Things I’ve read and recommend, ranging from the literary to the pedestrian:
- Watership Down - Richard Adams
- Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende
- In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez
- The Foundation trilogy - Isaac Asimov
- Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
- Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
- Teaching a Stone to Talk - Annie Dillard
- Tracks - Louise Erdrich
- Light in August - William Faulkner
- The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
- Dreaming in Cuban - Cristina Garcia
- Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
- Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
- Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood - Fatima Mernissi
- Scheherezade Goes West - Fatima Mernissi
- Laidlaw - William McIlvanney
- No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
- The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
- Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
- Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
- The Book of Dragons - Edith Nesbit
- The Enchanted Castle - Edith Nesbit
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
- Empire Falls - Richard Russo
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sachs
- A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
- The Winter’s Tale - William Shakespeare
- The Death of Vishnu - Manil Suri
- The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
- In Siberia - Colin Thubron
- Thirteen Clocks - James Thurber
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien
- Killing Custer - James Welch
- The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
- To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
- Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Music:
- Greatest Hits - ABBA
- Cold Roses - Ryan Adams
- Jacksonville City Nights - Ryan Adams
- Under the Pink - Tori Amos
- Funeral - Arcade Fire
- If You’re Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian
- Tigermilk - Belle and Sebastian
- Lost and Safe - The Books
- Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
- Grace - Jeff Buckley
- The Dreaming - Kate Bush
- The Whole Story - Kate Bush
- Ege Bamyasi - Can
- Lost Souls - Doves
- The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place - Explosions in the Sky
- Best of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
- The Dirt of Luck - Helium
- Magic City - Helium
- 69 Love Songs - The Magnetic Fields
- The Charm of the Highway Strip - The Magnetic Fields
- The Wayward Bus / Distant Plastic Trees - The Magnetic Fields
- Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
- The Moon & Antarctica - Modest Mouse
- Young Team - Mogwai
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
- Summer in Abaddon - Pinback
- Hail to the Thief - Radiohead
- OK Computer - Radiohead
- Oh, Inverted World - The Shins
- From a Basement on the Hill - Elliott Smith
- Best of - The Smiths
- Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney
- The Woods - Sleater-Kinney
- A Thousand Leaves - Sonic Youth
- Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth
- Dirty - Sonic Youth
- EVOL - Sonic Youth
- Ex Hex - Mary Timony
- The Golden Dove - Mary Timony
- Der Ring des Nibelungen - Richard Wagner
- Fakebook - Yo La Tengo
- I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One - Yo La Tengo
- Summer Sun - Yo La Tengo