Reading List Archive

Archive

2024(*) | 2023(42) | 2022 (30) | 2021 (23)

2020 (12)  | 2019 (20) | 2018 (31)  | 2017(40)  | 2016(36)

 2015(38)  | 2014(24)  | 2013(56) | 2012(53)  | 2011 (9*)

2024

December 4:0-4/0-4 

Up Late - Nick Laird

The Coin - Yasmin Zaher

The Lion and the Nightingale - Kaya Genç

November 4:0-4/0-4 + 1

Spice - Roger Crowley

The Secret Life of Groceries - Benjamin Lorr

Black Spartacus - Sudhir Hazareesingh

Has the restoration of the sciences and the arts contributed to refining moral practices? -  Jean-Jacques Rosseau (1750 - Academy of Dijon)

October (2:0-2/0-2) + 2

The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber and David Wengrow

Smoke and Ashes - Amitav Ghosh

September (5:3-2/3-2) + 1

Quarterlife - Devika Rege

100 Poems - Seamus Heaney

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

How Not To Be Wrong - Jordan Ellenberg

Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant (2013) - David Graeber 

August (4:1-3/1-3) + 3

Slow Productivity - Cal Newport

Six Stories - Stefan Zweig

Clear Thinking - Shane Parrish

The Story of Scandinavia - Stein Ringen

Risk, Ambiguity and Savage Axioms(1961) - Daniel Ellsberg

The Loser's Game (1975) - Charles D. Ellis

This is Water (2006) - David Foster Wallace

July (4:0-4/0-4)

Empireland - Satnam Sanghera

The Catalyst - Thomas Cech

Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss

Bird Cloud - Annie Proulx

June (7:3-4/3-4)

Thinking in Bets - Annie Duke

Quit - Annie Duke

Collected Poems: Le Guin - Ursula K. Le Guin

Lao Tzu: The Way - Lao Tzu (trans: Ursula K. Le Guin)

Tabula Rasa - John McPhee

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out - Richard Feynman

The Adventures of a Curious Character - Richard Feynman

May(5:2-3/4-1)

What is Life? - Erwin Schrödinger

A Personal Anthology - Jorge Luis Borges

Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind - Bertrand Russell

A History of the World Through 500 Maps - Christian Grataloup

Lake Wobegon Days - Garrison Keillor

April (3:1-2/1-2)

How Life Works - Philip Ball

Botanicum - Katie Scott and Kathy Willis

What Do We Know - Poems and prose by Mary Oliver

March (0:0-0/0-0)

February (6:4-2/6-0)

A First Sentimental Education - Gustave Flaubert

Master of Go - Yasunari Kawabata  (trans: Edward Seidenstricher)

Snow Mountain - Yasunari Kawabata (trans: Edward Seidenstricher)

Remembering the Kanji - James W. Heisig

Remembering the Kana - James W. Heisig, Helmut Morsbach, and Kazue Kurebayashi

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling

January (5:1-4/4-1)

Anatomy of Type: A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces - Stephen Coles

Gerhard Richter Aquarelle: Watercolors 1964 - 1997 -  Dieter Schwarz (ed)

Two Wheels Good: the history and mystery of the bicycle - Jody Rosen

The Master Builder - Alfonso Martinez Arias

The Plague - Albert Camus

2023

December (12:5-7/5-7)

Mantik-ul-Tair: The Conference of Birds - Farid-ud-din Attar (trans: Sholeh Wolpe)

Egon Schiele - Serge Sabarsky

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

A Haiku Journey -  Basho's 'The Narrow Road to The Far North' and other haiku - Dorothy Britton (trans)

Experiencing Olmsted - Birnbaum, Levee and Tasse-Winter

Nonsense Books - Edward Lear

Fry's Ties - Stephen Fry

How to Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Seen Deeply - David Brooks

Kyoto: A Cultural History - John Dougill

Round the World in 80 Birds - Mike Unwin

Musical Tables - Billy Collins

This Explains Everything - John Brockman (ed)

November (4:1-3/2-2)

Men and Rubber - William S. Firestone

The Wandering Mind - Jamie Kreiner

Lapidarium - Hettie Judah

The Historic Shops and Restaurants of Boston - Phyllis Méras

October (9:3-6/4-5)

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

On War - Carl Von Clausewitz

Letters to A Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke

Calculus Made Easy - Silvanus P Johnson

The 12 Rules for Life - Jordan Petersen

The Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande

48 Rules of Power - Robert Greene

The Fraud - Zadie Smith

The Art of Thinking Clearly - Rolf Dobelli

September (4:2-2/2-2)

Villanelles - an anthology

The Snow Leopard - Peter Matthiessen

Rules of Civility - Amor Towles

Empire, incorporated: the corporations that build British colonialism - Philip J. Stern

August (2:1-1/1-1)

Talking to Strangers - Malcolm Gladwell

The Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

July (1:0-1/0-1)

The World of Sugar - Ulbe Bosma

June (2:0-2/0-2)

The World: A Family History - Simon Sebag Montefiore

Plagues Upon the Earth - Kyle Harper

May (1:1-0/0-1)

Sugar: the World Corrupted - James Walvin

April (2:1-1/1-1)

100 Poems That Matter: American Academy of Poets

Semicolon: Cecilia Watson

March (2:1-1/1-1)

Innovation and Invention: Vaclac Smil

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell

February (2:0-2/0-2)

Life is Hard - Kieran Sethiya

Chip Wars: the fight for the world's most critical technology - Chris Miller

January (1:0-1/1-0)

Orwell - Christin Piere

2022 (30:19-11/9-21)

December (1:1-0/1-0)

Candy House - Jennifer Egan

November (1:0-1/0-1)

The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser - Muriel Rukeyser 

November (2:0-2/0-2)

Around the World in 80 books - David Damrosch

Young Mungo - Douglas Stuart

September (1:0-1/0-1)

A 400-year history of American Capitalism - Bhu Srinivasan

August (3:1-2/2-1)

Freedom and Capitalism - Milton Friedman

An Edible History of Humanity - Tom Standage

Empire of the Scalpel: The history of surgery - Ira Rutkow

July (1:1-0/1-0)

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

June (2:2-0/2-0)

The Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller

The Great Enigma: new collected poems - Tomas Tranströmer

May (3:1-2/1-2)

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl

The Last Days of Roger Federer - Geoff Dyer

The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson

April (3:2-1/0-3)

Time is a Mother - Ocean Vuong

Spring - Karl Ove Knaussgard

A People's Guide to Boston

March (3:2-1/0-3)

The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future - Stephen Mallaby

Fredrick Seidel Selected Poems - Frederick Seidel

Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart

February (4:4-0-/0-4)

First Person Singular - Haruki Murakami

On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

The Anomaly - Herve Le Tellier

A Dream Life - Claire Messud

January (6:-5-1/2-4)

When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamin Labatut

Dukla - Andrzej Stasiuk

Oblivion Banjo - Charles Wright

The Bonfire of Vanities - Tom Wolfe

Night Sky With Exit Wounds - Ocean Vuong

Good to Go - Christie Aschwanden

2021(30:9-14/9-21)

December (3:1-2/1-2)

Hunger - Knut Hamsun

Algorithms to live by - Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths

The Data Detective - Tim Hartford

November (3:1-2/0-3)

The Scout Mindset - Julia Galef

A Little History of Poetry - John Carey

In the Land of the Cyclops - Karl Ove Knausgard

October (4-:2-2/1-3)

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy - Tim Harford

A Passage North - Aruk Arudpragasam

100 Poems to Break Your Heart - Edward Hirsch

September (2:--2/--2)

Noise: a Flaw in Human Judgement  - Daniel Kahnemann, Oliver Sibony, and Cass Sunstein

Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality - Frank Wilczek

August (6:1-5/0-6)
The Hidden Charles: an explorer's guide to the Charles River - Mike Tougias

Voyagers: the settlement of the Pacific - Nicholas Thomas
Rice - Michael W. Twitty

Four Lost Cities - Annalee Newitz

Micromastery: learn small, learn fast, and unlock your potential to achieve anything - Robert Twigger

Remembering the Kana - James Heisig

July (4:0-1/0-1)
Himalaya: a human history - Ed Douglas

February, March, April, May

--- too busy :(

January (4:4-0/4-0)
Song of Myself - Walt Whitman

The North Ship, The Less Deceived - Philip Larkin
Collected poems  - W.H. Auden

The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky

2020 (12:6-6/1-11)

December (1:0-1/0-1)
Mountains of the Mind - Robert MacFarlane

October (4:1-3/0-4)
Underland - Robert MacFarlane

Narrative Economics - Robert Shiller
Three Women - Lisa Taddeo

Anarchy - William Dalrymple 

June, July, August, September

---

May (1:1-0/0-1)
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay - Elena Ferrante

April (1:1-0/0-1)

My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

March (2:1-1/0-2)
How to Be A Dictator: the cult of personality in the twentieth century - Frank Dikötter
Levels of Life - Julian Barnes

February (2:1-1/0-2)
How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - Mohsin Hamid
Uncommon Grounds - Mark Pendergrast

January (1:1-0/1-0)
Middlemarch - George Elliot

2019 (20:13-7/12-8)

December (2:2-0/2-0)
White Teeth  - Zadie Smith
Ready Player One - Ernest Stine

November  (1:1-0/1-0)
The Fall - Albert Camus

October  (0)
-

September  (1:0-1/1-0)
The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky

August (4:2-2/2-2)
Absalom!Absalom! - William Faulkner
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
VC: An American History - Tom Nicolas
Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky

July (3:1-2/0-3)
The Friend - Sigrid Nunez
Dignity: Seeking Respect in Backrow America  - Chris Arnade
The Secrets of Sandhill Road - Scott Kupor

June (2:2-0/2-0)
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
The Sport of Kings - C.E. Morgan

May (1:1-0/1-0)
The Road  - Cormac McCarthy

April (1:0-1/0-1)
Blitzscaling - Reid Hoffmann

March (1:0-1/0-1)
Measure What Matters - John Doerr

February (1:1-0/0-1)
A Brief History of Seven Killings - James Marlon

January (3:3-0/3-0)
The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vania - Anton Chekhov
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth

2018 (31:4-27/11-20)

December (5:1-4/1-4)
The Aeneid - David Ferry
Your Best Stride - Jonathan Beverly
Antifragile - Nassim Nicolas Taleb
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
Android Dreams - Toby Walsh

November (2:0-2/1-1)
These Truths: A History of the United States - Jill Lepore
The Rights of Man - Thomas Paine

October (5:0-5/2-3)
Angel - Jason Calacanis
Baburnama - Babur (trans. William Thackston)
*Make Good Art - Neil Gaiman (speech)
Great At Work - Morten Hansen
*Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care - Kenneth Arrow (AER 1963, paper)

September (3:0-3/2-1)
DNA: the story of the Genetic Revolution - James D. Watson
The Hindus: an alternative history - Wendy Doniger
ABC of Reading - Ezra Pound

August (3:0-3/1-2)
Energy: a human history - Richard Rhodes
Shakespeare's Montaigne: the Florio edition - Michel de Montaigne
The Way of the Runner - Adharanand Finn

July (1:0-1/0-1)
A Man for All Markets - Edward Thorp

May, June (0)
-

April(4:1-3/2-2)
The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
What is all but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man - Art Garfunkel
The Seven Essentials of Woodworking - Anthony Guidice

March (2:1-1/0-2)
Winter - Karl Ove Knausgård
Running with Kenyans - Adharanand Finn

February (3:0-3/0-3)
Runaway Species - Anthony Brandt & David Eagleman
Better Living Through Criticism - A.O. Scott
Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the 21st Century - Holden Thorp & Buck Goldstein

January (3:1-2/2-1)
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - Dee Brown
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
Principles - Ray Dalio

2017 (40:xx-xx/xx-xx)

December(5:0-5/0-5)
The River of Consciousness - Oliver Sacks
The Motley Fool Investment Guide - Tom and David Gardner
Reinventing Ikea - Isabelle Bruno
Woodworking Simplified - David Stiles
Woodwork: a step-by-step photographic guide - DK Publishing

November(3:0-3/0-3)
Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing - Daniel Tammet
Culinary Intelligence - Peter Kaminsky
Build it Yourself: Weekend Projects for the Garden - Frank Perrone

October(2:0-2/0-2)
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - John McWhorter
DNA is Not Destiny - Steven J. Heine

September(2:0-2/0-2)
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
The Cooking Gene - Michael W. Twitty

August(4:0-0/0-0)
Night - Elie Wiesel
Black Edge - Sheelah Kolhatkar
How The Mighty Fall - Jim Collins
Essential Library of Jazz - Ben Ratliff

July(8:0-8/0-8)
How to Write About Contemporary Art - Gilda Williams
Taking Back, Talking Black - John McWhorter
The Small Big - Steve J. Martin
Brief: John McCormack
How to Get your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less - Frank Milo
TED Talks - Chris Anderson
The Age of the Horse - Susanna Forrest
Six Thinking Hats - Edward DeBono

June(4:0-4/0-4)
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking - Daniel Dennett
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Spark - Angie Morgan, Courtney Lynch and Sean Lynch

May(4:0-4/0-4)
Young Geniuses and Old Masters - David Galenson
From Bacteria to Bach - Daniel Dennett
Mauve - Simon Garfield
The Brilliant History of Color in Art - Victoria Finlay

April(1:0-1/0-1)
A Field Guide to Lies - Daniel J Levitin

March(3:0-3/0-3)
My Marathon: Reflections on a Gold Medal Life - Frank Shorter
Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis
Spark Joy - Marie Kondo

February(3:0-3/0-3)
The Sellout - Paul Beatty
Design Your Life - Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo

January(1:0-1/0-1)
Beethoven For A Later Age: Living with the String Quartets - Edward Dusinberre

2016 (36:4-32/3-33)

December(3:1-2/2-1)
Loving - Henry Green
How to Listen to Jazz - Ted Gioia
The Science of Good Cooking - Cook's Illustrated (ed)

November(2:0-2/0-2)
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Carlo Rovelli
I Contain Multitudes - Ed Wong

October (2:0-2/0-2)
Deep Work - Cal Newport
So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skill Trumps Passion - Cal Newport

September(0)
--

August(3:0-3/0-3)
Every Song Ever - Brian Ratliff
Hansons Marathon Method - Luke Humphrey with Keith and Kevin Hanson
The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki

July(6:0-6/0-6)
How to Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen
Farther Away - Jonathan Franzen
Keeping an Eye Open - Julian Barnes
Gene: An Intimate History - Siddhartha Mukherjee
Hindus: an alternative history - Wendy Doniger

Selected Poems - Robert Bringhurst

June(4:2-2/1-3)
Hotel Du Lac - Anita Brookner
Sapiens - Yuval Noah Hariri
The Nearest Thing to Life - James Wood
Success and Luck - Robert H. Frank

May(4:1-3/0-4)
Just My Type - Simon Garfield
The Elements of Typographic Style - Robert Bringhurst
Talk Like TED - Carmine Gallo
Odysseus Abroad - Amit Chaudhari

April(1:0-1/0-1)
Fields of Blood: the history religion and violence - Karen Armstrong

March(2:0-2/0-2)
Once In a Great City: a Detroit Story - David Maraniss

The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai - Yehuda Amichai /Robert Alter (ed)

February(4:0-4/0-4)
Misbehaving: the Making of Modern Behavioral Economics - Richard Thaler
The Story of English in 100 Words - David Crystal
The Skeptic's Guide to American History - Mark Stoler
Super-forecasting: the art and science of Prediction - Philip Tetlock

January(5:0-5/0-5)
The Startup Owner's Manual - Steve Blank
The Innovator's Cookbook  - Steven Johnson

Business Model Generation - Alex Osterwalder and others

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 - Christopher Clark

2015 (38:9-29/7-31)

December(8:0-8/0-8)
The $100 Startup - Chris Guillebeau
The Happiness of Pursuit - Chris Guillebeau
Wiser - Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie
Rework - Jason Fried and David Hansson
Start - Jonathon Acuff
Ready, Fire, Aim - Michael Masterson
Startups That Work - Joel Kurtzmann
Good Leaders Ask Great Questions - John C. Maxwell

November(4:0-4/0-4)
Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business - Paul Downs
100 Things Every Homeowner Should Know - Wentz, Bernick and Carlsen
Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual - Family Handyman and Reader's Digest (ed)
Evolving Ourselves - Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans

September(3:0-3/0-3)
101 Ideas for Color and Paint - Emma Callery
Home Improvement 101 - Black and Decker (ed)
How Your House Works - Charlie Wing

August(1:0-1/0-1)
The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee


June, July (0)

---

May(5:3-2/1-4)
There Be No Dragons - Reese Palley
Why Homer Matters - Adam Nicholson
Macbeth - William Shakespeare (ed: Bates/Rasmussen,RSC)
The Organized Mind - Daniel Levitin
Shakespeare: The Invention of The Human - Harold Bloom

April (6:1-5/0-6)
The Narrow Road To The Deep North - Richard Flanagan
The Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China - Evan Osnos
Diet Cults - Matt Fitzgerald
The Sense of Style - Steven Pinker
The Language of Food - Dan Jurafsky
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahnemann

March (4:0-4/0-4)

Words To Eat By - Ina Lipkowitz

Performance Nutrition for Runners - Matt Fitzgerald
The Triathlete's Training Bible - Joe Friel
The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race To Reinvent the State: John Mickletwaith and Adrian Wooldridge

February (3:2-1/3-0)
Hamlet, King Lear - William Shakespeare (ed: Bate/Rasmussen, RSC)
A Theatergoer's Guide to Shakespeare - Robert Thomas Fallon

January (4:3-1/3-1)
Othello, Richard III - William Shakespeare (ed: Bate/Rasmussen, RSC)
The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford
80/20 Running - Matt Fitzgerald

2014 (24:18-6/14:10)

December (5:2-3/3-2)
The Brother's Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans: Pevear/Volokhonsky)
Political Order and Political Decay - Francis Fukuyama
The Origins of Political Order - Francis Fukuyama
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels (intro: J. Issacs)

November (2:1-1/1-1)
The General of the Dead Army - Ismail Kadare
Drunk Tank Pink - Adam Alter

October (1:1-0/1-0)
Humbolt's Gift - Saul Bellow

September (1:1-0/1-0)
Sons and Lovers - D. H. Lawrence

August (1:1-0/1-0)
Moby Dick - Herman Melville

July (2:2-0/2-0)
Go Tell It On a Mountain - James Baldwin
The Portrait of A Lady - Henry James

June (2:2-0/1-1)
In Search of Lost Time, Vol. IV: Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust; John Sturrock (trans)
*Persepolis 2 - Marjane Satrapi

May (2:1-1/1-1)
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
In Search of Lost Time, Vol. III: Guermantes' Way - Marcel Proust; Mark Treharne (trans)

April (1:1-0/1-0)
*Der kleine Prinz - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

March (1:1-0/1-0)
Jazz - Toni Morrison

February (2:2-0/0-2)
*Persepolis 1 - Marjane Satrapi
*Kafka für Afrikaner - Judith Vanistendael

January (4:3-1/1-3)
In Search of Lost Time, Vol. II: In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower - Marcel Proust; James Grieve (trans)
Priceless - William Poundstone
The Brooklyn Follies - Paul Auster
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre

2013 (56:36-20/38:18)

Blog post on the reading list for 2013

December (3:3-0/3-0)
In Search of Lost Time, Vol. I: The Way By Swann's - Marcel Proust; Lydia Davis (trans)
My Antonia - Willa Cather
Beloved - Toni Morrison

November (4:3-1/3-1)
The Crying of Lot 49  - Thomas Pynchon
The Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee
The True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf

October (1:1-0/0-1)
The Sense Of An Ending - Julian Barnes

September (0)
--- (moving)

August (3:1-2/2-1)
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
Fundamentals of Music Acoustics - Arthur Benade
The Magnum Contact Sheets - Kristen Lubben (ed)

July (5:5-0/5-0)
To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Light in August - William Faulkner
Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
The Great Gatbsy - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Ice Palace - Tarjei Vesaas

June (2:2-0/2-0)
Jane Eyre / Charlotte Bronte
Benito Cereno and Bartelby the Scrivener / Herman Melville

May (4:3-1/3-1)
The Genius of Dogs / Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods
Anna Karenina / Leo Tolstoy
Manon Lescaut / Abbe Prevost
Flatland / Edwin Abbot

April (11:4-7/6-5)

The No Asshole Rule / Robert Sutton
The Great Inversion / Alan Ehrenhalt
The Fun Stuff and Other Essays / James Wood
Lectures On Literature / Vladimir Nabokov
Selected Short Stories / Franz Kafka
The Castle / Franz Kafka
One Hundred Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know / John D. Barrow
The Theban Plays / Sophocles
The Classical Style / Charles Rosen
The Physics of Wall Street / James Owen Weatherall
The Rainbow / D.H. Lawrence

March (5:4-1/4:1)
How The World Works / Nicholson Baker
Madame Bovary / Gustave Flaubert
The Periodic Table / Primo Levi
The Trial / Franz Kafka
The Iliad / Homer; Richard Lattimore (trans)

February (9:5-4/4-5)
Purgatorio / Dante; John Ciardi (trans)
This Is How You Lose Her / Junot Diaz
On Food and Cooking / Harold McGee
Between The Covers Under the Sheets - Joyce and Janssen
Twitterature - Aciman and Rensin
Flaubert's Parrot / Julian Barnes
The Story of America / Jill Lepore
On Writing / Stephen King
The Odyssey / Homer; Richard Lattimore (trans)

January (9:5-4/5-4)
Drown / Junot Diaz
The Signal and the Noise / Nate Silver
Ulysses / James Joyce
Letters to a Young Novelist / Mario Vargas Llosa
Ulysses and Us / Declan Kiberd
What Einstein Told His Cook 2: Robert L. Wolke
Beowulf / Seamus Heaney (trans)
The Nature of Things / Lucretius; A. E. Stallings (trans)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler / Italo Calvino

2012 (53:15-38/10-43)

December (9)
Where Good Ideas Come From /  Steven Johnson
Authentic Happiness / Martin Seligman
Why Does the World Exist? / Jim Holt
The Price of Inequality / Joseph Stiglitz
Ratio / Michael Ruhlmann
What Einstein Told His Cook / Robert L. Wolke
How To Read / Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
Imagine / Jonah Lehrer
The Story of Art / Ernst Gombrich

November (8)
Listen to the Trees / John Sexton
Mortality / Christopher Hitchens
Street Photography / Sophie Howarth and Steve Mclaren
Joseph Anton / Salman Rushdie
The Age of Insight / Eric Kandel
The Magic of Reality / Richard Dawkins
No Small Matter / Felice Frankel and George Whitesides
How To Read a Sentence and How To Write a Sentence / Stanley Fish

October (5)
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics / Jonathan Haidt
Why Nations Fail / Acemoglu and Robinson
Narcopolis / Jeet Thayil
The Hedgehog and The Fox / Isaiah Berlin
Flow / Mihalyi Csikszentmihaly

September (5)
The Upside of Irrationality / Dan Ariely
The Inferno / Dante Alighieri; John Ciardi (trans)
And Baby Makes Three / John and Julie Gottmann
Witness in Our Time / Ken Light
Everything is Obvious: Once you Know the Answer / Duncan J. Watts

August (6)
Essential Tagore / Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarty(ed)
The Complete Poems / Philip Larkin; Archie Burnett (ed)
Influence / Robert Cialdini
Predictably Irrational / Dan Ariely
Instant Influence / Michael Pantalon
The Science of Influence / Kevin Hogan

July (6)
Half-Finished Heaven / Tomas Transtromer
Notebooks 1935-42 and 1952-1959 / Albert Camus
How Proust Can Change Your Life / Alain de Botton
The Lean Startup / Eric Ries
The Happiness Hypothesis / Jonathan Haidt
The Behavior Gap / Carl Richards

June (2)
How We Decide / Jonah Lehrer
The Song of Achilles / Madeleine Miller

May (0)
---- (this is odd and unusual)

April (3)
India Becoming : a portrait of life in modern India  / Kapur, Akash
The Leopard / Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giuseppe
Poor Economics : a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty / Banerjee, Abhijit V.

March (3)
Search & destroy : why you can't trust Google Inc. / Cleland, Scott.
Selected and last poems, 1931-2004 / Czeslaw Milosz
Visualize This  / Yau, Nathan.

February (4)
Thinking, Fast and Slow / Kahneman, Daniel
The great enigma : new collected poems / Tranströmer, Tomas
A Thousand years of good prayers /  Li, Yiyun
The cat's table /  Ondaatje, Michael

January (2)
War music : an account of books 16 to 19 of Homer's Iliad / Logue, Christopher,
2011Cesar's rules : your way to train a well-behaved dog / Millan, Cesar.

2011 

December
Cesar's way : the natural, everyday guide to understanding and correcting common dog problems / Millan, Cesar.
Be the pack leader : use Cesar's way to transform your dog-- and your life  / Millan, Cesar.
How to raise the perfect dog : through puppyhood and beyond  / Millan, Cesar.

Is that a fish in your ear? : translation and the meaning of everything / Bellos, David. 

November
How to learn any language : quickly, easily, and on your own /  Farber, Barry.
The origins of political order : from prehuman times to the French Revolution / Fukuyama, Francis.
Good calories, bad calories : challenging the conventional wisdom on diet, weight control, and disease  / Taubes, Gary.

October
Fear of physics : a guide for the perplexed / Krauss, Lawrence Maxwell

September
Open city / Cole, Teju