Reading List

Reading is perhaps my favorite pastime. In this day and age, we are inundated by information via social networking channels. The news is always “breaking news,” and our eyes and brains never have a chance to rest. Despite my love for social media and online news, I harbor a deep love for the old fashioned book. No, not a Kindle or a Nook - a physical book with pages yellowed with age and which smells like history. There is nothing quite like cuddling into bed with a new book to read. It takes you to another world, away from our fast news society, and allows you to think more clearly, deeply, and emotionally. Enough of me waxing poetic… here’s a list of books I’m reading. Feel free to comment or ask me for my opinions!

Also, catch up with me on Goodreads for more!

Read in 2009

January: Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson
February: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad - Fareed Zakaria
March: A long way gone - Ishmael Beah
After Dark - Haruki Murakami
May: Dead Aid - Dambisa Moyo
June/July: In Spite of the Gods - Edward Luce
August: Emergency Sex (and other desperate measures): True Stories from a War Zone - Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait, Andrew Thomson
September: Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact - by Echoing Green
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas - David Bornstein
October: Emma’s War: A True Story - Deborah Scroggins
Not on our watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond - Don Cheadle, John Prendergast
November: A Culture of Corruption, Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria - Daniel Jordan Smith
Tears of the Desert - Halima Bashir
An Ordinary Man - Paul Ruesesabagina
December: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi

Read in 2010

February: The Bottom Billion - Paul Collier
African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors - Todd Moss
Smart Aid for African Development - Richard Joseph, Alexandra Gillies (editors)
March: The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith
Me to We - Craig Kielburger
 Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
April: The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court - Edward Humes
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
May: Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder
The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice - Jeffrey Reiman
Out of Poverty - Paul Polak
Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey into the Inferno of American Justice - David Feige
June: The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson
Strength in What Remains - Tracy Kidder
Michelle: A Biography - Liza Mundy
July: Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness - Cass Sunstein, Richard Thaler
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Adichie
The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Adichie
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
August: A Woman In Charge - Carl Bernstein
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

Some of my favorite books in the past:

Nonfiction

The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
Freakonomics - Steven Levitt
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust - Immaculee Ilibigaza
Dry; Wolf at the Table - Augusten Burroughs
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

Fiction

Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Siddharta - Herman Hesse
 The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares (guilty pleasure :P)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Angels & Demons - Dan Brown
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

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  • excellent reading list :) thanks for sharing....
  • Glad you liked it! :)
  • Isaias
    Dear Akhila Kolisetty (If I may),
    I just came across your blog just now (directed by an rss feed on my transitional justice list). I quickly looked through your post/blogs and like the energy and enthusiasm with which you write; plus i found a lot of overlapping between your reading list and mine. For now, I write to say I read Michela Wrong's "It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower", it is a delightful read; however, it may give the whole picture. This being my own take, I would like to read your reaction posted on your blog [just curious to see how others have reacted, as i have not met people who read the book in my school].
    Cheers and keep on the great work.
    Isaias
  • Isais,

    Thanks for stopping by and checking out my reading list! I am taking a wonderful class right now on State, Democracy, and Corruption in Africa. There we read a couple of chapters of Michela Wrong's book and I really enjoyed it. I feel sort of incomplete having read only 2 chapters/parts of it so I really want to pick it up to gain a better sense of corruption and the situation in Kenya.

    I think any book about corruption isn't going to give the picture. Of course there is a lot more about the society than corruption, and it's not the only problem there either. What I hope is that she provides some solutions to corruption. I read at the end of the book that she suggests capitalist solutions, also taking the view that aid to governments generally perpetuates corruption as there is no accountability. I'd be curious to finish reading the book and learn more.

    What do you think?
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