Great Nonfiction: 

Eels: An Exploration, from New England to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish by James Prosek (2011)   -This is a fascinating book! It combines biology, anthropology, sociology, folklore, etc.

The Abstract Wild by Jack Turner (1996) -well-written environmental essays about the philosophy and history of nature conversation

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (orig. pub. 1968) -classic, personal nature essays set in the American Southwest; lots of “personality” with this author; you probably either love him or hate him!

Crossing Open Ground by Barry Lopez (1989)  -nature/environmental-related essays; there’s an essay in here about a wolverine and story-telling that I really like.

Washed Up: The Curious Journeys of Flotsam and Jetsam by Syke Kathleen Moody (2006) –about things people find while beachcombing and how the stuff got there

Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration by Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson (1998) -I love ants and this is very well written for the non-specialist!

Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles (2010) -There’s fascinating stuff in here about beetle collecting in Japanese culture.

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella (2009) -very interesting from a historical perspective

Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama (1996) -This is about landscape as a symbol in Western art, literature, and culture in general. It’s one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of the Four Meals by Michael Pollan (2007) –This is probably in my top three favorite nonfiction books.

Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth by Bill McKibben (2007) -interesting environmental stuff

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2002) -kind of Utopian, maybe impractical, but interesting

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (2011, revised edition) –historically/anthropologically interesting

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 ed. Mary Roach and Tim Folger (2011) -These are great essays! I always try to read the latest in this series and 2011 was a good year!

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz (2003) -This guy is a GREAT writer! Lots of interesting stuff from Captain Cook’s journals.

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1999) -another by the same GREAT writer as Blue Latitudes

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy by Mark Doty (2002)  -a light philosophical meditation on time, art, beauty, the senses, etc. This guy is a poet.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton (2004)–this a philosophical meditation about the idea of travel; it talks about some travel-related art and literature too

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace (1998) -some of this guy’s essays are quite entertaining, I like the essay about the cruise (which is the “supposedly fun thing he’ll never do again”)!

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1998)  -fascinating neuroscience case studies, but not “heavy.” This guy is a great writer and a very famous neuroscientist.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan (2006) -historically interesting

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir by Nick Flynn (2005) -This guy is a great writer. His memoir is mostly about his father, who ended up homeless. It reads like a novel.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (orig. pub. 1959, updated 2006) -psychologically interesting, a psychiatrist writes about what his experiences in a concentration camp taught him about human nature and about the various ways in which different people react differently to adversity, a nice combination of the clinical and the personal perspectives, doesn’t come across as too “preachy”

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot –beautifully written memoir of a British country vet

Buddhism for Busy People by David Michie (2008) –best introduction for Westerners to some interesting/useful aspects of Buddhist philosophy; this guy is a good writer and he tells his own personal story, so the book is not dry or text-book-like at all

Happy Yoga by Steve Ross (2003) –about the physical, psychological, and philosophical aspects of the yoga tradition; this book has a silly title and a silly cover, but most of the content is surprisingly interesting, insightful, and well-written; it’s not just the “fluff” that the cover makes it seem; one need not “buy into” all of it to take away some good ideas from this book

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (2009)– short memoir by a famous (very “trendy”) Japanese contemporary fiction writer; loosely about long-distance running, but really about his life and how he has followed a certain path to get to where he is now; sounds boring, but is really quite engaging, even if you haven’t read his fiction

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall (2011) –about a native Mexican tribe for whom extreme long-distance running is an integral part of their culture; anthropologically very interesting

The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Frances Mayes (2001) -my favorite poetry guide, includes a wide variety of good poems to read, prompts for writing, explanations of different styles and forms, sample interpretations, and general inspirational material!

Great Fiction:

The Fool’s Progress by Edward Abbey

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein

Brave New World by Adolphus Huxley

The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker

The Floating Opera by John Barth

The End of the Road by John Barth

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

Moon Palace by Paul Auster

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Centaur in the Garden by Moacyr Scliar

Life of Pi by Yann Martel