2026 Reading Challenge

Listopia > Book Lists Liked by Joy (12 Lists)



Development as Freedom by Amartya SenThe Bottom Billion by Paul CollierWhy Nations Fail by Daron AcemoğluPoor Economics by Abhijit V. BanerjeeMountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
International Development Book Club
119 books — 78 voters
The White Album by Joan DidionA Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster WallaceComedian Gone Wrong by Jimmy TudeskiConsider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster WallaceBad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Beyond David Sedaris: Essay Collections
184 books — 88 voters

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia WoolfWalden or, Life in the Woods by Henry David ThoreauA Collection Of Essays by George OrwellThe Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert CamusArguably by Christopher Hitchens
Best/Favorite Books of Essays
554 books — 248 voters
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul KalanithiBeing Mortal by Atul GawandeThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca SklootThe Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha MukherjeeComplications by Atul Gawande
Best Books for Medical Students
404 books — 577 voters

Wild by Cheryl StrayedJust Kids by Patti SmithThe Glass Castle by Jeannette WallsEat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth GilbertThis Childhood of Mine by Laura Meer Barkley
Memoirs: Beautiful, Weird, Experimental, But Not Celebrity (An Education)
343 books — 137 voters
Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPhersonFounding Brothers by Joseph J. EllisAn Army at Dawn by Rick AtkinsonWhat Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker HoweNo Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Pulitzer Winners: History
106 books — 110 voters

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca SklootThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver SacksOutliers by Malcolm GladwellBlink by Malcolm GladwellThe Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Radiolab Suggested Readings
180 books — 240 voters
Stiff by Mary RoachThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca SklootThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver SacksOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken KeseyThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Medicine and Literature
1,845 books — 2,005 voters

Lost in Yaba by Walt GleesonThe Quiet American by Graham GreeneFirst They Killed My Father by Loung UngThe Blue Bar by Damyanti BiswasThe Beach by Alex Garland
Best for Backpacking through Southeast Asia
315 books — 335 voters
Steve Jobs by Walter IsaacsonUnbroken by Laura HillenbrandEinstein by Walter IsaacsonInto the Wild by Jon KrakauerJohn Adams by David McCullough
Best Biographies
1,661 books — 2,943 voters

On Writing by Stephen KingBird by Bird by Anne LamottThe Artist's Way by Julia CameronLetters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria RilkeWriting Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
Best Books on Creative Life
508 books — 621 voters
The Devil in the White City by Erik LarsonFreakonomics by Steven D. LevittA Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill BrysonGuns, Germs, and Steel by Jared DiamondOutliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Best Non-Fiction (no biographies)
6,226 books — 8,060 voters


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