Book Recommendations

I feel I gain a lot of value and holistic understanding from the different genres that I enjoy reading. I also find it mesmerizing, how the different things you come to understand in life, connect to each other. I stand with the thought of allowing yourself to be more than one thing, and having more than one passion.

I enjoy reading both works of fiction and non fiction the same. When it comes to either type of literature, I learn about life and all its complexities from both. The only difference might be the kind of understanding and enjoyment you get.

Because I believe that everything in life is connected, the way I arrange my digital shelves is the way that makes the most sense in my mind. Sometimes I place a book on more than one category because I think its contents are relevant. And in my mind these are the connections that I make. I also believe you can interpret things in many ways. Art, songs, films and books, even people. The most interesting books, as with life, are the ones who cross the lines into the unexpected. And plunge us into what we needed, but didn’t know.  

So in case you’re browsing for some new books, depending on what you’re interested in, I invite you to take this as a sign to pick one of these up. And if you do end up doing so, please let me know what you think.

(Also the books on these lists are in no particular order.)

Poetry, Letters & Short Stories

  • If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho, translated by Anne Carson
  • The Broken Wings by Kahlil Gibran
  • Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke  
  • The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke
  • When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back by Naja Marie Aidt
  • Stunt Water: Selected Poems by Buddy Wakefield
  • Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters by Anne Sexton 
  • Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  • To Bedlam and Part Way Back, All My Pretty Ones and Live or Die by Anne Sexton
  • Crush by Richard Siken
  • The Only Worlds We Know by Michael Lee
  • If My Body Could Speak by Blythe Baird
  • Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Self Destruction by Jared Singer
  • Ya Nadie Baila: Antología Poética by Elvira Sastre
  • Obit by Victoria Chang
  • The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
  • The Selected Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • Transformations by Anne Sexton
  • Altazor by Vicente Huidobro
  • Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offhill
  • Loss: Poems to better weather the many waves of grief by Donna Ashworth

Literature and Fiction

(Fiction, like poetry, depends greatly on your interests, these are the books that I have enjoyed or were entertaining or enlightening to read for various reasons) 

  • Fragrance of Hyacinths by Ethel Mannin
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 
  • The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
  • In Search of Lost Time 1: Swan’s Way by Marcel Proust, Translated by Lydia Davis
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
  • Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 
  • Demian by Herman Hesse
  • Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse 
  • Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
  • El Túnel by Ernesto Sabato 
  • The Song is You by Arthur Phillips 
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 
  • The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Dept. Of Speculation by Jenny Offill
  • Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon, #1) by Samuel R. Delaney 
  • Little Bee by Chris Cleave
  • Circe by Madeline Miller
  • Autumn (Seasonal, #1) by Ali Smith
  • The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
  • Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
  • Saturno by Eduardo Halfon
  • Pan y Cerveza by Eduardo Halfon
  • Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
  • Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
  • My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russel
  • Alone With You In The Ether by Olive Blake
  • Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
  • The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey
  • The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  • Mothernight by Sarah Stovell
  • The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Sexuality, Mental Health and Non-Fiction:

(About mental and sexual health, feminism and related works of non-fiction)

  • Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf
  • Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies by Dr. Michael J. Bader
  • Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence by Esther Perel
  • Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent by Katherine Angel  
  • Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century by Barbara Carrellas
  • Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood by Naomi Wolf
  • Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & the Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet by Meggan Watterson  
  • Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Dr. Emily Nagoski
  • A Curious History of Sex by Kate Lister
  • A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf
  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van den Kolk
  • Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison
  • An Unquiet Mind: a Memoir of Moods and Madness by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison
  • The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron
  • Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
  • Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
  • Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
  • Perfect Chaos: A Daughter’s Journey to Survive Bipolar, A Mother’s Struggle to Save Her by Linea Johnson

Spirituality, Art, Philosophy and the Self

(Non-fiction, cool and evolved ideas and ways of thinking)

  • The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz
  • Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
  • Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
  • Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon
  • Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman
  • The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
  • The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale
  • The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl

Finance, Marketing and Business

(With this one I have a disclaimer to make, a lot of what I find in common with the reviews of the different business or finance books, is that they have “read it before” or that the information has already been found somewhere else. I disagree with this negative perspective, I think you can always learn more than one thing from any book you read, and also, our minds work best with repetition, sometimes for us to believe something or understand it, put it into practice, we have to read it more than once, despite what genre or topic you are trying to study. So I suggest we learn things more than once. It is rewarding to relearn and to rethink. )

  • The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
  • The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
  • Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
  • High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
  • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson 
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  • Financial Freedom With Real Estate by Michael Steven
  • Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break Through the Clutter, and Win Customers by Marketing Less by Joe Pulizzi
  • Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
  • Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money by Danielle Town
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki 
  • The One-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money and Stand Out From the Crowd by Allan Dib
  • $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No by Alex Hormozi
  • Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
  • The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
  • Amazon Seller Blueprint: How to Find and Launch Your First Private-Label Product on Amazon in 90 Days or Less by Scott Voelker
  • The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
  • You Are A Badass At Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
  • Red Ocean Traps by Renée A Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim
  • Guerrilla Marketing Attack by Jay Conrad Levinson

“A library is infinity under a roof.”

Gail Carson Levine