Another year comes to an end and like all previous years, it is time for me to reflect upon the books I read this year. In all my previous years, except for 2018, the minimum number of books I would have read would be about 35, but from 2018 the number of books I read started following a negative trend. While it is easy for me to console myself, for I’m doing more academic reading these days – my reading in the past two years focused on human migration; green-grabbing/green militarization; human-wildlife conflicts; etc., my inkling to read other books have always made me hoard books. Having said that, I’m still happy that I could read seven books in 2019 and have thirteen books in the pipeline, which I may be able to finish reading in 2020.
Here’s the list of books I read in 2019:
- Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed – Jared Diamond
- The grazing revolution: a radical plan to save the earth – Allan Savory
- Gun island – Amitave Gosh
- Barking up the wrong tree – Eric Barker
- Blacklisted in Bhutan: love lost and transformed in the country of Gross National Happiness– Rieki Crins
- A splendid isolation: lessons on happiness from the kingdom of Bhutan – Madeline Drexler
- Polity, Kingship, and Democracy – Sonam Kinga
And, here’s the list of books I have in the pipeline for 2020:
- Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
- The world until yesterday: what can we learn from traditional societies? – Jared Diamond
- The uninhabitable earth: a story of the future – David Wallace-Wells
- My year without matches: escaping the city in search of the wild – Claire Dunn
- Democratic transition in Bhutan: political contests as moral battles – Sonam Kinga
- Falter: has the human game begun to play itself out? – Bill McKibben
- Catching fire: How cooking made us human – Richard Wrangham
- Long walk to freedom: the autobiography of Nelson Mandela – Nelson Mandela
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the quest for a fantastic future – Ashlee Vance
- Adventures of a young naturalist – David Attenborough
- Sikkim: Requiem of a Himalayan Kingdom – Andrew Duff
- Living is dying: how to prepare for death, dying and beyond – Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche
- Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action – Elinor Ostrom
Just to feel good, myself, I tried to recollect the books I read within the last five years and came out with the list of 56 books. Here’s the list of books I read, which I tried to categorize in three groups: Philosophy / Buddhism; Books on/from Bhutan; and Others.
Philosophy / Buddhism
- Science and philosophy in the India Buddhist classics: the physical world – Thubten Jinpa
- The truth of suffering and the path of liberation – Chogyam Trungpa
- The heart of the Buddha – Chogyam Trungpa
- Old path white clouds – Thich Nhat Hanh
- What makes you not a Buddhist – Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
- Not for happiness – Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
- The guru drinks bourbon – Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
- Best foot forward: a pilgrim’s guide to the sacred sites of the Buddha – Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
- Cave in the Snow – Vicki Mackenzie
- The Tibetan book of living and dying – Sogyal Rinpoche
- The wisdom of compassion – Dalai Lama
- The art of happiness – Dalai Lama
- A guide to the Bodhisattva way of life – Shantideva
- Words of my perfect teacher – Patrul Rinpoche
- Turning confusion into clarity – Yongey Mingyur
- Brilliant moon – Dilgo Khyentse
- The mystic eye – Sadhguru
- Taking the leap – Pema Chodron
- Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics [Volume I] – Thupten Jinpa
Books on/from Bhutan
- Of rainbows and clouds – Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck
- Married to Bhutan – Linda Leaming
- Chilli and cheese – Kunzang Choden
- Butter tea at sunrise – Britta Das
- Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan – Jamie Zeppa
- The history of Bhutan – Karma Phuntsho
Others
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The remains of the day – Kazou Ishiguro
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An Artist of the floating World – Kazou Ishiguro
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Weapons of the weak – James C. Scott
- The great derangement – Amitave Gosh
- The circle of reason – Amitav Ghosh
-
Sapiens: a brief history of human kinds – Yuval Noah Harari
-
Homo Deus: a brief history of tomorrow – Yuval Noah Harari
- The leader who had no title – Robin Sharma
- The monk who sold his ferrari – Robin Sharma
- Who will cry when you die? – Robin Sharma
- Last child in the wood – Richard Louv
- Rumors of rain – Andre Brink
- Life before life – Jim B. Tucker
- Mountains beyond mountains – Tracy Kidder
- Gift in Rain – Sarah Joseph
- Spillover – David Quammen
- And the mountain echoed – Khaled Hosseini
- A thousand splendid suns – Khalid Hosseini
- The kite runner – Khaled Hosseini
- The fifth mountain – Paulo Coelho
- The alchemist – Paulo Coelho
- Veronika decides to die – Paulo Coelo
- I am Malala – Malala Yousafzai
- Work hard be nice – Jay Mathews
- Anne Frank: The diary of a young girl – Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjan Pressler
- Bad things don’t just happen to other people – Michael Marshall
- Love in the time of cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Rich dad poor dad – Robert Kiyosaki
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The inheritance of loss – Kiran Desai
- If god was a banker – Ravi Subrahmanyan
- A leaf in the bitter wind: a memoir – Ting-xing Ye
With this, I would like to wish everyone a very happy new year and sending my wishes to all for a year filled with success and happiness.
[Note: Blue texts indicate those books which I added to the list after I remembered]
Tashi Delek!