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Inspirations

This is a list of books that inspire me, either because of their subject matter, the unique voice of the author or because the great writing.

  • Disappearance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War By Deborah Campbell
  • Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva By Rosemary Sullivan
  • Fight Night By Miriam Toews 
  • Walk Through Walls By Marina Abramoviç
  • Through Black Spruce By Joseph Boyden
  • M-Train By Patti Smith
  • Mating in Captivity By Esther Perel
  • Man’s Search for Meaning By Viktor Frankl
  • Marriott Cell By Mohammed Fahmy
  • Martin John By Anakana Schofield 
  • Twelve Days: The Story of the Hungarian Revolution By Victor Sebestyen
  • All My Puny Sorrows By Miriam Toews
  • The Afterlife of Stars By Joseph Kertesz
  • A House in the Sky: A Memoir By Amanda Lindhout
  • Purge By Sofi Oksanen
  • I Shall Not Hate By Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish
  • Under Ground By Anatas Sileika 
  • Children in Reindeer Woods By Kristin Omarsdottir
  • The Ash Garden By Dennis Bock
  • Irma Voth By Miriam Toews
  • The Flying Troutmans By Miriam Toews
  • A Complicated Kindness By Miriam Toews
  • Swing Low By Miriam Toews
  • Siege 13 By Tamas Dobozy
  • Iron Curtain By Anne Applebaum
  • Half Blood Blues By Esi Edugyan
  • The Cellist of Sarajevo By Steven Galloway
  • The Matter of Sylvie By Lee Kvern
  • Gratitude By Jo Kertes
  • Not Yet By Wayson Choy
  • Monoceros By Suzette Mayr
  • Just Kids By Patti Smith
  • We Need To Talk About Kevin By Lionel Shriver
  • Fugitive Pieces By Anne Michaels
  • The Lovely Bones By Alice Sebold
  • Lucky By Alice Sebold
  • Balkan Express By Slavenka Drakulic
  • The Taste of A Man By Slavenka Drakulic
  • Cafe Europa By Slavenka Drakulic
  • How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed By Slavenka Drakulic
  • A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism By Slavenka Drakulic
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being By Milan Kundera
  • Slowness By Milan Kundera
  • Lolita By Vladimir Nabokov
  • Wind-Up Bird Chronicle By Haruki Murakami
  • Norwegian Wood By Haruki Murakami
  • Dance, Dance, Dance By Haruki Murakami
  • Natural Order By Brian Francis
  • Memory Keeper ‘s Daughter  By Kim Edwards
  • The Palace Walk By Naguib Mahfouz
  • Palace of Desire By Naguib Mahfouz
  • Sheltering Sky By Paul Bowles
  • A Chorus of Stones By Susan Griffin
  • The Unwanted By Kien Nguyen
  • The Cult of Quick Repair By Dede Crane
  • Greedy Little Eyes By Billie Livingston
  • Journal of a Solitude By May Sarton
  • The Year of Magical Thinking By Joan Didion