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On International Book Day, we thought this might be the right time to start compiling a list of some of the books and writers we read this year, and some of the ones that we go back to over and over.
These are the books that changed us, guided us, comforted us and inspired us, as we embarked on this new adventure. Many of them are quoted and referred to in our weekly journal, so this list will grow.
In no particular order or reference style, we love:
Sensuous Knowledge, by Minna Salami, A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone.
Les Sorcières / Brujas and Chez Soi, by Mona Chollet
Sacred Instructions, Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset (She Who Brings the Light), Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit Based Change
Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde
The Wave in the Mind, Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination, by Ursula K. Le Guin and No Time to Spare, Thinking about what matters.
My Seditious Heart, Arundhati Roy, Collected Nonfiction
All about love, new visions, by bell hooks,
The Source of Self-Regard, Selected Essays, Speeches and Meditations, by Toni Morrison
Who do we Choose to Be? and Perseverance by Margaret Wheatley,
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
One-way Street and Other Writings, by Walter Benjamin
Undoing Border Imperialism, by Harsha Walia,
The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt
Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake; How Fungi Make our Worlds, change our minds, and shape our futures
Be Water My Friend, by Shannon Lee, on the Writings of Bruce Lee
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, some instructions on writing and life
Consolations, by David Whyte; The solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
Miro, I work Like a Gardener
Lady Sings the Blues, by Billie Holiday
The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben; What They Feel, How they Communicate. Discoveries from a Secret World.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, A new English version by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Year of the Monkey, by Patti Smith
The Art of Listening, Erich Fromm,
Call them by their True Names, by Rebecca Solnit, American Crises and Essays
At the Same Time, Essays and Speeches, by Susan Sontag
King Kong Theorie, Viriginie Despentes
Be More Pirate, by Same Conniff Allende and How to Be More Pirate by Alex Barker and Sam Conniff
Learning from the Germans, Confronting Race and the Memory of Evil, by Susan Neiman
Lettres à un jeune poète, Rainer Maria Rilke
On Fire, Naomi Klein
A Velocity of Being, Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick
Humankind, by Rutger Bregman
the sun and her flowers, by rupi kaur
Ensayo sobre lo que no se ve (Essay about the Unseen), Enrique Lynch
“Without the person of outspoken opinion, however, without the critic, without the visionary, without the nonconformist, any society of whatever degree of perfection must fall into decay. Its habits (let us say virtues) will inevitably become entrenched, tyrannical; its controls will become inaccessible to the ordinary citizen.” — Ben Shahn
“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilise, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilisatrice.” ― Edward W. Said
