Since I’ve been telling everyone who asks me what I did on my trip that I read a lot, I thought I might as well justify that statement with a list of the books I read during my trip. I decided to also use this as an opportunity to write down a few thoughts about them as both a historical record for myself if I ever go back to these books and a conversation starter for others who have read them. So, enjoy.
TL;DR: Go read Too Loud a Solitude and The Power of Now
Why Work? Various Authors
A great way to start off a sabbatical. This collection of essays delves into the concept of work from both a historical and philosophical standpoint. Ranging from a discussion of the value of not working, to the regimentation and measurement of time, to the value of truly fulfilling work. In my mind, this book does a good job of exposing how unhealthy our culture’s approach to work is and of how we’ve been struggling with this for quite a long time.
Everything is Obvious: *Once you know the answer Watts J.Duncan
A discussion of some logical fallacies regarding our explanation of events in the world around us. Oftentimes, when explaining why something happened, we end up merely explaining what something was. For example, if we say that a movie was successful because it had good character development and cool action scenes, does that really explain why it was successful or merely describe the movie? This book gives some strong evidence that most post-hoc explanation is highly suspect.
Kathmandu Thomas Bell
An interesting look at the city of Kathmandu from a journalist who spent a few years there. This book opened my eyes to the corruption of the Foreign Aid Industry and the problems it causes. It has me wanting to learn more about neocolonialism and investigate further how foreign aid may be serving to maintain the status quo instead of improving things.
A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson
While a bit overly focused on western science to warrant the title, this book does a fairly good job of running through our current understanding of the science of our earth and universe. Not being personally very interested in geology or paleontology, I thought the book did a good job of making those topics more interesting to me by focusing on the people involved in those sciences. Also, if you suffer from bad anxiety, you may want to steer clear of this book. A sizable portion of the book discusses all the ways that the world could end at any second.
Many Lives, Many Masters Brian Weiss
An interesting account of a psychotherapist performing past-life therapy. I’d be interested to hear about more research into this topic. The author showed a defensiveness of his scientific qualifications that felt insecure. I think a single section addressing this would be reasonable given the topic matter, but it was a recurring theme throughout the book: like the author couldn’t believe his own experiences, which now that I think about it, might have been the point.
Dracula Bram Stoker
We’re all familiar with this classic monster story, but how many of us have actually read it? This book thoroughly exceeded my expectations, doing an amazing job using the diary structure and creating a truly mysterious and suspenseful atmosphere. For some reason I expected it to be a stodgy book whose fame came from its movie and other adaptations, but it’s actually good in its own right! The one thing I will say is that it’s age definitely shows in regards to its treatment of women and foreign cultures.
Too Loud a Solitude Bohumil Hrabal
I cannot recommend this highly enough! This novela details the story of a wastepaper disposer who collects rare and banned books in Soviet-era Prague. I don’t want to say anymore. Go read it!
I Served the King of England Bohumil Hrabal
Another book by Hrabal, this details the life of a waiter throughout the changes in Czechoslovakia post WWII. In this story, it almost feels like the protagonist is being driven by his life instead of the other way around. It follows some interesting changes in his life and ends with him coming to a reckoning with the very fact of his nonagency. Not as powerful as Too Loud a Solitude but still enjoyable.
An Introduction to Political Philosophy Jonathan Wolff
Saw this in a bookstore and realized this was a topic that I wanted to know more about. A big takeaway of this book for me was that unlike other forms of philosophy, which can be safely ignored by most people, political philosophy and politics in general should be topics of interest to everyone. If you don’t take interest in making political decisions, other people will be more than happy to make them for you!
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry Fredrik Backman
A cute, adventurous, and emotionally powerful story of a little girl dealing with the death of her grandmother. Does a really good job of dealing with complex relationships and making authentic characters with strengths and flaws. This is really good!
Britt-Marie Was Here Fredrik Backman
A spinoff story of one of the characters from My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, this book explores the transformative power of belonging and community. This author does a really good job with characters, emotions, and relationships, and I definitely recommend this one.
The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle
This book had a profound effect on the way I view myself, time, and reality. Cliche/mainstream as it is, it helped me get a handle on some of the existential problems that plagued me and pointed me towards a new way forward. That said, the most powerful stuff in the book is in the first half. The second half seemed to get a little mystical and hand-wavy. Maybe I’d have a different feeling on a second reading.
You Are Here Thich Nhat Hanh
A good book to pair with The Power of Now, if the two were a good-cop-bad-cop duo, this would be the good cop. Where The Power of Now comes across strong, appealing to the intellect and understanding, this holds your hand and guides you towards strategies of centering and self-love. Perhaps less likely to bring about a radical paradigm shift, I still highly recommend this as a book for building self-compassion and self-love.
The Social Construction of Reality Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann
If all knowledge is socially constructed and any person’s reality is built from the knowledge they have of its workings, then reality itself must be socially constructed. This book presents and then explores the idea that our view of the world is constructed by the society in which we live. It convincingly explores the function of various social institutions within this framework and how they can grow, evolve, and take on a life of their own. While reading this book isn’t necessary, understanding the theory it expounds is more or less essential to understanding the last 50 years of sociology, philosophy, anthropology, critical theory, race and gender studies, and probably 10 other fields I can’t name. This theory is criminally undertaught outside of those fields.
The Way of Zen Alan Watts
It was pretty trippy to be reading this simultaneously with The Social Construction of Reality. Zen deals with the very nature of reality itself and our apprehension of it. 1500 years before sociology understood it, Zen understood that our names for things are not the things themselves. If we understand this, we begin to be able to see through the illusory world we’ve created for ourselves. Alan Watts is famous for making eastern philosophy more understandable and approachable for western audiences. While I have no doubt that some things are lost in translation, I would still highly recommend this book.
The Golden Compass Philip Pullman
I kept seeing ads for Philip Pullman’s new book in bookstores in London, so I thought that I might as well read this fairly popular series. I definitely found some of the ideas interesting but had trouble getting really into it. I can’t say exactly why, but I suspect it would have been more appealing to me when I was younger. I enjoyed it, but wouldn’t say it was amazing.
The Three-Body Problem Liu Cixin
I was impressed by how well this sci-fi book incorporated modern scientific theories into its story. Maybe not quite as deftly as The Forever War handles relativity, but still well. I definitely enjoyed this story but felt like something was off with the pacing. I wonder if this might have to do with stylistic differences between western and Chinese novels? Either way, it has me intrigued to read the sequels and see how this world develops.
The Elegant Universe Brian Greene
While much of this book goes into depth discussing String and M-Theory, I found the real gold to be its overview of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Greene does a good job of explaining those topics in an intuitive way. The sections on String Theory are a bit harder to read, but still interesting, only occasionally getting bogged down by difficult-to-follow details. Overall, I would say this is a good layman’s introduction to the topic.
The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt
This book seems to me to have two main parts: first, it posits something called Moral Foundations Theory, basically trying to group moral questions and ideas into five or six main categories, and second, it deals with the purpose of morals in human group formation and cohesion. This book has me feeling divided. The basic premise of Moral Foundations Theory feels strong, but the way it gets fleshed out feels flawed and the conclusions drawn from the research, at least as presented in the book, feel unwarranted. Still, the basic idea of the theory feels useful and important, and the second half of the book concerning “groupishness” is spot on.