I’ve marked my favourite books with *, and I’ve started to mark the reviews that I think are most worthwhile with #.
The 100-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. Jonas Jonsson.
10:04. Ben Lerner.
12 Rules for Life. Jordan Peterson.
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl. Mona Awad.
419. Will Ferguson.
1Q84. Haruki Murakami
The Adversary. Emmanuel Carrere.
Advice for Italian Boys. Anne Giardini.
The Alexandria Quartet. Lawrence Durrell
All Things Consoled. Elizabety Hay.
All True Not a Lie In It. Alix Hawley.
And Also Sharks. Jessica Westhead.
# The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. Henry Miller.
Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood.
All Quiet on the Western Front. Erich Maria Remarque.
All the Light We Cannot See. Anthony Doerr.
Alone. Michael Korda.
American Nations. Colin Woodward.
Angle of Repose. Wallace Stegner.
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Richard Hofstadter.
Anything is Possible. Elizabeth Strout.
The Art of the Personal Essay. Philip Lopate ed.
The Association of Small Bombs. Mahajan, Karan.
# At the Bottom of the Harbor. Joseph Mitchell.
At the End of the Century. Ruth Jhabvala.
August. Callan Wink.
Bad Science. Ben Goldacre.
The Bad Side of Books. DH Lawrence.
Beautiful Ruins. Jess Walter.
The Bee Sting. Paul Murray.
# Been Down so Long it Looks Like Up to Me. Richard Farina.
Behind Closed Doors. B. A. Paris.
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Atul Gawande.
Bellevue Square. Michael Redhill.
The Best American Short Stories 2015. T C Boyle and Heidi Pitlor, eds.
# The Best Kind of People. Zoe Whittall.
Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. Zsuzsi Gartner
Beyond Order. Jordan Peterson.
Bleak House. Charles Dickens.
* Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Haruki Murakami.
Blindness. José Saramago.
* Blood Meridian. Cormac McCarthy.
Blood Money. David Ignatius.
Blood Moon: A Captive’s Tale. Ruth Chatlien.
Book of Days: Personal Essays. Emily Fox Gordon.
The Book Thief. Markus Zusak.wp.me/p3pnJM-hZ
*# A Book of Memories. Peter Nadas.
Both Flesh and Not. David Foster Wallace.
A Brief History of Seven Killings. Marlon James.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: Stories. David Foster Wallace.
Bright Lights Big City. Jay McInerney.
# The Burgess Boys. Elizabeth Strout.
Cahokia Jazz. Frances Spufford.
The Candy House. Jennifer Egan.
The Castle. Franz Kafka.
* The Cat’s Table. Michael Ondaatje.
Charcoal Joe. Walter Mosley
Chip War. Chris Miller.
The Circle. Dave Eggers.
City of Bohane. Kevin Barry.
Cleopatra, A Life. Stacey Schiff.
A Coffin for Dimitrios. Eric Ambler.
Collected Fictions. Jorge Luis Borges.
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Lydia Davis.
The Collected Stories. Amy Hempel.
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway.
# The Confessions of Nat Turner. William Styron.
Conversations With Friends. Sally Rooney.
Cool Water. Dianne Warren.
Cork Dorks. Bianca Bosker.
* Cosmogony. Lucy Ives.
* The Course of Love. Alain de Botton.
Cutting for Stone. Abraham Verghese.
Dance Dance Dance. Haruki Mirakami.
* Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity. Denis Noble.
David and Goliath. Malcolm Gladwell.
David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide. Stephen Burn.
Day. Michael Cunningham.
Days Without End. Sebastian Barry.
Deacon King Kong. James McBride
Dead Souls. Nikolai Gogol.
# Dear Life. Alice Munro.
A Death in the Family. Karl Ove Knausgaard.
The Debt to Pleasure. John Lanchester.
Decoded. Mai Jia.
* The Dignity of Difference. Jonathan Sacks.
Dissident Doctor. Michael Klein.
Do I Make Myself Clear? Harold Evans.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Madeleine Thien.
Dog Run Moon. Callan Wink.
The Doomsday Machine. Daniel Ellsberg.
The Door. Magda Szabo.
Edible Stories. Mark Kurlansky.
# The Educated Imagination. Northrop Frye.
The Empathy Exams. Leslie Jamison
Except When I Write. Arthur Krystal.
The Farmer’s Daughter. Jim Harrison.
Farther Away. Jonathan Franzen
* The Feeling of What Happens. Antonio Damasio.
Fifteen Dogs. Alexis Andre.
Fierce Kingdom. Gin Phillips.
Fired Up about Capitalism. Tom Malleson.
Fishtailing. Wendy Philips.
The Flame Throwers. Rachel Kushner.
Flesh Bone and Water. Luiza Sauma.
The Flight Portfolio. Julie Orringer.
Flood of Fire. Amritav Ghosh.
The Fortunes of Permanence. Roger Kimball.
Freedom. Jonathan Franzen.
French Exit. Patrick DeWitt
*From Dawn to Decadence. Jacques Barzun.
From Here to Eternity. James Jones.
The Gathering Storm. Winston Churchill.
A General Theory of Love. Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon
The Genetic Lottery. K Paige Harden.
Get in Trouble. Kelly Link.
The Ghost Writer. Philip Roth.
Gilead. Marilynne Robinson.
Girl with Curious Hair. David Foster Wallace.
The Glass Room. Simon Mawer
God’s Hotel.Victoria Sweet
The Golden Bowl. Henry James.
The Goldfinch. Donna Tartt.
Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction. Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd.
Goya’s Dog. Damian Tarnopolsky.
The Great Delusion. John Mearsheimer.
Great Dream of Heaven. Sam Shepard.
Gut Feelings. Gerd Gigerenzer.
Just Let Me Look at You. Bill Gaston.
Half-Blood Blues. Esi Edugyan.
The Hare with Amber Eyes. Edmund de Waal.
The Headmaster’s Wager. Vincent Lam.
The Heart Broke In. James Meek
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. James McBride.
The Heavens. Sandra Newman.
Hero of the Empire. Candice Millard.
The Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell.
A Home at the End of the World. Michael Cunningham.
* The Hours. Michael Cunningham.
How Markets Fail. John Cassidy.
How to Behave in a Crowd. Camille Bordas.
How to Breathe Underwater. Julie Orringer.
The Illuminations. Andrew O’Hagan.
I Am a Truck. Michelle Winters.
If I Survive You. Jonathan Escoffery.
Illustrados. Miguel Syjuco.
Impossible Views of the World. Lucy Ives.
In Cold Blood. Truman Capote.
In Mania’s Memory. Lisa Birnie.
In the Land of Eternal Spring. Alan Howard.
In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts. Gabor Mate.
Independence Day. Richard Ford.
Infinite Home. Kathleen Alcott.
* Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace.
The Infinities. John Banville.
Ink on Paper. Brad Cran.
Insane Medicine. Sami Timimi.
The Intelligent Investor. Benjamin Graham.
The Invisible Bridge. Julie Orringer.
IOU. John Lanchester.
The Journalist and the Murderer. Janet Malcolm.
Judas. Amos Oz.
Juno Loves Legs. Karl Geary.
Knocking on Heaven’s Door. Katy Butler.
Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics. Stephen Woloshin, Lisa Schwartz and Gilbert Welch.
Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada. Alan Casey.
The Last of Her Kind. Sigrid Nunez.
Leaving the Atocha Station. Ben Lerner.
The Left Hand of Darkness. Ursula Le Guin.
Less. Andrew Sean Greer.
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. David Sedaris.
The Liberal Imagination. Lionel Trilling.
Light Lifting. Alexander McLeod.
The Line of Beauty. Alan Hollinghurst.
A Little Life. Hanya Yanagihara.
Lost Hearts in Italy. Andrea Lee.
The Lottery and Other Stories. Shirley Jackson.
Loving. Henry Green.
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. Luc Sante.
The Lowland. Jhumpa Lahiri.
A Lucky Man. Jamel Brinkley.
The Luminaries. Eleanor Catton.
Man Gone Down. Michael Thomas.
A Man in Love. Karl Ove Knausgaard.
The Mandibles. Lionel Shriver.
Manhattan Beach. Jennifer Egan.
A Manual for Cleaning Women. Lucia Berlin.
The Marriage Plot. Jeffrey Eugenides.
Mary Coin. Marisa Silver.
Maud’s Line. Margaret Verble.
Medium Raw. Anthony Bourdain.
Men Without Women. Haruki Murakami.
The Metaphysical Club. Louis Menand.
* Middlemarch. George Eliot.
Minds of Winter. Ed O’Loughlin.
Moonglow. Michael Chabon.
The Moor’s Account. Laila Lalami.
Motherhood. Sheila Heti.
A Most Wanted Man. John Le Carre.
* Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf.
My Brilliant Friend. Elena Ferrante.
My Mother, Your Mother. Dennis McCullough.
My Name is Lucy Barton. Elizabeth Strout.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Richard Flanagan.
Normal People. Sally Rooney.
Norwegian Wood. Haruki Murakami.
Nothing to Be Frightened Of. Julian Barnes
On Bullshit. Harry Frankfurt.
Operation Shylock. Philip Roth.
Or What You Will. Jo Walton.
Oracle Night. Paul Auster.
The Orchard Keeper. Cormac McCarthy.
The Orphan Master’s Son. Adam Johnson.
The Overstory. Richard Powers.
The Pale King. David Foster Wallace.
Parisian Lives. Deirdre Bair.
Park City. Ann Beattie.
The Patriots. Sana Krasikov.
The Personality Brokers. Merve Emre.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Annie Dillard.
Playing With Fire. Lawrence O’Donnell.
Plugged. Eoin Colfer.
Pnin. Vladimir Nabokov.
POEMS: Okie Chronicles (2005), Out of Silence (2009), What to Make of It (2012). Pamela Harrison.
The Possessed. Elif Batuman.
The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. Penelope Lively.
The Quick and the Dead. Joy Williams.
The Raw and the Cooked. Jim Harrison.
The Regeneration Trilogy. Pat Barker.
A Registry of my Passage upon the Earth. Daniel Mason.
* Religion for Atheists. Alain de Botton.
Rethinking Aging. Nortin Hadler.
Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe.
A Room With a View. E M Forster.
Ru. Kim Thuy.
Rules for Visiting. Jessica Francis Kane.
The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. Gary Shteyngart.
Saint Jack. Paul Theroux.
Sap Rising. Christine Lincoln.
Sapiens. Youval Noah Harari.
Save Me the Plums. Ruth Reichl.
The School of Life. Alain de Botton.
The Sense of an Ending. Julian Barnes.
The Sense of Style. Steven Pinker.
The Sentimentalists. Wendy Skibrud.
Shame and Wonder. David Searcy.
Sh*t My Dad Says. Justin Halperin.
The Sisters Brothers. Patrick DeWitt.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club. Megan Coles.
Snow. Louis MacNeice.
Snow in May. Kseniya Melnik.
So Much Blue. Percival Everett.
Solar Bones. Mike McCormack.
Someone With a Little Hammer. Mary Gaitskill.
The Son. Philipp Meyer.
The Sorrows of Young Werther. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
The Sound and the Fury. William Faulkner.
South of Broad. Pat Conroy.
State of Fear. Micheal Crighton.
Still Life. Sarah Winman.
*# The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. Vladimir Nabokov.
The Story of a New Name. Elena Ferrante.
* (applies to all 4 novels) The Story of the Lost Child. Elena Ferrante.
Strong Motion. Jonathan Franzen.
* Studies in Classic American Literature. DH Lawrence.
Study for Obedience. Sarah Bernstein.
Suddenly, Love. Aharon Appelfeld
The Sun Walks Down. Fiona McFarlane.
Superabundance. Tupy M and Pooley G
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Nick Bostrom.
Swing Time. Zadie Smith.
The Sympathizer. Viet Thanh Nguyen.
# A Tale for the Time Being. Ruth Ozeki.
A Tale of Love and Darkness. Amos Oz.
# Telegraph Avenue. Michael Chabon.
The Terranauts. T C Boyle.
Thirteen Reasons Why. Jay Asher.
This Other Eden. Paul Harding.
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. Elena Ferrante.
A Thousand Acres. Jane Smiley.
A Thousand Small Sanities. Adam Gopnik.
To Be a Machine. Mark O’Connell.
* Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Gabrielle Zevin.
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. Joshua Ferris.
Too Much Happiness. Alice Munro.
The Topeka School. Ben Lerner.
The Tortilla Curtain. TC Boyle.
A Trick of the Light. Louise Penny.
Troubling Love. Elena Ferrante.
Trumpocracy. David Frum.
# Tyll. Daniel Kiehlmann.
Under This Unbroken Sky. Shandi Mitchell.
Unearthing. Kyo Maclear.
Us Conductors. Sean Micheals.
The Use and Abuse of Art. Jacques Barzun.
# Veronica. Mary Gaitskill
The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life.Nick Lane.
Vox. Nicholson Baker.
Walking on the Ceiling. Aysegul Savas.
* War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy.
The War of the End of the World. Mario Vargas Llosa.
Warlight. Michael Ondaatje.
The Way We Die Now. Seamus O’Mahony.
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Karen Joy Fowler.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Shirley Jackson.
We Have No Idea. Daniel Whiteson and Jorge Cham.
We Need New Names. NoViolet Bulawayo.
Weekend. Jane Eaton Hamilton.
What Strange Paradise. Omar El Akkad.
What Was Lost. Catherine O’Flynn
When Breath Becomes Air. Paul Kalanithi.
Why Trust Science? Naomi Oreskes et al
The Wilds. Julia Elliott.
With Wings Like Eagles. Michael Korda
Wolf Hall. Hillary Mantel.
A Woman Run Mad. John L’Heureux.
# The Woman Who Lost Her Soul. Bob Shocochis.
Women in Love. DH Lawrewnce.
* Word’s End. TC Boyle.
Wrong. David Friedman.
Yiddish for Pirates. Gary Baldwin.
You Are Not a Gadget. Jaron Lanier.
Your Face in Mine. Jesse Row.
The Zimmerman Telegram. Barbara Tuchman.
John Sloan's Reviews 