Will Schwalbe’s Books for Living

Most bookworms who are really into reading have a few books that came at the right time for them. There are 26 books on author Will Schwalbe's list. In Books for Living, he lists the books that have helped him make sense of the world and find answers to life's big and small questions. If you want to know how reading can change your life, this book about books is for you. We love it.

Schwalbe has a lot of different kinds of shoes, so we've chosen a few of our favorites to show you.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

"The best of all Dickens books." Victoria Woolf: —

David Copperfield is one of the best-known stories about a boy growing up in a world that is magical, scary, and grimly real at the same time. During a book that is both a fairy tale and an autobiography, Dickens turns his life into a brilliant series of comic and heartfelt adventures in the style of the great 18th-century novelists he so loved. Only a few people can't be moved by David's situation or be thrilled by his story. They are part of our literary heritage: Murdstone, Micawber, Uriah Heep, Dickens himself, and David Copperfield, who Dickens poured so much of his own early life into, are some of them.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

An intimate look at writing, running, and how they work together from the best-selling author Haruki Murakami. Haruki Murakami, on the other hand, has decided to write about the New York City Marathon as well. Most people would just train for the marathon. When he combined his two passions, he came up with a beautiful memoir. It's full of vivid memories and insights, including the moment when he decided to become a writer. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is both funny and sobering, playful and philosophical at the same time. It's great for fans of this masterful but private writer, as well as for the growing number of athletes who enjoy the same thing.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one, too. There is an author named Michael Ondaatje.

When a young man moves to Paris in the 1950s, it is full of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. He is torn between what he wants and what he should do. When James Baldwin wrote his now-classic story, he used a sharp, probing mind to look into the mystery of love and make a moving, controversial story about death and passion that shows the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

"A rich, full book.... It lifts us up and makes us feel like we're in love." The New York Times Book Review said this:

Milkman Dead was born soon after a local eccentric threw himself off a rooftop in a failed attempt to flee. For the rest of his life, he, too, will be trying to get up in the air. Toni Morrison has written a book that changes the coming-of-age story as boldly as Saul Bellow or Gabriel Garca Márquez did. Morrison introduces a whole group of people who are striving, lying, and assassinating, all of whom live in a fully realized black world as she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place where his family came from.

Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

Zen in the Art of Archery is a well-known book about Eastern philosophy. It tells the story of one man's experience with Zen. As a German professor of philosophy in Tokyo, Eugen Herrigel took up archery as a way to learn more about Zen Buddhism and how it works. When he studied archery with one of Japan's best masters, he spent six years learning from him. This book is about how he overcame his first fears and began to see things in a new way.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

In this book, "Deeply moving." It's "a wrenching picture of the enduring grace of friendship." —NPR

A Little Life is the story of four college friends who move to New York in search of fame and fortune. They are broke, adrift, and only buoyed by their friendship and desire. Relationships between the men, which are tainted by addiction, success and pride, grow stronger over time. The men are held together by their love for Jude, a brilliant, enigmatic man who was scarred by an unimaginable childhood event. Brotherly love is celebrated in Hanya Yanagihara's book, which is also a masterful look at love in the twenty-first century. It's also a song of praise for brotherly bonds.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

"A warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the world of writing and its dangerous swamps." This quote comes from the Los Angeles Times.

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he had three months to write." Due the next day. Because of the big project, he was close to crying at the kitchen table with binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds. We were at our family cabin in Bolinas. 'Bird by bird, buddy.' Then my father sat down next to my brother and put his arm around his shoulder. Take it one bird at a time.

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