books I’ve Enjoyed Since I Started Keeping Track (October 2015)
Note: if I didn’t enjoy a book, I didn’t add it to this list, which may explain why a title went from “What I’m Reading” to not on any list.

Audiobooks indicated with an *

  1. The English Understand Wool, Helen DeWitt
  2. The Maid: A Novel, Nita Prose
  3. No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood
  4. Simple Passion, Annie Ernault
  5. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
  6. The Constant Gardener, John Le Carré
  7. The Wall, Marlen Haushoferl
  8. Afterlives, Abdulrazak Gurnah
  9. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
  10. Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch
  11. Sea of Tranquility*, Emily St. John Mandel
  12. The Candy House, Jennifer Egan
  13. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
  14. Connect, David Bradford and Carole Robin
  15. The Quiet American*, Graham Greene
  16. A Legacy of Spies*, John le Carré
  17. Thank You, Mr. Nixon, Gish Jen
  18. Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown
  19. Our Country Friends, Gary Shteyngart
  20. Intimacies, Katie Kitamura
  21. Connect, David Bradford & Carole Robin
  22. Silverview, John le Carré
  23. Matrix, Lauren Groff
  24. The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz
  25. The Innovation Stack*, Jim McKelvey
  26. Smiley’s People,* John le Carré (listening to the audiobook, having read the book-book in the 90s, was like an entirely new experience with this wonderful novel)
  27. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch, Rivka Galchen
  28. The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein
  29. Heaven, Mieko Kawakami
  30. Broken Horses*, Brandi Carlile
  31. The Honourable Schoolboy*, John le Carré (listening to the audiobook – I read the book-book in the 90s)
  32. Open Water, Caleb Azumah Nelson
  33. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
  34. Midnight Chicken, Ella Risbridger
  35. Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro
  36. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré*
  37. Caste, Isabel Wilkerson
  38. The Good Lord Bird, James McBride*
  39. Piranisi, Susanna Clarke*
  40. Squeeze Me, Carl Hiaasen
  41. Migrations, Charlotte McConaghy
  42. The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa
  43. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell
  44. The entire Detective D.D. Warren series, by Lisa Gardner
  45. Still Life, Louise Penny*
  46. Little Eyes, Samanta Schweblin
  47. The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson*
  48. The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
  49. There There, Tommy Orange
  50. The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich
  51. Deacon King Kong, James McBride
  52. Late Migrations, Margaret Renkl
  53. Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson
  54. Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson*
  55. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe*
  56. Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell*
  57. Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
  58. The Snakes, Sadie Jones
  59. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Togarczuk
  60. All the Names They Used for God, Anjali Sachdeva
  61. The River, Peter Heller
  62. The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides*
  63. Dare to Lead, Brené Brown
  64. Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy
  65. Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
  66. Walking on the Ceiling, Ayşegül Savaş
  67. Save Me the Plums, Ruth Reichl*
  68. Circe, Madeline Miller*
  69. Three Dog Life, Abigail Thomas
  70. The Ice Limit, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
  71. The Guest Book, Sarah Blake
  72. No Visible Bruises, Rachel Louise Snyder
  73. Becoming, Michelle Obama
  74. Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls
  75. Safekeeping, Abigail Thomas
  76. The Red-Haired Woman, Orhan Pamuk
  77. The Overstory, Richard Powers
  78. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
  79. The Witch Elm, Tana French
  80. Leaving Atocha Station, Ben Lerner
  81. 10:04, Ben Lerner
  82. Destroyer, Victor Lavalle
  83. Warlight, Michael Ondaatje*
  84. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  85. Florida, Lauren Groff
  86. Less, Andrew Sean Greer
  87. The Day the World Came to Town, Jim Defede
  88. Fever Dream, Samantha Schweblin
  89. Moonglow, Michael Chabon*
  90. Autumn, Ali Smith
  91. Liar’s Club, Mary Karr
  92. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
  93. Outline, Rachel Cusk
  94. When It Grows Dark, Jorn Lier Horst*
  95. The Absent One, Jussi Adler-Olsen*
  96. The Keeper of Lost Causes, Jussi Adler-Olsen*
  97. My Absolute Darling, Gabriel Tallent
  98. Voices, Arnaldur Indridason*
  99. Silence of the Grave, Arnaldur Indridason*
  100. Jar City, Arnaldur Indridason*
  101. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil de Grasse Tyson
  102. The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni
  103. Miss Jane, Brad Watson
  104. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles*
  105. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
  106. A Really Big Lunch, Jim Harrison
  107. The Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery
  108. Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple
  109. South and West, Joan Didion
  110. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid
  111. Hillbilly Elegy, J. D. Vance
  112. Ordeal, Jorn Lier Horst
  113. Caveman, Jorn Lier Horst
  114. Mastering Leadership, Robert Anderson & William Adams
  115. The Nest, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney*
  116. Commonwealth, Ann Patchett
  117. A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
  118. Crusader’s Cross, James Lee Burke
  119. In the Kingdom of Ice, Hampton Sides
  120. Lab Girl, Hope Jahren
  121. The Danish Girl, David Ebershoff*
  122. Delicate, Edible Birds, Lauren Groff
  123. Pack of Two, Caroline Knapp
  124. The Earth is Enough, Harry Middleton
  125. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
  126. Can’t Not Do, Paul Shoemaker
  127. The Lake House, Kate Morton
  128. Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
  129. The Nightingale, Kristen Hannah*
  130. StandOut 2.0, Marcus Buckingham
  131. Etta and Otto and Russell and James, Emma Hooper
  132. Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didion
  133. Fates & Furies, Lauren Groff*
  134. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North
  135. Thunderstruck, Erik Larson
  136. Hold Still, Sally Mann
  137. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
  138. The Opposite of Loneliness, Marina Keegan
  139. The Swimmer, Joakim Zander
  140. Strengths-based Parenting, Mary Rechmeyer and Jennifer Robison

My 10 “I’m stranded on a desert island” books

  1. The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
  2. Man’s Fate, Andre Malraux
  3. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
  4. A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean
  5. She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb
  6. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
  7. Rivers of Memory, Harry Middleton
  8. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
  9. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
  10. Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

My 10 “Books every mama needs to read with her kids” books

  1. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankewiler, E. L. Konigsburg
  2. Magic Marks the Spot (and the entire Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates series), Caroline Carlson
  3. Gregor the Overlander (and other books in the same series), Suzanne Collins
  4. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
  5. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
  6. The Borrowers, Mary Norton
  7. The Fairy Tale Detectives (and the entire Sisters Grimm series), Michael Buckley
  8. Looking for Alaska, John Green
  9. The Hunger Games (and series), Suzanne Collins
  10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban (and the entire series, but book 3 is my favorite), J. K. Rowling