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A list of the best fiction and nonfiction I've read (mostly lately)
If any of the books interest you, consider bypassing Amazon and buying them from your local bookstore. Likewise, if you enjoyed some of the articles from any of the below publications, consider subscribing. Independent bookstores and good journalism don't fund themselves!
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders | 2017 | experimental fiction
A Sense of Self: Memory, the Brain, and Who We Are
Veronica O'Keane | 2021 | non-fiction
To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf | 1927 | stream of consciousness
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Michael Pollan | 2006 | non-fiction
Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia | 2020 | horror
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut | 1969 | metafiction
1984
George Orwell | 1949 | dystopian fiction
Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and the Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
Brian Greene | 2020 | nonfiction
Exhalation
Ted Chiang | 2019 | science fiction collection
Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation
Alan Burdick | 2017 | nonfiction
The Memory Police
Yoko Ogawa | 1994 | science fiction
Figuring
Maria Popova | 2019 | biographies
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
William Finnegan | 2016 | memoir
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Stuart Turton | 2018 | mystery
The Altruists
Andrew Ridker | 2019 | literary fiction
Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)
Rebecca Solnit | 2018 | essay collection
In Our Mad and Furious City
Guy Gunaratne | 2018 | literary fiction
Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
Raj Patel | 2012 | nonfiction
Yellow Submarine
Maria Popova | In Their Lives: Great Writers on Great Beatles Songs | 2017 | essay
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Katherine Boo | 2012 | narrative nonfiction
The Incendiaries
R. O. Kwon | 2018 | literary fiction
Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation
Anne Helen Petersen | 2020 | nonfiction
Twelve Minutes and a Life
Mitchell S. Jackson | Runner's World | 2020 | feature story
Educated
Tara Westover | 2018 | memoir
The Sandman
Lars Kepler | 2018 | thriller
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets
Jason Hickel | 2017 | nonfiction
Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed
Will Storr | 2018 | nonfiction
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt | 2013 | literary fiction
There, There
Tommy Orange | 2018 | literary fiction
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Jia Tolentino | 2019 | essay collection
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Randall Munroe | 2014 | Q&A collection
Fates and Furies
Lauren Groff | 2015 | literary fiction
The Social Life of Forests
Ferris Jabr | The New York Times Magazine | 2020 | magazine feature
Hiroshima
John Hersey | The New Yorker | 1946 | narrative nonfiction
Going the Distance (and Beyond) to Catch Marathon Cheaters
Gordy Megroz | Wired | 2020 | magazine feature
The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife
Lucy Cooke | 2018 | nonfiction
Nothing but Gifts
Edwin Dobb | Harper's Magazine | 2018 | essay
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
Michael Pollan | 2018 | nonfiction
The Courage of Jill Costello
Chris Ballard | Sports Illustrated | 2010 | magazine feature
The White Darkness
David Grann | The New Yorker | 2018 | magazine feature
When Twenty-Six Thousand Stinkbugs Invade Your Home
Katheryn Schulz | The New Yorker | 2018 | magazine feature
Power Steer
Michael Pollan | The New York Times Magazine | 2002 | magazine feature
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates | 2015 | nonfiction
Beloved
Toni Morrison | 1987 | literary fiction
Sleeping on Jupiter
Anuradha Roy | 2015 | literary fiction
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