on trails, top books from the first half of 2019, san diego (i shoot digital again?)
After a bit of a brain-numbing first half of 2019, I finished my goal of reading 100 books this year. I crossed the finish line with Robert Moor's On Trails, a fitting meditation on the history and wisdom of all kinds of trails.
We are born to wander through a chaos field. And yet, we do not become hopelessly lost, because each walker who comes before us leaves behind a trace for us to follow. The full span of trail-making on earth, it its broadest sense--all the walks, all the stories, all the experiments, all the networks--can be seen as part of a great communal yearning to find better, longer-lasting, more supple ways of sharing wisdom and preserving it for the future.
Moor uses a trail as both a subject and a narrative tool—he wanders through topics of natural history, politics, technology, biology, anthropology, and sociology seamlessly. It is an experiential book, in which I found the process of absorbing more important than the information it provides, if that makes sense. I don't know if I would recommend it to everyone, but for lovers of wilderness, philosophizers of nature, and people drawn to intensely beautiful prose, this is definitely one of my favorite books from this year.
As a way of reflecting on the last hundred books, I thought I would write my “top 5’s” (or 4..or 6) for some very random (but hopefully interesting) categories. I began this journey on January 1st with a pretty drastically different set of books, but with a primary goal of using literature to expand my awareness of the world around me. I traveled often in the past six years—to Peru (Quehue, Lima), China (Ningxia Province, Hunan Province, Xiamen, Beijing, Sichuan Province), Hong Kong, Ireland (Belfast, Killarney, Galway), UK (London, Vietnam (Hoi An, Hanoi, Hue), Thailand (Bangkok, Chiangmai, Phuket), South Korea (Seoul), Taiwan (Taipei), and Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, Vancouver, Victoria)—but often felt unprepared to thoroughly understand local cultures, natural histories, political tensions, food systems, and the infinite other factors that make each place on earth unique. My travel experiences facilitated many aspects of my personal growth (particularly in confronting loneliness, vulnerability, and self-reliance) but left me aware of the many, many gaps in my understanding of the world. After a whirlwind of travel at the end of 2018, I thought diving further into the adventures, thoughts, reflections, and opinions of diverse novelists, journalists, scientists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, photographers, and memoirists would be a rewarding process to increase my mindfulness of the world I live in. I have learned more than I really thought possible over the last six months—not just through books and podcasts, but through engaging and meaningful conversations with internet strangers, close friends, college acquaintances, and beyond. The most important thing I've learned (although learned doesn't seem like the right word here…I think of a phrase in Chinese, 巩固, which roughly translates to "confirm" or "consolidate", but implies a constant strengthening process) is to maintain an open mind, heart, and awareness. I have more than 700 other books lined up to tackle eventually, but thought this was a good break point in which to reflect on and share some of my favorites.
MOST ALTERING OF MY WORLD VIEW
The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses by Peter Brannen
Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim
The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon
MOST ALTERING OF MY AMERICA VIEW
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow
MOST BEAUTIFUL WRITING (AKA MOST QUOTABLE)
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
Call Them By Their True Names: American Crises by Rebecca Solnit
They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor
MOST FUN FACTS
The Unexpected Truth About Animals: A Menagerie of the Misunderstood by Lucy Cooke
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist
EASIEST TO RECOMMEND (aka don’t know your taste but pretty sure you’ll like these)
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
MOST ANXIETY-INDUCING (fun facts but up a notch, no longer entirely fun)
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses by Peter Brannen
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
MOST MEMOIR-ABLE
Educated by Tara Westover
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
MOST INSPIRING
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
Call Them By Their True Names: American Crises by Rebecca Solnit
On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor
MOST "WHY HADN'T I READ THIS BEFORE NOW?"
1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
MOST DISAPPOINTING
How to Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery
Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich
I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Every Day by David Levithan
FAVORITE HISTORICAL DEEP DIVES
Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital by David M. Oshinsky
The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning and End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan
FAVORITE SHORT STORIES
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
FAVORITES BY WOMEN OF COLOR
The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li
OTHER GREAT BOOKS I LIKED BUT DIDN’T FIT
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
There, There by Tommy Orange
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
I was originally going to write why I put each book on these lists, but I created too many categories and love book discussions—feel free to text/email/social media message me if you want to discuss any of these books, want me to justify a book’s place on my lists, or want book recommendations.
Otherwise, here are some quick snaps from this past weekend in San Diego!
