Question (please reply below so I can make a thread): what is a book you read that, for whatever good reason, absolutely blew your mind? All genres welcome: just trying to expand my thinking (and my bookshelf obviously). Thank you!
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"Balkan Express" by the Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic. A collection of newspaper columns and essays from the earliest stages of the wars during the dissolution of Yugoslavia that I read in 1995, while my family travelled to a vacation in Bavaria.
The book of Rijksmuseum's recent Slavery exhibition. It was astonishing to me to realize what implications could be hidden in apparently very tame collection items. The human stories told through them are wow
Flashman, for the sheer brillance of using that character to undermine Victorian / High Imperial illusions and pretensions. For all its problems, it's very clever and very funny.
"No wall they can build" by the No More Deaths crew. About US border politics, and how border enforcement really works. Shocking stuff but also an absolute eye-opener for understanding the topic beyond policy talking points. https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build
Our share of night by Mariana Enriquez had a fascinating story, girl on ice by Erica Ferencik took me in with the setting and the linguistics.
I got the former recommended in a viennese bookshop by a man with a beagle and the latter in NYC's mysterious bookshop.
+1 for Our Share of Night; absolutely knockout read, adored it, and it genuinely left me breathless in places. Adding your other rec to my tbr accordingly!
Utterly so - the bookish community here is a wonderful thing, and I'm particularly enjoying how many people's favourites and most-enjoyed recent reads are completely new to me! Do hope you enjoy the read :)
Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam. Excellent book that gave me the shivers. As a hige fan of Orwell’s 1984 and The Dark Room of Damocles by WF Hermans this was such a surprising new book. Indeed, it blew my mind.
Yes!!! I still have flashbacks to reading it at recess in 7th grade, sitting on the edge of the blacktop, my back against the bricks of my junior high. So powerful.
The Dispossessed (Le Guin): it made me realise that money and love are both things which I need in different ways; one being enough to enable the other to flourish, the latter of which being something that does not need to be limited by traditional relationship make-ups.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I’ve never read anything that so profoundly reframed the world for me. An incredible work (although later books of his don’t do a good job of building the amazing ideas in Ishmael).
It's semantics, I suppose, but there is in my mind a qualitative difference between comic books and graphic novels, but I think it's a consequence of when I was a child, that particular span of time when the moralists dictated what children could see.
Another: Faith of the Fallen. It's pretty far into the Sword of Truth series, but it talks about the difference between chosen sacrifice vs dogmatic sacrifice and how intrinsic self-hatred allows for evil actions.
Angel and the Assassin. A nonfiction about how the brain's immune cell plays a dual role. It's the reason I'm getting my PhD at University of Virginia.
As a young man, Absolute Beginners and Wasp Factory. As an old man, in last year or so, books that moved me, Love Me Tender (Debre), Threshold (Doyle), Blue Ruin (Kunzru), A Life of One’s Own (Milner), Pour Me (AA Gill), several Deborah Levy, couple of Horatio Clare, ‘Garden Against Time’ (Laing)
"The Gardener and the Carpenter" by Alison Gopnik
"Being You" by Anil Seth
"The Vital Question" by Nick Lane
"The Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello
All recent science books, ordered by accessibility to a layperson. All had big impact on how I think about our bodies & minds & society.
and the two books I’d grab running from a fire are:
- Zelazny’s story collection Unicorn Variations and
- Graham Oakley’s The Church Mice Spread Their Wings
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsburg (who also published The Pentagon Papers detailing the US failure in Viet Nam), outlining the insane thinking of those whose job it was to consider the use of nuclear weapons. Terrifying, but gripping reading.
CHECKMATE, the sixth Lymond book by Dorothy Dunnett blew my mind. Something happened near the end which seemed to make no sense at all but then pennies started dropping with earlier events in book six, but also books four and three… and my brain went WHAAAAA…
This is one the fundamental qualities of DD; connections. There are loads of them and often you don't find them until multiple re-reads. Yet she laid them in advance - and knowing that when you do find them it will enrich the experience. She was simply a genius.
I narrated The New Climate War and Our Fragile Moment for leading climate scientist (and all around swell guy!) @michaelemann.bsky.social which were both life changing for me. Also The Genesis Machine was a mind blowing look into coming genetic science and it's varied uses...for both good and evil
Borges, 'Fictions'. Or really any collection of Borges's short stories, but this was the one I read first. Nugget after perfectly-formed nugget of pure mindblow. The influence is everywhere, but nothing beats the precision and economy of the wellspring.
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, translated in English of course. I was *blown away* by the efficiency of his sentences, the vividness of his imagery and the way he turned history into a character drama. It also depicts a war torn country which obviously has parallels today. Highly recommend it.
Morrison’s Beloved. When I first read it, so v many yrs ago, I’d nvr read anything like it. When I then taught it, we revised w/ random extracts: every single paragraph in that text stands up to close scrutiny, yields more w/ every reading & can amaze w/ its artistry. It’s a phenomenal achievement.
The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones — the first and only children’s book I’ve ever read that dared to include the muddy bits of life in a compelling story, including family abuse in the form of sheer indifference and animal abuse in the form of chopped-up mermaids
Things Fall Apart by Achebe, No Mud, No Lotus, Neurodharma, The Luminaries; if you want to add a couple other books for joy, I’d suggest Legends & Lattes and The Swifts: Dictionary of Scoundrels (not about Taylor)
I keep going on and on about it but A Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota took my breath away last year - def my book of 2024, don’t understand why it didn’t win every award.
Recently read Die Welt von Gestern Stefan Zweig. It's the first book in years that took me 'to whatever that magical place is where are can take you every few years. Utterly devastating ending.
Hi Musa. The first of MANY books I read that blew my mind was 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy. Why? He was able to capture all of human greatness, weakness and emotions in a book that also presented one of the most masterful descriptions of Napoleon's disastrous (for him) invasion of Russia.
There is a bit in it (apologies, it’s literally been decades since I read it) where a character finds himself alone in a battle unable to believe people are going to shoot at him and it is one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever read, ever
Excluding In The End It Was All About Love (it truly did stay with me all this time, so thank you):
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World - just an eye-opening perspective on how our world is ruled by the elite and how even through "doing good" they work to keep status quo.
Blood over Bright Haven - a fantasy book that's admittedly an easy read but is a captivating one nevertheless. I wish it spent more time with the complex themes of societal divide it discusses, but it's core messages resonate very strongly in today's world.
Currently reading The Message, and I can tell like most of Ta-Nehisi Coates' work, this one will stay with me too. As a white immigrant to Canada from Ukraine I always feel almost unworthy of certain texts, but I recognize the need to be engaged with as diverse spectrum of thought as possible.
I read this for a module I studied at uni and couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time after. It's a kind of half fictional, half autobiographical work that all links to his childhood as the orphan of two holocaust victims and the ways this psychological trauma impacted him growing up
From my 2024 reads (all novels, all blew my socks off): Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa, A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, Yellowface by R F Kuang, James by Percival Everett, Julia by Sandra Newman.
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. (I’m particularly mindful these days of Frederick’s fate, and how fascists damage peaceful souls who seek to live in harmony with the natural world)
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt;
How to Be Both by Ali Smith; Cloud Atlas by David Michell; Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami; and… sneaky favorite I could re-read once a year: The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Such a great question, & I've loved reading (& seconding some) replies. Piranesi blew my mind. The first three novels of Knausgaard's Morning Stars series were addictive & I can't even explain why.
1984 and Animal Farm—many years ago when I was a teen. Changed my world view from blind trust in authority to utter disillusionment! Good realization, though.
Dune. You might’ve seen the movies but there’s so much philosophy in those books ecology, feminism, technology and the lack of it, machinations of godhood, and the thwarting of messiah tropes. so much that no movie can ever hope to capture in entirety.
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild - a gripping & horrifying of the Congo became a colonial genocidal horror show under King Leopold of Belgium & how a diverse group of people brought it to light.
The Outsider (Camus), Catch-22 (Heller), Shantaram (Roberts) and The End of the World and the Hard boiled wonderland (Murakami) all for different reasons.
This is a strange one but Jane Smiley’s ‘Perestroika in Paris’ was the glad hearted story about a racehorse and his mammal friends that I really needed.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry is the best book I have ever read. It's a western but it is also so much more. Life changing. I've been looking at certain things and relationships in my life in a different light after reading it.
Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, because it was the first real ‘grown up’ classic I read after teenage years buried in sci-fi, LOTR etc. Been a literary Russophile ever since.
Actually, it’s a book that I read as a child..Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz. The artwork caught my eye, but the stories and subsequent footnotes took me down the rabbit hole as I started researching the history and folklore around the stories in the book.
I reckon you've got enough input on that specific question now; so I'll say this, there's a yet to be published book "On The Road To Erosex" that has blown a few minds already.
And a book (right now only available in german language) about the Hanau attack from February 2019. The book is called „Der Tag an dem ich sterben sollte“ by Etris Hashemi. He survived the attack and is writing about Germanys racist experience by institutions.
Murder in Wartime. The story of a local man prosecuted by our government during Vietnam for following orders to kill a double agent. My boss was his childhood friend and the NYT paid for him to go to Vietnam to represent him. I learned to never judge a book by its cover or title for sure!
De Rerum Natura, mostly just for how surprisingly advanced some Ancient Romans could be, also The Swerve because I didn’t realize how much DRN influenced the Renaissance
America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo—revelatory rendering of the Filipino/American experience along with a thrum of recognition of Bay Area life in the 90s. Her essay collection How To Read Now is also great, including a definitive and necessary critique of Didion
Caleb Azumah Nelson’s “Small Worlds”. Partly because of its joyous use of language, partly it’s unapologetic centering of love and people in all our complexity. But also because there is an incredible playlist
Origin of Totalitarianism by Arendt is one of the most underrated philosophy books.
A wretched earth - Frantz Fanon
Faithful and Fallen series - John Gwynne
Football in sun and shadow Eduardo Galeano
Her follow-ups The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility are superb, also. Read Glass Hotel first bc they don't say it on the covers, but SoT follows the events of GH
I'd start with They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us (a book of essays), but also any of his books are more than worth the time. He also has a couple of great poetry collections as well.
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https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/past/slavery
https://www.amazon.de/dp/9045044277?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_NE73JBR9GYC8CR2NYB94&bestFormat=true&newOGT=1
Suspense: Tell No One by Harlan Coben
Classic: 1984
I got the former recommended in a viennese bookshop by a man with a beagle and the latter in NYC's mysterious bookshop.
Love these kind of connections, that's what the web should be about.
The Introduction is also an outstanding essay on the issues around the term Afrofuturism
Long option: Dandelion Dynasty series by Ken Liu
von Bourdieu
Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
Unwell Women - Elinor Cleghorn
Fearing the Black Body - Sabrina Strings
"Being You" by Anil Seth
"The Vital Question" by Nick Lane
"The Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello
All recent science books, ordered by accessibility to a layperson. All had big impact on how I think about our bodies & minds & society.
I had to pull off the highway and sob because of the author quoting Le Corbusier SAYING WORDS I HAVE SAID but calling for the annihilation of Paris
almost wrecked my car
- Zelazny’s story collection Unicorn Variations and
- Graham Oakley’s The Church Mice Spread Their Wings
💗🐭🦉🦄
Not one bad vignette in the entire collection. Each one a treat.
and
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
Very different books but similarish themes of pain and beauty in life.
All the Light We Cannot See
A Little Life
anything by Richard Bach
What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World - just an eye-opening perspective on how our world is ruled by the elite and how even through "doing good" they work to keep status quo.
overcoming the problematics of art by yves klein
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell - moving and luminous, a fascinating imagining of Elizabethan domestic life
Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi - so structurally rigorous and emotionally devastating, epic in scope
How to Be Both by Ali Smith; Cloud Atlas by David Michell; Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami; and… sneaky favorite I could re-read once a year: The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Pretty much everything he’s written.
But try as I might I could but get into Quicksilver and gave up. Felt like it was written by a different person.
Pinning this thread for the other suggestions . 📌
Recently The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler has really been captivating, albeit very very heavy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_New_Intellectual
Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
Laughter In The Dark - Nabokov
Do No Harm - Henry Marsh
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlich
(Dystopian take on the female experience)
Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (a historical fiction that was beautifully written)
And a book (right now only available in german language) about the Hanau attack from February 2019. The book is called „Der Tag an dem ich sterben sollte“ by Etris Hashemi. He survived the attack and is writing about Germanys racist experience by institutions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducks,_Newburyport
Review = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/03/small-worlds-by-caleb-azumah-nelson-review-dancing-in-peckham
Playlist = https://open.spotify.com/playlist/74zzqsrkmr6OjhDtWV99YB?si=4H9kYzptROOZV6gx2rvobw&pi=45X07S2iQfODe
A wretched earth - Frantz Fanon
Faithful and Fallen series - John Gwynne
Football in sun and shadow Eduardo Galeano
by Jane Jacobs
Consider Phlebas, Iain M Banks.
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson.
Non-fiction: Against the Grain (Scott)
James Scott's DOMINATION AND THE ART OF RESISTANCE
Jonathan Spence's EMPEROR OF CHINA
I knew little about Tribe and was just really moved.