Books and music I associate with being alive
Discover the books and music that evoke the essence of being alive. Explore a curated list of inspiring reads and soul-stirring tunes that celebrate life’s vibrancy and depth.
Book
Another Country
by James Baldwin
From one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century—a novel of sexual, racial, political, artistic passions, set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France. “Brilliant and fiercely told.”—The New York Times One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.
Book
Meditations in Green
by Stephen Wright
Sardonic, searing, seductive and surreal, the award-winning Meditations in Green is regarded by many as the best novel of the Vietnam War. It is a kaleidoscopic collage that whirls about an indelible array of images and characters: perverted Winky, who opted for the army to stay off of welfare; eccentric Payne, who’s obsessed with the film he’s making of the war; bucolic Claypool, who’s irrevocably doomed to a fate worse than death. Just to mention a few. And floating at the center of this psychedelic spin is Spec. 4 James Griffin. In country, Griffin studies the jungle of carpet bomb photos as he fights desperately to keep his grip on reality. And battling addiction stateside after his tour, he studies the green of household plants as he struggles mightily to get his sanity back. With mesmerizing action and Joycean interior monologues, Stephen Wright has created a book that is as much an homage to the darkness of war as it is a testament to the transcendence of art.
Book
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
by Rainer Maria Rilke
"This miracle of a book, perhaps the most beautiful group of poetic translations this century has ever produced," (Chicago Tribune) should stand as the definitive English language version.
