Recommended Reading
I’m always on the lookout for books I want to read and my want-to-read list grows longer every day. For those of you who can relate, here’s a list of some books I think everyone should read, in no particular order, divided into three categories: Books I love, Other books you should read, and Books I hated but am glad I read. Wherever possible the link that I provide is to the version or edition that I read. For books that I’ve read in Spanish I’ve included an English title, but I cannot necessarily vouch for the translated versions I find on Amazon. Enjoy!
Books I love
- Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy, Jostein Gaarder (Originally published in Norwegian; I first read some of it in English, and then recently read the whole thing in Spanish. It’s over 600 pages, but it’s an easy read in Spanish if you’re looking for good reading practice.)
- Mi País Inventado: Un Paseo Nostálgico por Chile, Isabel Allende (My Invented Country: A Memoir, Isabel Allende)
- Anything by Mary Roach
- Anything by Roald Dahl
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Erik Larson
- The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Barack Obama
- Zara’s Tales: Perilous Escapades in Equatorial Africa, Peter Beard
- A Dog’s Head, Jean Dutourd (originally in French)
- Anything by Laurie Notaro
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss
- The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
- The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester
- A Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work, Jack Hart
- Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer
- Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir, Frank McCourt
- The Lovely Bones: A Novel, Alice Sebold
- Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes, Gabriel García Márquez (A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, Gabriel García Márquez)
- Cien años de soledad, Gabriel García Márquez (100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez)
Other books you should read
- True Tales of American Life, edited and introduced by Paul Auster
- Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, Al Franken
- El Camino, Miguel Delibes (I haven’t found a version in English)
- The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, Vladimir Voinovich
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
- The End of Racism, Dinesh D’Souza
- A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power
- El tercer sexo: Retratos de mujeres transexuales, Guillermo Hernáiz (haven’t found an English version)
- Los girasoles ciegos, Alberto Méndez (Blind Sunflowers, Alberto Méndez)
- The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
- The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, Completely Updated and Revised, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
Books I hated but am glad I read
- The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
- El planeta americano, Vicente Verdú (haven’t found an English version)
- A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
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