"The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the symphony resounds, the seed germinates. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another." - Rebecca Solnit
Books I've loved in 2020
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Dear Girls by Ali Wong
The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russel
Into the Planet: My Life As a Cave Diver by Jill Heinerth
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
There There by Tommy Orange
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Normal People by Sally Rooney
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Books I loved in 2019
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers
Less by Andrew Greer
The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of a Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Gut by Giulia Enders
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
The Push by Tommy Caldwell
We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer
How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
The Second Mountain by David Brooks
Books I loved in 2018
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
Eleanor Olifant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
Crazy Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
Calypso by David Sedaris
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredik Backman
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Books I loved in 2017
Lost Continent: Adventures in Small Town America by Bill Bryson
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
All These Wonders: Stories from The Moth
Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me by Bill Hayes
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Theft By Finding by David Sedaris
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
Books I loved in 2016
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Rising Strong by Brené Brown
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
City Unseen: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of Urban Wilderness by Nathaniel Johnson