Books.

Oh, I've been running around like a headless chicken! It's that time of year again: New York Climate Week and the Brooklyn Book Festival. 

Last fall was probably one of the best eras of my life, and I'm excited to create many new memories this fall too! 

Aside from being a busy time, I'll be traveling to SF next week and staying there for a full month!!!! My company has made two new exciting investments there. 

So, I have a lot on my plate, but I didn't want to break my streak of posting here.

Below are the books I purchased at the book festival. I asked ChatGPT to write the names and blurb about each book.

1. Alpha and Omega – Jane Ellen Harrison (1915)
   Essays by a pioneering classicist on ritual, myth, and religion. Reading it deepens your sense of how ancient practices echo in modern thought.
2. The Feast – Margaret Kennedy (1949)
   A novel set at a seaside hotel, a moral fable about sin, virtue, and human folly. It offers a sharp yet subtle reflection on human weakness and redemption.
3. Wrong Norma – Anne Carson (2022)
   A hybrid collection of essays, poems, and fragments. It’s unpredictable and strange, rewarding readers with new ways of thinking about myth, art, and language.
4. The Invisible – Alcides Villaça & Andrés Sandoval (2002)
   A Brazilian children’s book about what can and can’t be seen. It nudges readers (of any age) toward playful imagination and curiosity.
5. You Can’t Be Too Careful! – Roger Mello (1999)
   A picture book with a fable-like, cautionary tone, full of folk motifs. It leaves you questioning how much caution stifles life and imagination.
6. I Wish – Toon Tellegen (words) & Ingrid Godon (illustrations) (2011)
   A meditative picture book of portraits paired with intimate longings. It reads like philosophy disguised as children’s literature, reminding you of the universality of desire and longing.

And here are the books I'll take with me to SF. I know, I know. There are a lot, and I couldn't possibly read them in one month. But I can't help it.

• The Language Instinct – Steven Pinker (1994)
  Argues that language is an innate biological capacity, blending linguistics, psychology, and evolutionary theory. Reading it, you gain an appreciation for the hidden architecture of speech and thought.
• Middlemarch – George Eliot (1871–72)
  A panoramic novel of provincial life, filled with ambition, marriage, reform, and moral compromise. It leaves you with sharper insight into human motives and the weight of choices.
• الطنطورية (The Woman from Tantoura) – Radwa Ashour (2010)
  A Palestinian novel following a woman’s life after the Tantoura massacre in 1948. It shows how personal grief and political history intertwine, teaching resilience and the burden of memory.
• Dom Casmurro – Machado de Assis (1899)
  A tale of jealousy and unreliable narration in Brazil’s fin de siècle. It questions whether we ever truly know the past, or whether memory is always a distortion.
• The Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster (1982)
  Half memoir, half meditation on absence, fatherhood, and writing. It shows solitude not as emptiness but as a generative state for creativity and reflection.
• The Fish Can Sing – Halldór Laxness (1957)
  An Icelandic coming-of-age novel about truth, art, and community. It gives a bittersweet sense of how individuals wrestle with ideals versus the demands of reality.
• A Handbook of Living Religions – Edited by John R. Hinnells (1984, multiple later editions)
  A comprehensive reference on major world religions. From it, you gain perspective on ritual, belief, and how traditions continue to shape modern life.
• The Yellow Arrow – Victor Pelevin (1993)
  A surreal Russian allegory set on a train heading toward disaster. It leaves you reflecting on whether society is complicit in its own fate, and whether escape is possible.
• Entangled Life – Merlin Sheldrake (2020)
  A poetic science book about fungi, their intelligence, and their symbiotic role in ecosystems. It rewires your sense of the natural world and human interdependence.
• Fingers Are Always Bringing Me News – Mary O’Neill (1969)
  A children’s poetry collection where body parts “speak” about sensation. Light and whimsical, it reminds you of the wonder of everyday perception.

Last but not least, I wanted to finish this post with two pictures from the summer:

I hosted a book conversation with Merlin. And we went to karaoke afterwards. Meeting authors and karaoke are two of my many favorite things about my job!

And last but not least, this is a picture of me in our office holding one of my favorite books :)

Sorry for the rushed post! I promise I'm much slower in real life :)