Reading List

This year, I want to actively read more, especially nonfiction. So here’s a list of books I’m reading. Feel free to comment or ask me for my opinions!

Already 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
Out of Poverty - Paul Polak (read 1/2)
January:

On my to-read list

The Blue Sweater - Jacqueline Novogratz
Strength in What Remains - Tracy Kidder
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope - William Kamkwamba
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
Saviors and Survivors - Mahmood Mamdani
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places - Paul Collier
The Challenge for Africa - Wangari Maathai
India after Gandhi - Ramachandra Guha
Me to We - By Craig Kielburger
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Out of Poverty - Paul Pollak
Appetites: Why Women Want - Caroline Knapp
Porfolios of the Poor - Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, Orlanda Ruthven
It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower - Michela Wrong
Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0 - Thomas Friedman
Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World - Ashraf Ghani, Clare Lockhart
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness - Cass Sunstein, Richard Thaler

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

  • Share/Save/Bookmark
  • 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?
blog comments powered by Disqus