sydney claire

last updated January 19, 2024

I’m currently reading Septology by Jon Fosse and The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

Below is a list of books I’ve really enjoyed or that made an impact on me.

fiction

science fiction

  1. Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
  2. Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky
  3. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
  4. Unsong by Scott Alexander

general fiction

  1. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
  2. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
  3. Diaspora by Greg Egan
  4. Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
  5. Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
  6. Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh

nonfiction

  1. A Distant Mirror: A Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman
  2. A Concise History of the Catholic Church by Thomas Bokenkotter
  3. Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardner

philosophy

  1. Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick
  2. Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhuar
  3. Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
  4. Animal Liberation by Peter Singer (1975)
  5. Confessions by St Augustine

economics/finance

  1. Big Ideas in Macroeconomics by Karthik Artheya
  2. The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbronner
  3. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
  4. Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century by Brad deLong
  5. Expected Returns by Antti Ilmanen
  6. Secrets of the Temple by William Greider

cookbooks

  1. Xi’an Famous Foods
  2. The Food of Sichaun
  3. Flour Water Salt Yeast
  4. Bras: A Taste of Aubrac
  5. Bien Cuit
  6. Jerusalem
  7. Plenty
  8. The Nordic Baking Book
  9. Dishoom