" I spend my salary on books, and with what's left over, I pay for rent and food."
--Anonymous
Taras Grescoe
The End of Elsewhere
Interesting commentary on types of travelling and travellers that provokes thought about travel and how it's changed over the past century.
Alain de Botton
The Art of Travel
Status Anxiety
Jared Diamond
Collapse
Not as good as Guns, Germs & Steel, but important and sobering.
Mary Roach
Stiff
Ever wondered what happens to your body after you die? Mary Roach will tell you in an intriguing and even humourous way.
Paulo Coelho
Veronika Decides to Die
Cristiana gave me this book for Christmas 2003. It's an ultimately uplifting story about a woman who decides to commit suicide.
Here are some of my favorite books. Many are books that were recommended by friends.
See Amazon.com and Reader's Choice for reviews.
Ruth Ozeki
My Year of Meats
Dave Barry
Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need
Bill Bryson
The Lost Continent
Notes from a Big Country (= I'm a Stranger Here Myself)
Douglas Adams
Last Chance to See (with Mark Carwardine)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (trilogy in five parts)
Will Ferguson
Why I Hate Canadians
How to be a Canadian (with Ian Ferguson)
Michael Kerr
When Do You Let the Animals Out?: A Field Guide to Rocky Mountain Humor
Calgary: Great West Collection
Caroline Knapp
Alice K's Guide to Life
Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones's Diary
Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason
Cause Celeb
Nick Hornby
High Fidelity
About a Boy
How to be Good
Stuart McLean
Stories from the Vinyl Café
Home from the Vinyl Café
Benjamin Hoff
The Tao of Pooh
Larry Gonnick
Cartoon History of the Universe
William Goldman
The Princess Bride
Nikos Kazantzakis
Zorba the Greek
Rohinton Mistry
A Fine Balance
Graham Greene
Travels with My Aunt
John Steinbeck
Cannery Row
Sweet Thursday
Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Margaret Atwood
The Robber Bride
Jostein Gaarder
Sophie's World
James Michener
a bazillion books, each a bazillion pages long...(Chesapeake, Caribbean, Poland, Journey, The Drifters)
Edward Rutherford
London
Wislawa Szymborska
View with a Grain of Sand
Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point
Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs & Steel
Santiago Ramon Y Cajal
Advice for a Young Investigator
Peter Menzel
The Material World
Women in the Material World
Bill McKibben
The Age of Missing Information
Diane Ackerman
A Natural History of the Senses
Steven Pinker
The Language Instinct
Douglas Hofstadter & Daniel Dennett
The Mind's I
Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
Stanley Milgram
Obedience to Authority
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Donald Norman
The Design of Everyday Things
Michio Kaku
Hyperspace
James Watson
The Double Helix
(but be sure to read the Norton Critical Edition or Francis Crick's What Mad Pursuit for alternative interpretations to Watson's)
Rough Guide (anthology)
Women Travel
More Women Travel
Farley Mowat
My Discovery of America