Do you realize that if you read just one of the titles suggested in January, you would be better read than the new President of the United States?
It brings up an important value of reading: books allow the reader to experience the world, and not just stew in their own self-involvement. Books develop a vital human trait—empathy—and make it clear that the reader is not the center of the universe. Books expose the true human condition, sometimes sublime, often disappointing; sometimes right, often wrong; loved by some, despised by others.
A clichéd image which is currently in vogue is that of living in a bubble. Possibly the most direct way into this bubble is the result of not reading.
Look over last month’s list and chose one book to read: escape the bubble!
List of Suggested Reading From January 2017
01-01-17 – 1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half — Stephen R. Bown
01-02-17 – White Ravens — Owen Sheers
01-03-17 – Pricksongs & Descants — Robert Coover
01-04-17 – Seven Ideas That Shook the Universe — Nathan Spielberg & Bryon D. Anderson
01-05-17 – God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment — Scott Adams
01-06-17 – Final Fridays — John Barth
01-07-17 – Beyond the Dreamers — Imbolo Mbue
01-08-17 – Cronopios and Famas — Julio Cortázar
01-09-17 – The Existentialist Café — Sarah Bakewell
01-10-17 – Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker — Jean Lorrain
01-11-17 – The Wings vs. The World — Jade Chang
01-12-17 – A Doubter’s Almanac — Ethan Canin
01-13-17 – 4321 — Paul Auster
01-14-17 – South and West — Joan Didion
01-15-17 – March — John Lewis
01-16-17 – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love — Oscar Hijuelos
01-17-17 – The Door — Magda Szabo
01-18-17 – The Buddha’s Return — Gaito Gazdanov
01-19-17 – Adventures In Immediate Irreality — Max Blecher
01-20-17 – Thus Bad Begins — Javier Marías
01-21-17 – The Moravian Night — Peter Handke
01-22-17 – Richard III — William Shakespeare
01-23-17 – The Lost Landscape: A Writer’s Coming of Age — Joyce Carol Oates
01-24-17 – The Return of Munchausen — Sgizmund Krzhizhanovsky
01-25-17 – On the Ceiling — Eric Chevillard
01-26-17 – Distrust That Particular Flavor — William Gibson
01-27-17 – The Discomfort Zone — Jonathan Franzen
01-28-17 – At Night We Walk In Circles — Daniel Alarcón
01-29-17 – Songs of a Dead Dreamer — Thomas Ligotti
01-30-17 – The Sacred and Profane Love Machine — Iris Murdoch
01-31-17 – A Book of Memories — Péter Nádas
A Celebration of Reading 