Explore My
Reading List
Below, you’ll find a catalog of books I’ve read, along with some recommendations that have shaped my thinking. If there’s a gem I’ve missed, write in. I’d love to hear your recommendations.
Ancient Greek Drama
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles
A determined king relentlessly pursues the truth behind his city’s suffering, raising profound questions about fate, responsibility, and the limits of human knowledge.
Antigone
Sophocles
A resolute young woman defies royal authority to honor familial and divine obligations, revealing the tragic conflict between personal conscience, law, and political power.
Classic Fiction
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austin
In Regency-era England, the spirited Elizabeth Bennet clashes wits with the aloof Mr. Darcy amid family pressures, social expectations, and misunderstandings in a tale of love and class.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
An orphaned governess navigates hardship, moral dilemmas, and budding romance while uncovering dark secrets at the enigmatic Thornfield Hall under her brooding employer.
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes
An aging Spaniard, inspired by chivalric romances, embarks on delusional adventures as a self-styled knight-errant with his loyal squire Sancho Panza, exploring reality, illusion, and the human spirit in a sprawling comedic epic.
The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins
A young drawing-master encounters a mysterious woman escaped from an asylum, becoming entangled in secrets of identity, inheritance, and deception within a sprawling Victorian mystery of suspense and intrigue.
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
On a bitter Christmas Eve, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three spirits who force him to confront his past, present, and future, leading to a profound transformation of heart and generosity.
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Tracing a young boy’s journey from a difficult childhood into adulthood, the novel explores resilience, self-formation, friendship, and the search for stability and purpose.
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
An orphaned boy named Pip receives mysterious financial help that lifts him into London society, only to discover that ambition, love, and identity are shaped by hidden truths and unexpected acts of kindness.
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
In 19th-century Russia, three disparate brothers and their dissolute father become entangled in passion, philosophy, faith, and a shocking crime that probes the depths of human nature.
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A destitute ex-student in St. Petersburg grapples with poverty, ideology, and guilt after committing a murder, leading to psychological torment and encounters with redemptive figures.
Demons
Fyodor Dostoevsky
In a provincial Russian town, radical ideologies, nihilism, and revolutionary fervor ignite scandals, betrayals, and chaos among intellectuals and aristocrats.
The Double
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A timid St. Petersburg clerk descends into paranoia and identity crisis when a charismatic doppelgänger appears, usurping his life and exposing societal absurdities.
The Gambler
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A young tutor in a fictional European town becomes ensnared in the high-stakes world of roulette, familial debts, and obsessive passions amid a circle of eccentric Russian expatriates.
The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A compassionate, epileptic prince returns to Russian society from Switzerland, navigating intrigue, love triangles, and moral complexities with his innocent goodness clashing against worldly corruption.
Light in August
William Faulkner
Set in the American South, the novel follows several intersecting lives—including a drifter searching for his origins and a woman fleeing a troubled past—as their stories collide in a small town shaped by secrecy, violence, and social tension.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
In the opulent Jazz Age, Jay Gatsby pursues his elusive dream of love and status through lavish parties and obsession with Daisy Buchanan, revealing the hollow allure of the American Dream.
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
In a futuristic World State of genetically engineered citizens and state-sanctioned happiness, a “savage” from an outside reservation disrupts the engineered utopia, exposing the cost of stability, conformity, and suppressed humanity.
Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka
A traveling salesman awakens transformed into a monstrous insect, struggling with isolation, family rejection, and existential despair as his identity and purpose unravel in a stark domestic nightmare.
11/22/63
Stephen King
A modern-day teacher steps through a time portal to prevent the Kennedy assassination, discovering that altering the past unleashes unpredictable ripples across history, love, and personal fate.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
In a prejudiced Southern town, young Scout Finch observes her father, lawyer Atticus, defend justice and compassion against racial injustice, weaving a coming-of-age tale of morality and empathy.
Beloved
Toni Morrison
Haunted by the ghost of her murdered daughter, former slave Sethe grapples with the lingering trauma of slavery in post-Civil War Ohio, as past horrors materialize and force a reckoning with memory, motherhood, and freedom.
Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison
A young Black man sets out on a journey to uncover his family’s past, gradually discovering his cultural heritage, personal identity, and a deeper sense of belonging.
Animal Farm
George Orwell
On a farm where animals overthrow their human oppressors, a revolution for equality devolves into tyranny, allegorizing political corruption, power struggles, and betrayal of utopian ideals.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
In a dystopian totalitarian state, Winston Smith navigates oppressive surveillance, thought control, and historical revisionism, grappling with individuality and truth under the omnipresent gaze of Big Brother.
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
Alienated teenager Holden Caulfield wanders New York City, wrestling with phoniness, innocence, and his own emotional turmoil in a raw, introspective journey through post-war American youth.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelly
A scientist’s creation of a sentient creature unleashes unintended consequences, exploring ambition, responsibility, and the boundaries of humanity against a backdrop of gothic horror and moral questioning.
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Two migrant workers, the shrewd George and the gentle giant Lennie, chase a fragile dream of owning their own farm during the Great Depression, only to confront the cruel limits of strength, loyalty, and human fragility.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
A respected Victorian doctor’s experiments blur the boundary between morality and desire, revealing the unsettling duality within human nature.
Dracula
Bram Stoker
A Transylvanian count with vampiric powers travels to England, prompting a band of determined hunters—armed with science, faith, and folklore—to pursue him across Europe in a gothic battle against ancient evil.
The Hobbit
J. R. R. Tolkien
A home-loving hobbit is swept into an epic adventure by a wizard and thirteen dwarves, encountering trolls, goblins, a riddling creature, and a fateful ring on a quest to reclaim a lost kingdom and its treasure.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
J. R. R. Tolkien
A young hobbit inherits a powerful ring and joins a diverse fellowship on a perilous quest across Middle-earth to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom, confronting darkness and forging unlikely alliances.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
J. R. R. Tolkien
As the fellowship splinters, hobbits navigate treacherous paths with a conflicted guide, warriors defend a besieged kingdom, and an ancient evil awakens, escalating the battle for Middle-earth’s future.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
J. R. R. Tolkien
Armies converge on the dark land of Mordor for a final stand, while a weary hobbit and his faithful companion undertake a desperate mission to end the ring’s tyranny and determine the fate of all free peoples.
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
In imperial Russian society, a married woman’s passionate affair with a dashing officer unravels her world, intersecting with a landowner’s quest for meaning in love, family, and rural life.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Leo Tolstoy
A successful judge in 19th-century Russia confronts a terminal illness, prompting a harrowing introspection on his superficial existence, societal conventions, and the search for authentic meaning.
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
Amid Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, intertwined noble families navigate love, loss, and historical upheavals, exploring fate, free will, and the grand sweep of human events.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain
A mischievous boy in a sleepy Missouri river town schemes, plays pirate, witnesses a murder, and hunts for treasure, capturing the exuberance, pranks, and small-town adventures of American boyhood.through post-war American youth.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
A runaway boy and an escaped slave drift down the Mississippi on a raft, navigating danger, hypocrisy, and moral awakening in a raw journey through the antebellum South that questions freedom and conscience.
Night
Elie Wiesel
A teenage boy in Nazi-occupied Europe endures the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, chronicling the erosion of faith, family, and humanity amid unimaginable suffering during the Holocaust.
Philosophy
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
Aristotle examines the pursuit of eudaimonia (human flourishing) through virtue, moral character, practical wisdom, friendship, and the golden mean in ethical decision-making within everyday life.
Metaphysics
Aristotle
Aristotle investigates the fundamental principles of being, substance, causality, potentiality and actuality, and the nature of reality beyond the physical sciences, laying foundations for ontology and theology.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
David Hume
Through three characters— a skeptic, an empiricist, and an orthodox believer—Hume critically examines arguments for God’s existence from design and reason, questioning anthropomorphism, the problem of evil, and the limits of human analogy in understanding the divine.
The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
Edmund Husserl
Through three characters— a skeptic, an empiricist, and an orthodox believer—Hume critically examines arguments for God’s existence from design and reason, questioning anthropomorphism, the problem of evil, and the limits of human analogy in understanding the divine.
Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Kant revolutionizes philosophy by examining the limits and powers of human reason, distinguishing between phenomena (things as they appear) and noumena (things in themselves), and synthesizing empiricism with rationalism through transcendental idealism.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Immanuel Kant
Kant lays the foundation for moral philosophy by deriving ethical duties from pure reason, introducing the categorical imperative as a universal law for autonomous moral action independent of empirical desires.
Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens
Immanuel Kant
Kant proposes a cosmological theory of the universe’s origins from nebular clouds, mechanical laws, and evolutionary processes, anticipating modern astronomy while blending scientific speculation with teleological views of nature’s purpose.
On the Genealogy of Morality
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche traces the historical evolution of moral concepts like good/evil and guilt, critiquing “slave morality” born from resentment against the strong, while advocating a revaluation of values rooted in master morality and the will to power.
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Karl Marx
Nietzsche traces the historical evolution of moral concepts like good/evil and guilt, critiquing “slave morality” born from resentment against the strong, while advocating a revaluation of values rooted in master morality and the will to power.
The German Ideology
Karl Marx
Nietzsche traces the historical evolution of moral concepts like good/evil and guilt, critiquing “slave morality” born from resentment against the strong, while advocating a revaluation of values rooted in master morality and the will to power.
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx
Nietzsche traces the historical evolution of moral concepts like good/evil and guilt, critiquing “slave morality” born from resentment against the strong, while advocating a revaluation of values rooted in master morality and the will to power.
Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill
Mill defends the principle of utility as the foundation of morals, arguing that actions are right if they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number, refining Bentham’s ideas with qualitative distinctions in pleasures, individual rights, and justice within a consequentialist framework.
Apology
Plato
Socrates defends himself in court against charges of corrupting the youth and impiety, articulating his philosophical mission, commitment to truth, and critique of Athenian society.
Crito
Plato
In prison, Socrates discusses with his friend Crito the ethics of justice, law, and whether one should escape punishment or uphold societal obligations even in adversity.
Euthyphro
Plato
Outside the courthouse, Socrates questions the pious Euthyphro on the definition of piety and holiness, exposing contradictions in conventional religious understanding.
Ion
Plato
Socrates interrogates the rhapsode Ion about his interpretive skills in reciting Homer, exploring divine inspiration, artistic knowledge, and the distinction between true expertise and mere enthusiasm.
Phaedo
Plato
On his final day, Socrates converses with friends about the immortality of the soul, the philosopher’s attitude toward death, and arguments for an afterlife beyond the physical world.
Republic
Plato
Socrates engages in a wide-ranging dialogue with interlocutors to define justice, envision an ideal city-state governed by philosopher-kings, and explore the nature of the soul, reality, and education.
Symposium
Plato
At a Athenian banquet, guests including Socrates deliver speeches praising the god Eros, delving into the philosophy of love, beauty, and its role in human aspiration and divine connection.
Meno
Plato
Socrates debates with Meno whether virtue can be taught, using a slave boy to demonstrate innate knowledge through recollection and probing the essence of virtue itself.
Existentialism is a Humanism
Jean-Paul Sartre
In a defensive lecture, Sartre asserts that existentialism prioritizes human freedom and responsibility, proclaiming “existence precedes essence” where individuals must create their own meaning and values in an absurd world without predefined purpose.
Oppression and Liberty
Simone Weil
Simone Weil’s essays analyze the mechanisms of social and political oppression in modern industrial society, critiquing Marxism and advocating for a form of liberty rooted in human dignity, justice, and the rejection of centralized power.
Intimations of Christianity Among the Greeks
Simone Weil
Simone Weil explores pre-Christian Greek philosophy, literature, and myths to uncover implicit spiritual insights and affinities with Christian doctrines, such as divine love, affliction, and the soul’s quest for transcendence.
Poetry
The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri
A lost pilgrim, guided through the realms of the afterlife—Inferno’s torments, Purgatorio’s penances, and Paradiso’s celestial joys—encounters souls and explores themes of sin, redemption, and divine love.
The Iliad
Homer
Amid the Trojan War, the wrath of Greek hero Achilles over a slight by his commander Agamemnon leads to epic battles, divine interventions, and profound reflections on honor and mortality.
The Odyssey
Homer
After the fall of Troy, resourceful Greek king Odysseus embarks on a perilous decade-long voyage home, facing mythical creatures, gods’ whims, and temptations that test his cunning and endurance.
The Aeneid
Virgil
Trojan prince Aeneas, fleeing his burning city by fate’s decree, endures storms, wars, and underworld visions on a quest to found a new homeland in Italy, fulfilling a destiny tied to Rome’s legendary origins.
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
Banished courtiers escape to the idyllic Forest of Arden, where disguises, witty courtship, and philosophical reflections on love and life unfold in a pastoral setting.
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
A young Danish prince confronts grief, betrayal, and existential questions after his father’s sudden death and his uncle’s hasty marriage to his mother.
Julius Ceasar
William Shakespeare
In ancient Rome, political ambitions and fears of tyranny among senators spark debates on honor, loyalty, and the future of the republic.
King Lear
William Shakespeare
An elderly British king decides to divide his realm among his three daughters based on their professions of affection, setting off a chain of familial conflicts and power struggles.
Macbeth
William Shakespeare
A valiant Scottish warrior receives mysterious prophecies that awaken his ambitions, leading him and his wife into a web of intrigue and moral turmoil.
Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare
In sunlit Messina, sharp-tongued Beatrice and Benedick engage in merry verbal warfare while young Claudio woos the gentle Hero, amid matchmaking schemes, festive gatherings, and tests of loyalty in this witty romantic comedy.
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
In Verona, two star-crossed youths from warring families fall passionately in love, defying societal hatred in a tale of romance and family feud.
