A Natural History of the Senses by 
The Girl of His Dreams by All of her mysteries that take place in Venice are wonderful
Idiot America: how stupidity became a virtue in the Land of the Free by 
The Age of Empathy: nature's lessons for a kinder society by 
Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy read from this book of connected stories last spring at Bennington.
The Emperor's Children by 
Half of a Yellow Sun by 
Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud : a Memoir by 
Empire of Illusion: the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle by 
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by 
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by 
The Cardboard Universe by 
The Sirens of Titan by 
Welcome to the Monkey House by 
Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer by 
Generation X: tales for an accelerated culture by 
Sea of Poppies by 
The Emigrants by 
The White Tiger by 
White Teeth by
At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation.
The Extreme of the Middle: The Writings of Jack Tworkov by 
The Master Butchers Singing Club by 
Woman on the Other Shore by Contrarians!
The Death of Adam: essays on modern thought by 
Olive Kitteridge by
At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.
The Pornography of Power: Why Defense Spending Must Be Cut by 
Garden of the Brave in War: Recollections of Iran by O'Donnell taught English in Iran for fifteen years in the 1960s and 1970s. He returned to the U.S. in late 1970s and worked as a librarian in Oregon until the end of his life. His book was first published in 1980 and several years later the paperback edition came out. The book is extraordinary in terms of its creative style and perceptive observations of its author.
Life on the Mississippi by 
The Master and Margarita by
One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, Accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness of chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth.
A Mathematician's Lament by A manifesto for teaching real mathematics - the type that mathematicians actually enjoy - in school
Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free by A model (independent of Lockhart) for how real mathematics might be taught earlier in life
Essential Teachings of Zen Master Hakuin: a translation of the Sokkō-roku Kaien-fusetsu by 
Understanding the Art of Sound Organization by 
Cloud Atlas by
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks | Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity. Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . . Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky. As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon. Praise for Cloud Atlas "[David] Mitchell is, clearly, a genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novel's every page."--The New York Times Book Review "One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is--and should be--read by any student of contemporary literature."--Dave Eggers "Wildly entertaining . . . a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative."--People "The novel as series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes, a puzzle-book, and yet--not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. I've never read anything quite like it, and I'm grateful to have lived, for a while, in all its many worlds."--Michael Chabon "Cloud Atlas ought to make [Mitchell] famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a writer whose fearlessness is matched by his talent."--The Washington Post Book World "Thrilling . . . One of the biggest joys in Cloud Atlas is watching Mitchell sashay from genre to genre without a hitch in his dance step."--Boston Sunday Globe "Grand and elaborate . . . [Mitchell] creates a world and language at once foreign and strange, yet strikingly familiar and intimate."--Los Angeles Times From the Hardcover edition.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by
A volume of linked stories describes the intertwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in Pakistan, in a collection that explores such themes as culture, class power, and desire.
Interwoven short stories that play out in Pakistan—gorgeous and horrifying-a real eye-opener
Nobody's Home: Essays by She’s a great writer – brilliant
Random Family: love, drugs, trouble, and coming of age in the Bronx by 
The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by 
The Weather Makers by 
Anne Frank: the book, the life, the afterlife by 
Then We Came to the End by 
Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother by A big fiction book (Science fiction+Psychology Theory interlaced) that would be good when you snowed in or on
a beach somewhere.
Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by 
Conversations with Frank Gehry by 
You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the Mall by 
Me Write Book: it Bigfoot memoir by 
Bigfoot: I Not Dead by 
In Me Own Words: the Autobiography of Bigfoot by Books that make me cry every time -- but for completely different reasons.
A Confederacy of Dunces by Quite possibly the funniest book ever written
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Quite possibly the saddest book ever written
Life Inc.: how the world became a corporation and how to take it back by 
Collectivism after Modernism by 
Mountains Beyond Mountains by 
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by 
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by 
Kristin Lavransdatter by 
Apocalyptic Swing by 
The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by 
Raise up off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes by 
House of Leaves by
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
The Rings of Saturn by For Modernists...
For Melvillians:
Contemporary Poetry:
The Cosmopolitan by 
Water for Elephants by Clearheaded, artist-centered art writing
High Times, Hard Times: New York painting, 1967-1975 by A show that was at the Dia last year, great essays
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Great little book, funny and good lessons for art and life
Gaia's garden : a guide to home-scale permaculture by
Demonstrates “backyard ecosystem” by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions.
We are trying a lot of these permaculture ideas in our backyard!
The Empty Space: A Book about the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate by 
The Shifting Point by 
The Architectural Uncanny by Water for Elephants by 
