As part of my New Year resolution I decided to read 52 books this year. One every week. Yes! You might think that sounds a bit superficial and you are right. But it will make me read. A lot.
For that reason I asked my friends to recommend me a book that absolutely has to be on such list. Could be anything. Non-fiction or fiction or even graphic novels.
The only limitation was that the books can´t be tooooo long and could be realistically read in a week (besides work). I am not the fastest reader after all. (Thanks Kay, for recommending The Count of Monte Cristo…)
The below list is what they came back with. I realised again what a diverse and well-read circle of friends I have. There might be an inspirational read for some of you, too. And if you can recommend any further readings…fire away!
OK; now I better start reading…
Books of note – as recommended by my friends
FICTION | |||
Title | Author | Kind | Country |
The Quiet American | Graham Greene | Fiction | UK |
Lucky Jim | Kingsley Amis | Fiction | UK |
Ravelstein | Saul Bellow | Fiction | Canada |
Headhunters | Jo Nesbo | Fiction | Norway |
Ulysses | James Joyce | Fiction | Ireland |
Atomised | Michel Houellebecq | Fiction | France |
I am pilgrim | Terry Hayes | Fiction | UK |
the pillars of the earth | Ken Follett | Fiction | UK |
The Waterproof Bible | Andrew Kaufman | Fiction | Canada |
No Name | Wilkie Collins | Fiction | UK |
One Thousand and One Nights | Div | Fiction | Div |
Hector and the Search for Happiness | Francois Lelord | Fiction | France |
The Martian | andy weir | Fiction | USA |
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon | Fiction | USA |
Oryx and Crake | Margaret Atwood | Fiction | Canada |
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage | Haruki Murakami | Fiction | Japan |
The Innocent | Ian McEwan | Fiction | UK |
Dead Poets Society | Nancy H Kleinbaum | Fiction | USA |
ON SEEING THE 100% PERFECT GIRL ONE BEAUTIFUL APRIL MORNING | Haruki Murakami | Fiction | Japan |
The Execution of Justice | Friedrich Dürrenmatt | Fiction | Switzerland |
Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | Fiction | Ireland |
Summerhouse, later | Judith Hermann | Fiction | Germany |
Wild Swans | Jung Chang | Fiction | China |
Scarfolk | Richard Littler | Fiction | UK |
A Heart So White | Javier Marias | Fiction | Spain |
The Shadow of the Wind | Carlos Ruiz Zafón | Fiction | Spain |
City of Marvels | Eduardo Garriga | Fiction | Spain |
Homo Faber | Max Frisch | Fiction | Switzerland |
The power of the dog | Don Winslow | Fiction | USA |
Water for elephants | Sara Gruen | Fiction | Canada |
A fine balance | Rohinton Mistry | Fiction | India |
Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | Fiction | USA |
Middlesex | Jeffrey Eugenides | Fiction | USA |
Orlando | Virginia Woolf | Fiction | UK |
Rivers of London | Ben Aaronovitch | Fiction | UK |
Sonnets | William Shakespeare | Fiction | UK |
Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | Fiction | UK |
Neverwhere | Neil Gaiman | Fiction | UK |
The White Tiger | Aravind Adiga | Fiction | India |
The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | Fiction | Afghanistan |
Anna karenina | Leo Tolstoy | Fiction | Russia |
War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | Fiction | Russia |
No one Belongs Here More Than You | Miranda July | Fiction | USA |
Care of Wooden Floors | Will Wiles | Fiction | UK |
Celestine Prophecy | James Redfield | Fiction | USA |
Silk | Alessandro Baricco | Fiction | Italy |
Lennon is dead | Alexander Osang | Fiction | Germany |
When the lion feeds | Wilbur Smith | Fiction | South Africa |
The alchemist | Paulo Coelho | Fiction | Brazil |
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital | Lorrie Moore | Fiction | USA |
A Little Life | Hanya Yanagihara | Fiction | USA |
Right Ho, Jeeves | P. G. Wodehouse | Fiction | UK |
Stories we could tell | Tony Parsons | Fiction | UK |
Dark Matter | Juli Zeh | Fiction | Germany |
Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Fiction | Russia |
Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | Fiction | UK |
Ham on rye | Charles Bukowski | Fiction | USA |
a prayer for Owen meany | John Irving | Fiction | USA |
My cousin Rachel | Daphne Du Maurier | Fiction | UK |
The 100 year old man climbed out of a window and disappeared | Jonas Jonasson | Fiction | Sweden |
The Flatey Enigma | Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson | Fiction | Iceland |
Bamboo Road | Ann Bennett | Fiction | UK |
Half of a Yellow Sun | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Fiction | Nigeria |
The Blizzard | Vladimir Georgievich Sorokin | Fiction | Russia |
The Discreet Hero | Mario Vargas-Llosa | Fiction | Peru |
Distant Star | Roberto Bolano | Fiction | Chile |
The time, the time | Martin Suter | Fiction | Switzerland |
Friday Night Lights | Buzz Bissinger | Fiction | USA |
PS, I Love You | Cecelia Ahern | Fiction | Ireland |
May We Be Forgiven | A. M. Homes | Fiction | USA |
The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexander Dumas | Fiction | France |
Capital | john lanchester | Fiction | UK |
Last Night in Twisted River | John Irving | Fiction | USA |
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy | John Le Carre | Fiction | UK |
The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde | Robert Louis Stevenson | Fiction | UK |
Anthem | Ayn Rand | Fiction | USA |
The Yellow Wallpaper | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | Fiction | USA |
The overcoat | Nikolai Gogol | Fiction | Russia |
The 39 steps | John Buchan | Fiction | UK |
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Hunter S. Thompson | Fiction | USA |
The Sun also rises | Ernest Hemingway | Fiction | USA |
Journey to the end of the night | Louis-Ferdinand Celine | Fiction | France |
Peter and Mary go fishing | Nat Darke | Fiction | East-Germany |
NON-FICTION | |||
Becoming Animal | David Abram | Non-Fiction | USA |
Destiny Disrupted | Tamim Ansary | Non-Fiction | Afghanistan |
Good Strategy Bad Strategy | Richard Rumelt | Non-Fiction | USA |
Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill | Matthieu Ricard | Non-Fiction | France |
EGO | Frank Schirrmacher | Non-Fiction | Germany |
Debt: The First 5,000 Years | David Graeber | Non-Fiction | USA |
Pretty Boy | Roy Shaw | Non-Fiction | UK |
Mr Nice | Howard Marks | Non-Fiction | UK |
Little Book of Hygge | Meik Wiking | Non-Fiction | Danmark |
Design your life | Bill Burnett | Non-Fiction | USA |
Bossypants | Tina Fey | Non-Fiction | USA |
Me talk pretty one day | David Sedaris | Non-Fiction | USA |
Shoe Dog | Phil Knight | Non-Fiction | USA |
Sailing Alone Around the World | Joshua Slocum | Non-Fiction | Canada |
Sextant | David Barrie | Non-Fiction | UK |
When Genius Failed | Roger Lowenstein | Non-Fiction | USA |
The Big Short | Michael Lewis | Non-Fiction | USA |
Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future | Ashlee Vance | Non-Fiction | USA |
Into Thin Air | Jon Krakauer | Non-Fiction | USA |
Extreme Metaphors | JG Ballard | Non-Fiction | UK |
My Lunches with Orson | Orson Welles | Non-Fiction | USA |
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed | Jon Ronson | Non-Fiction | UK |
Deep Survival | Laurence Gonzales | Non-Fiction | USA |
In Cold blood | Truman Capote | Non-Fiction | USA |
The man who mistook his wife for a hat | Oliver Sacks | Non-Fiction | UK |
Leaders eat last | Simon Sinek | Non-Fiction | USA |
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | Non-Fiction | USA |
Shakespeare | Bill Bryson | Non-Fiction | UK |
Cosmos and Psyche | Richard Tarnas | Non-Fiction | USA |
GRAPHIC NOVELS | |||
Habibi | Craig Thompson | Graphic Novel/Picture Book | USA |
Black Hole | Charles Burns | Graphic Novel/Picture Book | USA |
From Hell | Alan Moore | Graphic Novel/Picture Book | UK |
Calvin and Hobbes | Bill Watterson | Graphic Novel/Picture Book | USA |
The Giving Tree | Shel Silverstein | Graphic Novel/Picture Book | USA |