Book recommendations (Dec 2021)
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Fiction:
Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky. 19th century Russia. Big book. Big themes. Religion, morality, free will.
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy. India, caste system, forbidden love.
War and Peace – Tolstoy. Russia, early 19th century.
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro. England, pre WW2. Favourite contemporary author.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing – Madeleine Thien. China, communism.
A Farewell to Arms – Hemingway. Italy, WW2.
The Famished Road – Ben Okri. Nigeria, colonization.
The Tartar Steppe - Dino Buzatti. Italy, pre WW2. One big metaphor for life.
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy. Western.
The Narrow Road to The Deep North - Richard Flanagan. Australian POWs, WW2.
Non-fiction:
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - Robert M Pirsig. Philosophy.
Hackers & Painters - Paul Graham. Tech, philosophy, business.
The Lessons of History - Will & Ariel Durant. Comprehensive history lesson.
How To Make Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie. Wish I read this when I was younger.
Zero to One – Peter Thiel. Business meets philosophy.
Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond. Explains the rise of civilization. Similar themes to Sapiens (Harari).
The Ascent of Money – Niall Ferguson. Understand the world better.
Endurance (Shackleton’s incredible voyage) - Alfred Lansing. A testimony to the human spirit.
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer. Everest 1995/1996. Also wrote Into The Wild.
The Gulag Archipelago - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Soviet concentration camps.