First, the update: the Works page has been added, with links to purchase new compositions and arragnements, and free download links for previous student arrangements.


Now, some content: since I crossed the mark of 150 books* read in the past year, I thought I might compile a list somewhere of some of the highlights. They are listed by the (largely arbitrary) order in which I read them, which also groups the books by the phase I was in in a given month (or, in the case of Proust, two months). This wasn’t originally intended to be a top 25 list, but I suppose I read enough good books to warrant it. Really, I could probably do a top 50 list and still feel like I’m leaving some out.

  • Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
    • There’s nothing I can say about this book that hasn’t already been said; all I can say is that it really does deserve its place on so many “Top [x] Books” list. I initially read the Constance Garnett translation (available on Gutenberg), which is serviceable but doesn’t translate the French and German. Check out Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation, it’s worth the price of admission (also applies to the following two entries).
  • Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
    • I read most of Dostoevsky’s major works this year and this was my favorite as I read them the first time through. One must surely rank Raskolnikov alongside characters like Hamlet and Faust as one of history’s most compelling protagonists, and Dostoevsky’s presentation of the Consequentialism vs. Deontology debate leaves the reader with many interesting questions. The Brothers Karamazov is also well worth a read — I liked Crime and Punishment more on a first read-through but B.K. has an incredible depth which is (or at least, which in my case was) not fully revealed on a first read.
  • Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
    • On its face, now doesn’t seem like the best time to recommend a novel set in a war-torn Russia, but I think this novel has plenty of insightful criticism on the subject. It’s a very moving picture of the conflict between Zhivago’s idealism and the pragmatism thrust upon him for survival, and contains a set of wonderful poems. Speaking of moving pictures, David Lean’s film adaptation is excellent.
  • Proust, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
    • Probably my all-time favorite book, though if you like plot and books where things happen this is likely not the book for you. Proust offers fascinating and thoughtful meditations on subjects including phenomenology, memory, art, and love. His prose style is beautifully ornate; as a musician, this feels like perhaps the most “musical” novel I’ve yet read, in that the expression is delivered through the lyricism and the structure as much as the actual content.
  • Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
    • Marquez’ best known book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, would cetainly be listed here if I hadn’t already read it previously. Instead, I read most of his other works this year; while there were none I didn’t enjoy at all, this was the clear winner. His prose is wonderfully evocative and he uses it to great effect in telling this moving tale.
  • Reps/Senzaki, Zen Flesh Zen Bones
    • A great introduction to both the profundity and the wit of Zen philosophy.
  • Butler, Parable of the Sower
    • Perhaps the most hopeful dystopia I’ve ever read. I find both her diagnosis of society and her prescription to ring true and, unlike lots of speculative fiction, has prose of real literary merit (what can I say, I really like expressive prose).
  • Eco, The Name of the Rose
    • It might be a little harsh to call this book “The Da Vinci Code for people who actually care about history”, but that’s the description that comes to mind. Eco treats his subject matter with great care to weave an exceptional and deeply layered narrative. Those with no interest or background in the history of philosophy may not get quite as much out of this, but it could also be a perfect and narratively compelling introduction to the topic (if not, Russell’s History of Western Philosophy also remains an insightful and witty introduction, though I’d skip the Touchstone edition; my copy is of a mediocre printing). Of his other works that I read this year, my favorites were The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and The Open Work (which is a collection of his essays on aesthetics and semiology.
  • Murakami, Killing Commendatore
    • Not gonna lie, I probably wouldn’t have liked this book if I wasn’t aware of the reception history and criticism of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. I find most of Murakami’s books good but not necessarily among my favorites; maybe if I understood all the references better I would have listed a different book of his on this list? My brother (whose tastes aren’t necessarily the same as mine) said that he liked this book fine but didn’t like the ending (the part most relevant to Don Giovanni), which was my favorite part so idk.
  • Borges, Labyrinths
    • Labyrinths is the most commonly presented volume in English, but there’s also a wonderful and comprehensive Collected Fictions from Penguin that I read (after reading Labyrinths) and would whole-heartedly recommend that as well. To call Borges a short story writer is to belie the incredible depth of his stories, as well as the extraordinary density — in stories only a few paragraphs long, not a word is misplaced and every sentence leaves the reader things to ponder anew.
  • Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • I honestly read this book just because it’s referenced so much and I wanted to check it off the list. I was not expecting it to be so gripping. I feel like I should make an obligatory “instruction manual” or “literally 1984” meme comment here.
  • Dickens, Great Expectations
    • Frankly, I’ve read many of Dickens’ major works and this is the only one that really clicked for me — I don’t tend to be as interested in books where lots of things happen and Dickens is somewhat (in)famous for not quite that. This book is just an excellent Bildungsroman with some fun twists and turns.
  • Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
    • I only read this because I found Tchaikovsky’s operatic adaptation to be a great work, but it didn’t disappoint. I read Stanley Mitchell’s translation, which admirably preserves the poetry of the original, and even the rhyme scheme (mostly). I don’t have any more Russian novels to list here, but I want to shout out Gogol’s Dead Souls, which would have made the list if it were complete (I found it to be a hilarious satire but the lacunas were too significant to me).
  • Heller, Catch-22
    • Let’s be clear here — not every aspect of the comedy has aged well. However, I nonetheless found the book hilarious as a whole; Heller is Shakespearean in his ability to extract humor from the language alone.
  • Rawls, A Theory of Justice
    • There are many valid criticisms one can make of this work, but its impact is hard to deny, and Rawls’ development of the central idea is thorough. In the end, I found myself agreeing with his definition of justice as developed by the Original Position but disagreeing with his conclusions (e.g. the size of the state, property rights, etc.).
  • Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
    • At this point, my penchant for beautiful prose with flowery description and philosophical depth should be clear. This book is all of those things — same with her other work, this one was just my favorite.
  • Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
    • Like every American student, I read The Great Gatsby in high school; like most American students, I thought it was fine but didn’t stick with me. As I read Fitzgerald’s major works this year, this one was a total surprise to me, with its fresh combination of poetry and prose. Gatsby might be a better novel, but this one is still a great book and worth a read.
  • Morrison, Beloved
    • Harrowing, disorienting, and a masterpiece. A difficult read but well worth the emotional and intellectual trouble.
  • The Odyssey (trans. Emily Wilson)
    • This translation’s praises have been rightly sung, and I immediately pre-ordered her Illiad translation based on the strength of this one (though I haven’t started it as of it this writing).
  • Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
    • I wasn’t sure whether I should include this novel or The Satanic Verses — both are excellent but not necessarily for the same reasons. One of the many novels I’ve read this year that proves the maxim that well-executed specificity is a great way to appeal to a general audience.
  • Ellison, Invisible Man
    • Don’t have much to say about this one except that it’s a good book.
  • Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
    • I tried reading this years ago and thought it was overrated and a total slog. I was wrong. This is a book full both of wit and levity and of gravitas and pathos, and definitely worth the (admittedly sometimes difficult) read.
  • Maugham, The Razor’s Edge; Eugenides, Middlesex; Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year; Woolf, To the Lighthouse
    • See repeated comments above — these are more of the same. Middlesex had some criticism from the Intersex community (much of which seems quite fair to me) but is still a good read.

*what I have counted as a “book” is in some ways arbitrary, but this likely represents an undercount (for example, single plays aren’t generally counted, of which I read many), Proust is counted as 1 entry rather than 7, etc. This list only includes works I read for the first time this year and only includes one work per author maximum. Some other authors I enjoyed reading this year but didn’t quite make the list include Colson Whitehead, Kim Stanley Robinson, V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, and Cormac McCarthy. I also didn’t include some of the most obvious entries — I think everyone could have safely assumed that I liked Faust and Othello.

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