My Bookshelf

Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD, was a student of a Greek philosophy known as stoicism, and his book is often the first of many that anyone with an interest in stoicism will read. I appreciate how well he captures and explains the transience of both the good and bad experiences we may face throughout our lifetimes, and how we can use logic as a tool to ground ourselves.

This book draws the reader's attention to a relevant and seemingly mundane question: "what should we have for dinner?" In the present day, supermarkets give us access to processed and natural foods from any season and from any corner of the globe. Omnivores in the U.S., having the least restricted diets of anyone, are thereby faced with a dilemma. Pollan presents a thorough investigation of the industrial food system, organic food system, and foraging as a means to decide what to eat. In each of these three, he tracks the food from the source to a final meal, and elaborates on the sustainability, economics, and societal impact of each choice. I appreciated that Pollan didn't simply present some information he accumulated from various studies and write the book in an "eat this but don't eat that" format like other books about food. Instead, Pollan reported his journey of exploring these three food systems and what he discovered along the way.

Of the dystopian novels that I have read, none of the others have made me shudder as much as this one. This book presents a dystopian near-future where women have been rid of their independence in a male-dominated society. Atwood is a brilliant writer and wrote an engaging edge-of-your-seat novel; she has stated that events in the book are based in real-life history.

This is an incredible memoir that I'd encourage anyone to read. This book brings to light Westover's personal experience in achieving an education. An education, of course, at an academic institution, but also an education about herself and the world she lived in. She grew up in hostile conditions with her survivalist family in the mountains of Idaho, isolated from most other people and any form of private or public schooling. Her father, a conspiracy theorist, denied her access to an education (academic and otherwise). In this memoir, she recounts her life growing up and her fight for her education.

This book is easily among my top three favorites in the memoir/biography genre. Andre Agassi is a famous tennis player whose career spanned from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. In his career, he won eight Grand Slam tournaments and an Olympic gold medal, and played cat and mouse with Pete Sampras, arguably one of the greatest tennis players to ever live, for the number one spot as the best tennis player in the world. A rebel to his core, Agassi tells how he came to despise tennis, even at the peak of his fame, while sharing his search for meaning in his life. Agassi communicates his story in an honest way, showing perserverance through his struggles despite obtaining so much success.

Bryan Stevenson is a graduate of Harvard Law School who has been dedicating his life to represent and defend people who have faced injustice, namely in the criminal justice system. In this book, he tells the story of his formation of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI): a private nonprofit he founded to challenge the death penalty, remove people who have been wrongly convicted or wrongly put on death row, and to assist and provide legal representation to people who have been abused by the prison system. Stevenson reminds us of our basic human instinct to know the difference between right and wrong, justice and injustice; he provides heartbreaking and heartwarming stories that both remind us of our humanity and connect us with the people the EJI provide relief to. In January 2020, Just Mercy was released as a film and I highly recommend it!

If there was a book that I wish everybody on earth could have somehow magically read, this would be that book. The subtitle of this book speaks for itself about its contents: "Brain, body, and mind in the healing of trauma." This book is divided into five parts, but I typically think about it divided into two meta-sections: (1) how traumatic experiences manifest in the brain and in the body; and (2) how to heal from those experiences. Van Der Kolk identifies urgent systemic issues in the treatment of traumatized patients. He also reminds us of our humanity by drawing the connection between the reader and his patients, allowing the reader to reflect on how their life may be relevant to certain sections of the book.

When I think of this book, "fun" is the first word that comes to mind. Malkiel's wit, sense of humor, and great storytelling made this book endlessly fun to read, even though it was the first book I've ever read about investing. This book is broad in scope, but it provides clear meaning to the words "intelligent investing."